Joana Bastardas

REACTIONS TO THE READING: Physical growth (Berk)

It is fascinating the process of the physical growth explained in the Berks reading and
all the changes that it implies, that we can see through the changes in the body size. As
it says, there are differences between every person in this process, because it is a
process of the human growth that takes into account biological and environmental
factors, but not for being different from other it means a bad thing.
We can relate some of the changes that are mentioned in the reading with our cases
or experiences, so it is engaging to read about some topic that you can relate with your
experiences, being able to compare it to them.
It is also interesting that the process of growing up is different between the girls and
boys, because during the childhood there are not many body differences between
boys and girls, but during the adolescence the differences grow in consequence of the
hormones. That means that girls develop physically at twelve years old and boys two
years later. Also psychologically girls develop before than boys.
I have enjoyed the most the part of the reading in which talks about the brain
development. First of all, I would like to focus on what I have learned; that the human
brain is the first organ to reach the adult size. And then, I would like to highlight the
sensitive periods of the brain, which imply two types of brain development: the
experience-expectant brain growth and the experience-dependent brain growth.
The first one, occurs early and naturally, refers to young brains rapidly developing
organization and depends on ordinary experiences, and the second one is a result of
specific learning experiences that vary across individuals and cultures, so it is an
additional growth.
I have found really curious that when you are a child your brain is like a sponge that
can absorb a lot of new ideas, and for that reason is so important and vital the
stimulation of the brain when it is growing most rapidly. But on the other hand, it is
not about under stimulating or overstimulating kids or overwhelming children with
tasks and expectations if they are not ready for it because it can be against their
development.

Joana Bastardas
To summarize, I have enjoyed the reading of Berk because I think that it is important to
know more things about the bodys growth and also about that mysterious part of our
body: the brain, which is not full discovered yet.