Unit 18: Assessing children’s development support needs .

P1: Explain patterns, principles and theories that contribute to an understanding of

growth and development from birth to eight years. 
M1: Analyse stages of growth and development across different areas for selected
children of different ages.
Growth is the increase in size, weight and height. An example of this is when a baby is born
one of the first things that is checked is the weight, length, and the circumference of the
baby’s head. Development is the possession of skills and abilities over time. An example of
development is when a baby can be able to grip a person’s hand. There are different factors
on how growth and development is determined e.g. through genetic inheritance
environmental issues and such. Some children can take longer than others to grow and
develop because of these factors. 
Developmental milestones are an important stage in development, an example of this is
between birth to eight years old children would be able to develop the main types of
milestones e.g. crawling, walking, sitting upright without support and such. When a baby is
between 6 and 10 months they begin to crawl. It was also said that between 12- and 18-
months babies would normally start to walk. Knowing these types of information would
allow people to assume on how the baby is developing. 
Physical development is a process that starts in infancy and continues into late adolescence.
Physical development focuses on gross and fine motor skills as well as puberty. Fine motor
skill development is the ability to use small muscles by moving your hands and fingers.
Gross motor skill development is the ability to use your larger muscles which requires
whole body movement such as running, jumping, walking and such. Locomotion is when a
child can move from one place to another. This could be by crawling or rolling within the
first couple of months. The child is usually using their large muscles to do this. Balance is
important when you are still and when you are on the move it is linked to your larger
muscles an example of this is standing on one leg. Hand-eye coordination helps in
developing balance because the eye receives information for the brain so that it would
guide and direct your hands to accomplish tasks. Hand-eye coordination is important as it
helps with life skills such as reading, writing, drawing, and such. To have good coordination
you must have a good balance, a sense of rhythm, spatial awareness, auditory awareness
and visual awareness. Coordination helps with tasks such as walking up and down stairs and
such. 
Intellectual/cognitive development is the process in which a child can use their thinking
skills to complete tasks and solve problems. An example of this is completing a jigsaw puzzle
or knowing their colours. As a child grows and develops new experiences, their brain cells
would also grow and mature. When the brain matures it goes through two different types of
processes such as the development of new connections this depends on the child’s
development process. This and example of neurological and brain development. At the
earlier stages of a child’s life there is a significant growth and development which includes
many factors that influence the connections that are being made. The brain of a 3-year-old
is much more active than the brain of an adult. If a child is extremely stressed it could affect
their cognitive and emotional development. All children develop at different rates and their
abstract though develops over time. One way in which the ability to think about abstract
concepts is that is depends on the child’s previous knowledge e.g. if the child has never seen
snow before when the teacher explains how it looks and how it feels the child would
understand but imagining something else that is similar to it. For the process to fully
develop the child needs to have a balance of knowledge and practice. This is an example of
the development of abstract concepts. When trying to solve problems and make decisions
you must use thinking skills which are the mental processes to make sense of experience
and such. There are 3 main processes that are involved e.g. gathering information. This is by
using your senses such as hearing, smelling, touching and seeing. It is also said that you are
also allowed to retrieve information from passed experiences that is stored in your memory.
Another example of a process is understanding which is when you can organise information
and create clear concepts that helps to link relatable experiences together. The last example
is productive thinking which is the ability to use information and understanding to create,
analyse, evaluate and make decisions. Memory is an important intellectual/ cognitive
development as it is a prime aspect of emotional and social development examples of this is
self-image and self-esteem. There are 3 main stages of memory e.g. encoding this is when
you organise information to be stored. Another example is storage which is when you are
keeping the importation. Lastly is retrieval this is being able to remember the information.
Speech language and communication is vital in a child’s development. Children learn
language and conversations from a young age due to seeing and hearing adults’
interactions. A child can start to speak and use words at roughly the one-year stage of life
due to them developing sounds and gaining control of their tongue and mouth. There are
three main categories of language such as phonology. This is connected to the sounds of
language e.g. a, b, m. it is essential to have the ability to identify the different sounds as
some words such as cat and bat had distinct and different meanings. Phonics is having the
ability to use the sounds that you make to build up words. Another example is semantics
which connects to the words or units of language and how meaning can be changed by
adding another unit e.g. adding dis to appear. Lastly syntax is how the structure of a
sentence is changed due to the placement of a word. An example of this is “the boy chased
the dog” and “the dog chased the boy”. In these phrases the same words have been used
but the order in the sentence has changed. Communication is the ability to receive and
transmit information to other people in different ways e.g. though symbols, pictures, touch,
musically and verbally.
Emotional development refers to your feelings and how you express them. Emotional
development begins to develop at a very young age and progresses positively if strong
attachments have been made. There are different types of emotional development such as
the development of self-identity. Self-identity is important as it is how a person views
themselves through what they look like, who they are and their gender. This is a gradual
process as a child starts to recognise themselves between the ages of 18-24 months and
realises that they are human beings. Another type of emotional development is self-esteem
which is also linked in with self-confidence. Having a high of low self-esteem can come from
friendships, relationships, care givers, school and your own character. Having a high self-
esteem means that the child would feel worthy and have the upmost respect for
themselves. If a child is then always being put down by friends, family, school and such they
would have low self-worth, no respect for themselves, low-confidence and low self-esteem.
This is why children need to be given activities that they are able to succeed in so that they
don’t feel like they are failures which would make them have a low self-esteem and self-
worth. A type of emotional development is attachment. Attachment is the ability of the
infant to form a bond with their care givers due to having powerful positive feelings towards
them. Infants usually start to build an attachment towards their mothers and there are
different ways to build attachment and example is eye-to eye contact. This is when the
infant is staring at the parent’s face. Another example is skin-to-skin contact this is when the
mother lays the new-born baby on her skin for about an hour maternity hospitals would
usually encourage this. Familiar voices are also a way to help with attachment because the
infant is used to hearing the care givers voice making them feel secured when hearing them.
Lastly familiar smells help with attachment because the child would be able to get used to
the parent’s smell and would understand that they are their care givers. This shows that
attachment is important because it allows children to build bonds with other people and
show affection to other. Independence is also another form of emotional development. For
a child to learn and develop independence they need to be given love, support and positivity
which would help to encourage them. Children will learn and develop new skills and feel
emotionally stable if they have good parenting. This is because they would have parents
that would support them and allow them to make informed choices such as what outfit they
want to wear or what they want to have for breakfast. This would allow the child to have a
sense of responsibility which links in with independence. Moral development is also an
example of emotional development because it teaches a child to learn the difference
between whats right and whats wrong. The child will learn this through their experiences
and the environment that they live in. Infants between 18-24 months might not understand
right and wrong but are aware of certain types of dissatisfactions for some types of
behaviours. An example of this is hitting another child is wrong. Children learn to avoid
disapprovals but may not understand why it is wrong. Between early childhood children
start to understand and think about other people’s response to what is happening and start
to empathise with others.
Social development is the ability to make friendships and relationships which others. Social
development links in with emotional development because from a young age children start
to learn about relationship with the people that they are close to such as their care givers.
An example of social development is friendships. This is essential because it allows children
to interact and communicate with others which is a part of social development. Children are
also able to observe facial expressions and understand body language which allows them to
believe that what is happening is positive, enjoyable of even upsetting. Building friendships
allows them to interact, play and imitate others. The interactions being made allows the
children to form deeper relationships with others. Another example of social development is
cooperation. This is when children have the ability to work together and pass through
different stages of play. An example of this is that children would start to observe
interactions and develop relationships as they move from playing next to children instead of
playing with them which is called parallel play to associative and cooperative play which
means that they would explore and communicate more actively. Children start to work
together by solving problems and play intensely. The children would also learn and develop
when they feel like they are in a safe place and start to cooperate by sharing and helping
each other.
As an eight month old infant Shajah is physically developing at a normal rate. This is because
at around eight months the infant starts to lift their head, can be able to roll over and wave
their arms which is an example of gross motor skills. They are also able to hold toys which is
a sign of fine motor skills. Shajah has shown that she is developing at a normal rate as she is
able to sit on her own, hold her head upright and started to try turn herself over. Shajah is
also able to pick up an object, shake and bang them then drops the object. This shows that
Shajah is able to use her fine and gross motor skills which means that she is physically
developing. At eight months intellectually the infant should develop the ability to vocalise
some words, and be able to find their care givers by hearing their voice. This shows that the
infant would be using their knowledge on how their care givers sound to know who it is and
were the voice is coming from. Vocalising some words is an example of intellectual
development because the child first learns to imitate their parents then start to vocalise the
words that they have imitated. Shajah has started to instinctually develop by constantly
babbling which shows that she is trying to vocalise some words. This suggests that she is
intellectually developing as she is trying to communicate by babbling. At eight months old
the infant starts to develop an anxiety of being separated from their care givers. This means
that the infant starts to be upset around strangers and does not want to leave their care
givers side. Shajah has shown emotional development as she screams and is upset when she
is approached by strangers. This is because she is at a stage when she is developing
separation anxiety and does not trust anyone but her care givers. Shajah attends a nursery
which means that she is able to play and socialise with other people such as the staff
members and other children. This means that Shajah would be able to develop the ability to
interact with someone else other than their care givers. It is also said that playing peek-a-
boo at eight months old would help the infant to develop social skills. This is because if a
stranger plays peek-a-boo with and infant they will start to laugh and play with the stranger.
This links in with Shajah because she enjoys playing peek-a-boo as she giggles when playing
the game which means that it would help her to develop social skills.
As a four-year-old Ben is developing at a slow rate. This is because physically Ben should be
more active and should be able to throw a ball and catch it. However, Ben is unable to kick
and catch a ball which means that he is developing at a slower rate that others his age. Not
everyone would be able to physically develop at the same rate but it is important to help
Ben to learn how to catch and throw a ball so that he can develop physically. For Ben to
develop his intellectual skills he must be able to learn how to problem solve and know his
colours. To be able to learn how to problem solve and know his colours Ben must be taught
by his teachers. However, Ben does not like to mix with others and does not communicate
with teaching assistance or teachers and only communicates at home. This means that if
Ben does not like communicating with staff he will find it hard to learn and understand how
to problem solve. This would slow his rate of intellectual development. When Ben does
communicate at home he will say short sentences of two or three words. This means that
Ben might have low-confidence or have a low self-esteem which is part of emotional
development as he finds it hard to communicate and mix with others. Having low self-
esteem and self-confidence would impact Ben because he would always feel afraid to meet
others and interact with them. This links in with social development because if Ben has a
low self-esteem and self-confidence he would find it hard to makes friends and
communicate with others. An example of this is that Ben does not speak with his teaching
assistant or his teacher and does not like to mix in with other children. Another thing is that
Ben like to play solitarily this would impact him as he gets older because he would find it
hard to make friends and build relationships. This shows that Ben is developing at a slower
rate than others his age.