ASSIGNMENT NO1

COURSE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING

PROGRAME: B.Ed. 1.5 year
SEMESSTER: 3rd
CORSE COD : 8610

WRITTEN BY: ZUBAYDAH DURRANI

ROLL NO : CA632283

UNIVERSITY: AIOU ISLAMABAD

Q.1 Provide an overview of growth and development.

Answer: Growth and Development: Continual change is the essence of life. The rapid
changes in size that we call growth, and the rapid changes in form, function and behavior that we
call development, are the core of pediatrics. A good working knowledge and the skill to evaluate
growth and development are necessary in the diagnostic evaluation of any patient. Subtle
changes—often the failure of some change or event to occur at an expected time—may constitute
the earliest sign of disease. The early recognition of growth failure or male development may be
the discovery that sets in motion the investigations necessary for effective intervention in the
management of a patient's problem.

Assessment of Growth: The proper evaluation and use of anthropometric measures such as
height, weight, and head circumference must be accorded equal status with other clinical data.
The greatest difficulty lies in the definition of normality. This is generally done statistically.
Unfortunately this often leads to the common error of assuming that the average or median value
represents the optimum for a given patient. That this is erroneous is clear if one imagines 100
normal children of the same age but all of different weight. Only 1 child (the median, 50th
percentile child), heavier than half the others but lighter than the other 50, would be considered
normal, even though this violates the original premise that all the children are normal.
The necessary concept that there is a wide range of normal allows another kind of error, that of
accepting as normal for an individual some value that falls within the normal range but is in fact
abnormal for the given child. This is compounded by the fact that to the eye, and in figures on
paper, such abnormality may not be apparent even to the most practiced eye of a skilled
physician. For this reason, it is absolutely necessary to plot the parameters of growth on a
suitable graphic chart. Plotting the data brings to light even slight departures from the expected
path. Small changes such as the failure to gain 1 kilogram in 3 months are at once apparent.
Serial data thus plotted constitute the best standard of normality for the individual.
It is well established that the individual grows in a "channel," probably genetically determined,
and that such channel is specific for the individual. Departures from this channel, with rare
exceptions, occur only in the event of noxious influence (e.g., disease, calorie excess or deficit,
or even psychic disorder). When such departures occur, a return to the original channel will be
observed if the cause is repaired. In the case of growth failure, for example, this return occurs by
"catch-up" growth, which represents the fastest growth rate known. When dealing with a sick
child, in the absence of earlier serial data, this "turning the corner" from catch-up growth into a
channel that parallels a designated percentile guide is a good, and often the only, means of
identifying the channel normal for that child until there has been an opportunity to accumulate
sufficient serial data.
Normal Growth Rates: Humans grow at different rates at different times of life; there are rate
differences between the sexes and various tissues have different rates of growth at the same time.
Obvious examples are the fact that girls of 13 or 14 are often the same or even greater height
than their male peers and then are surpassed in stature by males within a couple of years. The
lymphoid structures of a child grow so rapidly that within 6 or 7 years they achieve status far
exceeding 100% of adult size and are in fact receding during adolescence when the body as a
whole (skeletal, muscle mass, and blood volume) is increasing in the rate of growth. Thus a
second grader's tonsils may be very large and yet not be enlarged; a young child's spleen may
become palpable during any infection, and mesenteric adenopathy is ever present in the
differential diagnosis of appendicitis in children.
The human head grows so fast that it reaches near adult size in only 6 years. This rapid head
growth necessitates birth for humans, unlike other mammalian species, at a time long before
walking is possible. Were this not so, the head could not pass the pelvic outlet. Special charts are
used to follow this phenomenon. Because the skull is so readily expansible, increasing
intracranial pressure may manifest few other signs; papilledema, for example, may not occur if
the sutures are not knit.
Human growth curves are characteristic of the species. After conception, there is a lag phase that
soon becomes logarithmic. Term birth occurs during the logarithmic phase so that at birth the
child is growing at the rate of 9 to 10 kg/yr. This growth rate declines almost asymptotically, and
by the end of the first year growth is proceeding at a much slower pace of 2 to 2.5 kg/yr. This
marked reduction of rate can be regarded as the physiologic marker of the end of infancy.

Stages of Development: It is useful to conceive of developmental periods, each characterized by

certain tasks to be accomplished. The failure to accomplish these developmental tasks is
evidence of disease, either past or present.
1. Infancy: At birth the infant is largely a reflex being equipped with primitive reflexes.
Some of these, such as the rooting and sucking reflexes, are obviously utilitarian. It is
generally true that most of the developmental milestones are first present in reflex form
and then are modified as the developing central nervous system achieves peripheral
connection through my elimination of the long spinal tracts. For example, the newborn
infant has a firm reflex grasp. It requires about 4 months for the child to be able to reach
out and seize an object and then this is done only in a gross fashion, using chiefly the
ulnar musculature. It will require another 2 months to be able to release an object held in
the grasp; hence the ability to move an object from one hand to the other marks the
middle of the first year. At about 9 to 10 months, thumb and finger apposition come into
play, and the child becomes prehensile.
Development follows the principle of cephalous-caudal differentiation as can easily be
observed in the child's struggles to seize objects before the hand can be made to do the
brain's wishes. Social interplay, a cortical function, is well developed by 6 months when
the child can just begin to move objects from hand to hand (shoulder girdle and cervical
spine) and cannot yet usefully move the lower extremities (lumbar plexus and associated
myotomes). Early speech sounds appear before ambulation is well established.
Evaluation of the very young sick infant is quite difficult because so few signs indicating
disease are manifest. The social smile, the earliest sign of interpersonal interaction,
appears only after about 4 weeks. Lack of even this rudimentary sign to aid an overall
estimate of severity of illness commonly dictates that infants of lesser age be observed
 under hospital conditions until it becomes clear that no serious disease is present.
Acquiring command of one's body is the major task of the first year.
2. Childhood: Soon after the end of the first year, ambulation is well established. The
newfound ability to leave mother ushers in the period known to most parents as the
"terrible twos." The developmental task of this period is to discover and establish self-
identity. For this reason, the child finds it difficult to accede to adult requests. It is
essential to be established as an autonomous individual. Therefore the child cannot be
agreeable, for if he or she always does the bidding of others, the fact of autonomous
existence would not be firmly established. This is why it is usually futile for the examiner
to try to coax a child of this age into cooperation.
Firm, gentle mastery is more effective and more humane: the emerging personality is not
required to lose face by yielding. Once the child has established independent existence,
usually about the age of 3 years, he or she will become a friendly, amiable patient and
will readily cooperate with all reasonable, nonthreatening requests.
Exploration of the environment and the interpersonal difficulties encountered with
adults operate to make accident, trauma, and child abuse major health problems of this
age group. Immunologic adaptations have also been changing. The young infant has
certain passively acquired defenses against infectious disease that are lost toward the end
of the first year. The effective replacement of this with artificial immunity and the
supervision of the natural acquisition of disease resistance are major medical tasks. Until
the newborn infant has lived with a recently acquired gut flora for a while, the enteric
organisms are an important hazard. The child's inability to respond to certain antigens
results in vulnerability to encapsulated bacteria of the respiratory tract for the first few
years, creating a spectrum of disease unique to this time of life
Acquiring the skills for independent function within the family is the task of the next 3
years. Such things as toilet training, self-dressing, and eating behavior are learned, and
the difficulties encountered in this process are the common problems of life. Success in
this phase is preparation for the next 10 years or so during which the task is to develop
the capacity and skills necessary to function in our society. During these years society
takes a leading role through its formalized training programs established for the young.
Although the child is relatively free of acute disease, it is in these years that the slippage
due to mental slowness, learning disability, chronic disease, and socioeconomic status
begins to be manifest and to wreak its secondary tolls.
3. Adolescence: Adolescence, ushered in by the undeniable physiologic and anatomic
changes of puberty, is characterized by accelerating growth rates of the mesenchymal and
reproductive tissues. These changes occur in females about 2 years earlier than in males.
This growth spurt contains within itself, by endocrine feedback mechanisms, the seeds of
its own termination. The wide range of normal developmental schedules requires great
precision in descriptive terminology. To describe genitalia as "infantile" might be
acceptable at an earlier age but will be entirely useless during this period when one
 normal 12-year-old may be "infantile" and another "well developed." Tanner (1965) has
described a staging of development that correlates the events of sexual development with
the growth-rate curve and makes possible a quick and accurate recording of an
individual's status. The use of Tanner staging is now the standard for this purpose.
The first task of adolescence is acceptance of a new body and the gender role that
accompanies it. For many, this is a difficult task, one that must be approached gradually.
Unisex clothing and other strategies useful in delaying the decisions required by
development will be seen. Girls will be ladies one day and tomboys the next. The quiet
boy who has difficulty taking on "macho" ways will be distressed. Normal differences in
breast and genital size, even though temporary, cause problems.
The second task is separation from home and family and establishing oneself as an
independent adult in the society. This is just as important as separating from mother was
at the age of 2 and can be equally unpleasant. It is difficult for parents to understand that
by being parents they are disqualified as counselors for their own children, that there
must be, at least symbolically, a revolution by which their child declares his or her
independence, and that after this is accomplished, their relationship, however close, must
be as adult to adult and not parent to child.
The necessary separation does not come easy, and the child must seek a secure base
outside the home; hence the importance of peer groups and the following of styles and
fads and other means of allying with resources outside the home. The essence of these are
that they must differ from those of the parent generation. Parents" efforts to join their
adolescent children in these pursuits in ill-conceived attempts to be "buddies" are
counterproductive. Unfortunately, this failure on the part of parents to understand normal
development often leads the younger generation to adopt extreme tactics such as drug
abuse, running away, or pregnancy to establish the point that must be made.
For females, the menarche is the best clinical sign that the patient has entered the last
phase of declining rate of growth. Males will not enter this phase until 3 or 4 years later,
and the event lacks such a clear clinical marker in their case. This cessation of growth
marks a logical end of pediatrics, which by current convention is usually taken to be
around age 18. For practical reasons, most pediatricians use high school graduation as a
convenient marker, extending it in the case of patients suffering from marked
developmental delay. This practice, of course, brings the pediatrician problems of
gynecology, contraception, an occasional example of non-insulin-dependent diabetes
mellitus (mature-onset diabetes of the young) and other problems more characteristic of
adult practice.

References:
1. AIOU Book, Human Development And Learning
2. https://www.itma.vt.edu/courses/humgro/lesson_1.php
3. https://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/EDU302/Downloads/Course%20Outline%20Human
%20Development%20and%20Learning.pdf

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Q. 2 Physical development is based on genes. Discuss.

Answer: Dominant And Recessive Genes: The most common interaction between alleles is a
dominant/recessive relationship. An allele of a gene is said to be dominant when it effectively
overrules the other (recessive) allele. 
Eye colour and blood groups are both examples of dominant/recessive gene relationships.

Eye color: The allele for brown eyes (B) is dominant over the allele for blue eyes (b). So, if you
have one allele for brown eyes and one allele for blue eyes (Bb), your eyes will be brown. (This
is also the case if you have two alleles for brown eyes, BB.) However, if both alleles are for the
recessive trait (in this case, blue eyes, and bb) you will inherit blue eyes.

Blood groups: For blood groups, the alleles are A, B and O. The (A) allele is dominant over the
O allele. So, a person with one (A) allele and one O allele (AO) has blood group A. Blood group
A is said to have a dominant inheritance pattern over blood group O.

If a mother has the alleles A and O (AO), her blood group will be A because the A allele is
dominant. If the father has two O alleles (OO), he has the blood group O. For each child that
couple has, each parent will pass on one or the other of those two alleles. This is shown in figure
1. This means that each one of their children has a 50 per cent chance of having blood group A
(AO) and a 50 per cent chance of having blood group O (OO), depending on which alleles they
inherit. 
Recessive genetic conditions.

If a person has one changed (q) and one unchanged (Q) copy of a gene, and they do not have the
condition associated with that gene change, they are said to be a carrier of that condition. The
condition is said to have a recessive inheritance pattern – it is not expressed if there is a
functioning copy of the gene present. 

If two people are carriers (Qq) of the same recessive genetic condition, there is a 25 per cent (or
one in four) chance that they may both pass the changed copy of the gene on to their child (qq,
see figure 2.) As the child then does not have an unchanged, fully functioning copy of the gene,
they will develop the condition. 
 There is also a 25 per cent chance that each child of the same parents may be unaffected, and a
50 per cent chance that they may be carriers of the condition.

Co-dominant genes: Not all genes are either dominant or recessive. Sometimes, each allele in
the gene pair carries equal weight and will show up as a combined physical characteristic. For
example, with blood groups, the A allele is as ‘strong’ as the B allele. The A and B alleles are
said to be co-dominant. Someone with one copy of A and one copy of B has the blood group AB.
The inheritance pattern of children from parents with blood groups B (BO) and A (AO) is given
in figure 3.
Each one of their children has a 25 per cent chance of having blood group AB (AB), A (AO), B
(BO) or O (OO), depending on which alleles they inherit.

Gene changes in cells: A cell reproduces by copying its genetic information then splitting in
half, forming two individual cells. Occasionally, an alteration occurs in this process, causing a
genetic change. When this happens, chemical messages sent to the cell may also change. This
spontaneous genetic change can cause issues in the way the person’s body functions.

Sperm and egg cells are known as ‘germ’ cells. Every other cell in the body is called ‘somatic’
(meaning ‘relating to the body’). If a change in a gene happens spontaneously in a person’s
somatic cells, they may develop the condition related to that gene change, but won’t pass it on to
their children. For example, skin cancer can be caused by a build-up of spontaneous changes in
genes in the skin cells caused by damage from UV radiation. Other causes of spontaneous gene
changes in somatic cells include exposure to chemicals and cigarette smoke. However, if the
gene change occurs in a person’s germ cells, that person’s children have a chance of inheriting
the altered gene. 

Genetic conditions: About half of the Australian population will be affected at some point in
their life by a condition that is at least partly genetic in origin. Scientists estimate that more than
10,000 conditions are caused by changes in single genes. 

The three ways in which genetic conditions can arise are:

1. A change in a gene occurs spontaneously in the formation of the egg or sperm, or at
conception
2. A changed gene is passed from parent to child that causes health issues at birth or later in life
3. A changed gene is passed from parent to child that causes a ‘genetic susceptibility’ to a
condition. 

Having a genetic susceptibility to a condition does not mean that you will develop the
condition. It means that you are at increased risk of developing it if certain environmental
factors, such as diet or exposure to chemicals, trigger its onset. If these triggering conditions do
not occur, you may never develop the condition. Some types of cancer are triggered by
environmental factors such as diet and lifestyle. For example, prolonged exposure to the sun is
linked to melanoma. Avoiding such triggers means significantly reducing the risks.
Genes and genetics – related parents: Related parents are more likely than unrelated parents
to have children with health problems or genetic conditions. This is because the two parents
share one or more common ancestors and so carry some of the same genetic material. If both
partners carry the same inherited gene change, their children are more likely to have a genetic
condition.
Related couples are recommended to seek advice from a clinical genetics service if their family
has a history of a genetic condition

References:
1. AIOU Book, Human Development And Learning
2. https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/behavior/behavior-and-genetics/a/genes-
environment-and-behavior

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Q. 3. How can school enhance students' physical development?

Answer: Physical Development during the School Years:

Although it may be tempting to think that physical development is the concern of physical
education teachers only, it is actually a foundation for many academic tasks. In first grade, for
example, it is important to know whether children can successfully manipulate a pencil. In later
grades, it is important to know how long students can be expected to sit still without discomfort
—a real physical challenge. In all grades, it is important to have a sense of students’ health needs
related to their age or maturity, if only to know who may become ill, and with what illness, and
to know what physical activities are reasonable and needed.

Trends in Height and Weight: The first is that boys and girls, on average, are quite similar in
height and weight during childhood, but diverge in the early teenage years, when they reach
puberty. For a time (approximately age 10–14), the average girl is taller, but not much heavier,
than the average boy. After that the average boy becomes both taller and heavier than the
average girl—though there remain individual exceptions (Malina, et al., 2004). The pre-teen
difference can therefore be awkward for some children and youth, at least among those who
aspire to looking like older teenagers or young adults. For young teens less concerned with
“image,” though, the fact that girls are taller may not be especially important, or even noticed
(Friedman, 2000).
A second point is that as children get older, individual differences in weight diverge more
radically than differences in height. Among 18-year-olds, the heaviest youngsters weigh almost
twice as much as the lightest, but the tallest ones are only about 10 per cent taller than the
shortest. Nonetheless, both height and weight can be sensitive issues for some teenagers. Most
modern societies (and the teenagers in them) tend to favor relatively short women and tall men,
as well as a somewhat thin body build, especially for girls and women. Yet neither “socially
correct” height nor thinness is the destiny for many individuals.

Being overweight, in particular, has become a common, serious problem in modern society
(Tartamella, et al., 2004) due to the prevalence of diets high in fat and lifestyles low in activity.
The educational system has unfortunately contributed to the problem as well, by gradually
restricting the number of physical education courses and classes in the past two decades.
Puberty and Its Effects on Students.

A universal physical development in students is puberty, which is the set of changes in early
adolescence that bring about sexual maturity. Along with internal changes in reproductive organs
are outward changes such as growth of breasts in girls and the penis in boys, as well as relatively
sudden increases in height and weight. By about age 10 or 11, most children experience
increased sexual attraction to others (usually heterosexual, though not always) that affects social
life both in school and out (McClintock & Herdt, 1996). By the end of high school, more than
half of boys and girls report having experienced sexual intercourse at least once—though it is
hard to be certain of the proportion because of the sensitivity and privacy of the information.
(Center for Disease Control, 2004b; Rosenbaum, 2006).

At about the same time that puberty accentuates gender, role differences also accentuate for at
least some teenagers. Some girls who excelled at math or science in elementary school may curb
their enthusiasm and displays of success at these subjects for fear of limiting their popularity or
attractiveness as girls (Taylor & Gilligan, 1995; Sadker, 2004). Some boys who were not
especially interested in sports previously may begin dedicating themselves to athletics to affirm
their masculinity in the eyes of others. Some boys and girls who once worked together
successfully on class projects may no longer feel comfortable doing so—or alternatively may
now seek to be working partners, but for social rather than academic reasons. Such changes do
not affect all youngsters equally, nor affect any one youngster equally on all occasions. An
individual student may act like a young adult on one day, but more like a child the next. When
teaching children who are experiencing puberty, , teachers need to respond flexibly and
supportively.

Development of Motor Skills: Students’ fundamental motor skills are already developing when
they begin kindergarten, but are not yet perfectly coordinated. Five-year-olds generally can walk
satisfactorily for most school-related purposes (if they could not, schools would have to be
organized very differently!). For some fives, running still looks a bit like a hurried walk, but
usually it becomes more coordinated within a year or two. Similarly with jumping, throwing, and
catching: most children can do these things, though often clumsily, by the time they start school,
but improve their skills noticeably during the early elementary years (Payne & Isaacs, 2005).
Assisting such developments is usually the job either of physical education teachers, where they
exist, or else of classroom teachers during designated physical education activities. Whoever is
responsible, it is important to notice if a child does not keep more-or-less to the usual
developmental timetable, and to arrange for special assessment or supports if appropriate.
Common procedures for arranging for help are described in the chapter on “Special education.”

Health and Illness: By world standards, children and youth in economically developed societies
tend, on average, to be remarkably healthy. Even so, much depends on precisely how well-off
families are and on how much health care is available to them. Children from higher-income
families experience far fewer serious or life-threatening illnesses than children from lower-
income families. Whatever their income level, parents and teachers often rightly note that
children— especially the youngest ones—get far more illnesses than do adults. In 2004, for
example, a government survey estimated that children get an average of 6–10 colds per year, but
adults get only about 2–4 per year (National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, 2004).

The difference probably exists because children’s immune systems are not as fully formed as
adults’, and because children at school are continually exposed to other children, many of whom
may be contagious themselves. An indirect result of children’s frequent illnesses is that teachers
(along with airline flight attendants, incidentally!) also report more frequent minor illnesses than
do adults in general—about five colds per year, for example, instead of just 2–4 (Whelen, et al.,
2005). The “simple” illnesses are not life threatening, but they are responsible for many lost days
of school, both for students and for teachers, as well as days when a student may be present
physically, but functions below par while simultaneously infecting classmates. In these ways,
learning and teaching often suffer because health is suffering.

The problem is not only the prevalence of illness as such (in winter, even in the United States,
approximately one person gets infected with a minor illness every few seconds), but the fact that
illnesses are not distributed uniformly among students, schools, or communities. Whether it is a
simple cold or something more serious, illness is particularly common where living conditions
are crowded, where health care is scarce or unaffordable, and where individuals live with
frequent stresses of any kind. Often, but not always, these are the circumstances of poverty.

References:
1. AIOU Book, Human Development And Learning
2. https://www.quora.com/How-can-a-school-enhance-the-physical-and-intellectual-
development-of-the-students
3. http://www.getreadytoread.org/early-learning-childhood-basics/early-
childhood/understanding-physical-development-in-preschoolers

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Q.4. Suggest activities for pre-school children to enhance student intellectual

development.
Answer: Introduction to intellectual development:

Intellectual development is all about learning.   It is about how individuals organize their minds,
ideas and thoughts to make sense of the world they live in.
 
Here is are some of the many ways that individuals learn.
Trial and error, copying, exploring, repeating, questioning, experimenting, experiencing,
looking, roll play, listening and playing.

Children learn through the other areas of development:

Physical development – through the senses by touching, tasting, listening and playing.

Emotionally and socially - through playing with other children and being with people.

Important tools of intellectual development are language and communication skills

The two main areas of intellectual development are:

 Language development – helps us to organize thoughts and make sense of the world
around us
 Cognitive development – is about how we use our minds and organizes thinking to
understand the world around us. They are closely linked.

Intellectual development milestones

Learning to read
1. Being read to
2. Looking at books
3. Recognizing a picture
4. Linking alphabet symbols linked to picture symbols
5. Recognizing combinations of alphabet symbols and linking these to picture symbols
6. Reading from 4+ years old

Language
1. Crying
2. Cooing
3. Gurgling
4. Babbling
5. First words

Problem solving
1. Trial and error
2. Identify the problem
3. Work out a solution
4. Predict what might happen
Language development – helps us to organize thoughts and make sense of the world around us.
It helps an individual to ask questions and develop simple ideas into more complex ideas.
Language development depends upon the child’s own pattern of development, their age, the
opportunity to experiment and use language.
All individuals have a need to communicate and language is the tool that allows this.  
Language develops in two phases and begins at birth.

 Pre-linguistic – birth to 12 months

 Unintentional crying
 Intentional crying
 Cooing and gurgling
 Babbling
 First words

 Linguistic – 12 – 15 months
 First words
 Hollo phrases
 Jargon
 Telegraphic phrases
 Complex sentences

Activities need to be:

 Talked to
 Listened to
 Praised
 Encouraged
 Helped by:
 Using different intonation
 Speaking clearly
  Speaking slowly
 Always answering
 Listening
 Asking questions
 Correcting nicely
 Being patient
Cognitive development – is about how we use our minds and organizes thinking to understand
the world around us. Cognitive development depends upon the child’s own pattern of
development, the opportunity for playing with toys and games and experiences of activities and
events.
Cognitive development includes:
 Imagination – being able to picture things when they are not in front of you.
 Children use their imagination for pretend play, pretend games, to tell stories, when
drawing, painting, and reading, model making, and dressing up.
 Problem solving – the ability to solve simple and difficult problems It follows a set
pattern of:  
Trial and error, identify the problem, work out a solution predict what might happen.
Activities - shapes in a shape sorter, learning to ride a bicycle.  
 Creativity – being able to express imaginative ideas in a unique way.  Activities -
painting, drawing, collage, dance, music, cardboard box toy.
 Concepts – putting information into an understandable form.  Activities – numbers,
coolers, shape, time, volume, speed, mass(weight)
 Memory - the ability to store and recall information, ideas and events.  Activities –
questioning, telling or writing about a visit, dates, days of the week.
 Concentration – ability to pay attention.  Children concentrate more if they are interested
in the task/activity.  They need to concentrate to be able to store and sort information
 Object permanence – understanding that something still exists even though it can’t be
seen.  Activities – peek-a-boo, hid and seek, treasure hunt
 Reasoning – understanding that actions have a cause and effect.  Activity – play centers
with push and pull buttons to make a bell ring, a toy pop up.

Cognitive development can be negatively affected by:

 Illness
 Absence from school
 Impaired eyesight
 Impaired hearing
 Lack of verbal communication
 Lack of stimulation
 Insecurity
 Poor concentration
 Lack of confidence
 Lack of meeting other people
Reading is an important intellectual skill.  A baby is born into an environment where it  is
surrounded by words and symbols.    Learning to read is the skill of being able to recognise,
 interpret and understand hundreds of symbols and the combinations of those symbols so that
they have meaning. The process is gradual and has a pattern.
 Recognizing a picture.
 Linking a letter symbol to a picture symbol.
 Recognizing combinations of letters and linking to a picture
symbol.
Children will learn to read when they are ready and must progress at their own pace.  Pressure to
read may lead to a reluctance to read.   Real reading may not start until the age of 4 years old.
Activities that help a child develop skills need for reading:
Painting sorting, games card, games matching games,   dominoes       
Rhymes label, music, books - being read to, looking at pictures.

Useful tips for using books

 Begin at the top of the page
 Hold the book the right way up
 Read from left to right
 Turn the page from left to right

References:
3. AIOU Book, Human Development And Learning.
4. https://www.quora.com/How-can-a-school-enhance-the-physical-and-intellectual-
development-of-the-students

5. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com

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Q. 5. Compare the theories of Lev Vygotsky and Albert Bandura and their
implications for education.
Answer: Albert Bandura developed a social learning theory which proposes three regulatory
systems to control behavior. His research analyzed the roots of human learning and noted the
importance of observation in the learning process. He found that children and adults readily
adapted their behavior to conform to certain models – a feature which has implications for
behavioral change.
Albert Bandura’s social learning theory
Bandura believes observation, imitation, and modelling are central components of the learning
process, and that behaviorism alone can’t account for every kind of learning. Thus his theory is a
blend of:
● Behavioral theory – which posits behaviors are the result of conditioning, and
● Cognitive theory – which gives weight to psychological features like attention and
memory.
Bandura added a social element to the behaviorist concepts of conditioning, reinforcement, and
punishment, pointing out that watching other people is a common way to learn new information
and behaviors. For instance, just watching others play cricket (even on TV) will give you a good
idea of what a cricket bat actually does.
Social learning’s core concepts (Bandura, 1977)
1. Observation is part of learning: Bandura’s ground-breaking Bubo doll experiment showed
children can imitate violent behavior. However, Bandura classified three types of observational
modelling:
● Active – imitating a real person’s behavior.
● Verbal – following descriptive accounts of behavior.
● Symbolic – taking inspiration from the exploits of real or fictional media characters.
2. Mental states are key: The best learning only occurs when the learner is fully motivated.
Bandura maintains this implies intrinsic reinforcement (e.g. pride, satisfaction and a sense of
achievement) is also present.
3. Learning won’t guarantee behavioral change: Some learning produces instant new
behaviors – e.g. riding a bike. However, other types of learning may not always produce
observable behavioral change.
For learning to take place, the following features must always be present:
● Attention – non-engagement or distraction impairs learning.
● Retention – what is learned must also be retrievably stored.
● Reproduction – practicing the learning is essential to refine and advance any new
learning.
● Motivation – the quality of motivation will influence the quality of learning, seeing others
experience reinforcement and punishment can be as effective as personal experience.
Social learning theory highlights the importance of good role models – and explains the
corrosive influence of poor ones.
Bandura’s theory has received biological support via the discovery of ‘mirror neurons’. These
neurons may constitute neurological evidence of our human drive to imitate, and have been
shown to fire in the same way when an animal does something itself, and when it observes the
same action performed by another.
Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory:
The work of Lev Vygotsky (1934) has become the foundation of much research and theory in
cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly of what has become known as
sociocultural theory.
Vygotsky's sociocultural theory views human development as a socially mediated process in
which children acquire their cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through
collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society. Vygotsky's theory is
comprised of concepts such as culture-specific tools, private speech, and the Zone of Proximal
Development.
Vygotsky's theories stress the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of
cognition (Vygotsky, 1978), as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the
process of "making meaning."
Unlike Piaget's notion that children’s' development must necessarily precede their learning,
Vygotsky argued, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing
culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90). In other words,
social learning tends to precede (i.e., come before) development.
1: Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive development.
This contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages and content of development (Vygotsky does
not refer to stages in the way that Piaget does).
Hence Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget states
cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures.
2: Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive
development.
(i) Vygotsky states the importance of cultural and social context for learning. Cognitive
development stems from social interactions from guided learning within the zone of proximal
development as children and their partner's co-construct knowledge. In contrast, Piaget maintains
that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children
construct knowledge of their own.
(ii) For Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up will influence how they think and
what they think about.
3: Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in cognitive
development.
According to Piaget, language depends on thought for its development (i.e., thought comes
before language). For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the
beginning of life, merging at around three years of age, producing verbal thought (inner speech).
For Vygotsky, cognitive development results from an internalization of language.
4: According to Vygotsky adults are an important source of cognitive development.
Adults transmit their culture's tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize. In contrast,
Piaget emphasizes the importance of peers, as peer interaction promotes social perspective
taking.
References:
1. AIOU Book, Human Development And Learning
2. https://www.academia.edu/6458612/Bandura_and_Vygotsky
3. https://prezi.com/depiakcunbry/albert-bandura-and-lev-vygotsky/

Tutor comments
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End of 8610 Assignment 1