PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

During the first 2 years, children make enormous strides in physical growth and
development. Three key sequences of physical development are –
 cephalocaudal development,
 proximodistal development, and
 differentiation

Cephalocaudal means that development proceeds from the “head” to the “tail” or,
in the case of humans, to the lower parts of the body.
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Proximodistal means that development proceeds from the trunk or central axis of
the body outward.
Differentiation is the process by which behaviors and physical structures become
more specialized..
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 Infants usually double their birth weight in about 5 months and triple it by the
first birthday (World Health Organization, 2010a, 2010b).
 Height increases by about 50% in the first year.
 Research suggests that infants actually grow in spurts.
 Infants shot up in length from one-fifth of an inch (0.5 centimeter) to a full inch
(2.5 centimeters) in less than 24 hours.
 Infants grow another 4 to 6 inches during the second year and gain another 4 to
7 pounds.
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Changes in Body Proportions
 Among children, the head is proportionately larger .

 Among neonates, the arms and legs are about equal in

length.

 The arms grow more rapidly than the legs do at first.

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Motor development involves –
 the activity of muscles, leading to changes in posture, movement, and,
 coordination of movement with the infant’s developing sensory apparatus
Lifting and Holding the Torso and Head:
 At about 1 month, infants can raise their heads.
 By about 2 months, they can also lift their chests while lying on their stomachs.
 By 3 to 6 months of age, infants generally manage to hold their heads quite
well.
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Control of the Hands:
 Voluntary grasping (holding) replaces reflexive
grasping by the age of 3–4 months.
 Infants first use an ulnar grasp, in which they hold
objects between their fingers and palm.
 Between the ages of 4 and 6 months, infants become
successful at grasping objects (Daum et al., 2013).
 At about 9 to 12 months of age, infants are able to
pick up tiny objects using what is termed a pincer
grasp.
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Locomotion:
Locomotion is movement from one place to another. Children gain the capacity to
move their bodies through a sequence of activities that includes –
 rolling over,
 sitting up,
 creeping, crawling,
 walking, and running
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 Most infants can roll over, from back to stomach and from stomach to back, by
about the age of 6 months.
 At about 8–9 months, most infants begin to creep.
 Crawling usually appears a month or so after creeping.
 Most infants can remain in a standing position by holding on to something at
the age of 8 or 9 months.
 By 12–15 months or so, they walk by themselves.
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Gross Motor Skills
Skills that employ the large muscles used in locomotion.
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 At about the age of 3, children can balance on one foot.
 By age 3 or 4, they can walk up stairs as adults do, by placing a foot on each
step. By age 4 or 5, they can skip and pedal a tricycle (Allen et al., 2011).
 They are better able to coordinate two tasks, such as singing and running at
the same time, than are toddlers (Haywood & Getchell, 2008).
Physical Activity
 One study found that they spend an average of more than 25 hours a week in
large-muscle activity (D. W. Campbell et al., 2002).
 Two- to 4-year-olds are more likely than 4- to 6-year-olds to engage in
physically oriented play, such as grasping, banging, and mouthing objects (D.
W. Campbell et al., 2002).
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Rough-and-Tumble Play
Play fighting and chasing activities— known as rough-and-tumble play—are
found among young children in societies around the world.

Fine motor skills

Skills that employ the small muscles used in manipulation, such as those in the
fingers.
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 MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
Children’s Drawings
Children go through four stages as they progress from making scribbles to drawing
pictures:
 placement,
 shape,
 design, and
 pictorial stages
 PLAY
Play is any activity engaged in for the enjoyment it gives.

Play is –
 meaningful,
 pleasurable,
 voluntary, and
 internally motivated
 PLAY
Jean Piaget identified four kinds of play, each characterized by increasing cognitive
complexity (De Lisi, 2015):
•  Functional play
The first kind of play involves repetitive motor activity
•  Symbolic play
In symbolic play, children create settings, characters, and scripts
•  Constructive play
Children use objects or materials to draw something or make something, such as a
tower of blocks.
• Formal games
The most complex form of play, according to Piaget, involves formal games with
rules.
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SYMBOLIC PLAY

Pretending that riding on a

train composed of a row
of chairs that have been
put together.
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Social dimensions of play
Mildred Parten (Dyson, 2015; Henricks, 2015), for example, observed the
development of six categories of play among 2- to 5-year-old nursery school
children:
 unoccupied play,
 solitary play,
 onlooker play,
 parallel play,
 associative play, and
 cooperative play
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Gender Differences in Play
Girls and boys differ –
 in toy preferences and
 in their choice of play environments and activities

How culture influences play

Play is influenced by the play environments adults set up for children which in
turn reflect cultural values.
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Importance of Play
Play contributes to all domains of development.
 Physical development
 Encouragement of communication
 Outlet for pent-up emotional energy
 Outlet for needs and desires
 Source of learning
 Stimulant to creativity
 Development to self-insight
 Learning to be social
 Moral standards