Developmental Task of Infancy and Childhood
Developmental Tasks at Various Stages
According to R.H. Havighurst (1953) "A developmental tasks is a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual, successful achievement of which leads to his happiness and to success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness and difficulty with later tasks." Developmental tasks are based on the aspiration and needs of the society.
B.L. Neugarten (1969)' says that "Every society is age-graded and every society has a system of social expectations regarding age-appropriate behaviour. The individual passes through a socially regulated cycle from birth to death as inexorably as he passes through the biological cycle, and there exists a socially prescribed time-table for the rendering of major life events. Although the norms vary somewhat from one socio-economic, ethnic or religious group to another, for any social group it can easily be demonstrated that norms and actual occurrences are closely related."
Characteristics of Development Tasks
- Every society or culture has certain norms.
- Members should follow these norms..
- These norms are in terms of certain essential skills.
- Mastery over these skills leads to happiness, and failure leads to unhappiness.
- Skills are related to age groups.
- Norms very from one socio-economic group to another.
Purposes of Developmental Tasks
According to Elizabeth B. Hurlock, development tasks serve the following three purposes:
- They are guidelines to enable this individual to know what society expects from him at a given age.
- Developmental tasks motivate the individual to do what the social group expects him to do certain things during his life.
- Developmental tasks serve to show the individual what liest ahead and what he will expected to do when he reaches the next stage of development in the life span.
Hazards Related to Developmental Tasks
- In appropriate expectation-physical or psychological limitations of the individual.
- By-passing a developmental stage. Each stage must be lived through.
- Lack of opportunity to learn the developmental task.
- Lack of guidance.
- Lack of motivation.
- Poor health.
- A low intellectual level.
Factor Promoting Developmental Tasks
- Provision of opportunities to learn the developmental tasks.
- Adequate guidance in learning the developmental tasks.
- Developing motivation.
- Good health.
- Appropriate level of intelligence.
- Creativity.
Developmental Tasks at Various Stages
A. Brith to 6 years
- Learning to walk.
- Learning to take solid food
- Learning to talk
- Learning to control the elimination of body wastes.
- Learning sex differences.
- Achieving physiological stability.
- Forming simple concepts of social and physical reality.
- Learning to relate oneself emotionally to parents, siblings and other people.
- Learning to distinguish right and wrong and developing a conscience.
B. 6 to 12 years
- Learning physical skills, ordinary games.
- Building wholesome attitudes towards oneself as a growing organism.
- Learning to get along with age-mates.
- Learning appropriate sex role, i.e., masculine or feminine role.
- Developing fundamental skills in reading, writing and calculating
- Developing concepts necessary for everyday living.
- Developing conscience, morality and values.
- Achieving personal independence.
- Developing attitudes towards social groups and institutions.
C. Adolescence (12 to 20 years)
- Accepting one's physique.
- Accepting a masculine or feminine role.
- Gaining emotional in dependence from parents and other adults.
- Establishing new relations with age-mates of both sexes.
- Achieving assurance of economic independence.
- Selecting preparing for a vocation.
- Developing necessary concepts for civic competence.
- Developing intellectual skills. 9. Developing socially acceptable behaviour.
- Preparing for marriage and family life.
- Developing harmonious moral and scientific values.
Scope of Child Development
- Growth and Development.
- Approaches to understand the child.
- Developmental tasks.
- Developmental Process at various stages.
- Factors influencing development: Heredity and Environment.
- Role of the family and teachers in fostering development of the child.
- Major aspects of child development.
- Personality development.
- Measurement and Evaluation..
- Elementary techniques of research.
Objectives of Child Development
- To find the common characteristics and age changes during childhood in appearance, in behaviour, in interests and in goals form one development period to another.
- To find out when these changes occur.
- To find out their causes.
- To find out how they influence behaviour.
- To find out whether they can be predicted.
- To find out whether they are individual or universal.
- To find out how they can be modified.
Need of Child Development for the Teacher
Following factors necessitate the knowledge and understanding of Child Development to the teachers.
1. Catering to Individual Differences:- Pupils always differ in their level of intelligence, aptitudes, likes and dislikes and in other propensities and potentialities. There are gifted, backward, retarded, talented and handicapped children. All of them can not be treated in the same manner. The knowledge of development of children helps the teacher to cater to individual differences of children.
2. Knowing the Learner:- Acquisition of knowledge is also a sort of modification in the behaviour of the child. In his book Now Teaching: Sir John Adams says, "The verbs of teaching govern two accusatives, one of the person and another of the thing as, "The master taught John Latin'," Thus there are two definite elements governed by the verb taught: John, the student and Latin the subject. The teacher must understand both the elements, John as well as Latin to make 'teaching effective. Psychology helps in understanding 'John'.
3. Developing Scientific Attitude:- Knowledge of child development makes the teacher more scientific in his educational practices. He may become more methodical, objective and rational in his work.
4. Utilizing Play for Child Development:- Play is a natural tendency having great educational potentials. Knowledge of child develop ment helps the teacher to provide for a variety of activities for children.
5. Knowledge of Work Experience and SUPW:- A great stress Developmental educational potentials. Knowledge of child development helps the teacher to provide for a variety of activities for children.
6. Knowledge of Nervous System:- Education depends on the function of the brain and nervous potentials. Knowledge of child development helps the teacher to provide for a variety of activities for children.
7. Developing Tools and Devices for Measurement:- Developmental Psychology helps in developing tools and devices for the measurement of various variables. This would influences the behaviour and performance of the learners as well as teachers.
8. Realizing Constructive and Creative Discipline:- Traditional teacher believed in "Spare the rod and spoil the child". Flogging the child' to make him submissive. Modern teacher adopt a cooperative and scientific approach to modify the behaviour of the students. The teacher now plays the role of a democrat and not of an autocrat. Emphasis is laid on self-discipline through creative and constructive activities.
9. Guidance for the Education of the Exceptional children:- Developmental Psychology makes specific provision and organization of educational programmes for the exceptional children who remained neglected in the past and were devoid of suitable educational facilities.
10. Guiding Character Development:- Developmental Psychology helps in the formation and development of character. The teacher comes to know the methods of inculcating character traits, and moral principles among the children.
11. Knowing Developmental Characteristics:- Learners pass through different stages of development-infancy, childhood and adolescence, etc. Each developmental stage has its own characteristics. The teacher must know the characteristics of each stage and utilize these in imparting instruction and moulding the behaviour of the learners.
12. Knowing Group Dynamics:- The importance of social behaviour has acquired a great significance in recent years. Therefore, the teacher must know the operations of group dynamics and their effect on learning in classroom teaching-learning as well as total school and social environment.
13. Knowing Effective Methods of Teaching:- Educationa Psychology has discovered several new techniques of teaching eliminating many traditional practices which have become obsolete in the present context. Recent researches in the field of Educational Psychology provide valuable suggestions regarding better methods of teaching and me memorizing for developing desirable habits. Study of child development points out the significance of play and recreation for the children Play-way methods may turn learning into an interesting task.
14. Using Curriculum Construction:- Child developmental principles are used in formulating curriculum for different stages. Subjects and activities in the curriculum must be in conformity to the needs of the students, their development characteristics, learning patterns and also needs of the society.
15. Knowing the Nature of Class-room Learning:- The knowledge of development helps the teacher to adapt and adjust his teaching according to the level of the learners. If a large number of the students do not understand the subject-matter which is being taught, the teacher concerned has to identify the cause. He may change his instructional strategy according to the knowledge of the nature of class-room behaviour.
16. Measurement of Learning Outcomes:- Child development study has produced several reliable tests and instruments of mental measurement proving to be extremely useful in the field of education. One can quite easily measure mental capacities, basic intelligence, tempera mental attitudes and special inclinations of children. These measurements show that all the children differ and that every child is a unique being. Children with 1.Q. below 90 cannot do well in medical, engineering, administrative or other similar vocations. But such young ones are not doomed if they cannot do well in intellectual calling. The teacher can easily explore some other fields where such children can also flourish.
17. Knowledge of Mental Health:- Mental health of the teacher and the taught is very important for effective teaching learning. A study of child helps the teacher to know the various factors responsible for the mental ill-health and maladjustment. He may accordingly eliminate such factors and create a healthy mental environment.
18. Using Audio-visual Aids or New Instructional Technology:- The use of audio-visual aids holds the attention and interests of the children for a longer period. It makes the difficult concepts more clear while learning becomes more lasting.
19. Knowing the Learning Process:- Knowledge of child development is essential to a teacher. And learning go side by side. Education dependa upon the learning of new responses and the capacity of a human child to learn new responses. Child development study discusses the nature of learning theories and types of learning for different age levels and situations.
20. Use of Innovative Process:- The knowledge of the process of child development enables us to introduce new innovative ideas and practices. Microteaching, programmed instruction, non-graded school at the elementary stage and team teaching are some of the important innovations.
21. Framing Time-table:- In framing the time-table, principles of child development are kept in view. Efforts are made not to teach difficult subjects in successive periods or in the last period before interval or at the end of the school day.
22. Provision for Co-curricular Activities:- It is now realized that there should be an adequate provision for activities like debates, discussion, dramas, social service activities, games and sports for the balanced and harmonious development of children.
Forms and Causes of Childhood Disorders
There are a great diversity of childhood disorder forms and causes. Some of these disorders are primarily disorders of the brain, while others are more behavioral in nature. Brain-based disorders are caused by neurochemical problems or structural abnormalities of the brain. They can be innate (i.e., appearing at or shortly after birth); or they may result from a physical stress such as illness or injury, or an emotional stress, such as trauma or loss. Behavioral problems, on the other hand, are outward signs of difficulty displayed at home, at school, or among friends in an otherwise physically healthy child. Like brain-based problems, behavioral problems may also result from physical or emotional stress. Note that the division between brain-based and behavioral disorders is somewhat arbitrary in many cases. Brain-based disorders such as ADHD clearly impact a child's behavior in school and at home, and vice versa, many disorders previously thought to be primarily behavioral in nature have turned out to have a biological component to them.
Some of the childhood disorders we will discuss in this article can be cured or otherwise resolved, while others end up becoming chronic (long-term) problems that resist the best state-of-the-art interventions. The disorders we will discuss also vary in terms of prevalence and severity. Prevalence refers to a ratio, or percentage, of how often a disease or disorder occurs within a group of people in a population at a given time. Recently, the American Psychological Association has noted an increase in the prevalence of childhood mental illnesses as a whole. Estimates of the current prevalence suggest that between 17.6% and 22% of children have symptoms of one or more childhood disorders; and that 15% of American children suffer from a mental illness that is severe enough to cause some level of functional impairment.
Despite how common they may be, childhood disorders are not part of the normal developmental process that children are expected to go through. The diagnostic criteria for childhood mental disorders requires that children's behavior and/or development deviates from normal age-appropriate behavior and/or development, so understanding normal child development is important. For this reason, you might want to read over our extensive material concerning normal childhood development, Understanding normal developmental milestones for different ages puts you in a better position to understand why disordered behavior is considered abnormal.