EDUC100A Human Development Concepts

Study Notes

Teachers play a crucial role in understanding students as they undergo various changes with age, impacting their learning journey.
A solid understanding of human growth and development is essential for creating age-appropriate learning environments.

Growth: Refers to quantitative physical changes, such as increase in body size.
Development: Involves qualitative changes and the orderly progression towards maturation, e.g., developing motor skills like walking.

Traditional Approach: Suggests extensive changes occur from birth to adolescence, little change during adulthood, and decline in late old age.
Life-Span Approach: Advocates that developmental changes continue throughout adulthood.

Lifelong: Development occurs at every stage, extending into adulthood.
Plastic: Human potential for change exists throughout life, demonstrating plasticity.
Multidimensional: Encompasses various interrelated dimensions including biological, cognitive, socio-emotional, and moral.
Orderly: Development follows specific patterns, such as:
- Proximodistal pattern: Control develops from the center of the body outward (trunk to fingers).
- Cephalocaudal pattern: Growth starts from the head and progresses downward during infancy.
Gradual: Changes occur over time, not instantaneously; development takes weeks, months, or even years.
Contextual: Development is influenced by biological makeup, physical environment, cognitive processes, and socio-cultural contexts.
Involves Growth, Maintenance, and Regulation: Different developmental stages prioritize various goals of human development.