Human Growth and Development

• Growth refers to increases in physical size that can be measured.
• Development refers to systematic changes and continuities in an individual from conception to death.
• Development is predictable, orderly, patterned, and relatively enduring, occurring as we increase in age.
• Development includes maturation and expansion of physical, cognitive, and psychological abilities.
• Maturation refers to the development of physical traits carried through genes, its timing can be influenced by the environment.

Goals of Studying Human Growth and Development

• To identify factors that foster or impair development by examining social, economic, genetic, and health factors.
• Description: Characterizing human functioning at different ages and how it changes.
• Explanation: Understanding why humans develop as they do, studying nature and nurture contributions.
• Optimization: Helping humans develop positively, enhancing capacities, preventing difficulties, and overcoming problems.

Dimensions of Growth and Development

• Biological development involves physical changes.
• Cognitive development involves thought processes.
• Psychological development involves emotions.
• Social development involves interactions and relationships.

Conceptions of Age

• Chronological age: Time since birth.
• Biological age: Age in terms of physical health, including deterioration.
• Psychological age: Adaptive capacity compared to those of the same chronological age.
• Social age: Social roles and expectations relative to chronological age.

Domains of Human Growth and Development

• Biosocial: Brain and body changes plus social influences.
• Cognitive: Thought processes, language, and educational institutions.
• Psychosocial: Emotions, personality, relationships, and social context.

Basic Issues in Growth and Development

• Nature refers to inherited traits and limitations.
• Nurture refers to environmental factors after conception.
• Both nature and nurture play important roles in development.

Maturation

• Systematic physical growth, including the nervous system.
• Experience teaches things we do not know but we need physical maturation to learn from experience.

Early Experience and Critical Periods

• Childhood experiences can affect adulthood behavior.
• Imprinting is learning during a critical period in animals.
• Critical period is a biologically determined time when certain learning occurs easily.

Variation in Development

• Children develop at different rates.
• Children vary in the rate of their own development.

Continuity or Discontinuity

• Development can be continuous (one development leads to another) or discontinuous (stages with unique features).

Cephalocaudal and Proximodistal Progression

• Growth proceeds head-to-toe (cephalocaudal) and inward-to-outward (proximodistal).
• Head control precedes arm control, followed by leg control.

Maturation and Learning

• Learning depends on a mature nervous system.
• Missing opportunities to learn at the right time can cause later difficulties.

Research Approaches

• Scientific research involves formulating a question, developing a hypothesis, testing it, drawing conclusions, and sharing findings.

Methods of Scientific Research

• Clinical.
• Correlational.
• Naturalistic observation.
• Survey.
• Experiment.
• Case study.

Theories of Development

• Systematic principles that explain behavior and development.
• They provide broad views, help stakeholders, serve as a basis for hypotheses, and offer current findings.

Psychoanalytic Theory – Sigmund Freud

• Development is influenced by instinctual drives and the unconscious mind.
• Development responds to biological, sexual, and aggressive drives.
• Parental training affects development.
• Fixation occurs if a child doesn't gain enough pleasure at a stage.
• Humans are viewed from a badness perspective, emphasizing selfishness.

Structure of Personality (ID, EGO, SUPEREGO)

• Id: Present from birth, unconscious impulses, operates on pleasure principle.
• Ego: Rational, develops as children learn to delay gratification, operates on reality principle.
• Superego: Conscience, distinguishes right from wrong, irrational.
• Equal distribution of psychic energy is needed for normal development.
• The ego mediates between the id and superego, using defense mechanisms.

Psychosexual Stages of Development

• Adult personality is influenced by childhood experiences. Erogenous zones are pleasure-giving areas.
• Personality develops from resolving conflicts at each stage. Failure leads to fixation.
• Fixation: - Behaviour in adulthood reflecting an earlier stage of development because the individual’s needs were under-or-over gratified at a stage.
• Freud identified five psychosexual stages of personality development.

STAGES

• Oral Stage (0-18months): Erogenous zone is the mouth. _Oral receptive: Overeating, smoking, gullible. _Oral aggressive: Sarcastic, verbally hostile.

• Anal Stage (18-3yrs): Erogenous zone is the anus. _Anal retention: Stingy, stubborn, compulsive. _Anal expulsion: Cruel, messy, disorderly.

• Phallic Stage (3-6years): Erogenous zone is the genitals. _Oedipus complex: Male children wish to kill fathers and possess mothers. _Electra complex: Female children transfer desires from mother to father.

• Latency stage (6 to 11yrs): No erogenous zone.

• Genital Stage (11yrs on): Sexual interest directed toward peers.

• Adolescents distance themselves from parents to avoid conflict.

• Adulthood involves matured sexuality, marriage, and childbirth.

Briefly explain stage of personality

• Attachment is established in the oral stage.
• Control is established in the anal stage.
• Interest in sexual differences and moral standards develops in the phallic stage.
• Conflicts from weaning and toilet training shape personality.
• After latency, matured sexual relationships develop.

Nursing Implications

• Anal stage: Help children achieve bowel and bladder control without undue emphasis on its importance.
• Phallic stage: _ Accept a child's sexual interest as a normal area of exploration. _ Help parents answer a child's questions about birth or sexual differences. _The nurse must provide privacy and clear explanations during any procedures
• Genital stage: _ Provide appropriate opportunities for the individual to relate with opposite sex _ Allow individuals to verbalize feelings about new relationships.