1. The study of how children master new skills.
Child Development is…
The study of how children master new skills.

2. Why study children? To Understand Children To Gain Skills
Better understand why they do what they do
Understand the importance of caregivers
To Gain Skills
To Understand Yourself
To Build for the Future

3. Areas of Child Development P.I.E.S
Physical —the increasing ability to control and coordinate body movements
Gross (large) Motor
Fine (small) Motor
Social-- learning to relate to other people
Interactions w/ others
Expressing self
Emotional —the process of learning to recognize and express feelings
Express feelings
Establish identity
Intellectual—the process of learning to think, remember, understand, reason, and use language
Learning
Language
Moral
Personal beliefs
Right and wrong

4. Developmental Tasks Challenges met at a particular stage of life.
1. Childhood
2. Adolescence
3. Adulthood
YOU ARE HERE!

5. Adolescence You must: Find your identity Become independent
Plan for your life’s work

6. Influences on Development
Heredity (Nature)
Passing on certain characteristics
Eye color, blood type, etc.
Environment (Nurture)
People
Places
Surroundings

7. Characteristics of Development
Development is….
similar for everyone
builds on earlier learning
proceeds at an individual rate
interrelated
continuous throughout life

8. Development is similar for everyone.
Children go through the same stages in about the same order.
Examples—
all babies lift their head before they lift their bodies
all babies stand up before they walk

9. Development proceeds at an individual rate.
Children follow a similar pattern of development, each child is an individual.
The rate of growth differs from child to child
Examples
When did you first say dada?
When did you first crawl/walk?

10. Development builds on earlier learning
Development follows a step by step pattern or a sequence
The skills a child learns at one stage build directly on those mastered earlier.
Examples—
Before a child learns to run, he/she has to learn to walk.

11. Development is continuous throughout life.
The rate of development changes, sometimes it is fast and sometimes it is slow.
Development never stops!

12. The different areas of development are interrelated
PIES

13. Write four words or draw four pictures that describe you in each area of development. You can only use something one time.