human development

1. WHAT IS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT?
is the pattern of change in human
capabilities that begins at conception and
continuous throughout the life span.
Implies orderly change. Generally the rate of
change is more rapid during early than later
years of life, both because changes in the
body are less rapid the older one gets and
because with increasing age, people tend to
establish more stable routines of living.
Is progressive, involves differentiation and
accumulation
Pattern of development is complex

2. PATTERN OF DEVELOPMENT BECAUSE IT IS THE
PRODUCT OF SEVERAL PROCESSES
1. Physical processes – involves changes in
individuals biological nature
2. Cognitive processes – changes involves
in an individual’s thought, intelligence and
language
3. Socio-emotional processes – involves
changes in an individual’s relationship
with other people, changes in emotions
and changes in personality.

3. PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT
1. Prenatal/Neonate – from
conception/fertilization till birth
2. Infancy- birth to 18 months
3. toddlers – 18 moths to 3 years
4. Preschool – 3 to 6 years
5. Childhood – 6 to 12 years
6. Adolescence – 12 to 18 years
7. Young adult – 19 to 40 years
8. Middle Adult – 40 to 65 years
9. Seniors/aging/senescene – 65 +

4. STAGES OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT
1. Conception
2. Zygote (1-3 day)
3. Blastocyst (3rd day – 2nd week)
day 3 - end of 2nd week, implants itself in uterine wall
(“nidation)
4. Embryo – (3rd – 8th wk) occasional primitive heart
contractions at 2 weeks; heart pumps blood and ECG
tracing looks normal by 4th to 5th week; some brain
activity by the end of 6th week; normal heart functioning
after the end of the 7th week
5. Fetus (9th week until birth) develops fingernails, vocal
chords, taste buds, and salivary glands and begins to
urinate (3rd month); “quickening” – spontaneous
movement between the 13th-20th week (3rd, 4th & 5th
month); develops hair and eyelashes(5th mos.); “viability”
– fetus can survive outside the mother, occurs

5. FACTORS AFFECTING PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT
(HURLUCK 1982)
1. Maternal Nutrition- Mothers diet must contain
sufficient proteins, fats and carbohydrates to
keep the child healthy
2. Vitamin Deficiency- deficiency of vit. , C, B6,
B12, D, E and K is especially likely to interfere
with the normal pattern of prenatal
development
3. Maternal Health – maternal health conditions
are known to have a great effect on the unborn
child

6. 4. Drugs – pregnant women are advised to take no
drugs without their doctor’s knowledge
5. X-ray – when used in early pregnancy, x-ray and
radium are usually damaging to the unborn child.
6. Alcohol – if used frequently and heavily, it is likely
to damage the child’s physical and mental
development
7. Tobacco – maternal smoking affect the fetal heart
rate and the chemical content of the fetal blood
8. Maternal emotions – in mild maternal stresses,
fetal activity and fetal heart rate increase
9. Uterine crowding – in multiple births, crowding
may limit fetal activity which is important for
normal development.

7. INFANCY
Infant – Child from birth till 18 months,
majority of time spent in sleep, and after
few months generally becomes diurnal.
Infant’s Perception
1. Vision – sight tends to be blurry in early
stages but improves over time. Color
perception similar to that seen in adults
demonstrated from 4 months using habitual
method and gets to adult-like vision from 6
months.

8. 2. Hearing – developed prior to birth, prefer
complex sounds to pure tones, human
speech to other sounds, mother’s voice to
other voices, native languages to other
languages. Infants are fairly good in
detecting the direction a sound comes
from and by 18 months, hearing ability
becomes equal to adult.
3. Smell and Taste – born with odor and
taste preference acquired in the womb
from the smell and taste of the amniotic
fluid , in turn influence by what the mother
eats.

9. 4. Touch and Feel – one of the better-
developed senses at birth considering its one
of the first senses to develop inside the
womb. This is evidenced by the primitive
reflexes and the relatively advance
development of the somatosensory cortex.
5. Pain – infants feel pain similarly but not as
stronger than older children.
Language – babies are born with the ability to
discriminate virtually all sounds of all human
languages, at 6 months they can differentiate
between phonemes in their own language but
not between phonemes in another language,
also start to babble producing phonemes.

10. Infant Cognition
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development –
Infant’s perception and understanding of
the world depended on their motor
development, which was required for the
infant to link visual, tactile and motor
representations of objects. It is through
touching and handling objects that
infants develop object permanence, the
understanding of object is solid,
permanent and continue to exist when out
of sight. At 6 months, develop ability to
represent numbers .

11. TODDLER (18 MONTHS TO 3)
At this stage, toddlers developed self-
awareness, maturity in language use and
presence of memory and imagination. Learn
how to walk, talk and make decisions for
themselves. Self-control also begins to
develop, take initiatives to explore, experiment
and learn from mistakes. They begin to
identify gender roles, acting according to their
perception of what a man or a woman should
do.
Caretakers need to encourage them to try new
things and test their limits to help them
become autonomous, self-reliant and

12. PRESCHOOL – 3 TO 6 YEARS (EARLY CHILDHOOD)
ALSO CALLED, EXPLORATORY AGE OR TOY AGE
When they attend preschool
1. they broaden social horizon, become more
engaged with those around them, transition
of the world at home to that of school and
peers
2. Impulses are channeled into fantasies which
leaves the task of the caretaker to balance
eagerness for pursuing adventure, creativity
and self-expression with the development of
responsibility. Consistent discipline will make
them develop positive self-esteem while
becoming more responsible and will follow
on assigned activities.

13. 3. Intelligence is demonstrated through logical
and systematic manipulation of symbols
related to concrete objects.
4. Operational thinking develops which means
actions are reversible and egocentric thought
diminishes, learn to make things, use tools
and acquire the skills to be a worker and a
potential provider. They can now receive
feedback from outsiders about their
accomplishments.
5. Discover pleasures in their activities,
intellectual stimulation, learns to read, write
and basic math which develops their sense of
competence. If this did not become
successful, they may develop sense of
inferiority, feeling of inadequacy and may
haunt them throughout life.

14. MIDDLE CHILDHOOD (6-12 YRS OLD)
1. Attend regular normal and formal school,
making friends outside the immediate family
2. Master new physical and mental skills
becoming more and more individual
3. Opens the door for a new set of challenges
both for child and parent, often can lead to
stressful situation that can have a negative
effect on child’s developmement.
4. Development of Concrete operational stage
where focus is on logical thinking, intelligence
and psychosocial development of teenagers.

15. 5. Enable child to perceive the events/problems
from different angles
6. Aspects of development are logic (learn to
reason and use the acquire knowledge
constructively), decentration (thinking changes
from perception to concrete logical), reversibility
(any process can be returned to its original
state) and causality (principle of or relationship
between cause and effect and that nothing can
happen without being caused).

16. ADOLESCENSE
1. Onset of puberty and the full commitment to
an adult social role, such as worker, parent
and/or citizen.
2. Formation of personal and social identity
3. Discovery of moral purpose
4. Intelligence is demonstrated through the
logical use of symbols related to abstract
concept and formal reasoning.
5. Return to egocentric though often occurs
early in this period, only 35% develop the
capacity to reason formally.

17. 6. Unconsciously explores questions:“Who I am?”
“Who do I want to be?”
7. Explore, test limits, become autonomous,
commit to an identity or sense of self
8. Different roles, behaviors and ideologies must
be tried out to select an identity. Role confusion
and inability to choose vocation can result from
a failure to achieve a sense of identity though,
for example friends.
Divided into 3 parts
1. Early adolescence – 9 to 13 yrs old
2. Mid adolescence – 13 to 15 yrs old
3. Late adolescence – 15 to 18 yrs old

18. EARLY OR YOUNG ADULTHOOD (19-40 YRS OLD)
1. Stage where development is mainly focused on
maintaining relationships. Ex. Creating bond of
intimacy, sustaining friendships and ultimately
making families.
2. Development of intimacy skills rely on the
resolution of previous developmental stages
such as sense of identity gained. If this is not
learned the alternative is alienation, isolation, a
fear of commitment, and the inability to depend
on others.

19. MIDDLE ADULTHOOD (41 – 65 YRS OLD)
1. Experience conflict between generativity
and stagnation. Experience the sense of
contributing to society, the next
generation or their immediate community
or a sense of purposelessness.
2. Decline in muscular strength, reaction
time, sensory keenness and cardiac
output.
3. Experience menopause (drop of
estrogen) and adropause (drop of
androgen).

20. OLD AGE OR AGING
1. Stage in which individuals assess the quality
of their live, reflection on their lives,
2. Develops feeling of integrity if deciding that
their lives were successful or a feeling of
despair
3. Decline in muscular strength, reaction time,
stamina, hearing, distance perception and
mobility.
4. Mental disintegration leading to dementia,
alzheimer’s
5. Crystallized intelligence increases while
fluid intelligence decreases