introduction to child growth and development preventive medicine

1. Lecture: Child Growth and Development
Presented: by

3. Introduction
 A child can be defined as a person who is under 18 years old.
 For this age, they need parental guidance and also help from people around
them in order to achieve successful in their future life.
 Growth refers to specific body changes and increases in the child’s size
(such as: height, weight, head circumference, and body mass index). These
size changes can easily be measured.
 Child growth is internationally recognized as the best global indicator of
physical well-being in children because poor feeding practices—in both
quantity and quality—and infections, or more often a combination of the
two, are major factors that affect physical growth and mental development in
children.

4. Cont..,
Poor child growth is the consequence of a range of factors that are
closely linked to the overall standard of living and whether a
population can meet its basic needs, such as access to food, housing.
Girls generally enter puberty between ages 8 to 13 years of age.
Boys usually enter puberty at ages 10 to 15 years of age

6. Child development
Is a process every child goes through. This process involves learning and
mastering skills like sitting, walking, talking, skipping and tying shoes.
Most children learn these skills, called developmental milestones, during
predictable time periods.
Milestones develop in a sequential fashion. This means that a child will
need to develop some skills before he or she can develop other skills.
For example, children must first learn to crawl and to pull up to a
standing position before they are able to walk. Each milestone that a child
acquires builds on the last milestone developed.

7. Cont..,
• Development typically refers to an increase in complexity (a change
from simple to more complex) Involves a progression along a
continuing pathway on which the child acquires more refined
knowledge, behavior, and skills.
• The sequence is basically the same for all children, however the rate
varies.

8. Differences between growth & development

9. The five stages of growth development
Infancy--birth to 12 months.
Toddler--12 months to 3 years.
Preschool--3 years to 6 years
School age--6 years to 12 years.
Adolescents--13 years to 18 years.

10. Areas of Development
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Includes muscle coordination and control, growth in size and in
proportion. Examples a child rolling over,
lifting its head, or sitting up.
Reaching age-related milestones is not the only goal. Children learn
about being healthy, exercising regularly, being a team player, having
the right diet and growing in a conducive environment through play-
and-learn.
The right guidance from parents can inculcate in children a good
regimen of exercise and diet to achieve ideal physical development.
Parents should remember that children lead by example

11. Cognitive Development
The ability of the brain or mind to take in and process information.
Examples a child recognizing their name, or recognizing a parent,
recognizing that when they shake a rattle it will
make a noise.
When children are growing up, positive parenting improves their
cognitive, social and problem-solving skills. Positive parenting also
affects their responses and helps them grow up to be better humans.
Interaction and stimulation are very important in the early years.
It is all about recognizing problems, handling all situations well and
picking up the traits of discipline, time management and effective
problem-solving through simple routines at home.

12. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTA
child learning and discovering the expectations and rules for interacting
with others. Examples a child smiling at mother, a child learning to
share a story with a friend.
Children observe spousal interaction and how arguments are settled in
the family. It teaches them a variety of good values that are imbibed and
crucial to growing up.
The Child learns how to behave with others, playing to a common goal,
team spirit, picking the right friends and a lot more.

13. MORAL DEVELOPMENT
Identifying personal values. Examples right or wrong, behaving according
to what others need or want, respecting human rights, developing
principles to guide behavior.
• Spiritual Development
• Understanding religion, prayer, knowing right from wrong, having the
right ethical values, valuing your parents and strengthening goal-setting
liberates the free spirit in children.
• Teaching your children to be more accepting and believing in the greater
good can help them gain a sense of purpose. Try not to conform them to
any particular religion and let them explore spirituality on their own.

14. Language development
In humans is a process starting early in life. Infants start without
knowing a language, yet by 10 months, babies can distinguish speech
sounds and engage in Babbling. Some research has shown that the
earliest learning begins in utero when the fetus starts to recognize the
sounds and speech patterns of its mother voice and differentiate them
from other sounds after birth.
Typically, children develop receptive language abilities before their
verbal or expressive language develops. receptive language is the
internal processing and understanding of language. As receptive
language continues to increase, expressive language begins to slowly
develop.
Babbling fetus mother voice receptive language expressive language

16. References
• World Health Organization. Physical status: the use and interpretation
of anthropometry. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1995.
Technical Report Series No. 854.Google Scholar
• United Nations. Millennium development goals. Available
at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals.