From birth through adulthood children continually grow, develop, and learn.
A child's development can be measured through social, emotional, intellectual, physical and language developmental milestone.
All children and young people follow a similar pattern of development so the order in which each child advances from one milestone to the next will be roughly the same. However, each child will develop at a different rate and their development may no progress evenly across all areas.
Communication and intellectual
- Developing creative and imaginative skills
- Using skills in different ways
- Using language to explain reasoning
- Problem solving
- Decision making
Social, emotional and behavioural
- Taking turns
- Co-operating with others
- Developing social skills
- Developing self-esteem and self-expression
- Learning about the feelings of others
Areas of development
Physical
- Fine motor skills (writing, threading, painting and drawing)
- Gross motor skills (running, jumping, hopping, skipping, balance
- General coordination
- Hand-eye coordination
The pattern of physical development
A child's physical development follows a pattern:
simple complex
standing before walking
walking before skipping or hopping
from head toe
physical control and coordination begins with the child's head and works down the body
from inner outer
gross motor skills to fine motor skills
from general specific
general responses to specific ones.
Physical development
This is an important area of children's overall development and one which can often be assumed will take place automatically as they grow and mature. Although children do develop many skills naturally as they get older, it is imperative that they have the opportunity to develop them in a variety of ways, and they will need support in order to do this. They...