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Pediatrics                                                           Lec3                                                               Dr. Ziyad 

 

 

DEVELOPMENT 

 

 Development: changes (complexity) in function including those influenced 

by emotional and social environments 

 Developmental pediatrics

:

 is concerned with the processes of children's 

learning and competent adaptation to the environment from birth to 
adulthood.  

 
There are three purposes: 

 To promote optimal physical and mental health and development for all 

children. 

 To ensure early diagnosis and effective treatment of impairments of body, 

mind and personality; 

 To discover the cause and means of preventing such impairments. 

 

 The context for observing a child's development is the family, school and 

community.  

 Family, educational, social, cultural, spiritual, economic, environmental 

and political forces act favorably or unfavorably, but always significantly, 
on the health and functioning of children. 
 
 

Childhood marks the change from the entirely dependent baby into the mature 
independent adult. During this period the child: 

1. Builds up a store of knowledge about the environment. 
2. Learns motor skills to survive. 
3. Learns a language with which to communicate and think. 
4. Develops a sense of self-regulation of emotions and behavior and the 

coping strategies for successful interpersonal relationships. 


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Pediatrics                                                           Lec3                                                               Dr. Ziyad 

 

 
FACTORS THAT AFFECT DEVELOPMENT 

 NATURE VS NURTURE:  
 ENVIRONMENTAL RISK FACTORS:  
 PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS:  
 BIOLOGICAL FACTORS:  

 
 
 

NATURE VS NURTURE: 

 The contribution of each NATURE and NURTURE is complex because both 

the individual and the environment are continuously changing over time 
and the interaction between them, which molds psychological growth, is 
fluid and dynamic. The genetic influences on a child's development extend 
to the environment also, through the parental phenotype. 

 
 
 

ENVIRONMENTAL RISK FACTORS:

 

 Environmental factors may act in two ways: 

1. By affecting the perceptual or effector organs and brain biologically 

at any stage from prenatal period onwards. 

2. By altering the child's opportunity to learn by limiting or expanding 

his experience. 

 
 
 

PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS: 

 if the infant does not develop a sense of trust in people and attachment 

from that first relationship with a parent then he or she is more likely to 
have lifelong difficulties with relationships. 


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Pediatrics                                                           Lec3                                                               Dr. Ziyad 

 

 
BIOLOGICAL FACTORS: 

 A child's development may be affected by abnormalities of brain function, 

of special senses or of effector organs such as the limbs and muscles. 

 
a)
 Brain damage or dysfunction: Brain damage or dysfunction may affect all 
areas of function or only specific areas of function. 
 
b)
 Chromosome abnormalities: Chromosome abnormalities may influence 
development through effects on general learning processes, as well as specific 
effects, and can result in the development of specific and recognizable 
behavioral phenotypes. 
 
c)
 Defects of special senses: Defects of special senses most commonly affect 
vision and hearing (rarely smell) and can result in a severe restriction of the 
information a child receives, which is essential to normal development. 
 
d)
 Defects of effector organs: (structural and movement disorders): Disorders of 
movement may be due to abnormality of the brain (cerebral palsy), spinal cord 
(paraplegia), nerves (spinal muscular atrophy) or muscles (dystrophy). These 
disorders have a direct effect on movement and also limit the child's 
experience. 
 
e)
 Sex and development: 
there are some differences between boys and girls in development. For 
example, in a study of language acquisition boys were on average 1 month 
behind girls. Nearly all the developmental disorders are more common in boys 
than girls. One theory suggests that the influence of testosterone is to delay 
maturation of specific processes within the brain. 
 
f)
 Gestational age: Gestational age is a relevant consideration for children under 
24 months of age. Convention and arithmetic suggest that full correction for 
gestation should be made up to this time. 


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Pediatrics                                                           Lec3                                                               Dr. Ziyad 

 

NORMAL DEVELOPMENT 

It is traditional to describe child development as steps or stages of ages and in 
various fields of behavior, for example prenatal, infancy (from birth to 24 
months), childhood (2-5/6 years), in areas such as physical, motor, adaptive, 
cognitive and language, personal, social and emotional. 
 

1. MOTOR SKILLS: 

Postural control develops in a cephalocaudal direction starting with head 
control, then progressing with sitting, standing, walking and running  
 

2. FINE MOTOR SKILLS: 

Once a child achieves reliable postural control, increasingly accurate 
manipulative skills can be developed ; integration of visual input and motor 
output is essential for normal acquisition of these skills.
 
Handedness (which hand is dominant) is clear in many children by 24 months 
and is expected in the majority by 42 months. Delayed development of which 
hand is dominant is frequently associated with specific as well as general 
learning difficulties.
 
 

3. VISION: 

At birth the newborn eyeball is short and the ciliary muscles immature. 
By 6-7 months the baby not only recognizes faces but discriminates between 
facial expressions (e.g. happy or fearful). 
 

4. SOUND PERCEPTION: 

The ear is fully developed at birth and sound perception is possible in utero. 
Speech perception and recognition of voices of different speakers are present 
shortly after birth.
 
The development of vocalization and speech depends upon an intact motor 
learning system as well as hearing speech.
 
Children vary in their rote memory capacity for memorizing chunks of speech. 
The amount of babble is correlated with early vocabulary


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Pediatrics                                                           Lec3                                                               Dr. Ziyad 

 

 
Abnormal or infrequent speech sounds in the first year can be a marker of later 
speech and language problems or deafness. 
 
At the early stages of communicative development some children may tend to 
use gestures without also using spoken words, while other children use both 
gestures and words. 
 
The capacity for smell and touch as well as the other senses are similarly 
developed at birth and play an important part in the perceptual learning about 
the environment. 
 
 

 

 
 


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Pediatrics                                                           Lec3                                                               Dr. Ziyad 

 

 

 

 




رفعت المحاضرة من قبل: Mohammed Musa
المشاهدات: لقد قام عضو واحد فقط و 50 زائراً بقراءة هذه المحاضرة








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