1.0 Introduction.

Human development is a continuous process throughout our lives. It will show on

progression of human development starting from infancy, childhood, adolescence, and
adulthood. There are several aspect that need to be considered in the child development
which are the development of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language skills, cognitive
development and their social interaction. As a normal human being, all of us will be facing the
same development stages, however the flow of development process may not be similar. In
each stage, the person will be able confronts, and masters, new challenges. Each stage builds
on the successful completion of earlier stages. The challenges of stages not successfully
completed may be expected to reappear as problems in the future.

2.0 Stages of development with appropriate theory of development.

2.1 Infancy

Infancy is typically the first year of life which is occurs from birth to 2 years old. This
phase is the first important stage of human development. For the first 2 years,
growth and development of the infant is quite rapid. Meanwhile, for my
development, my first weight since I was born was 2.8 kg and at the age of 2 my
weight increases to 10.5 kg. Besides, the milk teeth can be seen at the lower gum
first when I was between 7 months because child’s teeth will not be aligned if the
teeth grow at the top gum.

For physical development, at this phase baby usually start showing their
autonomy and strength using body movement such as turning the body, crawling
and walking that involves their bigger muscles in the body which is leg, neck and
hand. Based on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, during this phase, child
will encounter Sensorimotor Stage where an infant will use their 5 senses and
physical movements to learn about their surroundings. At the same time, the fine
motor sensors will develop that allow a child to hold and coordinate their hand with
the help of their vision. At the age of 7 month, I started to grasp things nearby that
are attractive and colourful. Then, by the age of 8 and half months I learned and
started to crawl and by the age of 10 month, I started to walk properly while at the
age of 1 and half years, I was able to run.

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 According to Vygotsky theory for cognitive development, children’s thinking
develop through social interaction. This interaction commonly occurs between a
child with a more knowledgeable person especially their parents. In my situation, I
was able to speak fluently quite early since the age of 1 and half years compared
to the other siblings because my grandparents loved to interact with me. During
that time, I was able to say simple language such as “eat”, “mum” and interact with
them.

2.2 Early childhood

Early childhood stage begin from 3 to 6 years old. During this phase,
my developments are more focused on cognitive development since I had
started going to school by the age of 4. During pre-school years, children
gradually become sensitive to the sound of spoken words. At my previous
pre-school I have been taught on how to recite prayer, learning alphabets,
counting numbers, sing a song and writing a few alphabets. By the age of 5, I
could read sentences in English, Malay and also Arabic. Besides, I learned on
how to hold a scissors and had a good control of it.

However, there are a little bit of psychomotor developments occurred in

this stage where I could wore clothes by myself without any help in the age of
2 and half years and by the age of 3 years, I have developed my
self-management skills. At that time, I was not wearing diaper anymore and I
went to toilet by myself. By the age of 3, my dad loved to bring me to the field
and watch his students playing football. Therefore, I learned to kick a ball each
and every time I saw them playing football. I was so interested in playing
football till I wanted to buy any ball that I saw. Lastly, by the age of 5, I started
to hold my pencil in the right way it.

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2.3 Childhood

In the age of 7 to 11 years, children’s physical development is more

developing compared to other aspects. Girl’s height increases between 8 to 10
years old and reaches its peak at the age of 12. At the age of 12, I have reached
148 cm and my height stop to develop since then while I reached my puberty
at the age of 11 years old. Next, Children at this stage are able to think logically
about concrete objects. For example, during my primary school, I learned to
count money and able to use money wisely.

According to Erik Erikson theory, a child must deal in demands to learn

new skills at school. Since I was 8 years old, I used to pretend to be a teacher,
chef and doctor and I tend to dress up as though my mum’s style where I started
to play with her make-up and wore her shoes. Besides, as what I have seen
the most, my father was frequently use his phone to communicate with his
friends, thus I loved to use his phone and by the age of 9 years I develop my
thinking skills by starting to use his phone. On the other hand, at this stage the
skills they produce are the academic work related to writing, reading and
mathematical skills. By the age of 10, I was able to solve more abstract and
hypothetical problems.

2.4 Early Adolescent

Children will faced this phase when they end their primary school till the
age of 15. During the phase, parents should be more concern and give fully
attention to their children since this is the most critical phase in our lifetime. An
adults play an important role in giving direction, provide feedback and guide
the children’s communication. According to Lev Vygotsky, social interaction
and language are the main factors that influence the development of children.
During my secondary school, I started to learn new words in Malay and also
English from my teachers and peers. Moreover, it helped to enhance my
vocabulary to be used in my essay writing. Some of the words are maybe not
suitable to be used, so I tried not to use it in public or in a written text. Thus,
parents should be able to control their children’s behaviour and their language.

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 On the other hand, during this phase children are being more
independent. In order to master a skill or learn a new task, children need a
skilled person to guide them by using direct instruction. Then, when they started
to understand the situation, less guidance is given. Thus, they are able to
arrange new concepts systematically and meaningful to the children itself.
Parents or an adult should play an important role in giving a right guidance for
the children to develop their life skills such as cleaning their bedroom, washing
clothes and sweeping the floor. At the age of 13, I had entered to boarding
school for my secondary school. Since then, my life skills have been developed
since I had no one to support me anymore. I had to be more independent and
being responsible towards myself.

Before entering the school, my mother has trained me on how to do

house chores since I was 10 years old. Luckily, I was able to iron my own
clothes, washing clothes and doing the dishes at the age of 12, so when I
entered the school, it was not a big deal. However, I had encountered a
problem in washing my clothes at the hostel because there was no washing
machine there. So, I had to wash my clothes by myself. I was taking a first step
to learn by asking for help from my seniors to teach me on how to wash my
clothes manually and then I started to learn it by myself. That is how a level of
skills can be achieved with the assistance of an able instructor.

3.0 Factors that influence the development of children.

Children development are being influenced by various factors, but they can be
mainly divided into two main factors which are nurture and nature factors. Nature
factors are factors that influence an individual since in the mother’s womb to birth. On
the other hand, nurture factors are the factors that influenced an individual after birth
and usually engaging with the environment.

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3.1 Nature factor

Genetic is one of the factor that have been inherited from mother and
father in the form of genes. Genes are functioned to controls the physical,
mental and many attributes in our body. For me, I have inherited mostly from
my father’s genes in terms of physical appearance and also inherited diseases.
I have the same hair type, eye lens colour and eye lashes with my father.
Besides, I also suffered from asthma which is also inherited from my father.
However, my physical appearances are developing since I grew up and I
started to look more alike to my mother. We are both having the same skin
colour, face shape and height.

Secondly, maternal nutrition is also one of the factors that influences

child development. During pregnancy, mother should consume well balanced
diet in order to take a good care of the baby’s health and their well-being. Their
diet should consists of all food classes in a correct amount and portion. A
pregnant mother should takes acid folic, iron, zinc and calcium in a large
quantity. During pregnancy, my mother consumed a lot of vitamins suggested
by doctors in order to increase the blood pallets in her body and to supply the
blood to the baby through placenta. Besides, the vitamins also provide more
calcium and nutrition to my mother. For the baby’s health, my mother used to
consume soy drink and milk to produce fair and smooth skin.

Other than mother’s food intake, mother’s health is also one of the
factors that should be prioritized in child development. It is because what a
mother does will actually affect the growth of a baby overall. Thus, a pregnant
mother should took a good care of herself by having nutritious foods and reduce
the intake of sugar and salt in her diet. Before taking any food, my mother
always consult my grandmother first in order to ensure that she was taking the
right meal. Next, a pregnant mother needs to go for medical check-up
according to the doctor’s schedule to ensure that the baby’s condition is normal
and perfect. For my mother, she used to go for appointment with the doctor
twice per month to examine her and the baby’s health. Hence, the doctor would
identify the baby’s development and new supplements will be given to her.

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 3.2 Nurture factor

Family plays an important role in the development of a child who will

continuously supporting and educate the children. There is two methods that
can be applied by parents to raise their children. The first on is autocratic where
the parents decide everything that related to children’s life and they should
abide strictly. On the other hand, democratic is a method where the children
are given the freedom in deciding their own life. Some children love to be
controlled because they will feel neglected if their parents do not concern about
them. For me, parents are using both method where they give me freedom but
with limitation. For example, they allow me to hang out with my friends either
boys or girls, but I should be home at 9 pm. However, in terms of making any
decision, I have to ask for their opinion first before taking a step ahead.

In addition, friends and peers are also one of the factors that influence
child development since they are the one who accompany the growth of a child.
This is where children will try and acquire skills to adapt themselves in the
society. I was grateful for studying in an Islamic secondary school and mingled
around with well-behave friends. Thus, I did not encountered any friends that
influenced me to do anything prohibited by our religion or culture. On the
contrary, they are the one who encourage me to practice good manners,
positive thinking and respecting each other. Plus, my friends also taught me on
how precious a friendship is.

4.0 The importance of good child development related with students

aspiration.

According to Lawrence Kohlberg, he believed that children’s transition of moral

reasoning stages are govern by transformation in a child’s cognitive structure even
sometimes the cognitive level of a human does not determine his capability in the
stages of moral reasoning.

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 In accordance with the aim of Malaysia Education Blueprint in students’
aspiration, students are being encourage to have a leadership skills in themselves. It
will assist them to solve any problems that arise professionally and efficiently.
Therefore, teachers should play their roles in order to consummate chances for the
students to highlight their leadership skills. For instance, teachers can carry out an
activity that involves teamwork in a group of students. From the activity, students are
able to promote leadership in the particular group while doing the task given. In the
context of our education system, leadership consists of four dimension which is
entrepreneur, resilience, emotional intelligence and lastly an effective communication
skills.

Subsequently, every student will learnt on how to gain long-term knowledge

that enable them to cultivate curiosity when they faced new environment or situation.
Students should master their own disciplines, able to harness, connect and apply
knowledge learnt, and has an appreciation of culture, arts, and Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). This aspiration can be applied for students
who are in concrete operational stage where they will give fully attention to a certain
problem by counting more than two features at the same time regarding it. Thus, their
thinking skills are developing while applying knowledge that they have learnt.

However, language is also one of the criteria that portrays a well-develop

children. Vygotsky perceived language is central in social interaction, transmission of
culture and internal regulation of thinking. If a student has mastered more than a
language well, they are able to understand the contents from a conversation and they
are able to develop their thinking skills by searching for a suitable word to be used in
certain conversation. Besides, their vocabulary will be constantly widen and it will be
easy for the students to communicate fluently in public without hesitations. After they
end their school days, students with higher level of proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia and
English language tend to get more job opportunities compared to the others and its
enable them to apply it in the working environment soon. Consequently, our
government urges each children to master both Bahasa Malaysia as a national
language and English for the internal communication.

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5.0 References

Eitel, J. (2015, January 27). Livestrong.com. Retrieved from Factors Affecting Early
Childhood Development: http://www.livestrong.com/article/217996-factors-affecting-
early-child-development/

Haliza Hamzah, Samuel , J. N., & Rafidah Kastawi. (2008). Child Development for Program
Perguruan Pendidikan Rendah Pengajian Empat Tahun. Kuala Lumpur: Kumpulan
Budiman Sdn Bhd.

Kamii, C., & DeVries, R. (1976). Piaget, Children, and Number: Applying Piaget's Theory to
the Teaching of Elementary Number.

Jiajia, L. (2013). A Research on the Science and Engineering students’ College English
Learning Behavior from the Perspective of Constructivism Learning
Theory. Reading, 25, 10-3.

Rosenthal, D. A., Gurney, R. M., & Moore, S. M. (1981). From trust on intimacy: A new
inventory for examining Erikson's stages of psychosocial development. Journal of
Youth and Adolescence, 10(6), 525-537.

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6.0 Appendices

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