Development Matrix – Childhood and Adolescence
Part I – Developmental Stages
For each developmental domain, physical, cognitive, and social, identify two major changes or challenges associated with the following stages: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
Stage of Development
Physical Development
Cognitive Development
Social Development
Childhood
During physical development a Child has a greater plasticity in their neural functions. The body starts to physical grow and the child’s head will start to become more proportioned with their body.
Children will start to learn about the world around them and object from their sensory and motor contact like learning sounds of objects or people. Children start to think logically about concrete or physical objects.
Children will be dependent on their parents or guardians to help them survive. Children identify their gender by age 4 and begin to form gender based peer groups.
Adolescence
Adolescence’s primary and secondary sexual characteristics develop, this means they will go through puberty. The speed of processing information in the brain also increases.
Adolescence has a growth of moral reasoning, they have more of an understanding of right and wrong. Able to think and reason logically
Adolescence forms individualized sense of self. They will increase emphasis on peer relationships. Seek friendship of the opposite sex and also distinguish between friends and romantic partners.
Part II – Nature Versus Nurture
Using your own words, write 200-300 words describing the concept of “nature versus nurture”. Provide an example to support your writing.
The nature of human development is like the engineering of a car, like our genes the car has specific features that make is a specific car and perform a certain way but pending on the care we give the car, it may not
