Rapid-Fire Connections Affecting A Child's Brain Development

A child develops through its whole life. They can develop; physically, linguistically, intellectually, socially and behaviourally. “Physical development is the way in which the body increases in skill and becomes more complex in its performance” [Meggitt, 2000, Page 2]. Twenty five days after conception; the body of the chid has developed immensely from the small fertilised egg. Up to birth the foetus mainly develops physically however once the child is born the child then begins the long process of development. Not only do the gross motor skills and the fine motor skills develop on the baby, but the sensory development also widens on the child.

Early relationships and experiences is highly important in the brains physical development. The brains plasticity is at its highest in the first few years in the life of an individual. It is believed that nature and nurture are very interactive in producing an individual’s perception of the world. Early

Drastic changes are made 13-18 months into a human's life, as a child grows in height, weight, and improvements in the ability to interact with the world around him. Walking skills become more refined and both fine and gross motor development

The three stages; germinal, embryonic, and fetal, during the prenatal development happen during when a zygote turns into a baby. Attachments or emotional bonds start to form with caregivers early on and promote a successful growth in a child’s life successfully. During the first year of life it is so important to take time to establish and shape the child’s ability to bond and create attachments in relationships in future meetings in life. During this time we begin to see comprehension and language progress very quickly. When puberty hits there is an increase in weight and height and many other body changes that are brought on by adolescence.

Child growth and development is sensitive and exponential since the moment of conception through birth. Especially, "Children's brains continue to grow more rapidly than other parts of the body during early childhood" (Woolfolk & Perry, 2015, p. 203). In addition,

As a child grows they learn manty things as their brain grows and develops. The brain develops as the child grows. A brain develops from stimuli it receives as the child grows. before a baby is born the brain is already starting to “wire itself up”. The brain continues to do so until it is 2 years old. When a child is two they have 100 billion neurons in its brain. As the child receives different stimuli the brain perceives these stimuli and gore from it developing into a working adult brain.

The control senses of your baby are developing the baby is now able to see, feel and smell. The nervous system of your baby are also growing

Children develop cognition through two main stages that Jean Piaget theorized. The stages run from birth and infancy to school age children. Sensorimotor is the first stage and goes from birth to about the age of two. This stage implies that the children learn about the environment they live in and they learn this through the reflexes and movements they produce. They also learn that they are separate people from their parents and they can say goodbye to them and know they will come back. The second stage is called the preoperational stage. During this stage of development, children will learn how to incorporate symbols to represent objects. This is also the beginning of learning the alphabet and speech. The child is still very much egocentric at this point in time, but with the help of understanding educators, the child will grow appropriately onto the next stages of development. Finally, the children need to develop emotionally/socially.

After the time in the womb, the second period of life begins. This is considered to be after birth. This is another point in which brain development is influenced in a child. After birth there are five periods; the neonatal, infancy, toddlerhood, preschool, and adolescent periods. Each period is important in the brain development of a child, but the neonatal period is most crucial. The neonatal period is the first 28 days of life for a baby. This is most important because it sets the tone for the child’s development. Think of it this way, the neonatal period is like the beginning of a book. The opening paragraph or chapter sets the tone for the rest of the book. With this, come the influences that effect brain development for the rest of the child’s life. These influences are effects of the environment, nurture or neglect, and early childhood programs.

Infancy: After an infant is born, the brain weighs only 350-400 grams, about 25% of adult brain weight. Infancy brain has basic structure and same shape of adult’s brain, but the function is still weaker than adults. Therefore, after an infant is born, he cannot speak and independent activities. These capabilities will be developed in the future gradually by brain development. One year old, infancy brain weighs twice as much as it was at birth, reaching 50% of adult brain's weight. At age 2, infancy brain is 75% of the adult’s brain. The speed of infancy brain development in the first 1-2 years is fastest. During this period, infants most likely to learn a certain knowledge and experience. If an infant misses this period, he cannot get or achieve

If babies’ bodies grew at the same rapid pace as their brains, they would weigh 170 pounds by one month of age. Once the baby is born learning starts immediately. Humans learn so many different life skills between birth to eight years old, for instance their name, counting, reading, writing, sitting, walking, running, talking, using the bathroom, the alphabet and different colors and shapes. Adults do almost all these abilities without even noticing their doing them. It may not seem very hard to learn the normal abilities but if the abilities weren't taught at a young age when the brain absorbs everything it sees and learns people wouldn't be able to function. Children's brains develop and absorb more material from birth to eight years old

The other sensitive periods to consider are the refinement of the senses. The way the children can find out abut their environment at this stage is through their senses. By looking, smelling, hearing, touching child learn differences in sensory stimuli. A child brain react different to each sense stimuli and helps him/her to find out which stimuli is more important, which is relevant. this helps in preventing their nervous system from being over-stimulated.

Infancy refers to babies from birth to two, sometimes three years of age. Physical and cognitive growth during infancy is rapid, more rapid than any other time in a person’s life excluding adolescences. The first three years of a child’s life are crucial to their overall cognitive development (Berger,2014). All aspects of early life affect brain patterns from infancy until late adulthood. Renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud said that all adult behavior is rooted in the infancy period and that infant experiences are the cornerstone for behavioral and cognitive development (Bremner, 2006).

Successful levels and stages of development are majorly associated with the increasing efficiency and memory capacity. These explain a progression to higher stages and individual differences which increases by same age persons and cognitive performance. Research indicates that the performance of children at a given age is changeable from domain to domain such as the understanding of social, mathematical, and spatial concepts that it is impossible to place the child in a single stage. This level involves processes that define the volume and kind of information that the individual child can process. For example, reflexes arise before birth and are still present in newborns. Sometimes, prenatal development and birth complications may also be connected to neurodevelopmental disorders. Young children react to various motivations in various ways (Damon & Lerner, 2006). For example infants’ sight blurry in early stages improves over time.

Studies show that early childhood is the most and rapid period of development in a human life (http://www.unicef.org/dprk/ecd.pdf). The brain of a child is like a sponge, in the way