Child Development
Important Early Years: A child who does not have physical disabilities and who lives in an environment in which she is receiving adequate food, rest, love, and attentive support from her caregivers can be expected to do certain things at certain ages.
The first growth period a child experiences begins at birth and lasts until approximately three years of age. This time span is then broken down into three-month intervals to account for the broad spectrum of skills being acquired by the child.* This period of time represents the most critical stage of human development when one considers how the brain develops and the relatively short amount of time it takes for this process to be complete.
A child is born with over 100 billion neurons – the most she will ever have in her lifetime. As a child develops new skills, the neurons used in those activities are preserved. Any that are not engaged in building developmental pathways are lost through a natural process called apoptosis. The growth and development of these neural pathways determines the growth rate of a child’s brain. By the time this child is three years of age, her brain has grown to 90% of its adult size – even though her body is less than 20% of what her adult size will be. This three year period is the basic developmental “window” that must be maximized in order for the child to be able to engage in later, higher-order tasks such as reasoning, impulse control, emotional resiliency, relationship formation, etc…
*Students may visit www.howkidsdevelop.com or www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/child for detailed listings of specific developmental skills broken down by age group.
