Chapter - 2
Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence

Question- Describe individual’s development during infancy.

Or
What facts should be remembered to help it ?
Or
Explain the Meaning of Development During Infancy.
Or
Explain the Importance of Infant’s Development.
Or
What are the main problems of infancy.

Answer-

Development During Infancy

Infancy itself is divided into two stages or steps to development, the first lasting from birth to three years, thereafter the second stage lasts till the child is six of years of age.

The child develops very rapidly in the infant stage. At birth, the child is bodily unattractive because the skin is lined, the face puffed up and red, the size of the head approximately one fourth of the body and the rest of the body unbalanced. When born the child is about twenty inches in height. but grow another 10 inches before its first year is completed. Generally, the child is between seven and seven a half pounds in weight, the male child being taller and heavier than female. In the first year, both weight and size increase at a very rapid pace. Height or length increases about 50 percent in this period while the weight doubles in six months and trebles in another six. The proportion of the head to the body also changes, being one-fourth at the time of birth, the head becomes one-eighth of it develops. In the process of development, the length of arms and legs also increases as the child comes to require them more and more in his adaptation to life outside the womb.

Weight of the brain increases rapidly during pregnancy and immediately after birth. By the time the child reaches the age of four his brain gains 80 percent of its final weight, another 10 being added by the time he is eight. The final 10 percent is acquired by his twentieth year. It is between the ages of 4 and 6 that the main part of the brain development in weight. Sex organs develop in the opposite manner, as during the first 14 years of development, they develop only 20 percent while the remaining 80 per cent is completed within the next six years.

Normally, the height of the child at birth indicates the height he will attain in adulthood but there are upto 20 percent exceptions to the rule. Although there is never any very rapid physical development, yet one can see individual differences in the speed and time of it. Normally, one sees an inclination towards the average in the increase in height. Those who grow fast, slow up as they reach the average, but those who increase in height relatively slowly, develop rapidly as they attain to the average.

Describing infancy in respect of height, and weight, Thorpe has written that according to a recent survey the eight of a child at birth is 7.13 pounds, irrespective to sex and race. In this connection, the weight of boys was, on the average, 0.2 pounds more than the weight newborn infant girls. the weight of white new-born babies was 0.25 pounds more than the offspring of Negroes, but weight of the child at birth is not influenced by social and economic status. Another survey, other than the one mentioned above, indicated that the weight of 85 percent children at birth is between 6 and 9 pounds, and the height between 17 and 22 inches. The rapidity of the development of infants can be gauged from the fact that, on a average, male children increase up to 7 and 1/8 inches in 9 months, while female children increase 6 and 3/4 inches in the same time. Increase in the weight of children is even more significant and well-marked, as the average child doubles its weight in six months. The weight of a male baby whose height is 24 and 1/8 inches is 19 and 11/16 lbs while the weight of a female child of the same height is normally 19 and 5/16 pounds. Similar researches have thrown additional light on the development of the child. Research carried out at Harvard University over a period of 12 years has indicated that the child’s development during the first two years of his life is very rapid. Then the rate of development decreases till the child attains the adolescent stage, when it again increases. Generally, the development curves of both sexes were similar. Besides Harvard, other American universities such as Yale, Michigan, Lowa, and California, have also carried out detailed research in to the development of children studies conducted by Preyer, Stanley Hall and carl Murchison as well as Arnold Gesell, have yielded important data. It must, of course, be remembered that there are wide differences in the development of height and weight in individual children, the causes of the differences being attributable bothe of environment and heredity. Height and weight of a child development are a testimony to his good health which influence his mental and emotional development also.

Another aspect in which change continually takes place is the proportion between the various parts of the developing child’s body. The head becomes smaller and reduces in proportion to the body while the hands and feet gain in size proportion.

Important Facts about the Infant’s Development

The child’s weight decreases in the first two weeks of his life because much of the water in him evaporates. But this decrease is soon made up. Some precautions are required on the part of the parents if the child’s physical development during infancy is to be maintained. The following are these important facts :

1. Food : Food is one of the most important considerations in child care. The speed of growth being very rapid, it is essential that the child’s diet be both balanced and administered at the proper time. In this connection, Laird and his associates conducted an experiment in which some children were kept on an exclusively milk diet, other on a diet of milk and other nutritive foods, and still other children on normal food. After some weeks it was noticed that the children on a milk diet had progressed some 8 percent more than the children on a normal diet. Similarly, children kept on milk and other nutritive foods had progressed some 16 percent more than those on the normal diet. Generally speaking, all doctors and scientists believe that milk is the best food during the period of infancy, as in this period the bones develop and strengthen at a rapid pace, and milk is essential for this development. As long as the child retains his so-called milk teeth, his best and most nutritive diet is milk; and among the varieties of milk the very best is the variety that is the easiest to digest.

2. Clothes and cleanliness : In infancy, the child’s bones are very weak and tender. Subsequently, it is necessary that much care must be exercised in cleaning and washing him. The use of good oils for delicate massage is good for the child, but the massage must be very tenderly conducted. Lack of attention to the child’s cleanliness can result in his contracting many diseases.

3. Sleep and Up-bringing : It is in his infancy that the child requires much sleep and normally gets it. He should be allowed to sleep like a sapling, not a log, as he feels like it, since the proper amount of sleep helps in adequate and proper development of the body. Normally at this age, the child awakens only when he feels hungry and goes to sleep immediately his stomach is filled. He spends the larger span of his time in sleeping life. In the first month the child awakens only when he is hungry, but sometimes it is also because he has tasted milk, so that it is not good practice feed him milk whenever he cries. Such intemperate feeding spoils his digestive system and has the worst effect on his health, besides leaving him susceptible to many dangerous diseases. It is scientifically more desirable to feed the child by the clock, and to allay his crying by presenting him with toys or by any other means available, such as crooning to him, if that can possibly put a stop to his crying.

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