Developmental psychology

Children grow from being innocence to self-awareness, a process called development, which is defined as the gradual change that begins at conception and goes on through the life of an individual(Iverson and Goldin, 2005). The essay discusses the theories that explain child development in physical, cognitive, language, and social and personal development aspects. The impacts of schooling on the development between the ages of two and six years are analyzed, putting into consideration the theories of development.

Physical Development

During this stage, the child's body proliferates. During birth, the child weighs about five to ten kilograms on average and then gains double that weight in another six months. At two years, they are at about twenty to thirty-five pounds, which is about four times the birth weight. At birth, a baby has a length of about nineteen inches; it increases by approximately ten inches in twelve months. By the time an infant is at two years, their range is about thirty-five inches (WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group, 2006). The significant milestones here are the increase in weight and length.

At four years, the rate of growth slows down; they gain between five and seven kilograms and two to three inches annual. The rates of growth in children differ depending on the nourishment, health status, socioeconomic factors, and heredity (De Onis,2017). At this stage, a child can start schooling to enhance physical development. The young ones are not given a lot of cognitive tasks but rather physical tasks. For instance, a child who never gets sufficient physical exercise may experience growth in weight and slug in height. The bodily functions in school allow children to exercise their bodies hence experiences proportional growth

As children grow, they acquire the ability to construct a thought process; they can recall events, seek solutions to problems, and make decisions; this is cognitive development. According to Piaget's theory, a child undergoes four stages of development. The steps enable them to acquire knowledge and intelligence (Saxe, 2015). According to this theory, a child between two to six years undergoes two stages; the sensorimotor stage and the Preoperational stage. At the sensory-motor stage, a child acquires knowledge through necessary activities and sensations.

During the Preoperational stage, the child begins to construct a thought process by associating words and images to real objects. However, at this stage, children think in concrete terms and from the perspectives of others.

At about nine to twelve months, a child begins to understand to use signs to communicate with people; for instance, children start to shake and nod their heads as a sign of agreement or disagreement. Another milestone in their development is the ability to wave bye and to open their mouth to show they need food (Saxe, 2015). At three to five years, children start to distinguish colors, count objects, and make decisions. At this stage, schooling is vital in enhancing consistency, to boost their learning. For instance, in school, they are provided with different colors, and they are expected to say a color when a teacher points the colors.

Additionally, during this period, a child gets to know that people have opinions, beliefs, and feelings from theirs. According to Saxe (2015), this is the theory of the mind, which allows children to gain an awareness of other people. For instance, is a child has an angry sibling; the child can associate the anger to another event that occurred before. School at this stage is outstanding because the child gets to interact with other children, who have different beliefs and thinking, from their own. It enables the child to be able to accommodate others who have different points of view.

Language acquisition

Children have needs, so as they grow, they acquire an ability to communicate and respond because language is a means of communication. According to VanPatten and Williams (2014), children learn language following the same sequence regardless of the culture and the setting where a child is raised. However, Skinner proposed the Language Acquisition theory, which states that language is acquisition is via environmental influence. Skinner noted that children learn to communicate by associating meanings to words. Later, Noam Chomsky proposed the Theory of Universal grammar, which states that language acquisition mechanisms are intrinsic; they are biological.

Before children acquire the ability to speak, they communicate using gestures. This factor shapes their ability to learn language because it shows their ability to comprehend what others are talking about (Iverson and Goldin, 2005). In the first year, children begin to coo; this is the production of syllable words, for instance, 'ma' referring to the mother; this is the first step to language acquisition. Babbling follows cooing, the baby begins to babble with words. He begins to repeat the one-syllable word, for instance, ma-ma-ma.

At twelve months, children can say their first words to make meaning, and at eighteen months, they begin to join words forming a sentence. When they are two, they use approximately fifty and two hundred words, and at three years, they have the ability to use sentences with a vocabulary of about one thousand words. Research shows that at six years, a child can handle approximately 200 words and can comprehend six thousand words (Iverson and Goldin, 2005). Schooling in this stage is beneficial in enriching the child's vocabulary because when interacting with other children during school time, they get to learn new words. It also allows them to use the words they have already learned, hence encouraging them to learn more words.

Personality and Social Development

In the process of development, a child gains the ability to relate with others in a certain way, which is unique from the other children. Sigmund Freud proposed psychosexual development theory, which states that personality develops following stages that are associated with particular sexual zones, that is, id, ego, and superego. Later, Erikson further improved ob Freud’s theory by coining the eight-stage theory of human development, which explains the relationship between social relations and personality (De Onis, 2017). The three aspects work together to create specific behaviors of human beings.

At two years a child plays with together, at three they can take turns during playing, here they express many emotions, which marks the first stage of social personal and social development. When ego sets in, they choose to play with other children in preference to playing alone. At about four to six, they start to understand respect and distinguish facts, hence tend to please others. During this stage, the child begins to understand self-awareness and portrays unique characteristics (Saxe, 2015). Schooling at this stage promotes the child’s ability to socialize with others, learning to distinguish the right from the wrong by looking at the reactions to his actions.

In conclusion, child development is a product of many factors that are categorized into stages through which a child undergoes. The physical growth is responsible for weight and height, while cognitive development enables a child to construct a process of thought, and language enables them to convey their ideas. From the discussions above, schooling has an influence development; it acts as reinforcement.