4.

0 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology

focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual
resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain
development and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's point of view. In other
words, cognitive development is the emergence of the ability to think and understand.
(Wikipedia).

Cognitive skills are individuals’ ability to think, give opinion, comprehend, and
memorize events that occur in the surroundings. It involves mental activities like
memory, categorizing, planning, reasoning, problem solving, creating, imagining and
many more. It is crucial for the individuals’ survival.

Jean Piaget theory of cognitive development is thinking process change

radically from birth until maturity. Every person in the world is always trying to make
sense of the world and try to adapt to the changes in their surroundings. According
to Piaget’s theory, there are four factors that influence the individuals’ thinking
process. The first one is maturation which is influence by genetic factors. Second is
interaction with surroundings environment. Third is a social experience with people
around us. The last one is equilibration which means the cognitive balance between
individuals’ understanding of the world and their new experiences.

Piaget believes that children are active, intelligent, and creative in

constructing their own imagination. They have their own way to solve problems and
most of them succeed to do it. Every individual especially children need to undergo
the process of equilibration. According to Piaget, every individual has a need to
understand how things work in their surroundings. We need to understand about
certain situation and need to find the way to solve the problems. The uneasiness will
lead us seek answers or balance.

Every time an individual gains their new experience, he will arrange these
experiences in their mind to form a system called schemes. Scheme will be used by
individuals when they are confronted with situations or problems that need to be
solved and it starts from birth. In many situations, existing schemes will have to
incorporate new information. In this new situation, individual may face many
problems. They need to rearrange the existing schemes to adapt with the new
situation. The changing process or the transformation of the existing schemes is
called adaptation. Adaptation involves two related processes which is assimilation
and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when we are trying to understand
something new by fitting it into what we already knew. Meanwhile, accommodation
occurs when a person change existing schemes to respond to new situation. Each
individual will adjust their thinking to fit the new experiences and this will lead to the
formation of a new scheme.

Piaget observed children as self-motivated individuals where they explore,

form ideas and test ideas individually. Lev Vygotsky provide an alternative to
Piaget’s theory where he focused on the social and cultural influence in developing
children’s mind. According to Vygotsky, social interaction and language skills are the
main factors ion developing children’s cognitive skills. They cannot build knowledge
of a culture on their own. The ideas are emulated through their social interaction with
individuals around them like their parents, teachers, siblings and peers. Adults such
as parents and teacher play important role in the process of interaction and
communication. They will give direction, provide feedback and guide the children’s
communication.

When children are able to benefit from the experience of interacting with more
knowledgeable person, they are in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). It
consists of a range of tasks that an individual cannot yet do alone but can
accomplish when assisted by a more skilled partner. Vygotsky had divided the
children into upper and lower limit. Upper limit are the difficult skills that requires help
and guidance from others for it to be achieved. Whereas, the lower limit is the stage
of skills that the children can achieve by themselves.
5.0 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Physical development refers to physical changes, rate of growth of the

different body parts, the functions of the body parts and human features.(Woolfolks
and Margetts, 2007). These changes influence a child’s behavior both directly and
indirectly. The child physical development will determine his capability to do
something. Physical development also influences the child’s self confidence.
Children who were left out from school achievement will have some effect in their
personality development.

The development of a person starts from the head down to the legs. The
growth direction starts from the middle part of the body and proceeds outward. The
fine sensory motor development at the hands and legs will be the last part of the
physical development. When the infant’s hand muscle had developed, they will be
able to hold objects with one hand using their fingers. Later then, the child’s ability
will becomes clear and specific for example, the child will cry when they hits his head
with something. They still cannot tell because they did not master yet the language.
They’ll able to tell whether they are hurt or not when they mastered the language.
After that, the physical aspect will develop at different stages. Such as, the legs and
hands will reach maximum development during adolescence but the shoulders will
take a longer time. Their creativity also develops quickly during adolescence.

According to Arnold Gesell, the physical developments of children are based

on their norms or typical behavior throughout childhood. He categorized these typical
behaviors into 10 major areas that he called gradients of growth (Gesell,1949) which
are motor characteristic, personal hygiene, emotional expression, fears and dreams,
self and sex, interpersonal relations, play and pastimes, school life, ethical senses
ad the last one is philosophic outlooks.

According to Robert J. Havighurst, the process of living, from birth to death,

consists of people working their way through from one stage of development to
another, by solving their problems in each stage. If the individual fails to complete
the task, it leads him to unhappiness, disapproval by society and problems in later
tasks. On the other hand, if the individual completes the task successfully, it leads
him to happiness and success with future tasks.

Robert J. Havighurst stated that the number of tasks in different age levels
depends on the person and the society he lives in. Some tasks are the same for
everyone, regardless of where you live, as they are about human biology. For an
example, learning to crawl and walk is pretty much same in all societies, as it relies
on genetic factors..

Havighurst added that biology and society have a lot influence, but personal
values of the people who prepare them have as much influences on identifying the
task. He had identified six major stages in human life. They are Infancy & early
childhood (Birth till 6). Middle childhood (6-12), Adolescence (13-18), Early
Adulthood (19-30), Middle Age (30-60) and Later maturity (60 and over).

From there, Havighurst recognized that each human has three sources for
developmental tasks. Which are:Tasks that arise from physical maturation: Learning
to walk, talk, control of bowel and urine, behaving in an acceptable manner to
opposite sex, adjusting to menopause. Tasks that arise from personal values:
Choosing an occupation, figuring out ones philosophical outlook. Tasks that have
their source in the pressures of society: Learning to read, learning to be responsible
citizen.

During the first stage, they will learn to walk, crawl, take slid food, learning to
talk, control the elimination of body wastes, learning sex differences and sexual
modesty and getting ready to read. They are also able to form concepts and learning
language to describe social and physical reality. During the second stage of middle
childhood, they’ll able to learn about physical skills necessary for ordinary games,
learning to get along with age mates, building wholesome attitudes toward oneself as
a growing organism. They also learn on appropriate masculine or feminine social
role, developing concepts necessary for everyday living. They will develop the
concepts of necessary for everyday living, developing conscience, morality and a
scale of values and achieving personal independence.
TASK 2:

I had carried out a test of psychological development with a year four student who
Nur Afifah who is very active and nice. She loves to play netball and computer
games during free time. I had come out with a checklist about her physical skills
which are gross motor and fine motor skills. Below is the checklist that I had
prepared for her.

NO PHYSICAL TEST ANSWER

Gross motor skills Yes No

1 Able to stand with one leg /

2 Able to dance happily /

3 Able to jump /

4 Able to play with friends /

5 Able to play with a small ball (catch and pass) /

6 Able to crawl /

7 Able to run and walk /

Fine motor skills Yes No

1 Able to fold a paper into origami (ship-shaped) /

2 Able to write using a pen /

3 Able to clap /

4 Able to type using a laptop /

5 Able to snap fingers /

 6 Able to draw a simple picture /

7 Able to tight shoelace /

For gross motor skills, I had tested on Iffah which were to stand, playing with
balls and friends and crawling. She can do everything since she is a very active girl.
She can play the ball such as catching and passing the ball to her friends. This is
because she is very good in netball which is her hobby. For fine motor skills, she
was able to fold a paper into origami. She had folded the A4 paper into a ship-
shaped. She also can write the word ‘BAINUN’ by using the correct way of writing.
Moreover, she is able to clap and able to type different words by using laptop. This is
right due to Havighurst’s Development tasks, for the second stage when the children
in 6 to 12 years old, they are able to do physical skills which are necessary for
ordinary games. Iffah is also able to get along with her age mates while playing
games.

Havighurst’s developmental Task theory talks about the problem are faced by
us in all stages of life and he explains them really well. We can all relate that biology
has still with one leg, jumping, dance, some kind of effects in our development, as
well as psychology and society. One thins Havighurst seems to miss is that his
solutions to this problems. It is not so clear in this theory how we sort out this
problems. When it comes to if he’s theory is scientific, it is hard to say, some part of
his theory can be tested, and equally some parts are very difficult to test.
Havighurst’s theory is easy to understand, and it is clear, there is no ambiguity. It is
applicable to many cultures, even though he concentrated on middle class
Americans.