Question No.

1 

Growth and development may look like same but the have many differences. Explain these
difference. Answer: 

1. Differences Between Growth And Development 

Growth mainly focuses on quantitative improvement while development is associated with

both qualitative and quantitative improvement. For instance, growth is associated with
measurable changes in weight and height. When your child's weight increases from 35
kilograms to 40 kilograms, then the 5 kilogram increment is attributed to growth. 

On the other hand, development is identified when substantial changes in IQ are recorded in
your child's brain power. For instance, your child's IQ level is relatively low during childhood
but can improve significantly into adulthood. Your child's IQ level can improve from 50 to
90 after honing their creative and critical thinking skills. 

Growth ends at maturation while development continues until an individuals demise. As a

teacher or parent, it is important to note that growth ends at maturation. Your child will
experience various changes associated with growth between childhood and maturation at
adolescence. 

This means that your teaching approach will be different at age 6 and age 15. At 6 years, your
child needs simplified information that they can understand because their brain can only
process basic information. At 15 years, your child's brain has improved significantly, and
they are in a unique position to grasp and retain complex information based on their
improved information processing skills. 

Your child has the unique potential to absorb as much knowledge and skills to handle various
life challenges into adulthood. Even at 50 years, they can exhibit advanced skills such as
oratory and problem-solving skills based on their vast experience. 

3. Growth is dependent on cellular changes 

While development is dependent on organizational transformation. Growth begins at

conception and progresses into adulthood. From conception, your child's body experiences
massive changes based on changes in cellular growth. An increase in cellular size and
number indicates that your child is undergoing growth. 

Development is often witnessed at a home or school environment when your child

experiences skillset changes. This simply means that any skills learnt such as reading or
arithmetic are indicative of your child's development changes. The older they get, the more
likely they are to understand complex skills associated with computation and reasoning. 
4. Growth is associated with the progressive physical change from one 
stage to another. 

On the other hand, development is the gradual transformation of behavioral and skill set
changes. Differences in body size that are evident in clothing size changes reveal the growth
changes experienced by your child. Also, you might have noticed that your child consumes
more food than before. This can only mean that they are growing. 

5. Development is usually characterized by behavioral and skillset 

changes. the y Your child might outgrow certain childish behavior as they approach
adolescence or acquire advanced writing, oratory and computation skills. These changes
aren't out of the ordinary but only attest to the development changes experienced by your
child. 

6. Growth is external While development is internal in nature. Regardless of your location

or occupation, you can observe your child's growth based on visible external features. These
features include increased body parts sizes such as hands, legs, ears, and much 
More.. These changes usually manifest over time based on improved nutrition and 
general wellbeing. It is important to note that family instability can also affect your child's
proper growth. Too much stress from domestic strife subjects your child to stunted growth. 

7. Unlike growth, Unlike growth, development is an internal process and isn't visible by the
naked eye. Instead, it requires a comprehensive evaluation of your child's reasoning,
creativity and innovation to ascertain their development status. This can be achieved by
setting various tests designed to evaluate your child's IQ in relation with creativity and
reasoning. Based on their performance, you should be in a unique position to accurately
determine their development level and the changes that ought to be made to rectify the
situation. 

8. Growth dictates changes in physical appearance While development dictates change in

the character of an individual. Growth is easily discernible based on changes in physical
appearance. These changes manifest over time and include increased body size and voice
intonation. Whether such changes are visible based on hair transformation or skin tone, you
can rest assured knowing that your child is experiencing growth changes. 

9. On the other hand, 

On the other hand, development pays much emphasis in the character changes of an
individual. Your child might have been naughty during their early age but over time, they are
likely to transform into a mature young adult. With each passing day, they outgrow certain
habits that can only be traced back to character changes. 

10. 
Growth takes place within a limited scope of time while development takes place within
a vast scope of time. 

This means that growth spans from conception to adolescence depending on your child's
growth rate. During this period, your child undergoes progressive body changes designed to
transform them into adults. By 25 years of age, your child's growth rate will have peaked. 
11. Growth focuses on one aspect of your child's life. 

On the other hand, development focuses on several aspects of your child's life such as
emotional state, intelligence and interpersonal skills. Naturally, growth is a size oriented
process from conception to adulthood. With every increase in body size, you can monitor
your child's growth rate. 

12. On the other hand, development is an all-inclusive process designed to 

analyze various aspects of your child's life. This usually stems from the need to evaluate their
capacity to interact with their peers and adults in an effective way. While their interpersonal
skills might be unpolished at a young age, your child is expected to make improvements
based on their advanced critical thinking and reasoning skills as they get older. 

Question No. 2 What do you think whether development of a child depends on heredity or
environment?Illustrate with examples. 

Answer: 
Heritability 

Heritability is a statistical measure that expresses the proportion of the observed variability in
a trait that is a direct result of genetic variability. Environmental influences can be divided
into two classes, shared and non-shared environment. 

Both heredity and environment contribute to personality traits. Although a person's

environment plays an important part in his personality development, heredity factors play a
larger role in deciding disposition of this environment. 

Heritability is defined as the proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to the additive

effects of genes. A person's genetic background has a strong influence on his personality.
Some personality traits are strongly capable of being inherited by a person. 

This can be seen by the comparison of fraternal twins and identical twins, and twins brought
up together with twins brought up apart. The aim of such a study is 
to see which has a greater influence on personality, the genetic background or the
environmental influence. 
Twin studies showed that identical twins are much more similar than non-identical twins,
which suggests genetic influence. Studies have found that identical twins are more similar
than fraternal twins on a range of personality measures, indicating that characteristics are
heritable. If a family environment has an influence on personality characteristics, twins
brought up together should have more similarities than those brought up apart. Yet, this is not
the case. Thus, through twin studies, it can be seen that a person's personality is based more
on heredity rather than environmental influences. An example is the hereditary of
schizophrenia. Initially, the idea that schizophrenia could run in families for genetic reasons
was not taken into consideration. Instead, schizophrenia was thought to be environmental in
origin, with theories putting the blame on poor parenting. 

However, schizophrenia is a hereditary deficiency which no environmental factors can

completely counteract. Thus, the individual will be defective, regardless of the type of
environmental conditions under which one is being brought up in. 

Hans Eysenck also emphasized the biological nature of personality. He argued that
personality traits are heritable. Eysenck founded the biological and trait approach and he
believed that genetic makeup plays a significant role in the formation of personality. All five
factors of Eysenck's theory (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and
openness) are heritable. 

People inherit more than the global dispositions summarized by the five major personality
factors; specific traits such as self-consciousness, gregariousness and openness to ideas are
also specifically heritable, and in this regard can better be considered basic tendencies than
characteristic adaptations. 

Through the study of parental influences, one can see that parenting has a subtle effect on
personality. Results of adoption studies showed that children bear little resemblance to either
their adoptive parents or their adoptive siblings. Instead, adopted children appear to become
more like their birth parents. 

For personality, adoptive “siblings” (genetically uncorrelated children adopted into the same
adoptive family) correlate near zero, a value implying that shared environment is unimportant
and that environmental influence, which are substantial for personality, are of the non-shared
variety. The heritability estimates, as well as estimates of shared and unique environmental
influences on personality agree well with those from twin studies in suggesting that the
dominant reason for familial resemblance in personality can be traced to genetic factors, with
common environment having only a small effect. 

Thus, this shows that neither parental role modeling nor parenting practices that would
influence all children in a family, seem to have much influence on personality trait. 

In conclusion, both hereditary and environmental factors can influence a person's personality.
Heredity sets the limitation which environmental differences decide the concluding result.
However, genetic factors have a larger effect on personality traits. Through twins and
adoption studies, and the hereditary of schizophrenia, 
It can be seen that hereditary has a bigger effect on personality as compared to family
environment. Thus, studies of heritability and limited parental influence all point to the
notion that personality traits are more of expressions of human biology rather than products
of life experiences. 

Question No. 3 
Suggest some activities for preschool children which may enhance children's physical
growth. 

Answer: 

Activities for children's physical growth. 

Physical activity is an essential component of everyone's overall health and wellness. Getting
regular activity offers short- and long-term benefits for your physical and mental health,
including reducing your risk of disease, building stronger bones and muscles, increasing
energy, and decreasing stress levels. Exercise is essential for everyone throughout their lives,
so we need to be educated on the benefits of exercise and how to incorporate daily physical
activity as early as possible. 

Early childhood services and childcare should include physical activity as a key component
of a child's development. Services should offer play-based activities and games that combine
physical activity with a child's interests and abilities. 

Toddlers should be active for at least 90 minutes a day. When awake, they shouldn't be
inactive for more than an hour at a time, and ideally, time should be made for both indoor and
outdoor playtime and for structured and unstructured activities. 
If you need ideas for physical development activities for toddlers in your care to get them
moving, here are a few indoor games to play with toddlers: 

1. Row, Row, Row Your Boat 

This indoor physical activity is great for toddlers' physical development and socialization
with no equipment necessary. In this exercise, children sit facing a partner with feet touching.
They hold hands and lean forward and backward while singing the classic, “Row, Row, Row
Your Boat.” 2. Musical Hide and Seek 

Play music from a phone and hide it from the children. You and the children can then search
together to figure out where the music is coming from. This will be fun for the kids and will
get them moving. 2 Duath

3. Build a Tower 
For this activity, you'll need a supply of blocks, containers with lids, or another similar,
stackable object. Using your item of choice, build a tower with a child. Take turns adding
blocks or containers to the tower and see how high the child can stack them. You can count
the number of stacked items together, and then when the tower is complete, the child can
knock it down. 

4. Toss Balls in a Basket 

Give toddlers foam or rubber balls to roll back and forth to a partner. Older toddlers can toss
the balls into a basket. During this activity, exercise caution with younger children who might
bite foam balls. Avoid small balls that toddlers could put in their mouths and swallow. 

5. Throw Sponges This activity is great for a hot day. Children take wet sponges and toss
them toward a container or bin. They can compare how far sponges of different sizes can be
thrown or how different amounts of water affect the distance the sponge travels. 

6. Imitate Animals 

While on their hands and knees, toddlers move, stretch, and play like animals. They can hop
like a frog or waddle like a penguin. They can arch their backs, roll on their backs, reach as
high as they can, and walk on all fours. Choose a variety of animals and movements to keep
children engaged and using their whole bodies to stay active. 7. Traffic Safety 
0313-0905455 
Cut three circles from colored paper — one red, one yellow and one green. Label the red
circle “Stop,” the yellow circle “Slow” and the green circle “Go.” One child is chosen to be
the traffic light, and they will hold up the green circle, the yellow circle and the red circle in
turn. 

The other children move forward when “Go” is held up, slow down when “Slow” is held up
and freeze when “Stop” is held up. Take advantage of this fun activity to also teach children
about traffic safety. 8. Snake Dance WOIULUI 

For this activity, children form a line to make a snake. They place their hands on the
shoulders of the child in front of them, and the first child or the teacher leads them around the
room or play area. 
To make things a bit more exciting and challenging, the child at the front of the line can try to
tag the child at the end. This will get everyone moving faster! 

9. Catching Feathers 

Take feathers and toss them into the air for children to catch with their hands or in containers
before they reach the ground. This will get toddlers moving and having fun! 

If children are old enough, they can also each be given a feather and try to keep the feather in
the air by blowing on it. 10. Follow the Leader 

Stand in front of the children and tell them to watch you carefully and copy your moves.
Touch your nose, hop on both feet, stomp in a circle, or crawl on all fours. Choose simple
actions and use large motor activities 
Question No. 4 
How Vygotsky's theory is different from Piaget's theory? 

Answer: 
My theory of cognitive development is comprehensive and is the only perspective that should
be viewed as correct!' 

Lev Vygotsky: 
'I disagree. My theory of cognitive development is the obvious choice for explaining how a
child learns and develops.' Hmm, it appears that we have a difference of opinion here. There
may be no right or wrong theory of cognitive development, but there are definitely
differences between Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development and Lev Vygotksy's
cultural-historical theory. This lesson will identify those similarities and differences. 

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development described and explained the changes in logical
thinking of children and adolescents. Piaget proposed that children proceed through four
stages based on maturation and experience. Piaget's theory is guided by assumptions of how
learners interact with their environment and how they integrate new knowledge and
information into existing knowledge. Briefly, he proposed that: 

1. children are active learners who construct knowledge from their environments 2. they learn
through assimilation and accommodation, and complex cognitive 
development occurs through equilibration 3. the interaction with physical and social
environments is key for cognitive 
development 4. development occurs in stages 

Piaget believed those children's cognitive development progresses through four stages which
involve sensori-motor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational periods.
These stages are treated as fixed and universal and represent a general sequence which is
observable in all types of cognitive change. 

Piaget argued that children's thinking and the ways through which they make sense of their
experiences (schemes) change with age. The infancy period is marked by sensori-motor
action patterns during which a child acts on the objects around him/her to form schemes.
Soon, he/she begins to form mental images which help to transform thinking and experiences
into meaningful, manageable and memorable patterns. This transformation in thinking is
supported by two critical processes including adaptation and organization. Adaptation
involves the process of developing schemes by directly working upon the environment
through assimilation or accommodation. However, if the balance between these two is
disturbed, it causes a cognitive conflict or disequilibrium 
within the minds of children. It is important to resolve the conflict through either assimilation
or accommodation to bring the mind back to the equilibrium state. These resulted in
developing more effective schemes that help the child to advance his/her thinking. 

i. The sensori-motor stage. 

The sensorimotor stage is characterized by the first two years of life during which infants
think through their five senses. At the beginning of this stage, the sensory reflexes of the
child serve to make up for his/her intelligence. The child engages in circular reactions
(repeating chance behaviors) which help him/her to adapt to his/her surroundings. Later, the
child deliberately employs intentional or goal directed behaviors by coordinating different
schemes to solve simple problems. Object permanence (the ability to understand that objects
exist even when they are not seen) emerges towards the end of this period whichhelps to set
the stage for mental representations and engage s the child in make-believe play. 

ii. The preoperational stage. 

As children grow, they enter in the preoperational stage (2 to 7 years) which characterizes
their immense representational or symbolic capacities. Children make advancements in their
mental representations as they develop more effective schemes. For example, as they get past
the first two years of their life, their make believe play gets more sophisticated. 

This cognitive change is seen when a child older than 2 years of age pretends to use an object
(cup) in different ways, for example, using it to drink water as well as using it as a hat.
Similarly, children's drawings get more mature, realistic and detailed during the preschool
years. However, their expanding cognitive capacities are limited by their inability to take into
account someone else's perspective, referred to as egocentrism. 

Vygotsky's Theory 

Lev Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development, referred to as his cultural historical theory,
focused on the role of culture and social interactions. Vygotsky maintained that speech is a
major psychological tool in the child's development of thinking. As children age and develop,
their basic speech becomes more complex. 

Vygotksy's theory is guided by six major assumptions: 

1. children develop through informal and formal conversations with adults 2. the first few
years of life are critical for development, as this is where thought 
and language become increasingly independent 3. complex mental activities begin as basic
social activities 4. children can perform more difficult tasks with the help of a more
advanced 
individual 5. tasks that are challenging promote cognitive development growth 6. play is
important and allows children to stretch themselves cognitively 
Question No. 5 

What are social skills? Also discuss the social characteristics and the factors affecting social
development at preschool level. 

Answer: 
Social Skills 

Social skills are ways of dealing with others that create healthy and positive interactions.
Children who have social skills can communicate clearly, calmly, and respectfully. They
show consideration for the feelings and interests of their peers. 
They take responsibility for their actions, are able to control themselves, and are able to assert
themselves when neded. Children learn social skills through experiences with peers,
examples and instructions from their parents, and time with adults. 

It is important for children to use social skills because they are the route to creating and
developing relationships. They are needed for enriching social experiences, and they lessen
the chance for negative interactions. Being the building blocks for friendships, social skills
give children the chance to learn from their peers and learn how to be considerate with those
they meet in the future. By having a positive impact on life experiences, social skills also give
children a sense of confidence and mastery over their environment. 
Factors effecting social development at preschool level 

Research findings indicate that there are various factors, which contribute towards socio-
emotional development during the preschool years. These factors are discussed in the
following section: 

i. Peer relationships During the preschool years, peers (other children who are a child's
equal) begin to play an important role in children's social and cognitive development.
Children's relationship with other peers differs in several ways from their interactions with
adults. Peer play allows children to interact with other individuals whose level of
development is similar to their own. When peers have dispute among themselves, they must
make a concessions and must cooperate in resolving them if the play is to continue; in a peer
dispute no one can claim to have ultimate authority. Peer conflicts also let children see that
others have thoughts, feelings and viewpoints that are different from their own. Conflicts also
heighten children's sensitivity to the effects of their behavior on others. In this way peer
relationships help young children to overcome the geocentricism that Piaget described as
being characteristic of preoperational thinking. ii. Pro-social behavior 

Pro-social behaviors are voluntary actions towards others such as caring, sharing, comforting
and cooperation. Research on the roots of pro-social behavior has contributed to our
knowledge of children's moral as well as social development. Several factors seem to be
associated with the development of pro-social behaviors (Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989). These
include the following: 

Parental disciplinary techniques that stress the consequences of the child's behavior for others
and that are applied within a warm, responsive parent-child relationship. (Hoffman, 1993)
Contact with adults who indicate they expect concern for others, who let children know that
aggressive solutions to problems are unacceptable, and who 
provide acceptable alternatives. (Konig, 1995) 
• Contact with adults who attribute positive characteristic to children when they 
do well (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994) 
ii. Play 
Most of a preschooler’s interaction with peers occurs during play. However, the degree to
which play involves other children increases over the preschool years. In a classic study of
preschoolers, Mildred Parten (1932) identified four categories of play that reflect increasing
levels of social interaction and sophistication. Solitary play is play that occurs alone, often
with toys, and is independent of what other children are doing. Parallel Play involves children
engaged in the same activity side by side but with very little interaction or mutual influence.
Associative Play is much like parallel play but with increased levels of interaction in than
form of sharing, turn taking, and general interest in what others are doing. Cooperative play
occurs when children join together to achieve a common goal, such as building a large castle
with each child building a part of the structure. Children engage in more complex form of
plays as they grow older, advancing from simple forms of play to complex pretend play in
which children cooperate in planning and carrying out activities. 

Play is most important for children because it exercises their linguistic, cognitive, and social
skills and contributes to their general personality development . Children use their minds
when playing, because they are thinking and acting as if they were another person. 

When they make such a transformation they are taking a step toward abstract thinking in that
they are freeing their thoughts from a focus on concrete objects. Play is also associated with
creativity; especially the ability to be less literal and more flexible in one's thinking. Play has
an important role in Vygotsky's theories of development because it allows children to freely
explore ways of thinking and acting that are above their current level of functioning.
Vygotsky wrote, “in play a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior;
in play it is as though he were a head taller than his self.
Preschoolers' play appears to be influenced by a variety of factors. For instance, preschoolers’
interactions with peers are related to how they interact with their parents. Three year old who
have a warmed nurturing relationships with parents are more likely to engage in social
pretend play and resolve conflicts with peers than are children with less secure relationships
with their parents. Children also play better with familiar peers and same sex peers. Providing
age appropriate toys and play activities can also support the development of play and peer
interaction skills.