Do you understand development from

synapse to society?
By AGM
The main parts of this course and how they are connected.

Brain development is a complex process that has a big impact during childhood in many aspects of
the individual and societal features. There are two main theories that can be applied to understand
better the development process in humans. The first one is an environment system approach
created by Bronfenbrenner, who defined the process of development as the interaction of a variety
of ecosystems with different layers where the child grows up going from a very basic familiar system
to the impact of culture, religion and social rules and norms on the environment of the infant, called
the bioecological model.

The second model was created by Gilbert Gottlieb, who refers to the development as a bidirectional
interaction of gene activity, neural activity, behaviour, and environment; he called it Probabilistic
Epigenesis. The probabilistic term refers to the chance that a development trait appears in an
individual due to the interaction of genes, neurons, behaviour and environment. The term
epigenesist refers to the relation between genes and environment and how the bidirectional relation
affects each other.

Then, from these two approaches is easiest to understand the development process as a complex
dynamic interaction between environment, genes, neural activity and behaviour that makes every
child unique.

The first step in development, realising that the development of any feature is independent of each
other, is the maturation of the sensory-motor systems. We need to have a full developed sensory
system to perceive the world and its boundaries to know what we have in front of us. Then, we need
a motor system that helps us to interact, modify, touch, grasp, and move and many other actions
with the nearer surroundings.

As we grow up, more complex skills, abilities and cognitive domains evolve. One important one is
the development of language. Maybe will be one of the most important cognitive domain after the
sensory-motor system development. We need to communicate with others in a societal community
and language and communication skills are fundamental. Nature knows it, and has evolved to a
very complex symbol interaction process to make it possible.

But that couldn’t be possible without the cognitive development of attention, memory, processing
speed and executive functions. The growth of the cognitive domains have a base in the maturation
process of the brain during childhood. The two main steps are myelination of axon bundles and the
pruning process. The will help us to acquire better strategies to interact with ambient, increase our
body of knowledge and help to be more flexible in the use of strategies to adapt to the different
systems of interaction.

Finally, there is the socio-emotional development. After a very complex and intricate steps in the
evolving of brain properties, the final step is the maturity of emotional and social domain. In an
integration of the previous steps, socio-emotional skills will help us to have a significant life with
others. The complex process of emotion regulation and social interaction need the previous
domains to be developed correctly, as they are the foundations.

What has surprised you the most from your perception of child development?

Before I started this course I had a more lineal gene-driven concept of development, where the child
has to pass from different stages before ending in a complete adult. As the course went on, I begun
to realize that development is a more complex process that goes forward and backward, driven by
intricate interactions between individual characteristics and social and environmental influences.
Genes not only are the light to follow but can be modified to adapt the behaviour and neural activity
to the necessities of the environment and social interactions. Then, every child have a unique
development process and has to be understood through its bioecological systems maturation.

The most important thing you learned or will take home with you after following this course.

The most important thing I have learned from the course is the concept of development as a
continuum process that extends during all life cycle and how many factors influence it. The
development process starts from the beginning with a big influence of genes in the creation and
growth of cells, connections, tissues, organs and systems inside the body. As we grow up and
mature and equilibrium between nurture and natures express itself and helps the new-born to adapt
to the actual environment in a flexible and dynamic pace. And that process maintain its progress
during all the life cycle. During infancy and childhood a lot of important moments appear to be
fundamental for a good development. For example, the critic windows where some sense systems
(visual, auditory) use to develop to its optimal adaptation to the environment and express its full
potential in an interaction between genes and environment.

How you will be able to use what you learned during this course in your work, study, or
other endeavours.

As a recent graduated in educational psychology, the knowledge acquired during the course will be
very valuable in understanding the child development and how the different development steps
influence evaluation and intervention in educational objectives. During my undergraduate studies I
have learned a lot about development, but not in a clearer and integrative view like this. Sometimes
in university studies is difficult to get the whole image of something because the studies want to
teach too many stuff that give more importance to the details that to understand the big picture of it.

I am very content of having done this course and gained a more general view of development and
the interaction between the factors that influence development, from genes, going through neurons
and ending in the multiple environments human beings go through during life span.