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I.

Introduction The human species could not survive without functional reproductive systems. The

reproductive systems play essential roles in the development of the structural and functional differences between males and females, influence human behaviour, and produce offspring. However, reproductive systems, unlike other organ systems, are not necessary for the survival of individual humans. Most organ systems of the body show little difference between males and females. Human beings are born with the body organs needed for reproduction but reproduction cannot actually occur until these organs mature. This maturation process takes place during puberty, a period of several years in which a boy or a girl goes through dramatic physical changes. These changes are regulated by certain hormones. The reproductive systems of females and males differ greatly in shape and structure. But both systems are specifically designed to produced and nourish and transport the egg or sperm. Reproduction is the process by which human beings create more of their own kind. Human beings reproduce sexually. That is, a new individual human beings develops from the joining together of two sex cells, one from the female parent and one from the male parent. The ability to reproduce is one of the unifying characteristics of all living things. Sexual reproduction produces offspring that are genetically different from their parents. Asexual reproduction produces offspring genetically identical to their parent.

II.

Text/ Content Principles of Growth and Development Reproduction The male reproductive system Spermatogenesis Sexual Structures The Female Reproductive System Ovarian Cycle Sexual Responses Fertilization Steps in Ferilization Human Development Heredity Ten Stages of Human Development Prenatal Infancy Toddler Early Childhood Adolescence

Early Adulthood Middle Age Old Age Death Aspects of Human Development Motor Development Social Development Cognitive Development Moral Development Psychosexual Development Psychosocial Development Evaluation Conclusion References

Principles of Growth and Development The growth and development of a newborn baby experiences several dramatic changes at the time of birth. Reproduction The ability to reproduce is one of the unifying characteristics of all living things. Sexual reproduction produces offspring that are genetically different from their parents. Asexual reproduction produces offspring genetically identical to their parent. The Male Reproductive System Testes are suspended outside the abdominal cavity by the scrotum, a pouch of skin that keeps the testes close or far from the body at an optimal temperature for sperm development. Seminiferous tubules are inside each testis, and are where sperm are produced by meiosis. About 250 meters (850 feet) of tubules are packed into each testis. Spermatocytes inside the tubules divide by meiosis to produce spermatids that in turn develop into mature sperm.

Spermatogenesis Sperm production begins at puberty at continues throughout life, with several hundred million sperm being produced each day. Once sperm form they move into the epididymis, where they mature and are stored.

Sexual Structures Sperm pass through the vas deferens and connect to a short ejaculatory duct that connects to the urethra. The urethra passes through the penis and opens to the outside. Secretions from the seminal vesicles add fructose and prostaglandins to sperm as they pass. The prostate gland secretes a milky alkaline fluid. The bulbourethral gland secretes a mucus-like fluid that provides lubrication for intercourse. Sperm and secretions make up semen.

The Female Reproductive System The female gonads, ovaries, are located within the lower abdominal cavity.

The ovary contains many follicles composed of a developing egg surrounded by an outer layer of follicle cells. Each egg begins oogenesisas a primary oocyte. At birth each female carries a lifetime supply of developing oocytes, each of which is in Prophase I. A developing egg (secondary oocyte) is released each month from puberty until menopause, a total of 400-500 eggs. Ovarian Cycles

After puberty the ovary cycles between a follicular phase (maturing follicles) and a luteal phase (presence of the corpus luteum). These cyclic phases are interrupted only by pregnancy and continue until menopause, when reproductive capability ends. The ovarian cycle lasts usually 28 days. During the first phase, the oocyte matures within a follicle. At midpoint of the cycle, the oocyte is released from the ovary in a process known as ovulation. Following ovulation the follicle forms a corpus luteum which synthesizes and prepares hormones to prepare the uterus for pregnancy. The uterus has an inner layer, the endometrium, in which a fertilized egg implants. At the lower end of the uterus the cervix connects the uterus to the vagina. The vagina receives the penis during intercourse and serves as the birth canal. Sexual Responses Humans do not have a mating season , females are sexually receptive to the male at all times of the year. There are four stages in mating: arousal, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. During male arousal, blood flows into the three shafts of spongy erectile tissue inside the penis, causing it to become elongated and erect. The female arousal has the swelling of the areas around the vagina, erection of the clitoris and nipples, and secretion of lubricating fluids in the vagina. After insertion of the penis into the vagina, pelvic thrusts by both partners stimulate sensory receptors in the penis, vaginal walls, and clitoris. The sperm leave the epididymis and secretions of glands form the semen. Orgasm involves contractions of muscles of the penis (male) or vagina (female) and waves of pleasurable sensations. Resolution reverses the previous phases: muscles relax, breathing slows, the penis returns to its normal size. Fertilization Fertilization has three functions:

1. transmission of genes from both parents to offspring 2. restoration of the diploid number of chromosomes reduced during meiosis 3. initiation of development in offspring

Steps in Fertilization
y y y y

Contact between sperm and egg Entry of sperm into the egg Fusion of egg and sperm nuclei Activation of development

.Human Development Fertilization, the fusion of the sperm and egg, usually occurs in the upper third of the oviduct. Thirty minutes after ejaculation, sperm are present in the oviduct, having traveled from the vagina through the uterus and into the oviduct. Sperm traverse this distance by the beating of their flagellum. Of the several hundred million sperm released in the ejaculation, only a few thousand reach the egg. Only one sperm will fertilize the egg. One sperm fuses with receptors on the surface of the secondary oocyte, triggering a series of chemical changes in the outer oocyte membrane that prevent any other sperm from entering the oocyte. The entry of the sperm initiates Meiosis II in the oocyte. Fusion of the egg and sperm nuclei forms the diploid zygote.

Heredity The genes for certain traits are passed down in families from parents to children. This has been known for thousands of years--even in Biblical times--and has allowed farmers to breed better crops and animals. For example, parents with black hair will likely give birth to children with black hair, just as parents with long noses will have kids with long noses. Once in awhile, though, this doesnt work and parents with black hair will give birth to a blond. This discrepancy can be explained by the principle of segregation, first noted by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel over 100 years ago. The principle has three parts:

1. Hereditary traits are determined by specific genes. 2. Individuals carry two genes for each trait, one from the mothers egg and one from the fathers sperm. 3. When an individual reproduces, the two genes split up (segregate) and end up in separate gametes. The principle of segregation applies to all organisms, including humans. 1. Hereditary traits are determined by specific genes. Within the DNA molecule, genes exist that specify a certain, single characteristic; there is a gene for height, a gene for weight, and a gene for eye color, etc. Variations of the gene relating to the same trait are called alleles.

2. Individuals carry two genes for each trait, one from the mothers egg and one from the fathers sperm. One of these two genes is dominant over the other. The dominant allele will mask the other, called the recessive allele. For example, if the father gives a tall allele of the height gene, and the mother gives a short allele, the offspring will be tall. This is because tall is dominant and short is recessive.

The British mathematician/biologist R.C. Punnett devised a method of picturing this concept on a graph called a Punnett Square. Punnett Squares graph the fathers genotype (the genetic information concerned with a specific trait: for example, two alleles for tall, or two for short, or one for each) crossed with the mothers. Punnett Squares show the probability of having children who have a certain trait. Dominant alleles are shown by a capital letter. Recessive alleles are shown by the lowercase of the same letter.

t T t Tt tt

t Tt tt

Ten Stages of Human Development Prenatal Prenatal or antenatal development is the process in which a human embryo or fetus (or foetus) gestates during pregnancy, from fertilization until birth. Often, the terms fetal development, foetal development, or embryology are used in a similar sense. After fertilization the embryogenesis starts. In humans, when embryogenesis finishes, by the end of the 10th week of gestational age, the precursors of all the major organs of the body have been created. Therefore, the following period, the fetal period, is described both topically on one hand.

Infancy Although science generally avoids making value statements, in the world of psychology, one value is comfortably accepted by everyone: We would like to know how best to raise children to become healthy, happy, and productive people. This is what the field of developmental psychology is all about. Infancy is usually considered the first 2 1/2 years of life. The first two months of infancy is called the neonatal period. At this point, life is mostly a matter of satisfying one's basic needs: Enough milk (preferably mom's), staying warm and dry, and, of course, pooping. Lots and lots of pooping. More seriously, the infant needs to be protected from harm and infection, the latter being the greatest threat at this time of life. The surprising finding was that the babies seemed pretty happy with all the faces - even the "scary" one - except the one consisting of one eye. It would seem that the presence of two eyes is a key feature for infants! Attachment is normally established by 8 months or so. Signs of attachment include separation anxiety, which is common between 6 and 18 months old, and stranger anxiety, which is common

between 8 months and 24 months. Middle infancy (about 2 to 15 months) is a period of rapid growth and weight gain. The nervous system is clearly pulling its act together, and the infant has a strong drive to move and make noise. Among its needs now are not only the presence of a loving adult, but opportunities to experience the environment and to explore it. Inborn personality differences (called temperaments) become very clear: Some babies are easily upset or frightened, some quick tempered, some easygoing and calm; Some are active, restless, and fidgety, some quiet an lazy; Some like people, some are shy, some are independent.

Toddler A toddler is a young child, usually defined as being between the ages of one and three. Registered nurse, midwife and author, Robin Barker, states 'Any time from eight months onwards your baby will begin to realise he is a separate person from you. He will find it exciting to be able to move away from you but scary when you move away from him. The toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development. Toddler development refers to the changes that occur in children aged between 1 and 3 years. Change may occur as a result of genetic processes known as maturation, or may be due to environmental factors and learning. Usually it involves an interaction between the two. Early Childhood Early childhood is a stage in human development. It generally includes toddlerhood and some time afterwards. Play age is an unspecific designation approximately within the scope of early childhood. 4.5 Childhood Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence.[1] In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood (learning to walk), early

childhood (play age), middle childhood (school age), and adolescence (puberty through postpuberty). Age ranges of childhood The term childhood is non-specific and can imply a varying range of years in human development. Developmentally, it refers to the period between infancy and adulthood. In common terms, childhood is considered to start from birth. Some consider that childhood, as a concept of play and innocence, ends at adolescence. In many countries, there is an age of majority when childhood officially ends and a person legally becomes an adult. The age ranges anywhere from 13 to 21, with 18 being the most common. Adolescence ADOLESCENCE is the period of life between childhood and adulthood. It begins with puberty, a time of rapid growth and sexual development. While all human beings go through the physical changes of puberty, not all societies recognize the period known as adolescence as a distinct phase of development. In some East African societies, for example, children go through a ceremony to mark their passage into adulthood. The advantage of this is that it avoids the confusion many societies have over when an adolescence should be accorded adult privileges and responsibilities. This confusion is particularly evident in the Western world. For example, in the state of Alabama you may marry at fourteen with parental consent, but you may not buy alcohol until you are nineteen. In many states, you may drive at sixteen; in no state may you vote until you are eighteen. In development world, today's adolescence have to wait a long time before they are considered adults, are allowed to work at adult jobs, and are accorded adult rights and privileges. In fact, adolescence now lasts for a much longer time than it did in the past. This is partly because young people spend so many more years at school now. Although adolescence may be physically and mentally mature, they may still be financially dependent on their parents. At home and at school they may still be treated as through they were younger children.

Adolescents often become very involved in working out exactly how they see themselves. We will look at how they begin to stand back and look at themselves from the point of view of others in an attempt to discover their true identity their "real" self. The final chapter deals with some of the problems that, although not exclusive to adolescence, tend to arise for some people during this period of development. Early Adulthood

Middle age

Old age

Death (I'd remove "death" from the idea of "human development.") Death is usually not attributed to old age . Some other problem such as heart failure , renal failure , or stroke is usually listed as the cause of death. Death was once defined as the loss of heartbeat and respiration. In recent years , however more precise definitions of death have been developed, because both the heart and the lungs can kept working artificially. The most widely accepted indication of death in humans is whole brain death, which is manifested clinically by the absence of response to stimulation. Aspects of child Development Child development is not a matter of a single topic, but progresses somewhat differently for different aspects of the individual. Here are descriptions of the development of a number of physical and mental characteristics.

Motor Development Most infants develop motor abilities in the same order and at approximately the same age. In this sense, most agree that these abilities are genetically preprogrammed within all infants. The environment does play a role in the development, with an enriched environment often reducing the learning time and an impoverished one doing the opposite. The following chart delineates the development of infants in sequential order. The ages shown are averages and it is normal for these to vary by a month or two in either direction. 2 months able to lift head up on his own 3 months can roll over 4 months can sit propped up without falling over 6 months is able to sit up without support 7 months begins to stand while holding on to things for support 9 months can begin to walk, still using support 10 months is able to momentarily stand on her own without support 11 months can stand alone with more confidence 12 months begin walking alone without support 14 months can walk backward without support 17 months can walk up steps with little or no support 18 months able to manipulate objects with feet while walking, such as kicking a ball

Social-emotional development What develops? Newborn infants do not seem to experience fear or have preferences for contact with any specific people. In the first few months they only experience happiness, sadness, and anger. A babys first smile usually occurs between 6 and 10 weeks. It is called a social smile because is usually occurs during social interactions. By about 812 months, they go through a fairly rapid change and become fearful of perceived threats; they also begin to prefer familiar people and show anxiety and distress when separated from them or approached by strangers. The capacity for empathy and the understanding of social rules begin in the preschool period and continue to develop into adulthood. Middle childhood is characterized by friendships with age-mates, and adolescence by emotions connected with sexuality and the beginnings of romantic love. Anger seems most intense during the toddler and early preschool period and during adolescence. Individual differences Individual differences in the sequence of social-emotional development are unusual, but the intensity or expressiveness of emotions can vary greatly from one normal child to another. Individual tendencies to various types of reactivity are probably constitutional, and they are referred to as temperamental differences. Atypical development of social-emotional characteristics may be mildly unusual, or may be so extreme as to indicate mental illness.Temperamental traits are thought to be stable and enduring throughout the life span. Children who are active and angry as infants can be expected to be active and angry as older children, adolescents and adults.

Cognitive Development What develops? The capacity to learn, remember, and symbolize information, and to solve problems, exists at a simple level in young infants, who can perform cognitive tasks such as discriminating animate and inanimate beings or recognizing small numbers of objects. During childhood, learning and information-processing increase in speed, memory becomes increasingly longer, and symbol use and the capacity for abstraction develop until a near-adult level is reached by adolescence Sensorimotor Stage. This stage occurs between the ages of birth and two years of age, as infants begin to understand the information entering their sense and their ability to interact with the world. During this stage, the child learns to manipulate objects although they fail to understand the permanency of these objects if they are not within their current sensory perception. In other words, once an object is removed from the childs view, he or she is unable to understand that the object still exists. Preoperational Stage. The second stage begins after Object Permanency is achieved and occurs between the ages of two to seven years of age. During this stage, the development of language occurs at a rapid pace. Children learn how to interact with their environment in a more complex manner through the use of words and images. This stage is marked by Egocentrism, or the childs belief that everyone sees the world the same way that she does. The fail to understand the differences in perception and believe that inanimate objects have the same perceptions they do, such as seeing things, feeling, hearing and their sense of touch. Concrete Operations Stage. Occurring between ages 7 and about 12, the third stage of cognitive development is marked by a gradual decrease in centristic thought and the increased ability to focus on more than one aspect of a stimulus. They can understand the concept of grouping, knowing that a small dog and a large dog are still both dogs, or that pennies, quarters, and dollar bills are part of the bigger concept of money. Formal Operations Stage. In the final stage of cognitive development (from age 12 and

beyond), children begin to develop a more abstract view of the world. They are able to apply reversibility and conservation to both real and imagined situations. They also develop an increased understanding of the world and the idea of cause and effect. By the teenage years, they are able to develop their own theories about the world. This stage is achieved by most children, although failure to do so has been associated with lower intelligence.

Psychosexual Development The first stage of psychosexual development is the oral stage, spanning from birth until the age of two years, wherein the infant's mouth is the focus of libidinal gratification derived from the pleasure of feeding at the mother's breast, and from the oral exploration of his or her environment, i.e. the tendency to place objects in the mouth. The id dominates, because neither the ego nor the super ego is yet fully developed, and, since the infant has

no personality (identity), every action is based upon the pleasure principle. Nonetheless, the infantile ego is forming during the oral stage; two factors contribute to its formation: (i) in developing a body image, he or she is discrete from the external world, e.g. the child understands pain when it is applied to his or her body, thus identifying the physical boundaries between body and environment; (ii) experiencing delayed gratification leads to understanding that specific behaviors satisfy some needs, e.g. crying gratifies certain needs

III.

Evaluation

"One of life's great dramas: the development of an offspring in the image of its parents" , according to Cecile Starr. Life begins through the mating of parents to have an offspring.

Reproductive systems play an essential roles in the development of the structural and functional differences between males and females, influence human behavior, and produce offspring. From the research websites, all parts of reproducing an infant is quite detailed. The ability to reproduce is one of the unifying characteristics of all living things. Sexual reproduction produces offspring that are genetically different from their parents. Asexual reproduction produces offspring genetically identical to their parent. Fission, budding, fragmentation, and the formation of rhizomes and stolons are some of the mechanisms that allow organisms to reproduce asexually. The hydra produces buds; starfish can regenerate an entire body from a fragment of the original body. Asexual reproduction allows an organism to rapidly produce many offspring without the time and resources committed to courtship, finding a mate, and mating. The lack of genetic variability in asexually reproducing populations can be detrimental when environmental conditions (for which all the clones are so well adapted) change quickly. Human reproduction employs internal fertilization, and depends on the integrated action of hormones, the nervous system, and the reproductive system. Gonads are sex organs that produce gametes. Male gonads are the testes, which produce sperm and male sex hormones. Female gonads are the ovaries, which produce eggs (ova) and female sex hormones.

IV. Conclusion

V. References Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology Rod R. Seeley Idaho State University Trent D. Stephens Idaho State University Philip Tate Phoenix Clloege The World Book Encyclopedia World Book Inc. London Chicago Sydney

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