GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT: AN OVERVIEW

GROWTH
• An increase in the size of bodily parts or of the organism as a whole.
• It signifies quantitative changes.
DEVELOPMENT
• The orderly and sequential changes that occur with the passage of time as an organism moves from
conception to death.
MATURATION
• The process wherein development in the individual is due to bodily changes determined by heredity.
- Development is relatively orderly.
- Development are likely to vary among individuals.
- Development takes place gradually.
- Development as process is complex.
• As a process it is a product of…
- Biological process - Involves changes in the individual’s physical nature.
- Cognitive process - Involves changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence and knowledge.
- Socio-emotional process - Involves changes in the individual’s relationship with other people.
Two Approaches of Human Development
1. Traditional development – Shows extensive change from birth to adolescence, little or no change in
adulthood, and decline in late old age.
2. Life-span development – Changes occurs from childhood and continue through adulthood.
Characteristics of Life-Span Development
1. Development is lifelong.
2. Development is multidimensional.
3. Development is plastic.
4. Development is contextual.
5. Development involves, growth, maintenance and regulation

NATURE vs. NURTURE

• Nature - Refers to a person’s inherited characteristics, determined by genetics.

• Nurture - Refers to a person’s experiences in the environment.

Heredity: The Genetic Side

• Refers to the sum total of characteristics biologically transmitted through parents to offspring and direct
determining physical constitution and traits.
• It is nature’s way of passing on to children the actual and potential characteristics of parents.
Two Types of Cells of Human Being
• Body or Somatic Cells • Germ or Reproductive Cells
Heredity is concerned with germ cells.
• Each of these cells has a nucleus which contains set of 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs.
Chromosomes
• They are the physical vehicles that contain the estimated quarter of a million genes that each human being
possesses.
Genes
• They are large molecules of deoxyribunucleic acid (DNA)
• They are the actual hereditary units that combine and act to determine the individual’s unique physical
structure.
Human Inheritance
• Defective genes produce defective characteristics and normal genes, normal characteristics under the
average normal environmental conditions.
• The normal gene is dominant and the defective gene, withdrawn.
Chromosomal Abnormalities
1. Down’s Syndrome
- Most common chromosomal birth defect which is often referred to as mongolism.
2. Turner’s Syndrome or Sexual Infantilism
- This results in females having a single X chromosome, instead of the normal XX.
- Although usually of normal intelligence, the individual shows specific cognitive defects which is called:
VISUAL AGNOSIA - inability to discriminate or recognize the form of objects.
3. Klinefelter’s Syndrome
- This occurs in perhaps one in every 400 males.
- The male is characterized by an extra X chromosome, hence a combination of XXY
4. XYY Abnormality
- This is another sex chromosome abnormality in males which results in abnormality large, aggressive males
who may become aggressive criminals.

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