Interaction of

Heredity, Maturation
and Environment
•How Life Begins?
•Stages of Human Development
Consider the graph…

Heredity What can you infer about the graph?

Environment Maturation
What is common with these
three factors?
 BEHAVIOR as a result of Heredity,
Maturation and Environment
• HOW? >> through INTERACTION

Interaction – is the relationship between heredity

and environment. These two factors affects the
shaping and molding of a person’s skills, abilities,
and characteristics. These elements starts to have
an effect from the time of conception and
through time, it develops, and this is called
maturation.
Topics covered
 What is Heredity and How it works?
 Cell Division.
 Chromosomes and Genes.
 Gender Determination
 Dominant and Recessive traits
 Phenotype and Genotype
 Maturation and Development
 Maturation and Learning
 What is Environment, Its type and effects?
What is Heredity?
• Heredity >> determines the specific
traits of a person through a direct
transmission of genetic pattern from
both parents of the offspring.

Note: An offspring can inherit physical

or psychological charateristics from
its parents.

HOW IT IS DONE?
 Conception of a New Individual

Courtesy of StoryTeller Media from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdGsLRGBsCU
 QUESTION!??

Does heredity [only] affects

an individual’s character
as long as he/she lives?

Answer: YES, but not all the time

Zygote and Cell Division
 Zygote is a new cell formed by the union of a
sperm cell and an egg cell. The zygote’s nucleus is
the one responsible for combining the genetic
material from its parents which usually occur within
24hours after conception. The zygote then multiples
[cell divide] into 2, 4, 6, so on.. As it does, it
transforms it self into a human infant.
Cell Division, Chromosomes and Genes
Let’s first define…
• Cell Division - is the process by which a parent
cell divides into two or more daughter cells.
[wikipedia.com]
• Chromosomes – microscopic particles which
carry and transmit hereditary units from the
parents.
• Genes – an individual hereditary unit which
occur in pairs (one from the sperm and one from
the ovum). Genome (complete set of genes)
Things you need to know…
 Human cell contains 46 chromosomes arranged
in 23 pairs.
 A human beign receives 23 chromosomes from
the father and 23 from the mother.
 As the cell divides, the chromosomes are
duplicated and is equally distributed to each
cell of the offspring.
 The total number of genes in each individual is
around 100,000 that is why it is unlikely that 2
human being will have same hereditary
characteristics.
 However, identical twins are exception from
the latter.
Things you need to know…
 The actual carrier of the hereditary
information within the cell is a complex nucleic
acid called DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).
 Meanwhile, another chemical substance called
RNA (ribonucleic acid) responsible for
replicating and transmitting the same DNA for
cellular development.
 Both RNA and DNA, are necessary to the
development of the human being because
within them, genetic instructions are
encryppted. A deep understanding on how
these two works are works done by genetic
engineers.
 Stages of Human Development
From: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_u39xQ3E5iiI/SCUcEJv3EBI/AAAAAAAAAVc/d7aJD1UFNYw/s320/human_1.jpg

After 24 – 48
hours, cell
divides into
multiples of 2

About 9 days,
hollow ball is
formed

Differentiation

About 13
days, Three
layers.
Three Specialization Cells

• Ectoderm - skin, sense organs,

nervous system
• Mesoderm – Muscles, Bone,
Blood
• Endoderm – Digestive System
and other internal organs
Embryo -> Nine mo. Old fetus
 The Sex of the Child
• Female – XX chromosomes
• Male – XY Chromosomes

Gender is…
Male – when an ovum was
fertilized by the Y sperm.
Female – when an ovum was
fertilized by the X sperm.
 Genetic Revolution
Because of men’s curiosity about human
life and nature, men began to develop new
ways to manipulate the genetic materials
that make up the human body. These
includes manipulating and selecting good
traits [genes] from the parents to be passed
on their offspring or artificially produce a
human being through cloning and test
tubing [baby making].
What is your stand? Ethical or Unethical?
 New Technologies on
Human development

• Test-tube (In-Vitro Fertilization or IVF) baby

making.
• Cloning
• Genetic Engineering
 What do they mean?
• IVF – removing eggs from female, fertilizing
them outside the body with sperms from a
male donor and then implanting it again
inside the mother’s womb.
• Cloning – duplicating human embryo where
the cells are simply copied with the same
genes. It can be done also to animals and
plants.
• Genetic Engineering – used as a campaign to
use DNA for treatment and prevention of
human diseases.
 Dominance and Recesiveness
• Dominance and recesiveness of a trait is based on
the evident [present] physical characteristic of an
individual.
• Dominant trait – if one of the genes contain one
donimant gene.
• Recessive trait – if both genes contain recessive
gene.
• Punnet Square – a simple method to determine
[predict] the outcome of a cross breeding. A cross
breeding could be monohybrid or dihybrid.
Example

Suppose the genes are:

• B (black hair) and b (blonde hair).

• R (round) , r (wrinkled), W (white),

w (orange).
 Genotype and Phenotype
• Phenotype [genetic inheritance] -
observable characteristic
• Genotype [genetic characteristic] – seen
and unseen.
Example: B (brown skin) and b (fair skin)
>If a person inherited the B, then the
person has a phenotype [appearance] of B
but a genotype [makeup] of B and recessive
gene of b.
• Pure Dominance – 2 genes with
the same dominant gene

• Pure Recessive – 2 genes with

the same recessive gene
HOW TRAITS [D or R] ARE PASSED?

Through…

INHERITANCE
 What is Inheritance?
• Inheritance is the passing of traits from
the parents of your parents up to their
grand grand parents…
• Polygenic – used to distiguish genes
that composed of more than one pair
of genes.
• An individual can inherit 2 type of
traits
• Physical – color, texture, shape, quality, so on
• Mental - level of intelligence and talents, as
well as defects or abnormalities.
 Where do we get our traits?

• Family Inheritance – individuals of the same

family have similar genes. As a result, a child
inherits characteristics [aside from his/her
parents] from his uncle, aunt, or
grandparents in the same family.
How Intelligence and Emotion inherited?

• Heredity directly influence intelligence

• Environment affects intelligence
• Both play a profound role in person’s
intelligence

Heredity + Environment =
EMOTION?
 MATURATION
• Maturation – the completion of growth and
development within the organism, the
unfolding of an individual’s inherit traits or
potentials.

Note: Some organs in our body needs time to

fully develop to perform its task. It may take
months or years.
 Heredity & Maturation

“Everyorganism have different

rates of maturation”
 Motor Maturation &
Development
• Motor skills = locomotion or movements

• One best example is a growing baby.

A child may progress faster or slower in terms of

development. A child goes through a sequence
of maturation [skills] overtime.
 Sequence of Development of a Baby
Time Frame Skills Time Frame Skills
(month) (month)
0 Fetal posture 8 Stand with help
1 Chin up 9 Stand holding objects
2 Chest up 10 Creep
3 Reach and Miss 11 Walk when led
4 Sit with support 12 Pull to stand by obj.
5 Sit on lap, grasp obj. 13 Climb on stairs
6 Sit on chair 14 Stand alone
7 Sit alone 15 Walk alone

However, the development of a child in early life defends on

maturation rather than practice
Language Development
• A child undergoes 3 stages in
developing its language skill:

– First Stage > noises, cries

– Babbling Stage > variety of sounds
– Final Stage > they used the words they
hear around them

“It is a fact that during the third month of the baby, the
baby already knows how to listen to the voice of her
mother and strangers”
Maturation and Learning
 Rapid Biological Growth Rate
 Learning is influence partly by maturation and
partly by environment [through EDUCATION].
 The key to learning is having the RIGHT DEGREE of
MATURATION when teaching a child a certain skill.
 ENVIRONMENT
• Condition inside and outside an organism that in
a way affects its behavior, growth, development
or life-processes EXCEPT genes.

Types of Environment
Intracellular Environment

1. Internal Environment Extracellular Environment

2. External Environment
 Internal Environment

• Immediate Environment which the genes

exist and functions inside the nucleus.
• The nucleus is surrounded by the cytoplasm.
• Inside the cytoplasm is the intracellular
environment.
• Outside is the extracellular environment.
 External Environment
• Classified into two: Physical and Social
• Physical - made up of all many things
around the world that directly affects us
and the things that stimulates our senses.
• Social – includes human beings who in any
way influence us though our interaction
with them.
ALL in ALL
‘Great qualities are partly the gift of God,
partly the result of good training and
effort ’

-Anonymous
In short…
 Each of us is unique through the interaction of
heredity and Environment
 ‘No two persons are exactly alike’ – except
identical twins.
 A living creature must have a life-span
(MATURATION), guided by the blueprint
(HEREDITY) which is affected by the surrounding
(ENVIRONMENT).
 However, INHERITANCE provides potentialities
for behavior.
 The individual’s behavior development is shaped
by the continual active interplay [interaction]
between genetically controlled behavior and
environment