Human Growth And Development Essay

Life is a journey that everyone needs to go through. Life-span development is the process for someone to achieve maturity throughout his or her entire life. In biological term, “human development refers to the sequence of changes which organisms undergo in their route from simple state of organization to complex state of organization, from prenatal stage to maturity” (Van de Ven & Poole, 1995). It involves in physical, mental, cognitive and as well as emotional. In human growth and development, there are eight vital stages for an individual to grow up namely prenatal period, infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood (Papalia, Olds & Feldman, 2009) (Refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1). Firstly, a new life begins in the prenatal stage. Fertilization is a process when a sperm unites with an ovum which occurs in the prenatal stage. In prenatal development, there consist of three sub-stages which are the germinal stage, embryonic stage and fetal stage (Steward, Perlmutter, Friedman, 1988). The germinal stage happens when the zygote which is the formation of a one-celled organism through cell division attached to the uterus wall. Germinal stage occurs within the period of two weeks

The range of ages is from 3 to 5 years. In the early childhood stage, children have the typical height about 37 to 44 inches. Around the age of 4, children begin to develop muscular body and become stronger. Approximately 75% of children gain their weight due to the development of the muscular system (Tanner, 1970 as cited in Kaluger & Kaluger, 1986, p. 235). Children’s motor skill becomes strengthen within the age of 3 to 5 as they are able to move actively such as goes up and down stairs. According to Piaget (1952)’s theory, children are egocentric that they only care about themselves and their own needs in the early childhood