Human Development: Components, Growth, and Maturation

Basic Components of Development

• Affective Development: The capacity for emotion, controlling emotions, feelings, and passions.
• Cognitive Development: The evolution experienced by a person in notional components, intellect, and personality.
• Social Development: The process by which a person, from childhood, will cultivate skills and knowledge that will make them an active and mature member of their society.
• Moral Development: Achieving their own personal behavior, responsive to values, norms, rules, and customs accepted by the social environment in which the person grows.
• Motor Development: Development that examines changes in human motor skills from birth to old age, the factors involved in these changes, and their relation to other areas of behavior.

Growth and Maturation

Growth is a gradual increase in an organism and its parts. There are several observable phenomena that define it, such as increased body size, changes in proportions, composition, and functioning of the body. Maturation is the evolution of the human body to the adult stage, indicating the pace and timing of changes occurring in the individual.

Dendritic Proliferation and Myelination

• Dendritic Proliferation: Nerve cells need to make contact (synapses) with other cells to transmit nerve impulses. To achieve this, they develop a series of lengthenings called dendrites. One such characteristic lengthening is called the axon.
• Myelination: Connecting to other neurons is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the successful transmission of nerve impulses. For nerve stimulation to be transported through the nerves with speed, it is necessary for extensions to be coated with an insulating myelin sheath.

Principles of Maturation

1. Principle of Order: Maturation is orderly, not random, with all subjects performing the same sequence.
2. Principle of Individual Differences: All individuals go through the same sequence of events, but each one varies in speed and rhythm.
3. Cephalo-Caudal Principle: The maturation of the nervous system takes place along a cephalo-caudal direction, from head to bottom.
4. Principle of General to Specific: Muscle control is acquired in large muscle groups first, then in smaller groups of muscles.
5. Principle of the Critical Period: There are periods in which the organism is particularly sensitive to the presence or absence of certain stimuli.

Laws of Growth

1. Law of Damping Progression: The relative growth of body dimensions in humans is greater the younger they are.
2. Law of Dissociation: Body parts do not grow together or in the same proportions but at different speeds.
3. Law of Alternation: Over time, there are two periods of rapid growth alternating with quieter periods. The fastest are from birth to two years and from 10 to 15 years.