External and Personal Factors Essay Example

of motivation to learn, grow and develop.

Family Drugs/ alcohol/ abuse, broken families or coping with a family member having a long term illness are all obvious affects that take a strain on children and young people’s life’s which can cause depression . Children need stability and good examples set in with in the home environment, parents need to make time for their child and have lots of interaction and stimulation otherwise children may rebel and have behavioural problems. Children in care

Many children live in care either in a care home because of a disability, young offender’s institution from anti-social behaviour or children living with foster families because parents can’t cope or having a family breakdown. Children and young people need a proper home environment because if they are dealing with any of these situations they may feel lost, depressed and alone which is why they need people to help with their cognitive, social and emotional development. Personal Choices

When young people have more independence they will make choices in life such as if they’re going to smoke, take drugs, drink, have sexual encounters and what they eat. These choices can affect their future and development for instance if they choose to have sex they must understand how important it is to protect themselves as there are consequences of having unprotected sex for example getting pregnant or catching STI’s and STD’s, also alcohol, drugs and smoking can cause series health problems such as liver damages, lung cancer and in some cases death.

Personal Factors Influences before and at birth Development starts from the moment the baby is conceived, genetic conditions

may be passed on to the child such as if one of the parents or even grandparents have dwarfism or down syndrome it is likely that it is passed down the genes. If the mother smokes, drinks or does drugs during pregnancy this will have serious health effects for mother and baby, causing the baby to be possibly premature or be born with defects such as missing a limb.

Infections that the mother may pick up can cause harm to the baby and affect their development for example rubella can affect baby’s hearing or sight as well as causing heart or brain defects, HIV can be paused on through mother breast milk and infections can also be caught through animal infections, this is why it is important to always wash hands and disinfect everything like a cats litter box and wearing gloves whilst cleaning.

It is important for mother to have the correct diet and get all the nutrients and vitamins during pregnancy as this will help with baby’s development. During the birth can be very stressful time for mother and baby this is why is it important to keep calm as possible at birth, there can be complications during birth such as problems breathing due to lack of oxygen, cord wrapped around baby’s neck or injuries during birth. Health

Ill health can affect child development, sometimes this may be something they are born with genetically or later develop in life for instance asthma can be caused by poor living conditions such as damp and air quality, this also affects physical restrictions like a child participating in P. E etc. Children that

have ill health problems may spend time in hospital or have regular doctor visits can miss a lot of time from pre-school and school affecting all development areas such as education, emotional and social aspects like making friends.

Disability Children that are disabled can cause restrictions to their development such as a child in wheelchair can’t play chase and run to catch other children, this will cause problems with physical development, so it is important that disabled children needs are met for instance having help going to the toilet, wheelchair ramps to get up steps and doors are wide enough to fit through and if a child can’t play chase then play a game they can get involved in like catching a ball.

Having a disability affects children and young people throughout their life, there are many disabilities and some are internal so cannot be seen and noticed by other people. Some children can be tease and make fun towards a child with a disability as they find them an easy target, this may hurt a child’s feelings and withdraw themselves from playing and interacting with other people as the child will be scared of being picked on again.

Children with learning disabilities will find school life harder than others as some subjects they may find a challenge and will need extra help to complete assignments, children with a disability may find a tutor or going to after school club will help them achieve tasks. Self- esteem is will also be an issue with disabled children as they will look at classmates or celebrities and wonder why they are not everyone else

causing anxiety and frustration.

It important the disabled children are treated equally and have many opportunities to excel themselves so they do not feel alienated from other children, this will help build up their self-esteem to gain confidence. Theories of development Jean Piaget/ Cognitive Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development, he realized that children would constantly give similar wrong answers to questions and figured that these wrong answers revealed an important difference between thinking of adults and children.

Piaget’s work was based on theory of cognitive child development, observation studies and test to revel the different cognitive abilities. Piaget recognized that children would construct an understanding of the world around them, and then experience the difference of what they already know and what they discover in their environment. Piaget referred to child conclusions as schema the basic building blocks for instance babies would experience natural reflexes to objects before even understanding why they are doing it, believing that these reflexes are genetically programmed in us.

For example babies having a suckling reflex which happens by something touching a baby’s lips like suckling a nipple, pacifier or fingers. Piaget believed that children would think differently than adults through 4 stages of cognitive development these are: * Sensori-motor – 0-2 years – object performance – blanket and ball * Pre- operational- 2-7 years- egocentrism- Language and symbols through play * Concrete operational -7-11 years- conversation-learning numbers, using objects as counters. Formal operational -11-15 years-manipulate ideas in head/ thinking about situations that have not yet been experienced. It is important that this theory is put into practice because

these has given teachers and child practitioners a more hands on approach and think ahead by setting tasks and lesson planning, this will help meet the needs of each individual child. Lev Vygotsky/Cognitive

Lev Vygotsky was a theorist for cognitive development basing much of research on social development. Vygotsky was convinced that cognitive would mainly develop through social interaction and hands on experiences, he also believed that all babies were born to be sociable and you could learn and gain most skills from being in the company of others such as parents and other children, he called this term scaffolding.

Another term Vygotsky used was ‘zone of proximal development’ meaning the difference between actual development level determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development through problem solving under adult guidance. For example if been giving a task that a child has never carried out before their first attempt will be poor for instance given a jigsaw for the first time the child would not have much co-ordination but then watching it be put together by a parent or teacher, they can memorise where the pieces go and co-ordination skills improve.