Articles Tagged: development

Although detailed consideration of the historical development of equity is inappropriate here, brief consideration of the emergence of the twin systems of common law and equity is essential to understanding the part that equity plays in the modern world.   In the three hundred years following the Norman Conquest, the courts of common law developed and consolidated their respective jurisdictions. 

Roosevelt’s policy towards Britain between May 1940 and December 1941 experienced distinct discernible developments and changes.  These developments and changes of Roosevelt’s policy towards Britain were caused by the various domestic and foreign policy factors that will be outlined below.

Recent research has proved that the form of a town or a city can affect its sustainability (1). This is not only because of the socio cultural factors but also mainly because of the shape, size, density and uses of a city.

1.0 Introduction

This paper will discuss training issues within the UK, and what organisations and the government are doing to address a skill shortage. The labour force in competitor countries is educated to higher levels than those in the UK, and that higher education qualifications will ever more be in demand to address future skills needs, particularly at the technical, associate professional and customer service level (M. Doyle 2003).

Manchester has seen radical change in recent years from its traditional 19th Century appearance of an industrial city to a modern 21st century city, with a mixture of modern, traditional and natural architecture and planning. Urban Development Corporations (UDCs)  aim to move from a place of functionality to a home, community and place of pride. Manchester is following in the stead of other cities in the world, which have turned away from its traditional industries to service centres, and tourist attractions of the developed world.

Manchester has seen radical change in recent years from its traditional 19th Century appearance of an industrial city to a modern 21st century city, with a mixture of modern, traditional and natural architecture and planning. Urban Development Corporations (UDCs)  aim to move from a place of functionality to a home, community and place of pride. Manchester is following in the stead of other cities in the world, which have turned away from its traditional industries to service centres, and tourist attractions of the developed world.

Albert Einstein once said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”. These simple words coming out of a genius’s mind carry a lot of meaning and depth in them. The last two decades saw an exponential rise in different branches of engineering and sciences; and with these developments came in a crowd of very advanced yet very complicated technologies. Are these complexities intended?

Vygotsky’s original ideas on the relationship between child development and learning, leading to his concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’, have become hugely influential in education and teaching practice, spawning much research in this field in recent years.  It is important firstly, to situate Vygotsky’s work alongside that of Piaget, whose theories have underpinned much of educational thinking and practice for many decades.  The concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) has opened up many new ideas, not only about the nature of child development itself, but also about how children may be helped to learn more effectively within the classroom context.  Researchers have studied work within the ZPD from a variety of perspectives and there are clearly contrasting views, emanating from Vygotsky’s work, about the nature of children’s learning and how it might best be enhanced through the interrelationships between children and adults and children and their peers. 

According to the International Federation of Social workers, the definition of social work is given as follows:

“The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being. Utilizing theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work” (from IFSW General meeting, Canada, 2000 in ifsw.org).

The industry that has developed around music is one of the most significant sectors in business. In the UK alone, the music industry is worth around £5 billion per annum and has around 126,000 full-time employees. It is therefore important for the economy that the industry remains active, not only in Britain, but worldwide.

This article will attempt to examine the importance of development in children by considering and examining play as a key developmental factor in the following areas: social, cognitive, physical, mental and language.  To do this, a focus will primarily involve children from birth through to six years of age.  Moreover, this article will provide an explanation of how children learn through play, a description of children’s learning and development through the various ages in their early life and how these developments change during different aspects of their growth through life.

Firstly, it is important to define the word ‘play’.  According to a dictionary definition, play is ‘to occupy oneself .. to fulfil or cause to fulfil (a particular role) .. games, exercise or other activity undertaken for pleasure, esp. by children.’ (McLeod 1990).

By about six months old, babies take a positive interest in the activity of play and often enjoy the play of ‘exploration’ (exploring themselves and other objects or beings around them).  They are, by this stage, using all of their senses (Bee 1994, page 167).  Babies of this age learn the basic cognitive and social behaviour as they enjoy play with other human beings (such as parents making funny faces and noises at them) and they learn to distinguish a meaning in different signals and behaviours at the same time learning how social interaction can be pleasurable to them. Babies from this age also learn about their physical makeup and about the makeup of inanimate objects through their sensory exploration (through touch, taste, sound, look, hear) (Kelly-Byrne 1989, page 3).

Journeying through toddler years, young children learn to develop all the key areas of social, cognitive, physical, mental and language important to the growth of the human being.  The child learns to sit up, crawl, walk, run, climb and ‘grab’ at everything; they also learn to explore, discover and experiment with whatever takes their interest (physical play).  They use their growing skills to learn physical co-ordination (putting one object inside another), creativity (through drawing and painting), language (through interacting with other human beings or even objects of play) social and cognitive skills (through their own intuition and learning experiences, predominantly by observing and copying the actions and behaviours of others older than them) (Jeffree and McConkey 1993, page 28).

From the ages of four through to six years, children begin to really show off their individual personalities, competencies and/or insecurities. (Kelly-Byrne 1989, page 12).  One thing to remember however, is that although children undergo similar key developments (such as general growth in age and development through social, behavioural, cognitive, physical, mental, and language), they are, it has to be stressed, also very individual and very different from one another (for example, children learn similar processes at different times in their lives, but change and develop these processes to fit into their own individual identities and little worlds) (Lindon 1998, page 11).

 

At four to six years, the activity of play changes again for children as they become more immersed in detail, better focused on activity and tasks and confident even in multi-tasking many different skills simultaneously.  These children enjoy activities involving building and constructing, creativity involving drawing and painting (recognisable shapes, objects and/or people) reading (or rather, being read to) literature involving writing sentences, paragraphs and stories (Lindon and Lance 1993, page 36).  An important key development for children of this age range, is through the element of planning things out (they show ability to think and analyse during their play - what to build, what to draw, what story to write, what role to play out).  This age group also show key developments in recognition of and growing towards their gender stereotypes and adulthood – the often play out domestic, work and/or general tasks of adults – tasks involving cooking, cleaning, shopping, dressing up, fixing things and playing Mummies and Daddies - and these children also seem to demonstrate an immense pleasure in pretend role playing such adult and grown up activities almost to the extent they are fore playing and themselves for their own ‘grown up’ lives (Bee 1994, page 258).  These children develop their language skills to a peak extent during this age range – to such a climax that they coherently and confidently express ideas and opinions to other children and adults alike.  This age range is an important one compared to the previous and younger ages mentioned herein as these children have entered the school domain.  Thus, not only are they being taught and encouraged to bring out and grow their key developments, they are also interacting with other children of similar age ranges and are able to play within and outside school hours (Petrie 1994, page 40). 

Unlike their younger toddler counterparts, children from ages five to six so many examples of their own independence, through such acts as dressing themselves (or tying their own shoelaces).  Through such activity these children demonstrate key developments, they offer opinions of likes and dislikes, they are aware of their emotional as well as physical wellbeing, they also have an understanding between good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, respect and disrespect, moral and immoral.  Moreover they have all rounding key developments within their co-ordination, cognition, independence, mental and physical skills and capabilities (Petrie 1994, page 15).  These children reach the stage whereby they become obsessed with self-development and with self care (Save the Children 1995, page 3).  With much encouragement, children of this age group will show characteristics of wanting to strive to achieve, to please and to be ambitious, often throwing themselves into their tasks or activities with healthy enthusiasm and interest.  That said, it is also important to stress that each child (of all age groups – from birth to six years) is individual in the level of his/her accomplishments, skills and developments – some are better than others in say, creativity or in the tying of shoelaces, some are better than others in communication, language or social behaviour.  The main point is, that no two children are the same – even if they happen to come from the same family and have a similar upbringing (Bee 1994, page 198).

This article has thus far referred to the normal, able bodied, able minded child.  As such, it has excluded those children who have some varying degree of disability.  It is therefore, important to now turn attention towards the disabled and special needs children and to explore how play is important towards their childhood developments, natural and nurtural changes.  Depending upon the degree of disability (whether mental or physical) a disabled child will have different experiences, speeds and/or limitations in their overall development – compared to their able bodied, able minded counterparts.  Disability can come in a wide variety of forms – sensory, communicative, behavioural, physical, learning (Askham 2000, page 7).  A ‘normal, able’ six-month old baby, for example, would rely upon senses to communicate, interact and play with another human being.  In the case of a severely disabled child, however, the same senses would be considered more of a blockage and delay to the child’s development processes - and would thus ultimately change the pattern to the disabled child’s learning and development process.  Even children with a similar disability (such as Down Syndrome, for example) may vary in their development, depending of course upon the severity of their condition (Lindon and Lance 1993, page 26).  That said, it is important to encourage and introduce all children to the idea of play – but to adapt the methods or types of play in order to suit the child in question.  No child should be excluded from play as it has proved such a pleasurable and natural activity for all children (Lindon 1998, page 67).  Where one child might be restricted to say, physical activities, they could be compensated by playing and developing through communicative and/or creative activities.  At the same time, it is important for children to interact and to play together as such interaction encourages role-playing, copying, learning and developing for all the children involved (Jeffree and McConkey 1993, page 5).

To conclude then, from the discussions and observations made herein, it is fair to say that the concept of play is paramount to a child’s development – and equally paramount through the ageing process from birth through to six years old.  From birth, a child is restricted to methods of play as it remains in a passive rather than active role and relies upon another human being to stimulate the play activity and development process.  From toddler age, the child demonstrates and communicates thoughts, feelings, social behaviour and interaction through their basic learning and play activities – at this age, each process is exciting, curious and new, and once discovered will be repeated by the child again and again – especially if that child is being encouraged and/or praised by an adult.  The child enjoys isolated and interactive play, wanting to please and be pleased – it learns and develops a general all rounded knowledge and skill of language, social interaction, communication, physical and mental activity, cognitive behaviour – the child is aware of everything around them and soaks all activity and interest into their senses, mind and body, like a sponge.

Finally the older age range of five to six year olds demonstrate the most interesting developments through their more ‘serious’ types of play.  These children are exposed to more diverse ranges of play activities in wide ranging environments, for they have opportunity to play at school, at a friends house and at home.  These children learn to distinguish their likes and dislikes, their preferences, their opinions, their independencies and their personalities.  These children also demonstrate quite clearly their cultural, nurtural and social backgrounds through their little personalities.  At this age, they are aware of child and adult worlds, of their play pretend world and real world.  It is at this age, that a child has the potential to peak with confidence and competence on all levels.  Play changes dramatically during this period as the children focus, change and adapt to all environments around them – as they not only continue to be self aware and self concerned but also worldly aware and worldly concerned. 

References

Askham, S. (2000) Coping When Your Child Has Special Needs, London, Sheldon Press.

Bee, H. (1994) The Developing Child, HarperCollins.

Jeffree, D. and McConkey, R. (1993) Let Me Play, Human Horizon Series: Souvenir Press.

Kelly-Byrne D. (1989) A Child's Play Life: An Ethnographic Study, New York: Teacher College Press.

Lindon, J. and Lance (1993) Caring for the Under-8s – Working to Achieve Good Practice, London: Macmillan Press Ltd.

Lindon, J. (1998) Understanding Child Development, London: Macmillan Press Ltd.

McLeod, W.T. (1990) Collins Modern English Dictionary, Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.

Petrie P. (1994) Play and Care Out of School, London: HMSO.

Save the Children (1995) Towards a Children's Agenda: New Challenges for Social Development. London, Save the Children.

Sluckin A (1981) Growing Up in the Playground, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.

How far and in what ways is it reasonable to see the development of print as a motor of revolutionary social change?

Print and the ways of presenting the written word have had a long history in which the ideas that were possible to be communicated through these written words profoundly influenced human history. The first movable type of print consisting of baked clay was developed in China in AD 1050. This was followed by the wooden movable type of print that was also invented in China in AD 1300.

Changes and development in the ‘Pastoral Symphony’ by Beethoven, ‘Symphonie Fantasique’ by Berlioz and ‘La Mer’ by Debussy

a) harmony

b) form and structure