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learns to walk, runs, jumps, and plays with a andbodyfatdecreases.Thebrainandthehead ball. Socially, the child’s world expands from grow more rapidly than any other part of the the parents to the family and adults near home body. The growth and development of the brain and at school. The child also begins to acquire are important as they help in the maturation the concepts of good and bad, i.e. develops a of children’s abilities, such as eye-hand sense of morality. During childhood, children coordination, holding a pencil, and attempts have increased physical capacities, can made at writing. During middle and late perform tasks independently, can set goals, childhoodyears,childrenincreasesignificantly and meet adult expectations. The increasing in size and strength; increase in weight is maturation of the brain along with mainlyduetoincreaseinthesizeoftheskeletal opportunities to experience the world, and muscular systems, as well as size of some contribute to development of children’s body organs. cognitive abilities. Motor Development : Gross motor skills Physical Development : Early develop- during the early childhood years involve the ment follows two principles : (i) development use of arms and legs, and moving around with proceeds cephalocaudally, i.e. from the confidence and more purposefully in the cephalic or head region to the caudal or tail environment. Fine motor skills — finger region. Children gain control over the upper dexterity and eye-hand coordination — part of the body before the lower part. This is improve substantially during early childhood. why you would notice that the infant’s head During these years the child’s preference for is proportionately larger than her/his body left or right hand also develops. The major during early infancy or if you see an infant accomplishmentsingrossandfinemotorskills crawling, s/he will use the arms first and then during early childhood years are given in shift to using the legs, (ii) growth proceeds fromTable 3.3. the centre of body and moves towards the Cognitive Development : The child’s extremities or more distal regions — the ability to acquire the concept of object proximodistal trend, i.e. children gain control permanence enables her/him to use mental over their torso before their extremities. symbols to represent objects. However, the Initially infants reach for objects by turning child at this stage lacks the ability that allows their entire body, gradually they extend their her/him to do mentally what was done arms to reach for things. These changes are physically before. Cognitive development in the result of a maturing nervous system and early childhood focuses on Piaget’s stage of not because of any limitation since even preoperational thought (see Table 3.2). The visually impaired children show the same child gains the ability to mentally represent sequence. an object that is not physically present. You As children grow older, they look slimmer may have observed children draw designs/ as the trunk part of their bodies lengthens figures to represent people, trees, dog, house, T able3.3 Major Accomplishments in Gross and Fine Motor Skills Age in Years Gross Motor Skills Fine Motor Skills 3 years Hopping, jumping, running Build blocks, pick objects with forefinger and thumb 4 years Climb up and downstairs with Fit jigsaw puzzle precisely one foot on each step 5 years Run hard, enjoy races Hand, arm, and body all coordinate with eye movement Chapter 3 • Human Development 49 Reprint 2026-27