BBC The Human Body -Stages of Child Development p.54
Write a summary of each of the 3 stages of childhood development.
Two and a half-year-old Moira learns 10 new words a day. Quickly she also learns self-awareness. Unfortunately, this means she can articulate her needs and throw tantrums if she does not get what she wants. Maybe children have an instinctive knowledge for language and get the grammar right virtually all the time. Moira make word herself for plural for mouse by adding an S. So how to kids soak up new language so fast? The reason is that children always felt serious dangers. So they, by instinct, learn the vast range of words as fast as possible to better provide against squalls, to survive.
Theory of mind is our ability to understand that other individuals have their own minds, with different thoughts, feelings, desires, emotions, motivations and goals.
It's a crucial ability for creating and maintaining a complex society and as far as we know humans are the only species that can do it. This important, complex and uniquely human ability is based on being able to recognize that I am separate from you; that I am a distinct, physical entity that can be recognized in the mirror. Chimpanzee can recognize themselves in the mirror but monkeys cannot. Ostensibly this makes sense, since chimpanzee have bigger brains than monkeys and display a wider range of more complex behavior. There's even some suggestion that chimpanzees have a sort of theory of mind. But humans are not born with a sort of theory of mind. 14-month-old Julia didn't notice the red dye painted on her nose despite of looking through herself. She fails to recognize the reflection is her, because she doesn't yet have a proper sense of self-awareness. In other words, Julia couldn't establish self-awareness yet unlike Moira. She uses words like ''I'', ''me'', ''mine'' to demonstrate she is now perceive she is a separate being from other. But there is a negative side of self-awareness. That is children occasionally show temper or tantrums to express their thinking or mind through the language and self-awareness.
The last stage of development is "the theory of mind". There is a wonderful sequence showing how early children learn to lie. Around 70% of three-year-olds who are told not to peek at a new toy when an adult leaves the room do so and then lie that they have not looked. "The smartest lie," says Professor Winston. Three triplets also show how they learn to understand what motivates other people. "This is the cornerstone of all our relationships with other people," says Professor Winston. Four-year-old Evan, James and Sean can understand fairy tales and that, just because they know the wicked witch has poisoned the apple, it doesn't mean Snow White knows.