Why is it important for a teacher to be aware of the various development processes the children brain development?

The early years of a child’s life are very important for later health and development. One of the main reasons is how fast the brain grows starting before birth and continuing into early childhood. Although the brain continues to develop and change into adulthood, the first 8 years can build a foundation for future learning, health and life success.

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The importance of early childhood experiences for brain development
A healthy start for the brain
What does CDC do to support early brain health?

How well a brain develops depends on many factors in addition to genes, such as:

Proper nutrition starting in pregnancy
Exposure to toxins or infections
The child’s experiences with other people and the world

Nurturing and responsive care for the child’s body and mind is the key to supporting healthy brain development. Positive or negative experiences can add up to shape a child’s development and can have lifelong effects. To nurture their child’s body and mind, parents and caregivers need support and the right resources. The right care for children, starting before birth and continuing through childhood, ensures that the child’s brain grows well and reaches its full potential. CDC is working to protect children so that their brains have a healthy start.

The importance of early childhood experiences for brain development

Children are born ready to learn, and have many skills to learn over many years. They depend on parents, family members, and other caregivers as their first teachers to develop the right skills to become independent and lead healthy and successful lives. How the brain grows is strongly affected by the child’s experiences with other people and the world. Nurturing care for the mind is critical for brain growth. Children grow and learn best in a safe environment where they are protected from neglect and from extreme or chronic stress with plenty of opportunities to play and explore.

Parents and other caregivers can support healthy brain growth by speaking to, playing with, and caring for their child. Children learn best when parents take turns when talking and playing, and build on their child’s skills and interests. Nurturing a child by understanding their needs and responding sensitively helps to protect children’s brains from stress. Speaking with children and exposing them to books, stories, and songs helps strengthen children’s language and communication, which puts them on a path towards learning and succeeding in school.

Exposure to stress and trauma can have long-term negative consequences for the child’s brain, whereas talking, reading, and playing can stimulate brain growth. Ensuring that parents, caregivers, and early childhood care providers have the resources and skills to provide safe, stable, nurturing, and stimulating care is an important public health goal.

When children are at risk, tracking children’s development and making sure they reach developmental milestones can help ensure that any problems are detected early and children can receive the intervention they may need.

Learn more about supporting early childhood experiences:

A healthy start for the brain

To learn and grow appropriately, a baby’s brain has to be healthy and protected from diseases and other risks. Promoting the development of a healthy brain can start even before pregnancy. For example, a healthy diet and the right nutrients like sufficient folic acid will promote a healthy pregnancy and a healthy nervous system in the growing baby. Vaccinations can protect pregnant women from infections that can harm the brain of the unborn baby.

During pregnancy, the brain can be affected by many types of risks, such as by infectious diseases like Cytomegalovirus or Zika virus, by exposure to toxins, including from smoking or alcohol, or when pregnant mothers experience stress, trauma, or mental health conditions like depression. Regular health care during pregnancy can help prevent complications, including premature birth, which can affect the baby’s brain. Newborn screening can detect conditions that are potentially dangerous to the child’s brain, like phenylketonuria (PKU).

Healthy brain growth in infancy continues to depend on the right care and nutrition. Because children’s brains are still growing, they are especially vulnerable to traumatic head injuries, infections, or toxins, such as lead. Childhood vaccines, such as the measles vaccine, can protect children from dangerous complications like swelling of the brain. Ensuring that parents and caregivers have access to healthy foods and places to live and play that are healthy and safe for their child can help them provide more nurturing care.

Learn more about the recommended care:

What does CDC do to support early brain health?

CDC is committed to supporting early brain health through evidence-based programs and partnerships within communities. Below are just a few examples of CDC programs that support early brain health:

Discuss the following:Why is it important for a teacher to be aware of the various development processes of the childrenundergo in terms of:a. physical and motor development;b. brain development; andc. exceptional development such as physical and sensory disabilities, attention deficits andhyperactivity disorders?a. physical and motor development;It is important for a teacher to be aware of the children’s physical and motor developmentbecause the child’s progress at school will be affected. It will be difficult for them to focus and participatefully in the classroom and outside the classroom activities. It will be also result in their poor physicalappearance and affect their behavior and learning. Students with this problem may have a difficulty inwriting skills, they may have a hard time concentrating on the content of any material written and it isdifficult for them to finish their work and taking notes. If a teacher is facing this kind of problem withhis/her student he/she should encourage all students in participating all aspects of physical activities.Activities that they can practice their skills in pasting, cutting, tracing, they can also use pencil grips if achild is having a difficulty in writing, accept their work even if its messy considering if it is their besteffort, giving them roleplaying activities, remove distractions in classroom and give them a short andsimple question that they can understand easily.

Fascinating Findings all about Child Development

Although all children develop in their own unique way as a direct result of both hereditary and environmental influences, there is a certain pattern of development that applies to nearly all children.

Human development is one of the biggest contributing factors to human behaviour. As children go through their different stages of life, they approach learning in different ways. When an educator has an intricate understanding of human development, they can use that understanding to make assessments about the behaviours of children in the classroom. This can be used to understand children who exhibit normal developmental 'acting-out' behaviours and for a small number of children you can take a step back and be reflective of their behaviours indicating that they may be at a different developmental stage of their lives from their peers (often due to their past experiences).

Fagus social and emotional developmental framework provides educators with an easy to understand synopsis of how children’s skills develop across thirteen emotional and social domain, supported by evidence-based research. From this we have put together 13 teacher-friendly statements about children’s social and emotional development (one from each Fagus Developmental Guide) which gives you an introduction to child development and how surprising child development can be! Due to lack of time and space we have only homed in only one statement per domain, but we were spoilt for choice – there were just so many interesting items to choose from!

Fagus Developmental Domain	Fascinating Statement
Fact No.1: Cognitive Development	Have you noticed a lull in creativity in children at 10-11 years? Yes it really does happen! While a 5-year old's artwork tends to be uninhibited because they are in the 'pre-conventional' stage and unaware of social norms, by 10-11 years children are in the ‘conventional’ stage so start to appreciate social norms and this can lead to a dip in creativity resulting in artwork that now depicts reality.
Fact No.2: Self-Esteem	It’s important to recognise that self-esteem in children dips at certain childhood stages due to developmental processes So we can support significant dips in children’s self-esteem it is important to understand when they occur: Self-esteem may decline in 7-11 year olds due to having a more realistic self-understanding and balanced view of self-worth. Also at 11-14 years old self-esteem declines due to puberty, school transitions, increased concern regarding what others think and increased reflection.
Fact No.3: Self-Concept	Teenagers really do experience an ‘identity crisis’? Yes they do! At 14-16 years adolescents can struggle to understand opposing personal characteristics e.g. being extrovert with friends but shy with strangers. This leads to an ‘identity crisis’ and a search for the 'real me'. These contradictions do not pose a problem in early adolescence and is resolved by 19 years old due to cognitive advances. Knowing this we can help young people through this difficult stage.
Fact No. 4: Awareness and Understanding of Others	Children after the age of 8 are more likely to try and ‘fit in’ with their peers. Yes this is a fact! Children's Understanding of Others improves as they get older due to the development of 'Theory of Mind' (ToM)). With increased ToM, at 8 years old a child may think peers see them negatively if they don't follow social norms. From this age they find ways to 'fit in' to be socially accepted by their peers
Fact No. 5: Moral Development	Believe it or not a child at four years old may still perform an action if it is beneficial to themselves but involves 'harming' another person! This has been observed from a hypothetical experiment when a 4 year old child observes the 'Victimiser Situation' - a scenario in which person A (the Victimiser) performs an action which is beneficial to themselves but involves harming person B ( e.g. pushing a child off the swing to get a go). Often a 4 year old child still reports that the 'Victimiser' feels happy and doesn't consider the harm caused to the ‘Victim’ (person B) and associated negative feelings (e.g. shame).
Fact No. 6: Motivation and Self-efficacy:	Academic motivation can decrease when there is a mismatch between the developmental needs of an adolescent and the educational environment (and this often occurs at the time children transition from primary to secondary school. This is because adolescents: Have an increased desire to become more autonomous. Become more self-focused while having increased cognitive capacity. Have an increased desire to develop and maintain relationships with their peers. Experience changes in classroom set up, which include higher levels of teacher control, more public displays of grades, friendship disruption and less personal teacher/pupil relationships.
No. 7: Socialisation	Want to help children facilitate friendships? We need to understand that as children get older the reason for choosing certain friends change. At 4-7 years a child will make friends with others that show desirable behaviours. At 8-10 years friendships are based on trust and they will consider others personality traits of others, but by 11 years friends are based on bringing psychological benefits eg. having similar interests, making you happy and displaying signs of loyalty. Companionship alone is no longer sufficient.
No. 8: Play	Is rough and tumble play a sign of aggression in boys? The answer to this is normally no! If you carefully observe boys in rough and tumble play they often do not intend to hurt each other and this can be observed by using open hands movements and having a relaxed facial expression. Rough and tumble play at this age is used to establish leadership and dominance and does not necessarily indicate aggression.
Fact No. 9: Attachment	Data from Developed Countries indicates that only 60% of children are SECURELY ATTACHED. Is this True or False? Sadly this is True and means that 40% of children in Developed Countries are INSECURELY ATTACHED, which can lead to disrupted relationships, cognitive delays and impaired emotional regulation. Interestingly the strongest predictor that a child will be insecurely attached is having a parent that is insecurely attached. It’s about time we broke the cycle and provided the appropriate support for EVERYBODY!
Fact No. 10: Coping	Are there really gender differences when selecting coping strategies in adolescents? Yes! The choice of coping strategies that adolescent girls and boys choose can be quite different and live up to the stereotypes! Adolescent girls tend to use self-soothing strategies (like taking a bath) & relying on social support, while adolescent boys use physical (walloping a punch bag!) and avoidant strategies (deny a problem exists).
Fact No. 11: Self-Control	Believe it or not it has been shown that higher level of self-discipline in adolescents has a bigger effect on academic performance than intellectual ability. With this in mind teachers should help increase a child’s self-control by ‘scaffolding’ a child’s learning experiences (providing guidance to help develop new skills but letting them feel in control or helping child devise ‘if then’ plans for situations when their self-control may be compromised). These methods should be used rather than using sanctions and punitive controls.
Fact No. 12: Self-Awareness	We all know that teenagers become more self-conscious, but this can be explained by the ‘imaginary audience’ phenomenon that appears at the ages of 14-16 years. Adolescents between the ages of 14-16 years experience the 'imaginary audience' phenomenon - this is the belief that they are being watched and judged by others. By encouraging self-awareness of this belief confidence can be increased.
Fact No. 13: Language Development	It’s amazing to think that a 2-month-old infant will show a negative affect after an adult stops interacting with them. In the ‘still-face paradigm' (this is an experimental technique in which an adult interacts with the infant and then stops responding, freezing and looking at the child) it has been demonstrated that infants as young as TWO MONTHS OLD show negative affect when an interactive partner freezes. Social interactions and Language development (in this case Non-Verbal Communication) are linked!