Principles of child development

With the given development principles. How can we identify fluently how children are developing and at what stage they are?

1. Principle of Cephalo - caudel

  • Growth takes place from head to toe.
  • Children 6 to 12 months old.
  • Coordination of arms before feet.

2. Principle of Proximal - Distal

  • Outwards from the center.
  • The spinal cord develops first than the outer parts of the body
  • Both these above principles show the direction of development.

3. Principle of Simple to Complex

  • System related skills or skills related to intellectual ability and verbal comprehension are used by the child to break down the problem. For example, if a child learns to classify objects, kites and airplanes may be the same for him as they both fly in the sky.
  • These types of responses are associated with the first state of thinking and there are two depending on the study.
  • But at a later stage of learning, they will be better suited to understand the more complex similarities and differences between these objects. For example, they will try to understand that kites and airplanes are of different order.

4. Principle of Continuous Process

  • The increase or accumulation or accumulation of skills takes place on continuous fundamentals.
  • Regular continuous accumulation of skills leads to the accomplishment of a more difficult task.
  • The development of one stage helps in the development of another stage. For example, in language development, the child begins with babbling and goes on to master language.

5. The principle of general to specific.

  • The motor development of infants is actually generalized and indirect.
  • Basically the motor movement of the gross large muscles develops and progresses further to the movements of the refined lower/fine motor muscles.
  • Everyone is different so their rates are too.

General to Specific

6. Theory of Individual Rates of Growth and Development

  • The patterns and sequences for growth are generally similar but individual rates differ.
  • So there shouldn't be any notion of average child as everyone progresses at their own pace.
  • Therefore, we cannot compare two children with the other on the basis of their intellectual development or progress of one child.
  • At the same time the rate of growth is also not irreversible for all children.

7. Growth is Gradual

  • It doesn't come all of a sudden. It is also cumulative in nature.
8. Principle of Sequential

Development is gradual or sequential. Each species, whether animal or human, follows a specific pattern of development. This pattern is generally the same for all individuals. The baby crawls before crawling, stands before walks, and murmurs before talking.


Development is sequential


9. Principle of Predictable

Differences in physical and psychological abilities' can be estimated by observation and psychological tests.

10. Development depends on maturity and learning

  • Maturity is the physical, intellectual or emotional process of development. Maturity is often not quantifiable, and is also influenced mostly by genetics.
  • Learning is regarded as formally, historically and conceptually distinct terms, however, they have much in common with respect to their psychological content.