Human Development Notebook
[Part One]

Laura Douthat
EDF 3214
Sept. 27, 2010

Brain and memory
Principles and theories
When a human child is born, their brain is not yet fully developed. This development takes place over time and involves neurological processes as well as environmental stimulation. Babies have all the neurons that they will ever have at the time of their birth. Neurons are the structures that enable brains to store and transmit information (Woolfolk, 2010, p.29). The connectors which allow the information from the neurons to travel across the brain are not developed at this time, however. These fibers, called axons and dendrites, continue to mature throughout the early stages of the child’s life. How …show more content…

When they are first born, babies must be held with their necks supported because they have very little control over their musculature structure yet. They cannot sit up or grasp objects. They can barely control their own hands and feet and when they do move them, they have no amount of significant accuracy in the motions. Over the first six months of life, most babies learn to control their neck muscles, then their arms and trunk, and finally begin gaining control of their legs. They will learn to reach for toys or their bottles with increasing accuracy and will begin to rock on their knees as a pre-cursor to crawling. This development process is referred to as the cephalocaudal principal. The second principal involved in human development, the proximal distal principal, states that children develop from their center, or trunk, outward toward their extremities (http://social.jrank.org/pages/435/Motor-Development.html#ixzz10SprPey0). Babies are able to control the movement of their heads and arms before mastering the use of their hands and fingers. After a child gains control of the most basic body movements, they begin to tackle sitting up and standing, then walking, running and jumping. When learning to stand, they begin by using other objects for support as their legs are not yet able to support their weight nor do they have the required balancing skills to stay up-right. Walking is a much awaited accomplishment and most babies are thrilled