Meaning and definition of growth and development are:
A living organism passes through various stages of growth and development and all the stages of growth work as a ladder step which takes the living organism towards final goal of life.
1. Growth is a personal matter:
Each in his own personal manner. He should be permitted to grow at his own rate. If you expect too much of him he does even less than he is able to do. If there is one thing a two year old child cannot do is to be four. Instead of comparing him to others and finding fault, accept him.
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2. Growth comes from within:
We can encourage or we can hinder but the energy and the drive force that pushes a child to grow is carried inside him. He desperately wants to grow and has the power within to do it. Our job is to clear the track, guide him with loving acceptance and then relax and enjoy!
3. Growth is gradual and orderly but uneven:
A child is gradually and continually moving toward maturity. We cannot and must not hurry him. Before he can run he must walk, before he can share, he must fully possess. He can never truly be an adult if he was not first fully a child.
His growth may be likened to a spiral, bursting forward at a dizzying rate of speed, reaching the top and then maybe falling back, gathering strength, building reserves to make the steep climb again and always moving forward.
During infancy and childhood, the body steadily becomes larger, taller and heavier. To designate this change the term growth is used.
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Growth involves changes in body proportions as well as in overall stature and weight. The term growth thus indicates an increase in bodily dimensions. But the rate of growth differs from one part of the body to the other.
Development, by contrast, refers to qualitative changes .taking place simultaneously with quantitative changes of growth. It may be defined as a progressive series of orderly, coherent changes.
The term progressive signifies that changes are directional, that they lead forward rather than backward. Orderly and coherent suggest that there is a definite relationship between the changes taking place and those that precede or will follow them.
Development represents changes in an organism from its origin to its death, but more particularly the progressive changes which take place from origin to maturity.
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Development implies that learning is taking place. In tracing the developmental progress of the individual from conception to adulthood and emphasizing the significant bases of adjustment of various areas of life experiences, what in effect we are discussing in learning.
The child learns to speak correctly, to manipulate the objects in his environment, to solve problems, and to engage in creative activities. Success in learning results partly from the learner’s potential ability to profit from instruction and partly from the adequately of the instructional materials and teaching techniques.
A child’s development of skills, knowledge and attitudes is influenced by all the elements in his environment that affect his behaviour at any one stage of his growth. These incidental learning’s may, however, help or hinder desirable development.