2. Mental Development
a) Mental development implies the progressive changes in the mental
process which go on from birth to death.
b) Mental development includes various aspects such as development of
concepts, perception, language, memory, reasoning, thinking,
imagination and intelligence.
c) Mental development is the development of mental abilities and
capacities which help an individual to adjust his behaviour to the ever
changing environmental conditions.
I. Mental Development during childhood
1. During this period, the sensory powers increase rapidly and the child
becomes more accurate in his observations.
2. During this period, the likes and dislikes of the child, his interest,
thoughts and plans begin to shape themselves. He begin to imagine
things.
3. His power of deductive and inductive reasoning increases and he is able
to generalize from the data given to him.
4. The methods of teaching, availability of good reading material in the
library, attitude of teachers and school discipline etc. affect mental
development. A teacher can provide a healthy and motivating
intellectual environment for the child. The child should be expose to
opportunities of narrating, observing, imagining, thinking etc.
3. II. Mental Development during Adolescence
Adolescence is the most crucial and significant period of an
individual’s life.
It is the period of rapid revolutionary changes in the individuals
physical, mental, moral, spiritual, sex and social outlook.
It is the period to learn new things.
Characteristics of Mental Development during Adolescence are,
Tremendous development of memory and imagination.
Increased ability to solve problem of diverse nature.
Increased ability to communicate with others.
Increased ability to make decisions.
Increased ability to understand moral issues.
Teachers are vital in students transition to adolescence. Teachers
should always provide accurate information about bad behaviours
such as smoking, drug abuse, sexual activities and others.
4. Language Development
a) The child’s ability to speak and write reflects his level of physical
maturation, mental capacity, emotional make up and social relations.
b) Language development depends on accurate under-standing. Proper
experience is needed for accurate comprehension and expression.
I. Meaning and Significance
1. A major feature that distinguishes the human beings from animals in
their ability to use vocal speech as means of communication.
2. Speech is the most important form of communication.
3. Broadly speaking the tools of communications may be categorized under
to heads-signs and symbols. Symbols are unique to human beings.
II. Sequence of Language Development
1. The Stages of development follow the order crying, babbling, gestures
and then formal symbolic language.
2. In the use of symbolic language children are found to follow the
sequence of words and sentences.
3. The mother starts talking to the child right from the moment of birth.
She converses with the child when she baths it, changes the clothes and
feeds. In this way the sound making behaviour reinforced.
5. III. Increase in the Size of Vocabulary in Relation to Age
1. Studies show that the first word by the child is uttered about one year
of age.
2. By one year, the child knows about three words, by two years he
knows three hundred words, by three years he nearly thousand
words and by five years he knows two thousand words.
IV. Two kinds of Competence in Language
1. Two kinds of competence in language must be distinguish- the
linguistic competence and communication competence.
2. The linguistic competence involves the increase of one’s vocabulary
and improvement of one’s ability to construct meaningful and
dramatically correct sentences.
3. The communication competence is develop through public speaking,
group discussion etc.
V. Improvement in Speaking
1. Their are four major tasks in learning to speak. They are pronouncing
words, learning new words, connecting meanings with words and
putting words together into sentences.
2. All the four tasks improve during the early years of childhood.
6. VI. Some Speech Difficulties
1. The term speech defect refers to incorrect speech habits develop by
the individual on account of slow maturation or ineffective learning.
2. Incorrect speech may be in the form of omission of sound of certain
letters, incorrect pronunciation, wrong application of the rules of
grammar or failure in regulating speed of talking.
3. Lisping, Slurring as well as Stammering and Sluttering are some
common forms of speech defects.
VII. Factors influencing Language development
1. Language of parents
2. Environmental factors
3. Emotional development
4. Teachers Language
5. Socio-economic status of the family
VIII.Teacher- The Architect of Child’s Language Development
1. Teachers in general and language teachers in particular greatly
influence the language development in children.
2. The teacher’s communication should be correct and simple.
7. Cognitive Development
a) Cognitive development is a field of study in neuro science and
psychology.
b) Cognitive development is the emergence of the ability to think and
understand.
c) Cognitive field theories states that teaching is the process of developing
insight or understanding in the learner. Classroom experiences are
related to the individual goals of the students.
I. Childhood Cognitive Development
1. Young Children are not only growing physically during early childhood,
but they are also growing mentally. Children of this age continue to
advance their skills in observing and interacting with the world around
them.
2. Qualifying cognitive change is a bit tricky. We do not count the number
of new neurons or measure the amount of connections between
synapses and come up with averages for different ages. Rather, we rely
on theories, such as Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development,
Erickson’s Psychological Stages and Bronfen Brenner’s Ecological
Model to give us a way to measure children’s mental and social
development progression.
8. 3. Young Children's play becomes increasingly imaginary and field
with fantasies. As children develop cognitively, their play will move
from simple, make believe to plots involving more characters and
scenarios games with sophisticated rules etc.
II. Cognitive Development in Adolescence
1. Cognitive theorist Jean Piaget describes adolescence as the stage of
life in which the individuals thoughts start taking more of an
abstract form and egocentric thoughts decrease. This allows an
individual to think and reason with a wider perspective.
2. Adolescents use trail and error to solve problems and ability to
systematically solve a problem in a logical and methodical way
emerges.
3. Adolescents are more likely to take risks than adults.
Teachers educate their children on problem
solving, critical thinking skills and self control-all cognitively
engaging tasks. Without teachers, children would be mostly left on
their own to develop their cognitive skill sets, which is unlikely to
happen given the natural human tendency of spending as little
energy as possible.
