Psychology of Human Development

Question 1 

No. between ages 3 and six years, the growth in height and weight of children are independent of their sexes. The experiments have shown a steady growth for both boys and girls. However, the growth difference starts to appear at age 7 when different hormones are now produced by the bodies which are unique to a given gender. After this age, the increase in weight of girls becomes more rapid compared to that of the boys. The difference further increases as the children approach puberty (Mischel, 2013). 

Question 2 

Conservation tasks refer to the thinking ability which comprehends that quantity will remain similar when a length or shape is changed without changing the quantity. According to Piaget, the children's inability to conserve is due to weakness in the way children think during the preoperational stage. The preoperational age is the age between two to six years. At this stage, the children focus on a single and salient dimension of height or length and ignoring other critical aspects of a situation. As such, this is due to the one-dimensional view of situations and occurrences while ignoring the other not intentionally but due to cognitive development. 

Question 3 

According to cognitive developmental, children’s understanding of right and wrong develops in line with their knowledge of other problems that are to be solved. Hence thinking about good and evil is related to sensor motor, pre-, concrete-, and formal operational thinking. Children thus learn about moral and their cultures through corrections which includes appreciations and punishments by guardians on children’s actions (Lantolf et al., 2015). When they do something and are appreciated they will do it again and again but when punished, they stop the act. 

Question 4 

There are some characteristics of children that make them at high risk of being abused. Some kids become slow in development. Thus, making the guardians to feel as if they are a burden to them hence risk being abused either physically or emotionally. Secondly, when children develop faster than expected, they can be misused sexually with the opposite sex. Children should thus develop wholly at standard intervals. 

References  

Lantolf, J. P., Thorne, S. L., & Poehner, M. E. (2015). Sociocultural theory and second language development. Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction , 207-226. 

Mischel, T. (Ed.). (2013). Cognitive development and epistemology . Academic Press.