Development Profile Paper

The period from early to middle childhood is one of the most essential in the life of any individual. Since the earliest years, children undergo intense physical , cognitive, and emotional changes that create the foundation for their future successes. Children's physical, motor, and cognitive growth greatly impacts their health and wellbeing over the entire lifespan. The way children cope with their developmental challenges depends on a lot of the individual and environmental factors.

Early childhood is usually described as the period between 2 and 6 years of age. In other words, early childhood covers children's preschool years (Rathus, 2012). Compared to infants, physical growth in preschool children becomes slower; nonetheless, by the time children reach their middle childhood years, they start to look more like adults and develop excellent motor and coordination skills (Rathus, 2012). In early childhood, children tend to grow 2-3 inches and gain on average 4-6 pounds every year (Rathus, 2012). They become slender and may look rather "unbalanced", as they are reaching their middle childhood years. Despite noticeable variations in the way children grow and gain weight, it is possible to say that, in most cases, boys outpace girls in height and weight gains (Rathus, 2012). These changes lay the ground for the future changes in physical appearance during middle childhood. The latter is the period between 6 and 12 years of age (Skuse, 2003). This is the period when girls' and boys' bones further strengthen, and cellular fluid is gradually replaced by muscle fibres (Skuse, 2003). This is also the period when girls start to outpace boys in bone ossification and skeletal development (Skuse, 2003). During middle childhood, changes in physical appearance become one of the major factors of children's emotional and cognitive wellbeing.

Since early childhood, boys tend to be more advanced than girls in their physical abilities. By the age of five, boys run faster and jump farther than girls of the same age (Berk, 2012). In middle childhood, these gender differences in physical development and growth continue to intensify (Berk, 2012). Greater muscle mass and longer forearms in boys than in girls predetermine their successes in athletics and sports. However, that does not mean that girls cannot be physically active. As mentioned earlier, in the middle childhood years, girls display greater physical maturity than boys, which leads to the development of finer motor skills. Consequently, girls are more capable of drawing, handwriting, as well as any other activities that depend on agility and balance, for instance, skipping (Berk, 2012).

Of particular importance is the way the brain and nervous system develop during early and middle childhood. In early childhood, "the brain develops more quickly than any other organ. At 2 years of age, the brain already has attained 75% of its adult weight" (Rathus, 2012, p.193). By the age of 5, children's brain will have reached 90% of its adult weight, mainly due to the accelerated myelination of brain and nerve fibers (Rathus, 2012). Between 2 and 6 years, children improve their visual information processing skills and develop better literacy abilities. Between ages 4 and 7, children become more focused