Assessment of Developmental Stages of a Child

The significance of milestones Milestones are usually grouped together in five major areas which are to be assessed during the growth and development of a child. They are: physical growth, cognitive development, language development, and sensory and motor development. The assessment of the physical development of a child is very important during the growth and development of a child from infancy to adolescence and also the later years, it helps in that it allows the parents of the child as well as health care workers to see if there are any abnormalities in the child during this period of time. The assessment of the cognitive development of the child is also very important in order to detect if the child has any difficulties in learning, grasping and understanding concepts such as dyslexia. Social and emotional development should also be assessed in order to see how well the child can interact with peers and other persons in order to determine if the child has or will have a phobia in the later years of his or her development. The study was conducted in the presence of a nine year old child where in all the following areas of development were observed physical development, cognitive development, and social and emotional development. The reason why this specific age was selected was because it would have provided more opportunity for the researcher to observe and assess the different areas of development vastly and on a wider scale. Letters were sent to the parents of the child explaining the reason of the research and the different areas that were being observed. The researcher presented herself in a modest way so that the child would feel a sense of comfort while under observation. The study was conducted over a four day period where the following findings were observed.

Day One On day one the area of focus was physical development. The writer started out by assessing