Growth and Development
This section tests the distinction between growth and development, the stages of human development, factors affecting them, and the sequence of motor development. Questions often ask you to classify a change as growth or development.
Core concepts
- Growth: Quantitative increase in body size, height, weight and organs. It is measurable and largely stops after maturity.
- Development: Qualitative, progressive change in function, behaviour and capacity - for example, improved coordination, reasoning or social adjustment. It continues across life.
- Stages: Infancy (0–2 years), early childhood (2–6), later childhood (6–12), adolescence (12–19) and adulthood. Adolescence includes puberty and rapid growth spurts.
- Factors: Heredity, nutrition, hormones, exercise, environment, illness, socio-economic conditions and emotional climate.
- Motor sequence: Gross movements develop before fine movements; development proceeds head-to-foot (cephalocaudal) and centre-to-periphery (proximodistal).
Worked example
A 12-year-old grows 5 cm taller and also becomes better at catching a small ball. The height change is growth because it is a measurable increase in size. The catching improvement is development because it is a qualitative change in coordination and control. If the question asks for the stage, the answer is adolescence, because a growth spurt and puberty usually appear in this period.
Marks-losing traps
Do not treat growth and development as synonyms. Do not say development stops at 18; only growth in height usually slows or stops. Do not attribute all differences to exercise - heredity and nutrition matter. Do not describe adolescence as a disease or a single-year event.