Human Development
Even if you feel like a kid at heart, you probably still went through (or are currently undergoing) the typical process of change and growth that takes place between human infancy and maturity. After birth, human beings undergo infant and toddler development, moving on to child development before progressing to puberty and adolescence on the way to adulthood. Human growth involves not only biological development—the progressive changes in size, shape, and function during the life of an organism—but also emotional and psychological development.
Human Development Encyclopedia Articles
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psychological development
Psychological development, the development of human beings’ cognitive, emotional, intellectual, and social capabilities and functioning over the course of a normal life span, from infancy through old age....
infancy
Infancy, among humans, the period of life between birth and the acquisition of language approximately one to two years later. A brief treatment of infancy follows. For a full treatment of human mental...
emotional development
Emotional development, emergence of the experience, expression, understanding, and regulation of emotions from birth and the growth and change in these capacities throughout childhood, adolescence, and...
old age
Old age, in human beings, the final stage of the normal life span. Definitions of old age are not consistent from the standpoints of biology, demography (conditions of mortality and morbidity), employment...
adulthood
Adulthood, the period in the human lifespan in which full physical and intellectual maturity have been attained. Adulthood is commonly thought of as beginning at age 20 or 21 years. Middle age, commencing...
human aging
Human aging, physiological changes that take place in the human body leading to senescence, the decline of biological functions and of the ability to adapt to metabolic stress. In humans the physiological...
parenting
Parenting, the process of raising children and providing them with protection and care in order to ensure their healthy development into adulthood. The long-standing assumption that parents assert a direct...
infant and toddler development
Infant and toddler development, the physical, emotional, behavioral, and mental growth of children from ages 0 to 36 months. Different milestones characterize each stage of infant (0 to 12 months) and...
adolescence
Adolescence, transitional phase of growth and development between childhood and adulthood. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an adolescent as any person between ages 10 and 19. This age range...
three-parent baby
Three-parent baby, human offspring produced from the genetic material of one man and two women through the use of assisted reproductive technologies, specifically mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT)...
human development
Human development, the process of growth and change that takes place between birth and maturity. Human growth is far from being a simple and uniform process of becoming taller or larger. As a child gets...
childhood
Childhood, period of the human lifespan between infancy and adolescence, extending from ages 1–2 to 12–13. See child
prenatal development
Prenatal development, in humans, the process encompassing the period from the formation of an embryo, through the development of a fetus, to birth (or parturition). The human body, like that of most animals,...
effects of television viewing on child development
Effects of television viewing on child development, highly contested topic within child development and psychology involving the consequences for children from the content of and the duration of their...
attachment theory
Attachment theory, in developmental psychology, the theory that humans are born with a need to form a close emotional bond with a caregiver and that such a bond will develop during the first six months...