Page 8 - LESSION 6.pmd

Growth and Development

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Notes
Some of you may have attributed the present condition of these three children as
being due to genetic factors, and the health of the mother and the child during
the prenatal and postnatal periods. Some of you may have attributed these largely
to environmental reasons such as less opportunities of stimulation and poor
nutrition of the child. This is what the nature-versus–nurture controversy is all
about. Some psychologists believe that our heredity affects us more than
environmental factors. Some believe the opposite is true. There is no clear answer
as to what impacts us more, our genetic make-up or the inputs that we get from
our environment. But generally, there is a consensus that both impact us. Let us
explore these in greater depth in the following sections.

6.3.1 Heredity

You may like to know whether intelligent parents will always have intelligent
children. Do parents of short stature only have short children? Will a child get
asthma, if the
mother is suffering
from asthma? A
child may or may
not inherit the
characteristics
mentioned above.
It depends on the
genetic material a
child receives at
the time of
conception from
both the parents Fig. 6.3 Interrelationship of hereditary and
through genes, environment factors
which are
structural units of chromosomes.
Heredity or genetics is found to influence the development of a children’s
intellectual potential, height, weight and general physical appearance. The genetic
makeup inherited from parents seems to be tied to maturation of the body and
the brain which influences growth and developmental milestones. After
conception, nothing can be done to add to or subtract from the child’s hereditary
endowment.These characteristics of the child are also determined at the time of
fertilisation. At the time of conception, every child receives 46 chromosomes, of
which 23 are contributed by the mother and 23, by the father. The X chromosomes
passed on by the father will determine the sex of the child.

82 EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION