What are some ways that personal development in one area affects development in others?
Consider the following example:
Anna is a sixth-grader who frequently contributes to group projects, but she becomes easily frustrated if her ideas are questioned. At times, she storms away from the group after they decide to take a different approach.
Eventually, these interactions begin to affect Anna’s relationships with other classmates. They frequently exclude her from activities, and she struggles to form friendships. Anna’s mismanagement of her feelings impacts her social relationships, as these areas are related.
In this video, we will describe five developmental domains and explain how they are interconnected.
The Five Developmental Domains
Children’s development can be divided into five domains: physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and language/communication. Different fields sometimes refer to these domains by other names or subdivide them further.
Within each domain, there are indicators describing certain behaviors or milestones children are expected to reach, accounting for the individuality of each child.
Let’s explore each domain now.
Physical
The physical domain refers to gross and fine motor skills and coordination. It also includes areas related to health and nutrition.
Indicators related to motor skills within this domain include using a pincer grip, walking, skipping, running, holding a pencil, and writing. Indicators related to health and nutrition include getting adequate sleep, eating a healthy diet, getting enough daily exercise, and following safety rules.
Cognitive
The cognitive domain refers to children’s ability to think, reason, and make sense of the world around them. It includes many of the action verbs listed on Bloom’s Taxonomy, such as explaining, analyzing, inferring, comparing, contrasting, and evaluating.
This domain is frequently addressed in the learning objectives of core content areas. For example, adding and subtracting, contrasting characters in multiple texts, and following the steps of the scientific process all fall under the cognitive domain.
Social
The social domain focuses on a child’s interactions with others. It is sometimes paired with the emotional domain.
Indicators within the social domain include taking turns, empathizing with others, participating appropriately within groups, and respectfully sharing ideas and building upon the contributions of others.
Emotional
The emotional domain focuses on a child’s ability to manage their own feelings and emotions and the development of a healthy sense of self.
Indicators within the emotional domain include showing self-control, developing a positive self-image, managing feelings, solving problems independently, and developing resilience.
Language and Communication
The language and communication domain refers to both delivering clear messages to others, known as expressive language, and understanding messages that are received, known as receptive language.
Successful communication requires coordination of multiple components, including the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken words, join words and phrases together in sentences, and understand word definitions. It also includes knowing the social rules of language, such as how to take turns when speaking, which overlaps with the social domain.
How They Are Interconnected
Let’s look at a few examples of how these domains are interconnected.
Example 1
Charlie is a kindergartener who faces extreme food insecurity. He frequently skips meals, and the meals he eats are often low in nutrients. Recall that eating a well-balanced diet is part of the physical domain.
The malnutrition affects Charlie’s brain development, and he has trouble concentrating and processing new information.
Because Charlie is hungry, he also has trouble sleeping at night. His lack of sleep leads to drowsiness during the school day, and Charlie falls asleep frequently during instruction. As a result, he is struggling in school and not passing his assessments.
Since Charlie is both hungry and tired, he is often irritable with his classmates, and he is excluded from activities. Since Charlie spends most of his free time alone, he is not learning how to interact with others, meaning that his social development is also affected.
Example 2
Lin is an eighth-grader who has difficulties with receptive language. She struggles to understand spoken messages, particularly multi-step directions and procedures.
This difficulty in the language and communication domain affects Lin’s cognitive development. She struggles to follow along when her teacher models new processes, such as solving linear equations. As a result, Lin is not meeting the expected learning objectives for her grade level.
Lin also struggles to follow conversations among her classmates, particularly when multiple people are building upon one another’s ideas. Since she isn’t sure of the meaning, she tends to listen quietly and avoid responding. As a result, classmates seldom ask Lin for her thoughts, affecting her social relationships.
Review
Let’s review what we’ve learned in this video.
As children grow, they undergo development in multiple domains.
The physical domain includes motor skills, health, and nutrition. The cognitive domain includes the ability to think, reason, and make sense of the world. The social domain relates to a child’s interactions with others. The emotional domain includes the ability to manage feelings and emotions and the development of a sense of self. The language and communication domain includes both expressive and receptive language.
These domains are interrelated, and development in one domain affects development in the others.
Review Questions
Let’s go over a couple of review questions now.
1. Jake is a first-grader who struggles with fine motor skills. How may this affect his literacy development?
Fine motor skills are needed to hold a pencil, so Jake may struggle with learning to write letters and sentences. He may struggle to turn the pages of books and track words with his finger. He may also struggle to manipulate the letter tiles and picture cards commonly used in phonics activities.
2. Isabela initially struggled in her algebra class, receiving a D on the first progress report. She took several steps to improve her grade, including attending tutorials, solving problems multiple ways until she was sure of her answers, and retaking tests when offered. By the end of the semester, her grade had improved to a B. How might Isabela’s emotional development have been affected by this academic achievement?
Isabela’s self-esteem may have increased, knowing that she worked through a difficult situation. She likely also developed resilience after first receiving a D and then creating and executing a plan to raise her grade.
That’s all for this review! Thanks for watching, and happy studying!