cyp 3.1: 1.1 explain the sequence and rate of each aspect of development from birth-19 years

Cyp core 3.1

Birth

New born babies are already actively using all their senses to explore their new environment. They are seeing new things, listening to new sounds and smelling new odours. When not asleep, babies are alert. Already they are learning to cope with a huge amount of new information. At birth a baby will lay down on their backs (supine) with their head to one side. When they are placed on their fronts they also put their head to one side but tuck their knees up under their abdomen and their buttocks humped up. Usually a new born would hold their hands tightly closed but the hands may open spontaneously during feeding or when the back of the hand is stroked, they will often hold their thumbs tucked under their fingers. New-borns will turn their head towards light and shiny bright objects, and they are fascinated by human faces and gaze at their parents face when fed or cuddled. A new born will also blink in response to sound or movement. A baby cannot hear soft sounds but are sensitive to textures and to any change of position. When a baby is born it already has some reflexes, these are called primitive reflexes and are the swallowing and sucking reflexes, the rooting reflex, the grasp reflex and they also have the walking or stepping reflex. New-borns are beginning to develop concepts- concepts are abstract ideas, based on the senses and combines with growing understanding for example, babies become aware of physical sensations such as hunger and respond by crying. New-borns use total body movements to express pleasure at bath time or when being fed, enjoy feeding and cuddling and often imitate facial expressions. New born babies respond to things that they see, hear and feel.

One month By I month, babies are beginning to smile in response to adult smiles. Their cries become more ‘expressive’ and they make non-crying noises such as cooing or gurgling. Babies enjoy kicking their legs and waving their arms about. They may imitate facial expressions, and are able to follow moving objects with their eyes. At 1 month a baby will still have their head to one side but have their arms and legs stretched out to the side with their soles of the feet turned inwards. The baby can move from their side to their backs and when held in ventral suspension (in the air), will keep their head in line with the body and the hips semi-extended. Babies begin to show interest and excitement by their facial expressions and open their hands to grasp. At 1 month a baby will focus their gaze at 20-25cm and will turn their head towards a diffuse light source and stare at bright, shiny objects, they can now also start to move their head towards the source of a sound but cannot yet locate the sound. A 1 month old baby will recognise their primary carers and show this by responding to them with a combination of excited movements, coos and smiles. They also begin to repeat enjoyable movements, such as thumb sucking. A baby will now smile in response to an adult, gaze attentively at the adults face when being fed and are beginning to show a particular temperament- for example, placid or excitable.

Three months By 3 months, babies are showing more interest in playthings. They like to kick ‘vigorously’ and to clasp their hand together. They respond to familiar situations with a combination of excited movements, smiles and a variety of vocalisations, such as cries, cooing sounds and chuckles. At 3 months a baby can now keep their head in a central position and can now lift their head and chest in the prone position supported on their arms. A baby will also have almost no head lag in moving into the sitting position and can sit straight when help up. A 2 month old will now move their head to follow movements of adults and clasp and unclasp their hands to the midline of the body, and take them to the mouth. They can also hold a rattle for a brief time before dropping it. At 3 months babies are able to focus their eyes on the same point and can move their head to deliberately gaze around them. Babies prefer moving objects to still once and their eyes will follow a moving toy side to side. The baby will now take an increasing interest in their surroundings, laugh and vocalise, with increasing tone and intensity and smile in response to speech. They are now becoming conversational by cooing, gurgling and chuckling- they can exchange coos with a familiar person.

Six months By six months, babies are able to reach for and grab things with both hands. They extend their exploration by using their hands to touch, stroke and pet. Most toys are transferred to the mouth. They love to imitate sounds and enjoy babbling. They continue to find other people fascinating, but are wary of strangers. By six months a baby can do a lot of things UN aided. If the baby is lying on their backs they can now roll themselves over onto their stomachs and once on their stomachs they can list their head and chest, supporting themselves on both their arms and hands. They can now use their shoulders to pull themselves into a sitting position and can bear almost all of their own weight. A baby can now reach for a toy if it is offered and can hold it in their whole hand (palmar grasp) and pass the toy from one hand to the other. They now also adjust their position to see objects and are visually alert, and follow another child’s or adult’s activities across the room with increased alertness. A 6 month old babies brain will develop at a fast rate and they can now understand simple words like ‘bye-bye’ or ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, understand objects and know what to expect of them, turn immediately when they hear mother’s or main carer’s voice and show some understanding of emotional state of their mother’s or carer’s voice. A baby at 6 months can manage to feed themselves using their fingers, offer toys to others, are more wary of strangers and are more aware of other people’s feelings, crying if a sibling cries, for example, or laughing when others do- this is calling ‘recognising an emotion’; it does not mean that they are really feeling this emotion. Nine months Babies enjoy exploring their environment by crawling or shuffling on their bottoms. They often bounce in time to music and take pleasure in songs and action rhymes. They can sit, lean forward and pull objects towards them. Babies now understand their routine. A nine month old will be able to maintain a sitting position with a straight back, can sit unsupported for 15 minutes and can pull them to a standing position, but are unable to lower them and tend to fall backwards with a bump. They can now also grasp an object with one finger and a thumb this is called a pincer grasp and can release a toy from their grasp by dropping it but cannot yet put it down voluntarily. A baby will now be able to judge the size of an object from 2 feet away and watch a toy being hidden and then look for it. This shows they know an object can still exist when not in sight. They also know general characteristics of their language- they will not respond to a language they do not yet know. Babies enjoy songs and action rhymes, still prefer to be near to a familiar person, show definite likes and dislikes at meals and bedtimes and will often need to have a comfort object, such as a blanket or a favourite teddy. They may drink out of a cup with help and enjoy making noises by banging toys,
12 months The way babies view their world changes dramatically as they become more mobile, crawling rapidly or moving along and using furniture for support. At 12 months they are usually still shy with strangers. Often they have a favourite comfort object such as a teddy or a cloth. A toddler at 12 months can rise to a sitting position from lying down; can crawl on their hands and knees, bottom-shuffle, or use their hands are feet to move rapidly about the floor. They can probably walk alone, with their feet wide apart and their arms raised to maintain balance- or walk with one hand held. By 12 months a baby can now pick up small objects with a fine pincer grasp, between the thumb and the tip of the index finger and can point with the index finger at objects of interest. They can also hold a crayon in a palmar grasp, and turn several pages of a book at once. They can now see almost as well as an adult, their visual memory is very good: they may find things that an adult has mislaid and they knew and respond immediately to their own name, and recognise familiar sounds and voices. A baby will use trial and error to learn about different objects and speak two to six or more recognisable words and show that they understand many more- babbling has developed into a more speech like form with ‘increased intonation’. They are more emotionally labile- that is, they are likely to have ‘fluctuating moods’ and are closely dependent upon adult’s reassuring presence and enjoy socialising at mealtimes, joining in conversations while mastering the task of self-feeding.

18 months Children of 18 months enjoy being able to walk well and can climb up and down stairs with help. They can pick up small objects with a delicate pincer grasp, and show a preference for using one hand. They enjoy simple picture books, a can understand and obey simple commands. They can now walk steadily and stop safely without sitting down suddenly. They can now climb up and down stairs if their hand is held or using a rail for balance- they put two feet on each step before moving to the next and can now climb onto an adult chair and turn around to sit down unaided. They can now point out known objects and can hold a pencil in their whole hand or between the thumb and first two fingers (primitive tripod grasp) they can also control their wrist movement to manipulate objects. They also recognise familiar people from a distance. They now know the names of parts of their bodies, and can point to them when asked, they now use 6-40 recognisable words and over-extended words or signs, giving them several meanings, for example ‘dog’ may be used to refer to all animals not just a dog. They remember where objects belong showing they have long-term memory and play contently alone (solitary play), but prefer to be near a familiar sibling or adult.

Two years old By 2 years children can run, jump, kick, and use words as well as actions to express themselves. They are curious and impulsive explorers of their environment, and want to be as independent as possible- start to play independently. Children can run safely, avoiding objects and are very mobile, they can climb up on to furniture and can throw a ball but cannot yet catch it. They will sit on a tricycle and push along with their feet but they cannot yet use the pedals a child can now draw simple things like circles, lines or dots with their preferred hand and can build a tower of six or more blocks, with a longer concentration span. They now recognise familiar people in photos after being shown them once, but do not yet recognise themselves in photos. They now may listen to general conversations with interest. They are particularly interested in the names of people and objects and are beginning to understand the consequences of their own actions and those of others, for example when something falls over or breaks. They will then begin to express how they feel, are impulsive and curious about their environment and often feel frustrated when unable to express themselves-about half of 2 year olds have tantrums on a more or less daily basis.

3-5 years old As a child grows, they are expected to achieve certain milestones or gain the ability to perform age-appropriate tasks, which indicate the level of their development. In assessing physical development, two major areas are considered: gross motor skills, for example the child’s ability to use large muscle groups to sit, stand, walk, run and maintain balance; and fine motor skills--using the hands to write, draw, eat, dress, play and coordinate others. At three years of age a child is expected to achieve certain gross motor skills. They should be able to walk, swinging each arm in tandem with the opposite leg, and maintain their balance. When climbing stairs, they put one foot on each tread with no support but goes down steps using two feet on each tread with no support. The child should be able to hop on one foot two or three times, kick a ball forward and pedal a tricycle. Their fine motor skills should include feeding themselves with a spoon or fork, washing and drying their hands, building a tower of nine to ten blocks and unbuttoning buttons within their reach. The three-year-old may use an immature pencil grasp and may need a little help to use the toilet. In addition to the above, a four-year-old should be able to run with good arm-leg coordination, go up and down stairs, one foot per tread, skip with one foot only and gallop. They can now draw a person with two to four body parts and draw shapes. The average five-year-old is very energetic and begins to do things like roller blading, jumping rope, balancing backward on a beam and performing somersaults. They are also able to go down stairs with alternating feet, stand on one foot for 10 seconds or longer and jump a 10-inch-high hurdle. In fine motor coordination, they use a mature pencil grasp, dresses themselves independently and copies a triangle and other geometric patterns. By this time they should be able to take care of their toileting needs with little assistance and clap rhythmically.
At four, they’ll use around 1500 different words but understand even more. By five, they’ll have an even wider range of words that they can understand and use. Your child will develop the ability to talk about things that have happened in the past, rather than just things that are currently happening. They’ll also get better at using past tense and plurals. By five, your child will understand and use words that explain when things occur, such as ‘before’, ‘after’ and ‘next week’. They might still have trouble understanding complicated ideas, such as ‘at the same time’. They’ll begin to understand figures of speech, such as ‘You’re pulling my leg’ and ‘He’s a couch potato’.
Your child will follow directions with more than two steps, even if the situation is a new one. For example, ‘Give your ticket to the man over there, and he’ll tear it, and then we can go to the movie’. But your child might do what they hear first and ignore words that tell them the order she should do things in. For example, they might ignore the word ‘before’ in the sentence ‘before we go into the movies, give your ticket to the man’. By the age of 4½-5 years, almost every word your child says can be understood by strangers. They might still have difficulty using some speech sounds – for example, saying ‘fing’ for ‘thing’ or ‘den’ for ‘then’ – and might mispronounce some complex words, such as ‘ambulance’ and ‘spaghetti’. Your child will continue to improve their storytelling, although they might still give too much or not enough information. They might also have trouble telling things in order and making it clear who’s being spoken about.
Your child will be getting better at taking turns in conversations with a group of people. And they’ll start talking at the right volume for the situation. They might make requests more politely, using words such as ‘can’, ‘would’ and ‘could’. They’ll begin to use language to tease and tell jokes.
Four-year-olds are continuing to learn what causes certain feelings, and are starting to realise that others might react differently from them when in the same situation. They’re learning to better manage intense emotions with coping strategies like talking it out or drawing a picture.
Four-year-olds also show further progress in their social interactions with peers, such as by smoothly joining in a group play situation, being sympathetic to others, or suggesting ways to resolve conflict. Your child looks to adults as trusted role models (for example, your child might imitate a teacher’s way of reading a story to the class). By 4-5 years of age, they are better able to tolerate the absence of familiar adults and copes with distress through the use of language, drawing and so on. For example, they might say, ‘I’m going to draw a picture of Mum and Dad for when they get home’. Your child increasingly expresses a sense of self in terms of his abilities, characteristics, preferences and actions.
Your child learns coping strategies (for example, using words, pretend play, drawing and so on) to establish greater control and competence in managing intense emotions. For example, after going to the hospital after a bad fall, they might repeatedly play out the experience with dolls and stuffed animals. Your child successfully joins in with a group of children. They begin and sustain pretend play in a cooperative group and might say things like ‘Let’s play that we’re going on a trip. I’ll be the pilot and you can all be on the plane’. They show further progress in developing friendships with peers, even if a bond is formed with just one other child. They’ll begin to try to please other children. Your child will respond more appropriately and sympathetically to peers who are in need, upset, hurt or angry. They’ll start to suggest solutions to problems with other children, while continuing to seek adult help.

5-8 years old At five, your child can walk and run with ease. He can also maintain an even gait in stepping. He can walk backwards and skip quickly. Most girls skip well, but some boys lag behind in skipping until as late as eight years of age. Your child will begin to be interested in games of chasing and running, and can incorporate travelling skills into a simple game (for example, ‘tag’).Your child can jump over objects and land without falling, and can combine jumping, landing and rolling. She can climb and hop well, and can coordinate movements for swimming or bike riding. She can ride a bike with, or possibly without, training wheels. When moving quickly, your child can keep his balance. He can also hold a balanced position for 8-10 seconds and is comfortable balancing on narrow bases. For example, he can easily walk on a narrow balance beam. Your child can move in a variety of ways to the beat of music. She’ll be starting to perform most ball-related skills correctly and more frequently – for example, throwing, kicking, bouncing, catching and striking. But because she’s still learning, she still needs to concentrate a lot on what she’s doing. He’ll display high energy levels and will rarely show fatigue. He’ll find inactivity difficult and seek out active games and environments. While she’s gaining confidence, your child will still think her abilities are greater than they are. At this age, your child can hit nails with hammer, and uses scissors and screwdrivers on his own. Your child will be showing awareness of personal hygiene – for example, he’ll be able to clean up or groom himself when appropriate. He has toileting under control, but might need an occasional reminder if he’s preoccupied. He might still wet the bed at night. Although she can dress herself, she might not put clothes on in the right order or facing the right way. Undressing is still easier than dressing. He’ll go to bed easily, but is prone to having nightmares. Your child is now able to feed herself, but tends to dawdle. By five years, children are aware of the sounds that make up words. They can identify words that rhyme. They might even play rhyming games and sing out a list of words that rhyme (bat, cat, fat, hat, mat ...).From 5-6 years; children learn the sounds that go with the different letters of the alphabet. This is important for the development of reading skills. Children also become aware that single sounds combine into words. For example, when the‘t’, ‘o’ and ‘p’ sounds are put together, they make the word ‘top’. And by eight years, children have more awareness of how individual sounds combine into words. This means that children can work out what word you get if you leave a sound out of another word. For example, when‘s’ is left out of ‘stop’, the word becomes ‘top’. When starting school, children might still have problems saying a few sounds. An example is the ’r’ sound, particularly in words like ‘truck’, ‘drain’, ‘bring’ and so on. By five years, children will sometimes use the correct form of verbs to talk about past events. For example, ‘I jumped’, or ‘I played’. But it will take a few more years for them to get used to the many exceptions in the English language – for example, ‘broke’, ‘threw’ and ‘ate’ rather than ‘breaked’, ‘throwed’ and ‘eated’. Even at eight, children might find the past tense of some verbs tricky. From the ages of 5-8 years, children understand that single words might have different meanings. They start to rely more on the context of a word to find a particular meaning. For example, ‘cool’ means something different when you say, ‘It’s a cool day’, compared with when you say, ‘That’s a really cool robot you’ve built’. They begin to understand non-literal meanings – for example, ‘make up your mind’. They can use ‘ness’ (as in ‘happiness’) and ‘un’ (as in ‘unwrap’). By five years, children can combine words to form active and passive sentences. But they will often have difficulty understanding passive sentences. When describing pictures, they might also mix up who is doing what to whom. By six years, this understanding of sentence construction improves. At this age, children might also have trouble understanding who pronouns refer to – for example, who ‘she’ refers to in the sentence, ‘The woman told the last girl to arrive that she was late’. From 5-8 years, this understanding improves gradually. From 4-8 years, children’s narrative skills improve and they get much better at telling stories. Their stories get longer and more detailed. The stories might be made up, or about things that have actually happened. It also becomes easier to work out who children are talking about when they’re telling a story, and how the events in their stories fit together. At this age, your child is continuing to expand her circle of trusted adults. At the same time, she’ll maintain closeness to a few special people. For example, she might say, ‘I love my teacher, Mrs Benotti!’ He’ll gain self-esteem from feeling capable and demonstrating new skills – for example, ‘I know how to read this!’ He’s also increasingly aware of his own characteristics and skills. She’ll use more complex language to express her understanding of feelings and their causes – for example, ‘I sort of want to try riding on that, but I’m sort of scared, too’. Your child now enjoys interacting with other children and adults. She’s developed a broader repertoire of social entry skills. For example, she might suggest something to do together with other children, join in an existing activity or share a snack with others. He’ll engage in more complex and sustained cooperative play, including pretend play and simple games with rules. He might say things like ‘How about if we play snakes and ladders? I’ll give out the pieces’. She’ll continue to establish and maintain her friendships with other children, particularly her school friends. She’ll seek others’ acceptance and friendship – for example, asking another child ‘We're friends, right?’ She might also join a group to exclude others. Your child now uses a wider array of words or actions to demonstrate awareness, understanding and concern for what others are feeling. For example, he might go to a child whose block building has fallen down and say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you build it again’. She uses a broader repertoire of strategies, including negotiation and compromise, to resolve conflicts before seeking adult help. For example, ‘I have a great idea, Henry! You are the bear, and I’ll be the lion. Then we can swap!’ But she’ll still have trouble with this, and might need your help to smooth things over at times.

8-11years old Girls will grow buds of breasts at ten or eleven, her hips will take shape and she may begin to menstruate at eleven or twelve. Eleven is an early start for a first period and even at twelve and thirteen girls are not always emotionally prepared and welcoming of this powerful sign of approaching fertility. When her periods begin your daughter may be proud and excited to be growing up like all her friends or she may, in the back of her mind, be anxious about approaching adolescence and the complications that this introduces into her life. Her biology demands that she be a woman soon - whether she likes it or not! How she feels about it will be strongly affected by her impression of how well adult life has treated her mother and the women close to her. Womanhood may seem rich and pleasurable or scary and hard.
The physical changes and emotional challenges are not so dramatic for boys at this age, as they tend to mature physically a little later than girls. However around twelve some boys experience masturbation and nocturnal emissions. Boys of this age can be very competitive; and success at sport or his social position in the playground may be close to your son's heart and a source of concern for him. Children in this developmental stage use logical thinking but with a very limited ability to extend logic to abstract concepts (e.g. the disdain for imaginative and illogical thinking of early childhood). At this point, they have accumulated a lot of general knowledge and have gradually developed the ability to apply learned concepts to new tasks. They also have a frequent interest in learning life skills from adults at home and elsewhere (e.g. cooking, fixing things, etc.). Children age 8-11 are predominantly focused in the needs and wants of themselves, although they have developed a conscience and move from thinking in terms of “What’s in it for me?” fairness (e.g. “If you did this for me, I would do that for you.”). They now want to gain social approval and live up to the expectations of people close to them. They tend to have a”Golden Rule” morality where they can take the perspective of others and may place the needs of others over their own self-interest. However, their moral thinking abilities are not always reflected in their behaviour. Children at this stage have a need to develop a sense of mastery and accomplishment with frequent interest in making plans and achieving goals. They learn from what parents and others do to make and fix things and have a tendency to be disorganized and forgetful.
“Early onset of puberty is associated with lower self-control and emotional instability.”
Influenced by relationships with family members, teachers, and increasingly by their peers, often relatively, 8- to 11-year-olds have a low level of concern about their physical appearance (especially boys), although this is influenced by peers as well as the media. Many boys experience pressure to conform to “masculine” stereotype. Girls’ body image declines precipitously with puberty, especially with early onset puberty. Early onset puberty is also associated with lower self-control and emotional instability, especially for boys.
Children in late childhood development tend to be closely attached to parental figures and parents increasingly need to involve these children in decision making while increasing responsibility with age. Most frequent conflicts occur over sibling quarrels and forgetfulness with respect to chores, schoolwork, and messiness, especially of their bedroom. Parental listening skills becomes increasingly important as the parent-child communication patterns can change with puberty. Friendships among 8- to 11-year-olds are often with their same-gender peers and are usually based on proximity, common interest/hobbies, or other perceived commonalities. Girls usually have fewer, but emotionally closer, friends than boys. Formation of exclusive “clubs” and shifting peer alliances is common at this age and media influences and popular culture increasingly affect the child’s peer activities and relationships.

12-19 year olds Adolescence—the transition period between childhood and adulthood—encompasses ages 12 to 19. It is a time of tremendous change and discovery. During these years, physical, emotional, and intellectual growth occurs at a dizzying speed, challenging the teenager to adjust to a new body, social identity, and expanding world view. Perhaps no aspect of adolescence is as noticeable as the physical changes that teenagers experience. Within the span of a few years, a dependent child becomes an independent and contributing adult member of society. The start of adolescence also marks the beginning of Freud's final stage of psychosexual development, the genital stage, which pertains to both adolescence and adulthood.
Puberty is the time of rapid physical development, signalling the end of childhood and the beginning of sexual maturity. Although puberty may begin at different times for different people, by its completion girls and boys without any developmental problems will be structurally and hormonally prepared for sexual reproduction. The speed at which adolescents sexually mature varies; the beginning of puberty in both genders falls within a range of 6 to 7 years. In any grouping of 14‐year‐olds, for example, one is likely to see teenagers in assorted stages of development—some appearing as older children and others as fully mature adolescents. Eventually, though, everyone catches up.
Hormones are responsible for the development of both primary sex characteristics (structures directly responsible for reproduction) and secondary sex characteristics (structures indirectly responsible for reproduction). Examples of primary sex characteristics are the penis in boys and the uterus in females. An example of secondary sex characteristics is the growth of pubic hair in both genders. During childhood, males and females produce roughly equal amounts of male (androgen) and female (estrogen) hormones. At the onset of puberty, the pituitary gland stimulates hormonal changes throughout the body, including in the adrenal, endocrine, and sexual glands. The timing of puberty seems to result from a combination of genetic, environmental, and health factors.
An early sign of maturation is the adolescent growth spurt, or a noticeable increase in height and weight. The female growth spurt usually begins between ages 10 and 14, and ends by age 16. The male growth spurt usually begins between ages 10 and 16, and ends by age 18.Girls generally begin puberty a few years earlier than boys, somewhere around ages 11 to 12. Increasing levels of estrogen trigger the onset of puberty in girls. They grow taller; their hips widen; their breasts become rounder and larger; hair grows on the legs, under the arms, and around the genitals; the labia thicken; the clitoris elongates; and the uterus enlarges. Around the age of 12 or 13, most girls today begin menstruating, or having menstrual periods and flow. The onset of menstruation is termed menarche. At this time, females can become pregnant. Most adolescents reach Piaget's stage of formal operations (ages 12 and older), in which they develop new tools for manipulating information. Previously, as children, they could only think concretely, but in the formal operations stage they can think abstractly and deductively. Adolescents in this stage can also consider future possibilities, search for answers, deal flexibly with problems, test hypotheses, and draw conclusions about events they have not experienced first-hand. Cognitive maturity occurs as the brain matures and the social network expands, which offers more opportunities for experimenting with life. Because this worldly experience plays a large role in attaining formal operations, not all adolescents enter this stage of cognitive development. Studies indicate, however, that abstract and critical reasoning skills are teachable. For example, everyday reasoning improves between the first and last years of college, which suggests the value of education in cognitive maturation. If teenagers can be said to have a reason for being (besides sleeping in on weekends and cleaning out the refrigerator), it would have to be asserting their independence this demands that they distance themselves from Mom and Dad. The march toward autonomy can take myriad forms: less overt affection, more time spent with friends, contentious behaviour, pushing the limits—the list goes on and on. Yet adolescents frequently feel conflicted about leaving the safety and security of home. They may yo-yo back and forth between craving your attention, only to spin away again. Until now, a child’s life has revolved mainly around the family. Adolescence has the effect of a stone dropped in water, as her social circle ripples outward to include friendships with members of the same sex, the opposite sex, different social and ethnic groups, and other adults, like a favourite teacher or coach. Eventually teenagers develop the capacity for falling in love and forming relationships. Not all teenagers enter and exit adolescence at the same age or display these same behaviours. What’s more, throughout much of adolescence, a youngster can be farther along in some areas of development than in others. For example, a fifteen-year-old girl may physically resemble a young adult but she may still act very much like a child since it isn’t until late adolescence that intellectual, emotional and social development begin to catch up with physical development. It’s comforting to know that feeling a sense of loss is a normal response—one that is probably shared by half the moms and dads standing next to you at soccer practice.