Page 25 - Biblical Counseling II

2. Continuity/stages: Is development a gradual process or does it proceed through a sequence of
separate stages?

3. Stability/change: Do our early personality traits continue through life, or do we become different
people as we age? (Myers, 2012)

The Newborn
“What are some newborn abilities? Newborns come equipped with automatic responses ideally suited for
survival. Can you think of some examples of this? Newborns are born with sensory reflexes (crying,
breathing, sucking) that facilitate their survival and their social interactions with adults. We have a
coordinated sequence of reflexes by which a baby gets food. Babies have a coordinated sequence of
reflexive tonguing, swallowing, and breathing to nurse. A hungry baby may learn to cry when hungry.
Newborns turn their heads in the direction of human voices. Within days, our brain’s neural networks were
stamped with the smell from our mother’s body” (Myers, p. 67, 2012).

Infancy and Childhood
“During infancy and childhood, how do the brain and motor skills
develop? Cognitive Development refers to all mental activities associated
with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. In your
mother’s womb, your developing brain formed nerve cells at the
explosive rate of nearly one-quarter million per minute. The developing
brain cortex actually overproduces neurons, with the number peaking at
28 weeks and then subsiding to a stable 23 billion or so at birth. On the
day you were born, you had most of the brain cells you would ever have.
However, your nervous system was immature: After birth, the branching
neural networks that eventually enabled you to walk, talk, and remember
had a wild growth spurt. From ages 3 to 6, the most rapid growth was in your frontal lobes, which enable
rational planning. This helps explain why preschoolers display a rapidly developing ability to control their
attention and behavior” (Myers, p. 67, 2012).
(photo: mybrownbaby.blogspot.com)

“As a flower unfolds in accord with its genetic instructions, so do we, in the orderly sequence of biological
growth processes called maturation. Maturation decrees many of our commonalities – from standing before
walking to using nouns before adjectives. Severe deprivation or abuse can slow down development, and
positive parental experiences of talking and reading will help sculpt neural connections. Yet the genetic
growth tendencies are inborn. Maturation sets the basic course of development; experience adjusts it.
Examples of this from nature would be your height, weight, hair color, the shape of your face, eyes, etc.
From nurture would be habits, being secure, skills you learn from parents, behaviors you see modeled from
those around you” (Myers, p. 70, 2009).

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