Understanding children and young people Essay Example for Free

Understanding children and young people Essay Children’s development is influenced by a variety of different personal factors, such as: †¢health status †¢disability †¢sensory impairment †¢learning difficulties Health status: A child health status could be determined by their genes or factors such as environment, diet and stress this could have a big impact on the child development. A child being born into a family that both parents carry a trait of sickle cell, that child has one in four chance of being born with sickle cell anaemia. Due to the illness the child sequences and rate development could be affected because of the illness. A child living in a poor environment where it is cold and damp is mostly to develop asthma and also has a bad diet could become obesity or undernourished. This could affect a child aspect of development as they may feel they dont want to play with other children because of their weight or they cant play because their illness restrict what they can do. Children could find it hard to settle in a nursery/ playgroup because they have missed session due to illness this could also be stressful for the child because they might find it hard to make friends. As an nursery worker or playgroup leader you should always make children with an illness or coming from a poor background should all be treated equal and make sure they miss out as little as possible. Disability Sensory impairment: Children born with disabilities could affect their aspect development for example A child in a wheelchair or with a serious physical impairment would find it hard to do many activities, particularity those that are physically demanding. Gross motor skills would be at a less developed rate than peers and fine motor skills may be affected if the child had little or no control over their limbs. Although a disability can affect a child development there should always support and opportunities for children to be able to learn and develop , for example a child should have one to one support or a key worker where that person is allocated to that child to help them gain and learn the same as their peers. Learning difficulties: There are many different types of learning  difficulties which can affect a child aspect development in many different ways and also rate of development. Learning difficulties does affect everyone in different ways as we are different individuals they are also present differently at various stages of development. Cognitive development is majorly affected as it covers the way the brain processes information. Learning difficulties prevents the brains ability to receive, process, store, respond to and communicate information. For example a child that is dyslexic will have trouble confusing letter names and sounds, difficulties blending sounds into words, slow rate of reading, trouble remembering after reading text. They will find it hard to concentrate in school as it affects their intellectual skills, this could lead the child feeling left out with their peers. They may might need to have one-to-one lessons at school to help educate them as they may not be at the same cognitive stage as peers.