Human Growth & Development Essay

The environment plays a crucial role in development from the newborn to the adolescence. The environmental view according to Sameroff is that a person’s IQ is largely influenced by culture and the surroundings in which the person is raised. Poor diet and lifestyle for example, taking alcohol during pregnancy can result in brain damage and hence low IQ in a child. Some research has shown that people from some social background tend to have low IQ e. g. blacks due to varied factors including stimulation and diet. Their research also found out that when children are exposed to extreme stress such as domestic violence, their neurocognitive development is affected and thus lower intelligence. In this case when children are stressed their brains are harmed drastically. It is documented that babies require a lot of fat in the first 12 months of life to build stronger and healthy brains. Stimulated children score on IQ tests than the unstimulated. This implies that need adult attention and play to do better on IQ tests. In this case inventories such as computer will be a lot helpful. Moreover, some music can improve a child’s IQ, for example the Mozart. However, it is possible that children with low levels of personal resources can reach the same level of achievement like that of the ones from highly advantaged social cadre. According to Caldwell and Bradley (1984), the HOME inventory is an index that depicts the quantity and quality of cognitive and emotional stimulation in the home environment. On visiting my neighbor’s home, I found that there were three children ranging from age 6-12. They were actively involved in computer games. Their parents occasionally joined them in playing the games. It was clear that there was mutual understanding between the family members. On rating the intellectual environment I gave a â€Å"high†. Work Cited 1. Caldwell, Bradley. â€Å"HOME inventory† New York: John Wiley. 1984:79 2. Sameroff AJ, Seifer R, Zax M. † Early development of children at risk for emotional disorder†. Child Dev. 1982;47. Serial no. 199 3. Sameroff AJ, Seifer R, Baldwin A, Baldwin C. â€Å"Stability of intelligence from preschool to adolescence: the influence of social and family risk factors†. Child Dev. 1993; 64:80-97