Question

Discuss the areas in which physical development takes place during late childhood.

Answer 1

1. Height and Weight: They annually grow 2-3" in height and 2 kg in weight. An average 12-year old measures 147 cm in height and 37 kg in weight.
2. Body Proportions: Although the head is still proportionally too large for the rest of the body, some of the facial disproportions disappear.
   1. Arms and legs grow much longer and become proportional to the trunk of the body and the head.
   2. The body becomes much sleeker and more developed.
   3. The skeletal system grows.
3. Muscle-Fat Ratio: During late childhood, fat tissue develops more rapidly than muscle tissue, which has a marked growth spurt beginning at puberty. Children who have endomorphic (fat) builds have more fat than muscle tissue, while the reverse is true for those who have mesomorphic (muscular) builds. Ectomorphs (thin build) does not have a predominance of either.
4. Teeth: At the beginning of middle childhood, the milk teeth (primary) begin to fall off, eventually being replaced by a permanent set of teeth. Their molars are the first set of teeth to · emerge without replacing primary teeth. Children usually develop their second set of molars around the age of 12 to 13. By the onset of puberty (11–12 years), a child normally has twenty-eight of the thirty-two permanent teeth. The last four, the wisdom teeth, arise during adolescence.