ABSTRACT
Environment would shape the child's development. To understand the meaning of development, it is useful to distinguish development from growth. Sometimes development in one domain seems to take precedence over others, such as when an infant's attentions alternate between the monumental tasks of learning to walk and talk. Optimal child development occurs when the child and the teacher operate in the child's zone of proximal development (ZPD). Many child development manuals designed for parents and certain introductory textbooks for professionals are organized according to normative ages of acquisition, or the chronological age at which the "typical child" will accomplish individual developmental tasks. The potential harm from each environmental risk depends on its method of invasion and the specific developmental process that it interrupts. The child's life is played out in a dynamic relationship with the social environment. Myriad factors in the immediate environment and the larger social and historical context can and do shape development.
