ABSTRACT
All children and adolescents have three primary tasks: to grow (increase in the size of the body as a whole and of its parts and systems), to mature (progress towards the biologically mature state, which is an operational concept because maturity varies with the body system), and to develop (learn the appropriate cognitive, social, affective, moral, motor, and other behaviours expected by society). Growth and maturation are biological processes, while development is a behavioural process, often subsumed in the term socialisation, specific to a culture. The three processes are distinct, though related and interacting, tasks that dominate the daily lives of youth for approximately the first two decades of life (Malina, Bouchard, et al. 2004). Interactions among growth, maturation, and development vary during childhood and adolescence, among individuals, and within and between cultural groups.
