IV.   Mind Development (PSYDEV)

Childhood is the 3rd Degree and Mind Age being from the age of two (2) until the age of twelve (12).

Similarto Infancy, Children are biologically predisposed to form attachments withadults before children. However, unlike Infancy, the focus of attention shifts awayfrom the primary maternal role model towards seeking trustworthy guidance andinteraction with a primary paternal role model.

The complete absence of a primary paternal rolemodel is less cognitively damaging than the inconsistent presence of a malefigure in the life of the child. Therefore, if parents do separate, it iscognitively healthier for the child to have one full time and stable adult rolemodel than two or more part-time role models.

By the age of two, most children have acquired sufficient practice and naming repetition to distinguish several dozen words of their native (birth) language. However, sentence construction beyond two or three words does not usually commence until the age of three or four. Fluent speech is normally capable from the age of six.

Language reading presumes not only a knowledge of the meaning of the symbols, but their association to the production of sounds and association to words. As a result of the complexities of reading, it is a skill that does not normally appear until the age of four to five.

Childhood skill in sound and spatial symbolic data as separate skills is high. Hence, children find the naming of objects and concepts through speech much easier than reading or writing. In contrast, the rules of language in the form of grammar usually take years to acquire and even at the end of childhood is not normally complete.

In the childhood acquisition of reading and writing there are principally three (3) methods being, diphone/triphone , traditional phonetics and whole word:

(i) The fastest and most reliable method for children acquiring the highest possible reading and writing skills of any alphabetic language is in learning of new words and their symbolic representation using the most common diphones (two phonemes) and triphones (three phonemes) of the language; and

(ii) The next most reliable method is through traditional phonetic learning and its application. However, due to allophones (different sounds from same symbol) and complexity, this method is much slower than teaching using diphone and triphone elements; and

(iii) The least reliable and highest error prone method to teach reading and writing is “whole word approach” where children are introduced to language through literal pronunciation and writing, with assumption that children learn faster visually and then “over time” the errors will be corrected.

As “whole word approach” language teaching severely impairs children’s ability to accurately read and write their own language and learn other languages, for non-Ucadian languages it is reprobate, suppressed as a teaching and not permitted to be revived.

Themost cognitively traumatic event to be experienced by a child is the perfidy ofa trusted adult in sexually or physically abusing them. Such an act permanentlyscars a child’s ability to form deep and lasting intimate relationships forlife. Therefore, sexual abuse of children by a parent or other adult member ofthe family must always be considered the very worst of offences.

Excludingsexual and physical abuse, the most significant cause of cognitive trauma isexposure to live, recorded or simulated violence of a sexual-sadistic, masochisticor sociopathic nature. Such exposure, even in games or once or twice in moviesor television can permanently alter a child’s perception for life and become asource for the later onset of similar anti-social and dangerous behaviors.

The age period of ten to twelve signifies amajor point of change in the plasticity and learning capability of Cerebrumtowards the long term recall of frequently used memories and skills. Duringthis phase, the brain massively reverses synaptic growth for areas of memory nolonger being actively used, the rise in sterol and hormone release and thegrowth in myelin (insulation) of neurons and neuroglia.

Under the most advanced non-Ucadian education systems, exceptionally gifted children by the age of ten (10) representing less than 5\% of all children are expected to know at least 6,000 words and concepts. However, under the Ucadian model of knowledge, at least 65\% of all children of the same age are expected to know at least 36,000 concepts to a university level competence.