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Child

A child is a young human. Depending on context it may mean someone who is
not yet an adult, or someone who has not yet hit puberty (someone who is
prepubescent).

A female child is called a girl and a male child is a boy (though a small
percentage of humans are intersexual this is a distinction of biological sex
not neccecarily social or psychological gender). Apart from the genitals,
young children do not differ much by sex. Whether cultural and parental
practices emphasize or weaken gender identity is subject to debate. For
instance, parents often discipline boys more, which potentially weakens
their inborn more aggressive nature making them more similar to girls. In
general, the extent to which gender identity is formed during childhood or
congenital is a matter of much debate within psychology and genetics.

In law, a person who is not yet a legal adult is known as a minor (known in
some places as an juvenile, or, in others, as a infant). For example, in
many countries a person under the age of 18 is a minor. Most countries give
additional legal protection to minors despite their underage status, and all
countries except the United States and Somalia have ratified the United
Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Child development is the study or examination of processes and mechanisms
that operate during the physical and mental development of an infant into an adult.

Pediatrics is the branch of medicine relating to the care of children. It encompasses
ages from prenatal to teenagers and even young adults (ages 0-21 years).

Stages of development include:

   * (Zygote, the point of Conception, fertilization)
   * (Embryo; in the later stages also called fetus)
   * (Birth)
   * Child
        o Infant (baby, newborn)
        o Toddler
        o Primary school age (also called prepubescence)
             + Elementary school age (also called middle childhood)
             + Preadolescence (preteen, or late childhood. The child in this
               and the previous phase are called schoolchild (schoolboy or
               schoolgirl), when still of primary school age.)
   * (Adolescence) (teenage)
   * (Young adult) (sometimes used as a euphemism for adolescent)
   * (Adult)
   * (Advanced adult/Senior)
        o Sexagenarian
        o Septuagenarian
        o Octogenarian
        o Nonagenarian
        o Centenarian
   * (Death)

Physical development

   * Ability to lift and control the orientation of the head
   * Crawling begins
   * Walking begins
   * Speech begins
   * Voice lowers in pitch (especially noticeable in boys)
   * Pubic hair appears
   * Genitals and reproductive organs mature
   * Menses begin (females)
   * body hair and facial hair appears

Cognitive development

   * Learning
   * Music lessons
   * Infant Education
   * Language acquisition
   * Developmental psychology

Notable child prodigies

   * Christian Henry Heinecken (The Infant of Luebeck)
   * Isaac Albeniz
   * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Street child

A street child is a child that lives on the street, in particular one that
is not taken care of by parents or other adults, and also sleeps on the
street because he or she does not have a home.

Human development

Human development refers to all forms of development above, often in the
context of clinical psychology or as human development theory (in economics,
an outgrowth of welfare economics).

Both the psychological and economic fields share a special concern with
education and language fluency including literacy and numeracy, and with
identification and development of more unique talents into the economic
variable known as individual capital.

Earlier branches of economics see humans in terms of labour for production,
means of persuasion or protection, which tend to be skills acquired only in
adolescence and adulthood. The human development view is more evident in
sports, music and other performing arts, such as acting where the child
begins training often as early as three years of age. Think of Tiger Woods
and his early practice golfing.

While there are problems with such early "streaming", child murder, child
abandonment, military use of children and other major social ills are
thought to be reduced by a human development approach - as as there is a
high value assigned to children by the state.

The UN Human Development Index is a means of measuring well-being used to
rank states by these criteria. Although child abuse is thought to be lower
in countries with a high ranking on this Index, that is not easily proven.

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