preview

A Child's Cognitive Growth

Good Essays

One of the focuses for psychologists is human development. Humans go through several stages of development, one of them being infant development. This stage is critical to a child’s cognitive growth. The various stages of infant development each hold equal significance and should be developed appropriately. Infants are especially sensitive and receptive to certain stimuli during this stage. One of the physical developments occurring in infants during this time is a fifty percent increase in brain mass. This stage of development is clearly crucial to the development process. Some things that were unclear regarding this stage involves the lack of the stages during this period, development per different cultures, the presence of a caregiver …show more content…

The development of the body is essential to the development process because a child is growing and strengthening muscles that will soon be necessary for day-to-day life. While this behavior will naturally develop on its own, environmental and experiential factors can act to slow or speed this process.
A second behavioral development that occurs during infancy is contact comfort. This is when an infant gives a positive response from stimulation from their parent or caregiver. Infants are already drawn to their caregiver due to the rooting reflex that developed during the neonatal stage, contact comfort is takes this reflex a step further. The infant will most likely seek a reassuring touch from this caregiver or parent. Harry Harlow, an American psychologist, did an experiment with monkeys to demonstrate this. Different monkeys were given different caregivers, one group had a very cold, robotic looking monkey as a caregiver and the other group had a soft, loving-looking monkey as a caregiver. While the monkeys with the robotic caregiver went to their caregiver for necessities, such as food, they would cling to the other, more comforting, mother monkey due to the soft touch they would receive. This experiment by Harlow demonstrates the innate need for comfort from caregivers or parents.
The third behavioral development stage during infancy is attachment. Attachment involves the social and emotional relationship between an infant and his or

Get Access