Infant Development Paper
Denicia Bowers
OTA 1002 Human Occupation Through the Life Span
Summer 2017
Infant Development Paper
Infants go through different developmental stages. It is a part of the human life cycle. The beginning stages of an infant’s life is the most developing (Payne & Issacs, 2012). One of the stages that infant go through is the Late Infancy Stage. During the Late Infancy Stage, infants between 7-9 months reach many different milestones. As the infant grows and becomes aware of their surrounding the more developed they become. Infants discover new things daily and it is important to support their growth. Late Infancy stage involves the gross motor, fine motor, oral- motor, cognitive language, personal and social
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Fine motor control allows infants to exercise their hand muscles which helps them to play with toys. Some atypical behaviors are keeping hands closed without opening them and not grasping when objects are placed in the palm of the hand.
While infants have a growing interest in the world around them, putting things in the mouth is normal. Oral motor development is an important milestone, many foods are introduced during this stage. Infant has more control over the tongue, lip, jaw, teeth, soft and hard palate, this permits infant to eat soft and mashed up food like mashed potatoes and apple sauce. Mouth movement and coordination is significant when eating and swallowing. A parent may give her infants a cookie and the infant will eat it, biting off small pieces at a time. When spoon fed an infant can eat from a spoon and when drinking from a bottle the seal is stronger which prevents less spillage (Koontz -Lowman &Lane, 1999). Difficulty swallowing and chewing food is a sign of atypical behavior.
During late infancy stage, an infant’s abilities to process, understand and produce language is important and begins as soon as the child is born. Infants recognize sounds in their environment, such as a mother’s voice. Infants also become aware of their native language, those babbling sounds become clear. “Ma-ma” or Da-da is usually heard and is often repeated. Babbling sounds may not refer to anything specific, “Ma-ma” can be signified as
Babies will start to take an Interest in playing with fingers and opening and closing hands.
Once babies are grown in test tubes, there would be no need for parents and therefore vanish the incredible bond between the mother, father, and child. The childhood of a child that was grown in a test tube would be completely unconventional, since that child would not have loving parents to teach them anything. Adults raised this way would grow up to be unusual as a result of not knowing what love is since people first know about love because of the love between them and their parents. The adults grown from test tubes would most likely be independent and isolated from the rest of the world because they would not have created a bond with anyone or even interacted with anyone as a child.
The infants physical development starts with the head and then moves to other parts of the body. From the very beginning babies are very curious and are ready to start exploring. Infants necks are unable to support the weight of the head when the baby is sat up straight. They are able to turn their heads left to right when laying down. Infants are able to close their fist.
It is believed that babies develop language when they are in the utero and it continues throughout their lifetime. By twelve weeks old, babies may register the sounds they can hear and at the same time make basic visual, auditory and tactile mind maps (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). This allows the infant to turn towards any familiar sounds and noises. Babies begin to communicate with people around them quite quickly. By two months old, babies begin to make ‘cooing’ and other noises; this indicates the phonological component of language development. By six to nine months babies begin to experience with a mixture of sounds, and often you will hear a baby babbling. Babbling development is similar across many different languages and even hearing impaired babies will go through this stage. They may copy the sounds they are introduced too or beginning to recognize familiar
At the age of 6-11 months babies begin to babble such things such as mama. Babies at this age often try to communicate by actions or gestures and tries to repeat simple sounds that are used a lot around them.
Give atleast 6 example for each age group in each development stage. The ages under each section are;
The costs of this expansion will mostly go toward labor, as labor is the single largest component of costs for early infant and toddler care centers (Marshall et al., 2004). For teachers to stay invested in the children they teach and care for, they must be fairly compensated to maintain the high quality of care. According to a study in Massachusetts, 72 percent of typical full-time, full-year center expenditures go toward labor (Marshall, et al., 2004). In dollar amounts, “average expenditures per child care hour were $4.42 for centers serving infants and $4.28 for centers serving toddlers. These correspond to full-time care expenditures of $10,343 and $10,015 for the two groups of centers [infants and toddlers, respectively]”
The development of a child in the first year of life is extremely intense; in just 52 weeks’ an infant goes through major physical, cognitive and social and emotional developments.
Meggitt, C., 2006. Child Development : an illustrated guide. 2nd Ed. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dundeecollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3384832
At 6 weeks infants develop a social smile, at 3 month laughter and curiosity develop, at 4 months full responsive smiles emerge, from 4-8 months they develop anger, from 9014 months they develop a fear of social events, at 12 months the are fearful of unexpected sights and sounds, and at 18 months they are self-aware, feel pride, shame, and embarrassment. In the first two years, infants develop from reactive pain and pleasure to complex patterns of social awareness. Emotions in infants are produced from their body as opposed to their thoughts. Therefore fast and uncensored reactions are common in infants. During their toddler years, the strength of their emotions will increase.
Babies and toddlers show amazing progress in all aspects of their development from birth to three years, considering they are born with simple reflexes and are quite helpless and dependent. It is essential to have a good understanding of the development stages in this group in order to support their development. The changes that occur in a child’s development in the first few years of life are truly remarkable. Practitoners note children’s
Infant learning and brain development is fragile and contingent upon numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The most critical time frame for infant brain development is from the second trimester to the first three months of life (Marshall, 2011). During this time, neural pathways are forming, areas of the brain are maturing, and brain development is rapid. From infancy until the age of 3 years, neural pathways are still being formed in response to stimulation and for this reason, it is extremely important for caregivers and parents to be aware of the many factors that can influence brain development in infants (Marshall, 2011).
Infancy is recognized as the stage of life from a human 's birth up until he or she learns how to speak: generally until the age of one or two. During this stage, the child transitions from a dependent toddler to a relatively active child; he or she is typically able to crawl, roll over and walk. In terms of physical development, the stage of infancy witnesses the most growth. Also during infancy the child gains a sense of trust when its caregivers provide affection and reliability, a lack of such
Your psychosocial development question, I believe, is an essential matter regarding an infant’s development. Likewise, I found all of your questions to be articulated and thoughtful. Back to the question at hand regarding an infant’s psychosocial development. In your hypothetical question, it seems that the infant is displaying two forms of an emotional reaction to the nature of social environments: stranger anxiety and social referencing. Both of which are normal emotional reactions to strange surroundings and the strangers found within it.
Infancy is far from what some have assumed – a time for rigidly and mechanically handling the baby because he seems to have so little capability as an adapting human being. The following developmental tasks are to be accomplished in infancy: