Infant Stimulation Assignment: Developmental Psychology

Each child’s physical, social, emotional, and intellectual and language development will be looked at through age stages. All of these categories are as important as each other and can each have a substantial impact on the child’s full adult potential.

Right from birth children develop their behaviour and social skills from what they experience at home. This experience should be caring, loving and supportive, it should provide children with the opportunity to develop and interact as much as possible. Children need to be exposed to as many experiences as feasible, so that not only can they learn and develop, but they can have their main carers/parents support. This will allow a child to learn to deal with different situations.

In order to apply theories and models of child development to support children’s development we must get to know each individual child by building a good relationship with the children through play, communication and answering to their personal needs. Observation and assessment is also key so that we know what each child is capable of and what they are working towards/could be encouraged towards. Good communication with parents is also beneficial as it helps the carer to see what the child is doing at home and to identify if there are things they do or don’t do at nursery that is different from home. It also helps to work out ways of encouraging development at home and at nursery.

Piaget suggests that development in children occurs in four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational.

There are three main theories of development that I shall discuss in this assignment, 'Cognitive', the main theorist being, 'Piaget', (1896 - 1980), The, 'Psychosocial Theory', 'Erikson', (1902 - 1994), and, The 'Psychosexual', of, 'Freud', (1856 - 1939).

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

The movie “Babies” showed an abundance of behaviors and interactions that could unequivocally produce a secure attachment. One of the fundamental things that I noticed was the mothers that were reading books to their babies. Reading to children aids tremendously in their development and learning

This theory focuses solely on children’s cognitive development so that is both a strength and a weakness as it gets an in-depth understanding of children’s cognitive processes however it cannot be generalised to adults. Another strength of this theory is the fact that it can be applied practically within the real world, especially in regards to education as it means children can be taught based upon their developmental stage. It is extremely useful in that sense as it is nomothetic so it can be applied to larger population. The theory contains both continuous and discontinuous, it is discontinuous as it contains distinct hierarchal stages. It is good in one sense as it allows professionals to see if a child is meeting the stages and if they do not action can be taken. At the same time it can be disadvantageous as professionals, such as teachers may not push a child to reach their full cognitive capabilities as they have met the criteria for their age. At the time this was quite revolutionary as children were once considered “little adults” that only has a slightly less mental and developmental capacity. Therefore they may not have learnt as effective as they could, as they may have been taught above or below their capacity. However with that said it has been suggested that his stages of

Psychology is diverse, and there are many diverse specialty areas available to individuals seeking a career in the field of psychology. Most Psychologists choose to specialize in subfields that focus on specific subjects. Obtaining a profession in any of the specialty areas would require graduate study in that area of interest. Some professionals have a broad general knowledge, are skilled in several areas, and work with a range of clients. Some are specialist in treating a specific type of psychological disorder, or work with a specific age group. For those interested in specializing in a psychology career, developmental Psychology is one of the many fields available.

There are expected patterns of development for children from birth to 19 years old. Although all children are individuals and unique and there are factors which can have a bearing on development such as health, environment and home life and parenting these milestones happen naturally. The patterns start from birth with new-born babies having very little control of their bodies and are totally dependent. Up to 1 month old, a baby can focus both

There is a plethora of child development theories that have a degree of influence over current practice. Each of which both have criticism and contrasting theories.

Similar to physical and socio-emotional development, cognitive development is increased with a secure attachment between the parent and child (E, 806). Increasing importance is being associated with the “mothers’ verbal responsiveness, which are important for the emergent language and cognitive skills” (Increase in maternal Education, 3). According to a recent study from Arizona State University, researchers concluded infants with an insecure attachment were less “focused during storybook interactions” and therefore experienced less stimulation as the secure mother/child dyad. (F,445).

Throughout the article the author gives adequate examples to support his ideas, his use of studies and research that were performed by other psychologists was one of the strong points. Because his research was conducted efficiently it allowed him to focus on developing a section to talk about individuals who were diagnosed as a child allowed the article to be more interesting to read. My reasoning for believing his research was done well is that he gave both his side of the argument as well as others. For instance, when he states how people don 't grow out of ADHD they grow out of the structured environment that they once had. He supports this by bringing in information from Stephen Faraone a clinical psychologist and psychiatry professor at the State

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 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: