Module 4: Abnormal Psychology

Parents who eat well and are physically active provide great examples for growing children, offering them a nutritious diet rich in vitamins and minerals provides them with the necessary nutrients to support healthy growth and development. Additionally encouraging active play and incorporating physical activities into daily life will help children build muscular mass and increase coordination and develop self confidence. While young children

Explain how children and young people’s development is influenced by a range of personal factors.

D1) Evaluate how nature and nurture may affect the physical, intellectual, emotional and social development at infancy and adolescence.

A child’s environment, for example, their family or school play a huge part in their development. Some of the main factors that influence a child’s development are their family, where the child lives, and socio-economic status. These factors often cross over and blend as they are related.

2.1 Explain how children and young people’s development is influenced by a range of personal factors

Describe with examples the kinds of influences that affect children and young people’s development, including:

There are different things that can affect a child’s development in their background these are just a few of them: -

Jean Piaget developed his theory of cognitive development to show how humans develop intelligence. The first stage in Piaget’s theory is the sensorimotor period which lasts from birth to around the age of two. In this stage infants begin to develop their intelligence by interacting with the world around them. One of the primary way infants interact with the world is though natural reflexes, which exist cross-cultural, and by physically and visually observing the world around them. In the film all the infants are shown growing and learning from what are very different environments, but each child is still learning the same lessons through their environment. One moment in the film this is shown is when the infants are playing with toys, specifically a crib mobile. While not every child has a crib or a mobile as we think of one in western culture, the film cuts between each child playing with some form of toy that either hangs above their sleeping area or is held by a parent or sibling. Another part of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage is the development of habits. The film shows these habits forming in all the infants in simple ways, Panijao reaching for something or Hattie reaching for a finger to place in her mouth. The film shows that despite the infants developing in different environments and cultures they still grow and learn in much

Children and young people often experience many things which have a direct impact on their development; things such as their family environment and structure, personality, hospital visits, childcare arrangements, and culture.

The external factors influencing a child’s development include their immediate environment, i.e. their family and their circumstances at home, their socioeconomic background and the education they receive from institutions or their family.

Physical: When a child is born they begin developing strength from large muscles to small muscles. When children are young they need to do many activities to strengthen their large and small muscles. Something I realized is that muscle skill development and maintaining healthy body are essential in life later for reading, writing and math.

I handed my infant niece, Harper, a set of keys, thinking she would shake them and giggle at the noise they made. I thought this because in Piaget’s developmental stage, sensorimotor, it states that infants learn from experimenting and their main focus is what is happening in that very moment. My prediction was correct. As soon as I held the keys in front of her she began to reach for them. Then once I handed the keys to her, she rattled them making a clanging noise.

On top of the expected pattern of children and young people’s development including “physical, communication & intellectual & social, emotional & behavioural development there are also “personal and external” factors which will affect how they develop.

Piaget believe that children are active thinkers. He recognized that the mind develops through a series of irreversible stages. He also acknowledged that a child’s maturing brain builds schemas that are constantly assimilating and accommodating to the world around them. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is split into four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The sensorimotor stage occurs from birth to nearly two years of age. At this stage, infants learn about the world around them by sensing it and interacting within it. It is also in this stage that the idea of object permanence develops, that is, the awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not being observed. In my personal life, I am certain that in this stage of development I would have enjoyed peek-a-boo, because if I didn’t see it, to my developing mind, it wasn’t there at all. The second stage, preoperational, lasts from two years of age to seven years of

Infant development is greatly influenced by the environment which the infant grows in. Some important environment factors are the economic circumstances, cultural values, family structure, etc. These types of environmental factors can shift how the infant develops, and if certain milestones are achieved earlier or later. The environment has more of an impact on the infant than people may think it does.