The Correlation Between Mental Health And Child Development

In this writing it will be discussing childhood development, as well as some vital issues that might come along during those stages of development. Child development consist of the stage where the child is developing physically, cognitively, socially and spiritually. During these stages of development a child is maturing from infancy to becoming a young adult. For many years theorist such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, and Lev Vygotsky’s have researched how children mature from infants to adulthood. Each of the theorist have profound facts to how children develop, but which of the three men are correct on their findings?

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.

Child`s development must be seen holistically as each area of development are connected with and affects every other area of development.

Here we will be looking at each child’s physical development, social and emotional development, intellectual development, and language development. Not one area of development is less important than another, and they all have an impact on each other.

A child’s development can be measured through physical and language milestones, intellectual, emotional and social development.

Pre-operational stage (toddler and early childhood) is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language, matures, memory and imagination are developed but thinking is non-logical.

Children’s development can be grouped into four different aspects: physical, social and emotional, intellectual and language.

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.

* What support and interventions a child can receive if they are not meeting their milestones

It is important to be able to identify these developmental mile stones in order to asses a childs rate of development and make observations as to whether or not a child is developing at a rate that you would expect.

In this domain Piaget stated that the child who is still in the preoperational stage can’t conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations. They can’t mentally manipulate information. The child is able to form stable concepts as well as magical beliefs and their thinking is still egocentric, which means that the child has difficulty seeing the viewpoint of others. Piaget split this stage into the symbolic and intuitive thought substage. In the symbolic function stage children are able to understand, represent, remember, and picture objects in their mind without having the object in front of them. Vygotsky stated that children learn cognitive tasks through their interactions with older peers and adults. Not only do younger children watch and imitate older people or peers as they complete tasks, but these older guides also help younger children accomplish tasks they couldn’t accomplish on their own. He calls this the zone of proximal development which he describes what children can do alone and what they can do with assistance. Another theorist named Bandura coined the term observational learning which means people learn appropriate social behaviors by observing and modeling others. This type of learning is most effective during childhood. Vygotsky believed that the important part of the cognitive development is language. He observed that very young

This paper will explore the article ‘In search of the pathways that lead to mentally healthy children’ (Shanker, 2008). It will mainly look at the idea of how do we know what a healthy pathway for development is, and how do we facilitate this development? Shankar examines the development of a healthy mind, a bit of the nature-nurture debate and how a healthy mind looks in children and youth with ADHD and Autism. Shankar used plenty of examples of scientific information to confirm what he was writing about. The author was trying to convey the idea of how the pathways in the brain are developed by nature and nurture as well as addressing the question of, how do these healthy pathways get made.

A 15 year-old Veronica is ½ Caucasian and ½ Cuban American. Her visits with a psychologist reveal some of her social environment history, cultural background, psychological stressors, and her current symptoms. This is her diagnostic case formulation. Thus, previously observed symptomatology by her mother and inferential information, related to culture and biological and social etiologies can be examined for diagnosing a psychological disorder. Accordingly, the diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013), along with the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC:0-3R), would be utilized for through evaluation of each aspect before accurately making a diagnostic decision. Conclusively, persistent depressive disorder with specifiers of melancholic features, early onset, and persistent major depressive episode, with moderate level in severity would be made for Veronica’s diagnosis. In other words, Veronica has an early onset of double depression with a severity level of moderate.

The fourth stage is actually having depression, this is when a mother starts to really feel the depression and starts to think that they are just holding their families back from being happy. They will have symptoms like excessive crying, mood swings, loss of appetite and even severe anxiety and panic attacks. It will even get to the point where they will think about harming the baby since in their eyes Its all the babes fault that they are going through this. They will want to make the decision to just leave their families because they aren’t in a good place and don’t want to keep hurting their loves ones. They will even think “I’II never get better so there’s no point in going on (Stone 2011)” meaning they see no point in living or even getting

In some ways young children’s learning and thinking is similar to thinking and learning in science. Young children naturally gain knowledge even before entering a classroom by watching and listening to others, exploring, experimenting, and mimicking what they observe. I believe that children are natural scientists who actively intend to learn about and manipulate their worlds. From birth children tend to have an innate drive for knowledge. Infants naturally know how to identify their parents and surroundings by hearing familiar sounds and seeing familiar shapes or colors. Toddlers are prone to touching, grabbing, and tasting everything in their reach. Preschool aged children are able to communicate verbally with others, follow verbal instructions and they also start developing problem solving skills. I have four-year old boy girl twins that are in preschool right now. They are in that phase where they want to know everything so I often hear them asking the when, what, who, why, and how questions. It is also interesting to watch them as they learn from each other for example, they are both in the same class and they are learning how to identify their names and the letters that are used to spell it. This task is a bit more challenging for my son than it is for my daughter because his cognitive skills are delayed and their names are spelled with similar letters (Jaelah and Jaedon). I will often see my daughter correcting my son if she finds him, pointing out the wrong name or