Development Of Children Essay, Research Paper

Infants grow at a very rapid rate during the first one and a half years of life.

Their development is not only physical, it is also mental, emotionally, and

social. These developments are the blue prints for further development in life.

During development, there are three basic developmental laws. The first one is

the baby?s development in the head region, followed by the upper body,

followed by the trunk portion, and lastly the legs and feet. For example, a baby

can hold up their heads first before they can grab an object with their hand.

The second law is the baby?s motor skills. Motor skills are the child?s

ability to control movement. There are two basic types of motor skills; they are

large motor skills and fine motor skills. Large motor skills deal with all the

large muscles, fine motor skills deal with smaller muscles in the body. The 3rd

developmental law is Brain development. As the brain develops, a child responds

more and more to sight and sound. Babies are born having some sort of reflexes

in order for them to adapt to their surroundings. In the first 2 weeks after

birth, infants develop some new reflexes. Babies begin to explore their grasping

reflex where they can hold tightly to an object. A lot of these behaviors are

important for a child?s survival, without these a child would not be able to

physically develop. The absence of reflexes in a newborn is signals of possible

problems in brain development. A baby?s attention span is very limited. In the

first two months, they can only focus on an edge of an object, however by the

end of the 2nd month they can see a whole object. Newborns can hear soft voices

as well as loud voices and can also notice differences between different sounds

that are made. When babies hear someone talking they are inclined to open their

eyes wider and look for the speaker. Infants love the sounds of children since

their voices are in a high pitch. This is why they like to hear ??baby

talk?? Cognitive thinking development is the reasoning and logic of an

infant. The first 18 months of development is the sensory motor. In this stage

infants develop basic units of knowledge. During this stage infants can form

these units only when objects are present. They cannot think about missing

objects because they can?t act on them. When a very young infant sees an

abject and then looks away, the infant thinks the object is no longer there.

They do not have the concept of knowing it?s there, if it?s out of sight.

Infants will begin to develop the idea of permanent objects at around 4 months.

Also, at this part of life they are beginning to learn that a disappearing

object can still exist. Infants between 4- 8 months will follow a moving object

with their eyes until it has vanished, but they don?t search for it. From

about 8-12 months infants for the first time will search manually for an object

that disappears out of their sight. Social and emotional teaching is an

important concept for parents to be aware of. A nurturing environment can build

trails that encourage emotional stability, while repeated stress may cause

problems further in development. Infants learn from the people around them the

most. Infants learn how to handle a situation through what other people are

doing. During the first hour after birth an emotional tie begins. From an early

age infants are alert to the people around them. They prefer to look at children

and at attractive faces. Infants also communicate through their feelings by

crying and screaming. From 0-4 months babies show the majority of their emotions

through crying. Also they can communicate that they want to be alone by turning

away and sucking their thumbs. A baby that smiles and is looking around is

generally showing signs that they want to interact with others. Not responding

to an infant?s emotional sign can slow down their social development. It?s

at this point that they also develop a sense of trust. This strong sense of

trust establishes their trust for a lifetime. Without this a baby may have

problems communicating with others later on in their development. Often at 5

through 7 months infants develop a sense of fear or shyness of strangers, which

is completely naturally. Infants at this age will sometimes cling to their

parents and will not want to be touched by people who they see as being

unfamiliar. From 0-4 months babies show the majority of their emotions through

crying. They have many cries in which they show different emotions. From 4-8

months infants begin to express a wider range of emotions. Pleasure, happiness,

fear, and frustration are shown through gurgles, cools, and wails. They also

show movements such as kicking, arm waving, rocking and smiling. From 8-18

months they develop a sense of self. They begin to recognize their image in a

mirror and start to become more and more independent. Babies at this stage have

a wide range of emotional states. One minute they could be happy and playing and

the next minute they could be kicking and screaming. Moral development begins

early in an infant?s life. Moral develop depends on the type of training and

attention an infant gets through it?s parent?s. If they are disciplined

early enough in age they will grow up knowing things that are right and wrong.

If a parent ignores a child and lets them think that the bad things are ok to

do, they grow up having no morals taught through their parents. Children most

likely will first learn to respond to the words such as ?no? and ?hot?.

There are 3 stages to moral development. These are preconventional,

conventional, and postconventional. Moral development begins with

preconventional thinking, which children obey in order to avoid punishment. What

determines a child?s position in these stages is weather or not they choose

what they have done is right or wrong. Speech development beings within the

first week after birth. A child?s first form of communication is crying.

Crying is a baby?s way of usually saying that they are hungry, tired, or need

their diaper changed. By 3 months babies begin all the gurgles and ?woos?.

This is the beginning of their development of vowel sounds. By the age of 5 to 6

months most babies will begin to babble and may even slip out the words

?ma?, or ?da.? Although a baby might say these words, they can?t tie

them to a certain person. 10-15 months toddlers can understand a few more words.

Names and objects that they hear often are the most easily understood. The most

common of these words are mama, dada, cookie, doggy, and car. At this stage in

communication babies also learn inflection, which is raising your voice when

asking a question. At 18-24 months their vocabulary has increased and toddlers

are most likely to repeat any word they hear. Their vocabulary may include as

many as 200 words or more. From this stage on they begin to put words together

and can eventually speak a sentence. There are many factors that also contribute

to the development of a child. Many things can slow down the development such as

low birth weight, being premature and drug use. Birth weight is an important

factor associated with an infant?s overall development and health. Children

who were born under 5 Ѕ pounds are more likely to have serious medical

problems and to also have developmental delays. A baby?s development is very

important for a strong healthy life

Psychology an Introduction (6th edition) Jerome Kagan and Julius Segal

Publishers-Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich Copyright-1988 Exploring Psychology

(2nd edition) Richard O. Straub Publisher-Worth Copyright-1990