This next post is about the same study unit, but because the unit is big I had to separate the material into 2 posts. Physical Development, Cognitive Development, and Socio-Emotional Development.
Infants develop the fastest among the different age groups. In a year, the baby can grow twice in size.
I shall touch on the physical development of infants. It is further categorized into Physical Growth, Motor Development, and Sensory and Perceptual Development.
Cephalocaudal and Proximodistal development. 2 big words I never expect to pass the spell-check. Cephalocaudal is about the child growing from head to toe. Proximodistal is about growing from inside out, like from trunk to fingers and toes. Interesting, right? Both happen together, so infants develop their gross motor skills first before the fine motor. At birth, the brain is 25% the size of an adult brain, but by 2, it is 75%!
In motor development, there is a theory called Dynamic System Theory. It is about assembling of motor skills for perceiving and acting. Infants imitate behaviours and carry them out according to the situation. Nature and nurture both play a part, whether it is about the environment of the genes of the infant.
Gross and fine motor skills develop differently in children. While there are certain milestones, such as being able to sit without support or walk, we should understand their individuality. Of course, if there is something wrong, we should rectify it. A 6-year-old unable to walk properly is an issue.
Moving on to cognitive development.
It entails cognitive processes such as Piaget’s adaptation, where children can assimilate and accommodate to learn new things. A scheme is an action or mental representation that organize knowledge. Organisation is when children organize their experiences cognitively to understand the world. Equilibration is how children shift from one stage of thought to another, while Equilibrium is about a balance between new and current knowledge. Disequilibrium happens when there is no balance, and thus assimilation and accommodation need to occur for the balance to happen.
Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development: Sensorimotor, Pre-operational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational.
Sensorimotor happens when infants construct knowledge by connecting what is captured from the senses to motor skills. Sensorimotor is divided into 6 substages: Simple reflexes, First habits and primary circular reactions, Secondary circular reactions, Coordination of secondary circular reactions, Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity, and Internalisation of schemes.
Infants have 4 basic reflexes, from birth to 1 month. Sucking Reflex (an object placed near the mouth), Rooting Reflex (infant will try to suck something stroking its cheek or side of mouth), Moro Reflex (when shocked, infants adopt a posture as if to grab for support, a primal instinct), and Grasping Reflex (infant grabs something stroking its palms). It’s just a computer, there are built-in functions. I can verify this, as I recently tried them with an infant from my relative’s house.
First habits refer to reflexes, and primary circular reactions refer to a reproduction of an event that happened by chance, for instance, a child puts the thumb into the mouth unconsciously.
Secondary circular reactions are from 4 to 8 months. Infants focus lesser on themselves and more on objects. Their actions are about giving themselves pleasurable results, like cooing (single syllable, vowel sound) to make a person go near them.
Then from 8 to 12 months, they are in the Coordination of secondary circular reactions stage. They start to coordinate vision and touch senses, and coordination of schemes. They can do intentional actions, such as using a stick to bring an object closer.
Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity happen in the 12 to 18 months stage. Infants start to experiment with how objects work, so they begin to explore possibilities.
Finally, Internalisation of schemes occurs from 18 to 24 months. Now, infants can see and repeat actions done by others. If they see a child throwing a tantrum, they can imitate that and do it by themselves.
Object permanence is an interesting phenomenon, where child understand that an object continues to exist even when it is hidden from sight. Toddlers are unable to do so, so when you hide a toy, they will cry. But for a child, if you hide it, he or she will look for it. If you play Peek-A-Boo, they know you are still there.
Under cognitive development, we also have language development. Language has five systems of rules: Phonology (sound system), Morphology (word formation), Syntax (sentence formation), Semantics (meanings of words/sentences), and Pragmatics (appropriate use of language in a different context).
Watched a video of the reenactment of the wild boy of Averyon. Sadly, such a thing could happen to a child. Language is impossible to attain after the critical years are over, further supporting the case that the early years of every person is the most important. Not just in language, but in self-esteem, social skills, cognitive and physical development. The list can go on and on. Early childhood is not about “working in a childcare”, or that it is a “lower level compared to Pri or Sec school”. It is the foundation of every single person on this earth.
I shall move on to socio-emotional development in infants.
Emotion is defined as a combination of physiological arousal with overt behaviour, so excitement is when the heartbeat races and the child jumps up and down.
It is further divided into primary emotions and self-conscious emotions. Primary emotions are, of course, primal emotions. They are present in humans and animals. What makes us different is that we have self-conscious emotions, such as pride. We have country pride, pride in ourselves. This is not a bad emotion. We just need to control it wisely.
In infants, there are 4 key developmental changes in emotions. Crying, Smiling, Fear, and Stranger Anxiety.
Caregivers are important, as they respond accordingly to infants. Even their cries have meaning, and infants develop a secure relationship with adults if the adults are responsive.
Smiling has 2 categories, reflexive smile and social smile. Reflexive smile occurs without an external stimulus, usually when the infant is asleep. Ain’t that precious? Social smile is when an external stimulus occurs, such as the presence of a loved one. I have children who show me the social smile when they see me, that is cute.
Fear is what fuels stranger anxiety, which starts from 6 months and intensifies by 9 months of age. No wonder infants have no qualms getting carried when they are only a few months old.
Erikson’s psychosocial theory comes to play here, infants develop a trust vs mistrust relationship even very early on. We cannot assume infants are lost in the world. They are very much capable of forming bonds with humans if they are allowed to do so.
There is a term called Social Referencing, which means infants read emotional cues to decide what to do in a situation. Infants and children are very sensitive to “vibes”. I had an ex-colleague who was getting “drilled” by the female boss and principal, for her work performance. I was not there, but they shared with me that it had a very tense atmosphere. I recall the boss talking with an employee in the van with me, though they were speaking in another language I understood the words ‘principal’ and ‘boss’. They were talking about her. Later on, they shared that while they were still talking, one of the toddlers came and hugged her. She nearly cried. The boy understood something. She was getting bullied. So he did that. This boy is usually in his world, but I wish I could have seen that incident. Yes, they may not understand the language. Yes, they can’t tie their shoes. But never underestimate children. They can sense things that somehow we adults have lost along the way.
Infants grow to have emotional regulation by their first birthday.
Next, I will be talking about temperament.
3 theories talk about temperament. Chess and Thomas’ Classification, Kagan’s Behavioural Inhibition, and Rothbart and Bates’ Classification.
Firstly, for Chess and Thomas’ Classification, that are 3 basic types: Easy child (positive), Difficult child (negative), Slow-to-warm-up child (somewhat negative, low intensity of mood).
Then for Kagen’s Behavioural Inhibition, it focuses on differences between shy, subdued, timid child and a sociable, extraverted, bold child. The inhibition is referring to the shy, timid child, which relates to the slow-to-warm-up child from Chess and Thomas’ classification.
And finally, for Rothbart and Bates’ Classification, it talks about extraversion (positive anticipation, impulsivity, sensation-seeking, Kagen’s uninhibited children fit here), negative affectivity (cry easily, Kagen’s inhibition children fit here), and effortful control (self-regulation, keeps arousal from getting too high).
Kagen believes temperament falls under the category of nature, though with experience, they can change. Culture and gender also play a part in shaping temperament. It is interesting for me, as I observe that girls are more assertive than guys. There are certain issues girls have to overcome in society, so their temperament needs to change to adapt.
As educators, we have to be careful to find out children’s context, and not to assume and classify them accordingly.
From Ann Sanson and Mary Rothbart, there are 3 strategies for parents to use with regards to temperament.
1. Attention to and respect for individuality (every child is unique)
2. Structuring the child’s environment (crowded and noisy environment can affect children)
3. The “difficult child” and packaged parenting programmes (the label might help, but not for the long-term)
As for Personality Development, Erikson’s Trust vs Mistrust is a key period in infants, as they connect with nurturing adults in their lives, they build trust. However, that does not mean a stable relationship will last them throughout. Their parents might separate when they are older, then they go back to the trust vs mistrust stage.
This is also called Attachment. It is discussed in at least 3 theories. Sigmund Freud believes infants seek to be attached to a person who gives them oral satisfaction, such as feeding. Erik Erikson believes in the trust vs mistrust stage.
John Bowlby has 4 phases of attachment. He believes that infants are biologically equipped to elicit attachment behaviour, that increases the chances of an adult paying attention to them, and this is crucial in the infant’s survival.
Phase 1: From birth to 2 months, infants instinctively direct their attachment to human figures.
Phase 2: From 2 to 7 months, attachment becomes focused on one figure, usually the primary caregiver.
Phase 3: From 7 to 24 months, specific attachment developed. With increased locomotor skills, babies actively seek contact with regular caregiver.
Phase 4: From 24 months on, children become aware of others’ feelings, goals, and plans, and begin to take these into account in forming their own actions.
Mary Ainsworth has a few types of attachments. Securely attached babies (caregiver is a secure base), insecure-avoidant babies (avoids caregiver), insecure resistant babies (clings and then pushes caregiver away), insecure disorganized babies (disorganized and disoriented.
References
Kong, G. S. (2020). SWK104 Human Growth and Life-Span Development (Birth to Adolescence) Study Guide (5CU). Singapore.
Santrock, J. W. (2019). Life-span Development (17th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
No comments:
Post a Comment