Infancy toddlerhood, psychology assignment help
Human Development Paper Grading Criteria
A. Completeness (80% = 32 Points)
1. 2+ page single spaced essay (4 Points)
2. Three sections each with the title centered and bolded above it: (3 Points)
Physical Development
Cognitive Development
Social/Personality Development
3. Connection of notes with physical, cognitive, and social/personality development information from textbook including analysis on whether the subject’s behavior is typical or atypical within the domains. (10 Points)
4. At least six (2 for physical, 2 for cognitive, 2 for social/personality development) relevant quotes or citations from the textbook (Follow these with Feldman and the page number: (Feldman, 203). Please bold, underline, and/or WRITE IN ALL CAPS for your quotes or citations. (12 Points)
5. Addresses how cultural values, beliefs, behaviors may have affected
development (3 Points)
B. Written Language Conventions (20% = 8 Points)
1. Correct English spelling and grammar, use of paragraphs, etc
Sample Infant Observation Cultural Connections Italicized.docx
Sample Infancy/Toddlerhood Paper
Note: Typical/atypical relevant book connections are bolded.
Quotes that pertain to culture are italicized.
Human Development Paper One – Infancy/Toddlerhood
For the first Human Development paper, I decided to observe the young children that come into my work to see if I could follow their cognitive, physical, and social developmental patterns. I split the hour of observation up into segmented times when I knew that the same children would be coming into the gym. I did this because I thought that would help my findings to be based off of more concrete observations. There were 3 specific kids that would come into the kids’ club that I have personally known since they were about the age of 8 months and they are now close to 2 years old or already over 2. Watching them grow and learn was something that had always amazed me because they are legitimately small humans who, through their experiences and the situations they are presented, are learning about the world and becoming who they will be for the rest of their lives. My interest has only increasingly grown as I have started this class. Throughout this paper I will not mention the names of the kids that I was observing, I will simply call them child 1, child 2, and child 3. There were two boys that I have observed and one girl. One boy and one girl are now both 2 ½ and the last boy is about to turn 2.
Physical Development
One very important aspect of children’s development is their physical development. Before being in this class I had only ever thought of physical development as literal growth within the body, but after reading the chapter I have realized that physical development includes the physical body, the brain and even the development of the senses and reflexes and cycles that the body naturally goes through. When it comes to observing physical growth I found it to be hard because since I see most of these kids every day of the week, they always appear to be about the same height as the day before. It was not until Child 1 left for a week and a half long vacation that when he came back I was simply astounded at how much he had lengthened out. He was slimmer and his legs were longer and even his face had lost most of its baby fat. “Infants grow at a rapid pace over the first two years of their lives. By the age of 5 months, the average infant’s birth weight has doubled to around 15 lbs. By the first birthday, the baby’s weight has tripled to about 22 pounds”…”By the end of his or her second year, the average child weighs around 4 times as much as they did at birth” (Feldman, 2015, p. 117). After not seeing this child for so long, the rapid growth that infants go through became very evident. Child 3 has also had an increase in length and he is walking around much quicker than when I had first met him which makes sense because he is now almost 2. When it comes to growth among cultures there are definite differences between babies of all cultures. One of the main ethnic differences that has been found in regards to growth has been that “Asian infants tend to be slightly smaller than North American Caucasian infants, and African American infants tend to be slightly bigger than North American Caucasian infants” (Feldman, 2015, p. 117). There is not a definite reasoning behind this finding but I believe, just from observations throughout life, that this stems from their original homeland that can be traced through their family lineage. There are certainly parts of the world that require much stronger and faster people, which would require larger babies to be born so that they will remain strong and healthy. One very good example within the textbook is that of the Kipsigis in Africa. Their lives are “filled with activity and exercise” where “parents begin to teach their children to walk starting at the eighth week of life” (Feldman, 2015, p. 129). This is quite a cultural shift from how we raise our children in North America, especially because we do not expect our offspring to walk until they are at least 10 month old. Culture differences, especially when it comes to cognitive and physical developments, have mainly to do with what a society or culture utilize to survive within their setting. For the Kipsigis, their young need to walk young and learn young in order to help within the tribe. What I found most interesting that is classified as a physical development is the continuous development of the senses that occur within the first years of living. I had never put much thought into that but as I read the chapter it made a lot more sense and child 1 and child 2 had evidently become much more developed with regards to certain senses and their responses to those things. “The newborn’s sensory world does lack the clarity and stability that we can distinguish as adults, but day by day the world grows increasingly comprehensible as the infant’s ability to sense and perceive the environment develops” (Feldman, 2015, p. 134). The sense that I noticed a change in within both child 1 and child 2 was the sense of taste. As they grew and developed and began to eat hard foods for snacks instead of simply bottles or smoothies, they both began to develop an interest in saltier foods more often than sweet ones. They did not necessarily stop eating the sweets but they had a keener yearning for the salty or the savory flavors. This was an interesting observation that had clicked in my head because I had read about a child’s wanting of sweet things instead of bitter or sour. I thought it was especially interesting how the book states, “because breast milk has a sweet taste, it is possible that this preference may be part of our evolutionary heritage, retained because it offered a survival advantage” (Feldman, 2015, p. 138). This quote was interesting to me because I had truly never known breast-milk to have sweetness to it but having that explanation given to me, a human being with a natural inclination towards sweet things makes complete sense.
Cognitive Development
Another of the most important aspects of the developing child is their cognitive ability because that needs to develop in order for them to understand the world around them for the rest of their lives. Cognitive development pertains to information processing, perceptual skill, language learning and other important features of brain development. Jean Piaget is probably the most well-known psychologist that created a theory about the cognitive development that occurs within the growing child. He “assumed that all children pass through a series of four universal stages in a fixed order from birth through adolescence: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational” (Feldman, 2015, p. 145). These stages were reached when children reached a certain point of physical maturation and had been exposed to enough relevant life experiences. While watching the children at my work grow cognitively I began to notice the resounding knowledge that was sticking in their heads, for example colors and book titles and shapes of all sorts. Child 1, I had originally met when he would not be able to recognize colors even after you had said them to him, now he is able to identify all colors and even will point them out on his own as descriptive words. This same thing occurred with child 2, except she is still a little shy about saying the words on her own and needs a little coaxing or to be asked about the color she is seeing. Child 3, is an example of one that I believe is cognitively underdeveloped because he does not seem to respond to questions about colors and I have yet to hear him actually identify or repeat them when he hears them. As I have watched him I have also thought about the possibility that maybe he just is not comfortable within the Kids Club yet and that why he comes off as more shy than the other kids his age. Piaget believed that “two principles underlie the growth in children’s schemes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the process by which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking.”…”In contrast, when we change our existing ways of thinking, understanding, or behaving in response to encounters with new stimuli or events, accommodation takes place” (Feldman, 2015, p. 146). This point from Piaget was really interesting to me because I have watched these kids grow and expand their knowledge within the Kids Club, and as they take their experiences from outside into the Kids Club where they spend their time with me. The child that I saw the assimilation and accommodation process take place was Child 1. He would come from “preschool” and take things that he had learned there and either applies them to the activities within the Kids Club or question why they were different than what he experienced at school. It was evident to me that he was changing intellectually because he began to question things that he had once simply accepted, like why the garbage truck toy had the ability to dump, and then one day he came in and was playing with it and made a comment about how the garbage truck dumps trash. He had pieced together why the toy had the ability to dump things out because he had seen real life examples of that occurring. Cognitive development is something that seems to be very similar across cultures, especially when following Piaget’s Theory because his is based off of milestones within typical age groups that children within all cultures must go through.
Social/Personality Development
A third and final critical development that occurs from infancy to toddlerhood is the development of social awareness and the personality. Infants “display facial expressions that seem indicative of their emotional states. In situations in which we might expect them to be happy, they seem to smile; when we might assume they are frustrated, they show anger”…”These basic facial expressions are remarkably similar across the most diverse cultures. Whether we look at babies in India, the United States, or the jungles of New Guinea, the expression of basic emotions is the same” (Feldman, 2015, p. 172). Infants are able to display a wide range of emotions from a very young age, which has led researchers to believe that we are simply born with this capacity and it continues to develop as we ourselves continue to develop. Though very similar emotions can be expressed it is “the degree of emotional expressivity that varies among different cultures” (Feldma , 2015, p. 173). The book uses the example that by 11 months, Chinese infants are typically less expressive than those of European descent. This was a very interesting find to me because in the area in which I work, all of the children are typically of European descent so I have not actually been able to attest to this finding myself. The main part of the social/personality development that stood out to me was the section on social referencing, which I had known about for a while but had never had the correct term for. Social referencing is the “intentional search for information about others’ feelings to help explain the meaning of uncertain circumstances or events” (Feldman, 2015, p. 176). This concept has always been so interesting to me especially when it comes to when I observed child 3 and how he handled certain situations within the Kids Club. Oftentimes, if he was to trip over something and land on his face or his stomach and the person who was working in the room (almost always myself) did not react in a negative way, he was able to get up and continue to play. Whereas if I was to show fear or even gasp he would begin to cry because he assumed that what had happened to him was worse than it actually was. He saw my reaction and referenced it for how he was to react within the situation because he had never been in it before with me. This process of social referencing has been found “to occur likely when a situation breeds uncertainty and ambiguity” (Feldman, 2015, p. 176). Another good example of this occurs with child 1. Almost every time his mom brings a new snack into the Kids Club, she takes a bite, and then offers me a bite, and as we both proceed to smile and act as though it was the most delicious snack in the world. After this, child 1 actively participates and enjoys the snack.
This course is providing me with a fresh perspective at work. I have always loved working with children, and this class’s assignments are encouraging me to look at the time I spend with children in a more professional manner. I see the importance of my role in children’s development and learning in a new, clearer way.
