Infant Toddler Observation Takeaways

Have you ever thought about how you learned to acquire a new language? What about how you learned to crawl, and then walk? Infants learn by human interaction and have the ability to learn by seeing sizes, shapes, and colors. Child development is the process by which for example; a child grows from an infant, to an adult. Growth of child development can be measured through physical, cognitive, and social growth. This essay seeks to seriously consider my position as a child observer including developmental concepts/theories of child development. I will observe the aspects of the child and evaluate in relation to my observations.

He is seven years old, English is the only language that is spoken at home. He lives in a remote area where he stays with mother, father, and younger brother. He has three step brothers, one step sister and one real brother. He goes to church every Sunday and he attends McCormick’s creek elementary for school. He is always hyper and anxious due to his ADHD. Although he has AHDH, it does not stop him from progressing in school. He overall appears to be very healthy and happy.

This observation took place in my grandmother’s home in the extra spare bedroom. Our spare bedroom is considered the “play room” since that is where all the toys are. The observation was over a four-day period consisting of one hour sessions each time. During my observations I had materials I had planned out for the activity’s I would be observing. I recorded all of the observations through my notes. My observations consisted of the behaviors and what I observed. The child was not aware that they were being observed they believed it was a game.

Question 2

During the observation study the main developmental skill that stuck out to me was his social abilities by being around his younger brother and father. Psychosocial development is the development of human being minds, emotional, intellectual and social abilities functioning over a period of a life span. He is one out of five siblings, four of them being boys. This type of environment has caused him to react faster in situations or he knows he will not get the attention he requires from his parents. It seems this behavior only occurs when people or caregivers are not paying attention to him. I observed that his external environment is shaping who he is becoming in society.

While observing his psychosocial development, I noticed some cognitive development changes. Cognitive development is the development of knowledge which gives children the ability to think and understand things around them. Children improve their cognitive abilities various amounts of ways. We all develop differently, but we do not all mature at the same rate. In terms of cognitive development in my observation I used an experiment to see what stage of cognitive development my observation was in.

Not only can children improve their cognitive abilities, they can also improve their physical development. Physical development refers to the physical changes such as size, height and weight. Growth and development are improvement of physical skills depending on the size of the child and how strong they are. According to “Introduction to Psychology”, “Several physical changes occur during puberty, such as adrenarche and gonadarche, the maturing of the adrenal glands and sex glands respectively'(P.21)”. Physical development usually follows a sequence, and there are factors that can affect the sequence such as disability.

Question 3

In relation to his physical development, I noticed psychosocial changes. According to “The Psychology Notes HQ”, “Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development emphasizes the sociocultural determinants of development and presents them as eight stages of psychosocial conflicts that all individuals must overcome or resolve successfully in order to adjust well to the environment” (P.2). Meaning people develop an ego or sense of self by integrating with others, but it is continually changing as people have new experiences throughout their life. Erikson’s theory suggest he is stage four of Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development. According to “The Psychology Notes HQ”, “They want to do things that other children of the same age can do. When they make the effort to perform a task and succeed, they develop self-confidence. However, if they fail they tend to feel that they are inferior to others” (P.10). Meaning Erikson’s theory states that child must fail or succeed in an area to determine the child success. In relation to my observation when he was doing his homework, if his brother knew the answer to what I was asking he would get obnoxious, and act of a dislike towards his brother. When he would answer a question correct on his homework he would make smart comments to his brother. It appears he is still in this stage of development where he shows signs of being detached socially and showing signs of underachievement. From the result of this he appears to suffer with his confident issues.

In relation to cognitive development we decided to play a game in which we would have to objects that are the same size. In this observation we used plato. I took one plato and made it whole with the container, I then smashed the other plato and asked him “Which one has the greatest amount”. He was not able to identify that both of platos were the same amount. This displayed that he is not past the latter phase of Piagets preoperational period. According to “Scholar”, “The end of the preoperational period is marked by the child’s intuitive grasp of logical concepts in limited, tangible arenas, while continuing to be dominated by perceptions in other arenas.” Meaning a child should be able to understand numbers but not able to conserve mass.

Physical development provides children with the capabilities to have interaction and explore the world around them. I tried an activity to roll a ball back and forth to access his physical development. When we played the activity, he had the basic skill to roll the ball back and forth and was aware of his body. There are two types of physical development, gross and fine motor development. According to “Mentalhelp.net”, “The term gross motor” development refers to the physical skills that use large body movements, normally involving the entire body. In the sense used here, gross means “large” rather than “disgusting”,” (P.1). He is in the fine motor skills of motor development. In fine motor skills you are able to care for yourself without an adult’s help immediately. He is able to brush his hair, feed himself and ride his bike without any adult help.   

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