The Virtual Child Project is a very beneficial assignment. It teaches students how to raise a child, what the child is thinking, and how they should develop. It is a great way to show young adults the development of a real child, via a virtual child. Each form of development is important in its own form, and affects a child as they grow into an adult. The Virtual Child is a project that anyone who wants to pursue a career with children should look into. Physical Development is a wide-ranging form of growth in infants and children during the developmental period. It can include changes in height, weight, and nutrition and it comes about in three forms. According to the textbook, these types are known as Cephalocaudal, Proximodistal, and Proximodistal …show more content…
Cognitive development is defined as the process of acquiring intelligence and increasingly advanced thought and problem-solving ability from infancy to adulthood. Many professionals have challenged and researched this topic. One of the most widely believed views is that of Dr. Lev Vygotsky’s. According to the textbook, this view supports the idea of scaffolding as a social support. Vygotsky’s theory also involved an idea called “the zone of proximal development.” The child is best guided through this “zone” by gearing the parent’s assistance to the child’s capabilities. This theory supports the possibility that human neurobiology underlies cognitive development in early childhood, but key forms of the child’s cognitive activities develop through interaction with older, more experienced people who guide them within appropriate learning environments. In layman’s terms, this is the difference between what a child can do with help and what a child can do without help. My virtual child is a great example of this. Roman was very capable of preforming certain tasks, but could he do it without my help? During the first two years of a child’s life, they typically are in the sensory-motor stage of cognitive development. During this stage, we gave Roman an Object Permanence test. This means that we would hide an object and see if Roman could retrieve it properly. At the ages of one to two, Roman could find …show more content…
Social Development refers to how people develop social and emotional skills across the lifespan, with particular attention to childhood and adolescence. It varies greatly in different people, and can greatly affect one’s future. Topics under this form of development extend wide and far. This development has a great deal to do with attachment. The attachment of a child can change as the age, and is different in every situation. For example, at around eight months, Roman was very much attached to me, his primary care giver. He was very leery of strangers and would become greatly fussy when I was not there. He wanted me to be there to hold him at all times, and often checked in with me before making new decisions and leaps. By the age of two, this seemed to change for Roman. He desired to be given more independence and time to explore the world around him. Though sometimes he is still leery around strangers, he has become a lot more social and outgoing. After spending this much time with Roman, it is usually easy to tell which type of attachment he falls under. This was difficult to tell because he seems to be a mixture of them all. Most likely, his attachment style is a secure attachment. This means the child will show some distress when their caregiver leaves, but are able to compose him or herself and carry on knowing that their caregiver will return. Children with secure
My Virtual Child. (2015, August 28). My Virtual Child. Retrieved September 27, 2015, from http://myvirtualchild.com/raise.html
The purpose of this assignment is to answer the three posed questions in regards to my Virtual Child, who I will refer to as Kieran though out my assignment. I will be describing changes in his exploratory or problem solving behaviors as well as analyzing his temperament. I will also summarize his developmental assessment at nineteen months old that may differ from my perception than what was assessed through his developmental examiner.
Start your paper by sharing a little information about your virtual child: name, gender, birthing information, infant’s sleep habits, infant’ eating habits, infant’s temperament, child’s results from intelligence reports, and your adolescent’s physical health. Add in additional information from the virtual child program that would also tell me more about your child’s development.
Throughout the course of the class and completing the My Virtual Child assignment, I have been given new information in regards to childhood development through the lifespan. Starting with infancy, we had the opportunity to raise our own child online and test our parenting skills while applying the knowledge we learned from class. I believe this program has helped me grasp the concepts we learned in class and fully understand the different aspects of development throughout childhood.
Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. Piaget placed great importance on the education of children. According to Piaget, children are born with a basic mental structure on which all learning and knowledge is based. They challenge the behaviourist theory as most of their research was done on animals and is missing knowledge. The implications of this theory are that not only should we be interest in the answer the learner gives but also the method of how they got there. I find that due to the gaps in the learner’s education, they may be missing important parts that they have had to find out for themselves these methods are not always the easiest ways of calculating. I try and make it as stress free as possible so will demonstrate other methods that may be easier for them. Piagets theory accepts that children go through the same development stages but that they may go through at different times, I ensure I make effort to cater for these different paces and ensure tasks are differentiated to accommodate this. I am aware however that this theory relates to children’s development, and I work with adults, I can still apply parts of this
Manis, Frank. "My Virtual Child." My Virtual Child. University of Southern California, 4 Jan. 2004. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. .
An infant’s initial contact with the world and their exploration of life is directly through the parent/ primary caregiver. As the child grows, learns, and develops, a certain attachment relationship forms between them and the principle adult present in this process. Moreover, this attachment holds huge implications concerning the child’s future relationships and social successes. Children trust that their parental figure will be there; as a result, children whom form proper attachments internalize an image of their world as stable, safe, and secure. These children will grow independent while at the same time maintaining a connection with their caregivers. (Day, 2006). However, when a child f...
Children can dress up and pretend they are other people. They take on a role of a mom, dad, brother or even sister.
The first type of development that can be observed is physical development. Physical development refers to a child's gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are the use of large groups of muscles that can develop naturally through outdoor and indoor play. During play, a child may use their gross motor skills by standing, jumping, climbing, running or riding a bike. "If children are encouraged to be physically active, these skills can develop into advanced patterns of motor coordination that can last a lifetime" (brightfutures.org). Fine motor skills are the use of the muscles in the hands. These muscles can develop by using fingers to cut with scissors, write, paint and many other activities. Underdeveloped muscles, weight gain, and high blood pressure are all signs o...
Cognition is the process involved in thinking and mental activity, such as attention, memory and problem solving. In this essay on cognitive development I will compare and contrast the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, who were both influential in forming a more scientific approach to analyzing the cognitive development process of the child active construction of knowledge. (Flanagan 1996 P.72). I will then evaluate the usefulness of these theories in understanding a child's development.
“Once a child is born we begin helping them with tasks that are too difficult to master alone but that can be learned with guidance and assistance which is the (ZPD) zone of proximal development.”(Morrison, 2009 sec 14.6.1) this is the major concept of Lev Vygotsky theory. As our children grow we will interact with them throughout their lives. We may feel that a child should be at a certain stage in life; which would fit perfectly into Piagets theory that a child develops in stages. However we have always helped them with task; we sit back, observe the child trying the task, and when they c...
For Vygotsky, children are seen as active beings on their development through social interactions with parents, teachers, and other adults, as well as by participating in their cultural activities. The interactions they have with other individuals and their culture opens their minds to new information and helps develop skills not previously attained. To further understand cognitive development in Piaget and Vygotsky’s theory, we must first look at the processes involved.
Physical and motor development are two similar but different areas that describe child development. Physical development encompasses all of the various changes a child's body goes through. Those changes include height, weight, and brain development. Motor development is the development of control over the body. This control would involve developing reflexes such as blinking, large motor skills like walking, and fine motor skills like manipulating their fingers to pick up small objects like Cheerios. It is important to objectively study physical and motor development in children to gain knowledge on what characteristics are considered typical for each age and stage of development. This will enable me to be aware of when a child or children are developing at an irregular pace, and devise recommendations or find experiences and other resources that can aid in stimulating their development and to work towards closing achievement gaps. This particular assignment was to observe the selected child and reaffirm the importance of studying physical and motor development, and to develop ideas on how to involve it in my work as an early childhood professional.
Jean Piaget’s cognitive theory states that a child goes through many set stages in his or her cognitive development. It is through these stages that the child is able to develop into an adult. The first of these stages is called the sensorimotor period in which the child’s age ranges from 0-2 years old. During this sensorimotor period of a child’s development, the child’s main objective is to master the mechanics of his or her own body. Towards the end of this period, the child begins to recognize himself as a separate individual, and that people and objects around him or her have their own existence. The child, however, does not have a sense of object permanence meaning that when an object is taken away, the child no longer believes that that object actually exists. As the child nears the end of this period of development, he may seek an item that has been hidden in the location where he or she last saw it, but does not look elsewhere (Smith). During the preoperational period, which lasts from age 2-7, the child has come a long way in his or her cognitive development since his or her birth. In this period, the child has a very basic understanding of the inner workings of his or her mind and is ready to interact with their environment in a more symbolic way. A limitation during this period is known as egocentrism. The child has a hard time realizing that though there are many other people and things in their world, none of them are more important that the child himself. The child believes that his point of view is the only point of view of the world. This is caused by his inability to put himself in someone’s else’s shoes (Smith). The concrete operational period, spanning between the ages of 7 and 11, is marked by the onset of logic to the young mind. The child is able to mentally manipulate objects and events. In other words, he or she can imagine squashing a clay ball ...
The preoperational stage is the second stage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. This stage starts at age two and lasts until age seven. During this stage children begin to learn through symbolic play such as make believe and play with others. During this stage there are types of limitations children experience three of the main limitations are egocentrism, inability to conserve and lack of hierarchical classification The first limitation, egocentrism is failure to distinguish symbolic viewpoint of others from one’s own. Children between the ages of three to seven are just begging to learn that what they see, hear and feel are not always the same as another person. The Three mountain task showed that three year olds are unable to accurately predict what someone on the other side of the mountain sees; they predict the other person will see what they see. The second limitation is the inability to understand conservation. Between the ages five and seven children begin to understand