The infant that was observed for the purposes of this essay was Phoebe, a two-month old girl, born via cesarean section at thirty-eight weeks of gestation to interracial parents. She was observed in her own home, in normal behavior and interactions between her and her mother. The observation was separated into two different one hour sessions. First Hour of Observation The observation started when the mother and infant first arrived home. The infant sat in her car seat, asleep, until she began crying. The crying increased in intensity and was accompanied by flailing arms, kicking legs, and the child rooting. This behavior continued until the baby was put on the mother’s breast to feed. While the baby was on the breast her arms and legs were …show more content…
moving with less intensity, but her eyes were fixed on her mother. The infant developed a sucking pattern, that would speed up and slow down, based on its needs. The infant would break its sucking pattern and increase the rate at which it was sucking when the mother would talk to the infant. The baby’s arms and legs were moving once again, and her head and eyes seemed fixed on her mother, until there was other stimuli around then her attention would move from one thing to the next. She began crying again and her mother’s voice was not enough to soothe her and she began flailing her arms and legs. The infant was only soothed once she was placed on her mother’s breast again. The infant exhibited many of the behaviors that would be expected of a two month old. The infant was crying to communicate, learning to support its own head, paying attention to certain stimuli, and displaying limited control of her arms and legs. If she is displaying most of the common behaviors of a child her age, then this infant is developing at an average rate. However, the most common behavior that was observed. In this instance the infant was crying, which is thought to be the most basic form of parent-infant interactions. Second Hour of Observation In the second hour of observation the the infant displayed more leg movement and less arm movement.
The observation began in a similar fashion to the first session, but soon after the infant began displaying an interesting interaction with its environment. The infant was placed in a bouncer with objects over head that would move when touched, which prompted the subject to reach outward with her arms. When she discovered that she could not reach with her arms, she began trying to reach with her legs. This lead to the mother moving the objects closer to the infant’s legs and allowing the infant to reach them. The infant enjoyed kicking the objects and had a much easier time making coordinated movements with her legs than she did with her arms. When her mother would encourage and laugh with her the infant would kick with increased vigor and frequency. When the infant discovered that one specific object would make noise when kicked, she managed to focus her attention and kicking on that object. This behavior seemed to support the proximodistal development theory, which states that infants gain control over their bodies from the center out, so it makes sense that infants can control their limbs better than they can control their fingers and specific movements. There has also been research that suggests that infants gain motor control over their legs much sooner than they gain control over their arms. This means that the infant is gaining control over her movements, which is a behavior that develops slowly over infancy. The child seems to be experiencing an average rate of development and exhibiting similar behavioral patterns to other infants at similar
ages. Research Articles One specific behavior that was observed was crying and how it leads to interactions between the parent and the infant and creating a social structure for the infant to rely on in future years. Another behavior that was observed during these sessions were the coordination of her leg movements and the development of her motor skills. There is one research article that discusses the impact of crying on infant-parent interactions and the methods for soothing crying can impact how the infant can draw a connection to the parents. The other article discusses how infants develop their motor skills and gives a comparison between premature and full term infants, allowing for more discussion on how the subject’s behavior could help understand development of infants. In the first article the researchers hypothesized that the infants that experienced more interaction with their parents would cry less often than infants that didn’t have as much soothing from their parents. Their results showed that there was no correlation between the method used to soothe the infant and the time spent crying, but it did create a stronger parent-infant interaction. The second research article hypothesized that full-term infants would develop motor skills faster than preterm infants. They concluded that the preterm infants had a lower TIMP score and therefore slower development of motor skills. These results apply to the subject, Phoebe, because they can be used to determine if her need for interaction is being satisfied by her parents and thus why her crying increases at certain times, and they can be used to determine if she is within the common range of motor development for full-term infants for her age. These results can lead to a better understanding of the behaviors that she exhibited. Scientific Methodology Implications Observation is a commonly used technique in psychology and child development, because it allows the researcher to take notes on the subject, without influencing the subject’s behavior. This method provides the researcher the opportunity to predict behaviors in an attempt to understand the development of children. However, there are downsides. One such downside is that it is much harder to repeat these experiments and therefore harder for the researcher to make hypotheses and test them. Descriptive methods cannot provide causes for behaviors, because they cannot get involved in interaction with the subject, so they cannot perform tests to determine if there are specific causes for certain behaviors. It is also harder to determine causes if you can not control everything that is happening in an experiment.
The babies learn how to do movements such as crawls, roll, stand, walk or run. They talk and develop how to control. Babies learn how to control their muscles and movements. Motor control develops from the head, moves down through the arms and the trunk and then to the legs and feet.
Toddlers are the epitome of curiosity and energy. From ages 1 – 3, toddlers are always on the go and want to learn about everything in their world. As with infants, no two are alike; each toddler is unique in his or her developmental stages, and each accomplishes milestones at different times. “Although children develop at different rates, there are common stages of development that serve as guidelines for what most children can do by a certain age” (Groark, McCarthy & Kirk, 2014). As seen in the hatfieldmomof3 (2011) video, one observes toddlers at play and can determine the age of the toddlers by their actions and the milestones they have accomplished.
Crying is important in infant development, as it’s infants’ way of communicating with the world surrounding them. The types of crying an infant does is thus important to understand, to know what the infant needs as he/she cannot explain themselves with the spoken language. Furthermore, crying is important to know whether or not the infants lungs have filled with air, since they couldn’t be crying without that, but also crying infants render signs that, for an example tells whether the newborn baby’s central nervous system works and functions. There are three types of cries: a basic cry, anger cry, and an in pain cry. The basic cry is what some experts
begin to repeat actions that bring them pleasure or a desired outcome, but instead of the baby just doing it to themselves the baby will repeat actions onto their environment. They also explore their environment by using their hands,mouths,and other body parts to touch and experiment with toys and other
What Are Infants Learning about Race? A Look at a Sample of Infants from Multiple Racial Groups (Njoroge, Benton, Lewis, and Njoroge N., 2009). Infant Mental Health Journal, Vol. 30(5), 549-567 (2009). Author’s credentials combined are from various universities and a hospital within the United States. The purpose of the research was to obtain more knowledge regarding the significance of culture and race on the social development of children. A historical theoretical framework of child development combined present studies to analyze how the conveyance of culture and race affect the emergent child. Phenotype toys were presented to infants and children to test their reactions during play. The dependent variable was the children’s receptivity. The independent variable was the cultural stimulus used to draw the responses of the children.
Observation is very important in young children because that is how you get to know a child better. While observing how a child interacts with their peers, adults, and how they behave in different settings, you are getting to know the child without speaking to them.
The procedure, known as the ‘Strange Situation’, was conducted by observing the behavior of the infant in a series of eight episodes lasting approximately 3 minutes each:
Many of us can relate to baby Hattie and baby Mari, being raised with developmentally appropriate resources. However, this film has shown me that all cultures and family dynamics are different and there is no wrong way or right way. All four babies received all basic needs and were nurtured by their parents, which made them all the same regardless of their culture or
Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Social Development of Children Ages 0-8 Years Works Cited Not Included Physical development When the baby is picked up, the head falls backwards. This is because the neck muscles are not strong and developed enough to support the head. This is why the head always needs to be supported when the baby is lifted. When a newborn baby is held in a sitting position, they appear to roll up into a ball.
The child I observed was born on February 21st, so the baby that I observed is just weeks old. The baby is white and a male. The baby is a friend’s child and I observed him in the living room of their home and in his personal bedroom while he was in his crib. There was two couches in the living room, a television, two end tables, and a big sectional rug which was where the child was most of the time. There was 4 adults. The mom, the dad, my mom, and I. There were no other children in the house at this time.
I observed at St. Eve’s Learning Center location in their preschool room. The center has a naturalistic feel to the environment and all of the staff is friendly and welcoming. The classroom displayed best practices, modern theories and research, and followed expected standards set by their accreditations.
I gave birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl named Luna. Jeffrey has taken quite a liking to being a big brother. He likes to hold and rocker her and helps with feeding her. Jeffrey is still a slow-to warm child. He can communicate fairly well and is now using mostly complete sentences and seems to understand most of what I say. He occasionally makes errors of overregularization. He has taken an interest in music and singsongs even though he usually repeats a certain part a lot. I encourage this by taking him to local performances of children’s musicals. Jeffrey has learned the routines pretty well and is reasonably cooperative for his age. He is rarely aggressive to adults or other children. Jeffrey’s fantasy play has become more elaborate and sometimes includes superheroes or cartoon
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.
There is no voice more comforting than Mama’s. In the womb we are suspended in safe warmth, hearing every noise that Mama makes. And we don’t just hear her voice. We feel its vibrations, its muffled hum, through our ears and our entire forming bodies. It’s no wonder that that is often the only voice that can comfort us in the distress of our new little lives. Yet, what of the mother who cannot speak? Can she still comfort her baby? Yes, because it is much more than vocal chords that connect a baby with its birth mother. After all, Baby eats all that Mama eats, breathes Mama’s air, knows Mama’s way of moving and laughing…Baby feels every surge of adrenaline that Mama feels. Bonds don’t get more intimate than that. Even after Baby is born, this bond is strengthened through long bouts of staring into each other’s eyes, through feeling the lulling rhythm of Mama’s breathing while sleeping against her chest, through time spent together saturated in touch and play. This phenomenon of intimacy is so powerful that it surpasses any blindness or handicap Mama could possibly have.
The developmental aspects of children at age two go through a lot of changes in this small gap of their life’s thus making it important to keep track of these changes in their physical, cognitive and psychosocial thus we will be discussing these aspects in detail. Human beings from an early age are able to walk alone at the age of two years thus developing their bone structure, to walk and strengthens their muscles in the legs and arms , the arms develop muscle so that they can push themselves of the ground or floor from there original crawling position . The child at this age should be able to drag large objects behind them , usually very light objects which are either stuffed , have wheels , or are made from plastic, thus begins their ability to run which they have been able to consciously put an effort into , but will collapse if they do not have full training in running long distances . Since the toddler is able to run they should be able to have enough leg strength to climb and jump off of objects, so that the toddler’s motor development can move in the positive direction.