Jean Piaget best described the stages from birth to two years in what he called the sensorimotor stage. It is a stage based on infants and toddlers cognitive development. An infant uses his or her senses and motor abilities to understand the world, beginning with reflexes and ending with complex combinations of sensorimotor skills (Boeree, G.C. (2009). During the first four months of life, according to Piaget, infants interact with the world through primary circular reactions.
1.1. Explain the pattern of development in the first three years of life and the skills typically acquired at each stage. Children’s development is continuous and can be measured in a number of different ways. Although all children will develop at different rates and in different ways, the sequence in which they develop will be roughly the same as they need to have developed one skill, for example walking, before they move on to develop another such as running and jumping. Development is often referred to on a timeline and is broken down in ages.
I believe a hypothesis is a testable statement which can be verified or refuted Therefore in this case the Hypothesis is that if disadvantaged children of a pre-school age group were given environmental opportunities this would improve their intellect. b) What is the independent variable? At the age of three years, the children who were all from poor and over-crowded homes began attending a special non-residential day school in which specific importance was placed on the development of social and cognitive skills. The children attended the school for 4 days per week till they began infant school The Independent variable has directly altered the environmental conditions of the children. c) What is the dependant variable?
By two years old, children begin testing and exploring this idea. Three year olds understand visual perception and the concept of hiding objects. By the time a child is four, they understand that people can have incorrect thoughts about the world. In opposition to the traditional understanding that babies and young children learn and think differently than adults, Gopnik suggests that babies and young children use the same learning methods as scientists. They “observe, formulate theories, make predictions, and do experiments” (Gopnik, 237) to learn about people, objects, and their surroundings.
There are set guidelines on how fast or slow children should develop, but every individual is different so not everyone will develop at this set rate. Patterns of development is what provides the frame work of what the average child is likely to be able to reach a particular mile stone. It is very important that the pattern of development is considered when a child is thought to be outside the expected mile stone. The milestones are measured by age 0-3 weeks A neonate would be born around 40 weeks. When they are born up to three weeks before there due date they are then classed as premature.
Life Span Development The Childhood Years (ROUGH DRAFT) Erica The childhood years encompass the years of birth to preadolescence, zero to twelve years, respectively. There are major milestones that a child is experiencing during these early stages of life, thus making these the most important and formative years of a person’s life; from forming secure and healthy attachment during the infant years, which extends into the adult years, to developing their autonomy and independence in their toddler years. What children learn in these childhood years will determine the type of adult they will grow to be. This discussion will focus on the period between three to twelve years old. The preschool years, age three to five years, are the next step after toddlerhood.
I was born in 1977 to two parents that were practically still kids themselves. Two years later, they had another child and in 1981 had their third and what everybody thought was their final child. The reason being is that my third sibling was born three months premature and with cerebral palsy. This information will be important later. As I grew up and was working towards my teens, there were a lot of things that were abnormal.
For example, children must first learn to crawl and to pull up to a standing position before they are able to walk. Each milestone that a child acquires builds on the last milestone developed. We now know that our brains are not fully developed at birth. In fact, a baby's brain weighs about one quarter (1/4) of what an adult's brain weighs! The brain grows very rapidly during the first several years of life.
It starts at the moment a child is born and lasts a life time. Family is the strongest during a child's infancy/toddler years. During this a child learns from a family such things as; language abilities, body control, emotional control, rules of society, and moral values. Family also plays a key part in early sex-role socialization, racial/ethnic prejudices, and determining the childs attitude towards religion/culture. The power family has becomes weakened as a child becomes a teenager from the influence he/she has from peer groups and the media.
According to (Richard Wortely, p.72. 2011), the brain in the first few years of growth is imperative in forming a child’s ‘beliefs, values and morals’ within societies ‘norms’. Worlely states that a ‘child’s behaviour is well established by the age of three years old’. The brain could be equated as a ‘giant sponge’ soaking up everything within a child’s environment. It is a time when basic patterns are established such as eating and sleeping.