Observation of Infant - Essay Example

Infant Observation Paper Introduction The child I chose was an eleven months old African American, who was raised by an African American family. The baby was at CCCL childcare in Newark at 10 o’clock. I noticed the child when he was eating yogurt, and he immediately gazed in my direction where our eyes met. The baby was dark with a lovely oval face. I was unable to ferret out the details of his immediate family members since the teacher did not give me the details but all I could tell is that given the child belong to an African American family, it appeared that the family was not economically well endowed but socially stable.

Physical/Motor DevelopmentAs I watched the child after he had taken the yogurt, I could observe that he was able to wave at me and this is a sign of trust as explained by Erik Erikson in the first stage of development where there is either trust or mistrust. Trust occurs when the child is able to have faith in people around him and relate with them well without fear that they could be harmful to him, while mistrust occurs when the child is unable to relate with people around him feeling that they have ill will on him.

In addition, under Maslow hierarchy of needs where one seeks security and love after his basic needs such as food, clothes, and shelter have been satisfied, I was able to observe that he only waved at me after taking yogurt, a sign to show that he was satisfied with food and now needed love and protection. In this case, yogurt served as food. He moved his head up and down when music played as a way of dancing; this could be a result of classical conditioning in the theory of behaviorism. Classical conditioning in behaviorism occurs when one is able to associate certain objects or incidents that frequently happen with something familiar to one's immediate environment.

This child learned to associate music with dancing. He grabbed his friends’ hair and pulled it, stood by himself, and walked across the room by holding the cribs. Additionally, he was able to make the ball roll around, shake the rattle, stretch out on the floor, and act as if he was talking on the phone. The child is able to do this during the infant development stage according to cognitive theory (Douglas 35). Sensory/Perceptual Skills In his sensory development, I could observe that he was able to touch his friend’s hair and pull it, see me, and wave in my direction when we first met.

According to attachment theory, the child at the infant stage is able to relate well with people close to him, especially his caregiver. Therefore, from the above observation, it appears that he is already attached to his friend as seen when he tries to pull the hair of his friend and the way he waves in my direction. It also shows that he is in the sensory-motor stage whereby he feels everything belongs to him. At this stage, the child is characterized by geocentrism whereby he feels everything belongs to him.

That is why he wants everything to himself as seen when he pulls his friend's hair imagining that it is his. Perceptually, I feel that he has not yet fully developed according to his age. Perceptual development requires that by his age, he should be able to recognize familiar objects and yet he takes far too long to recognize his own face when looking in the mirror (Jean 67).ConclusionAccording to Jean Piaget’s stages of development, the child is in the infant stage because of the activities he is seen engaging in: he is able to shake a rattle, which eventually produces noise and stretches out on the floor as outlined (Jean 80).

It seems that the child is most developed physically because; he is able to play by making the ball roll around and stretch out on the floor(Douglas 45).

This is what physical development entails. The child need more help in perceptual development since he was seen gazing in the mirror for far too long and hence, he could not have perceived that the image was his. It appears that the child is well developed for his age and needs to be well taken care of like before only that socially he needs to be helped since he cannot discern strangers from familiar people to him. It was therefore uncommon of his age to quickly be friendly with me, a stranger.