Toddler Development and Its Influences - Research Paper Example

? Toddler Development and Its Influences Introduction This is an essay based on a research of six scholarly reviewed articles regarding toddler development and its influences. The first article is a journal article written by Rosales F. J., Reznick J., and Zeisel S. H. called Understanding the role of nutrition in the brain development of toddlers and pre-school children. The article is found in a journal called Nutritional Neuroscience. The date of the publication of this article was the year 2009. It also gives information on various ways in which a person can identify and address methodological situations. The article provides related information about infants to children aged below five years. A toddler is a child between the years of 1 to 3 years of age. This period of time is considered the most exciting and challenging times for both parents and pediatricians. The most evident and dramatic changes occur in language and interpersonal skills. Themes in affective development include the toddler’s striving for autonomy and independence from the parents, a continued importance of attachment with the family, and the initial work on achieving impulse control. Nutrition unlike any other factors has the ability to affect the child’s brain development both as an external and internal factor. It is considered external because if the foods needed to provide certain nutrients are not available the body lacks materials with which to create new brain cells, neurons and other brain structures (Rosales et.al, 2009). These nutrients include protein, zinc, iron and special fats among other nutrients. Nutrition is considered an internal facto because it directly affects the formation of the brain itself including the genetic makeup of the brain. At this age, the child is the inquisitive stage. This means that most of his activities require him to think more and ask questions. This means that his brain activities have increased and his brain is quite active in addition to growing. It is a tricky to feed children at this stage. This is because they are self-independent now and they have preferences for certain foods. Parents should provide several dishes in small portions. The dishes should be colorful and have nice flavors but at the same time have the nutritional value to promote brain development. It is important to understand that a balanced diet is essential in a child’s life as it is to any other individual. This applies to children yet to be born and those already born. It has been identified that pre-natal malnutrition has many negative effects on a child. Some of these effects can be related to cognitive deficits, behavior problems, and low academic achievements. For this reason, it is essential to ensure that a child is provided with proper balance of nutrients so that there can be normal brain development (Rosales et.al, 2009). As stated above, nutrition is a major aspect during a child’s development. This is termed important because it causes reduction of cell production, has great effects on normal cell sizes, and changes their structural appearance. In addition to these effects, nutritional imbalance leads to low communication between cells in the brain. This is the reason such children seem to have lower academic performances or even perform lower in other areas. The potential impact of this research is that it can be of assistance to parents, nutritionists to provide appropriate diet for the toddler and how diet may prevent brain under development. The second scholarly article that was reviewed was written by Mitchell S. J. and Cabrera N. J. and is called An Exploratory Study of Fathers’ Parenting Stress and Toddlers’ Social Development in Low-Income African American families. The date of the publication was the year 2009. The article attempts to find out the mediation effect on toddlers that fathers’ engagement has on them. The results indicate that there is moderate levels of parenting stress on the fathers, however the results do not indicate any direct effects of stress on the children’s social development. This research was carried out by sampling. The researchers used Abidin’s parenting stress model that indicates that increased levels of parental stress, apparent toddler difficulty, and parent-child inefficient relations that is measured through the Parenting Stress Index, results in a rise in negative parenting. The population that this research focuses on is African American fathers who earn a low income. The main purpose of this research is to test Abidin’s parenting stress model and show the results of the effect of father engagement on the relation between fathers’ parenting stress and toddlers’ social competence and problem behavior on African American fathers whose children have just joined preschool in Early Head Start. The results indicate a hypothesis that African American fathers who have a high level of parenting stress will have toddlers who display little social competence skills and several problem behaviors than those fathers who report little parenting stress (Mitchell et.al, 2009). The second hypothesis is based on the fact that parenting stress is related with more negative parenting behavior among middle class fathers, because low-income fathers who have greater parenting stress will be less positively engaged by their toddlers unlike middle class fathers. The next article that was reviewed was written by Berlin L, Ispa J, Fine M, Malone P, Brooks-Gunn J, Brady-Smith C, Bai Y, and Ayoub C. The article is called Correlates and consequences of spanking and verbal punishment for low-income white, African American, and Mexican American toddlers. The date of the publication was on the year 2009. This study is aimed at examining the prevalence, predictors and results of spanking and verbal abuse or punishment in children of White, African American and Mexican American descent between the ages of 1 – 3 years. The results show that spanking and verbal punishment vary between children depending on the race of their parents. Cross-lagged path analyses was used as the means of research and it shows that spanking, but not verbal punishment during the age of 1 would lead to child aggressiveness problems at the age of 2 years as well as lower Bayley mental development scores at age 3. These results show that spanking children has been linked with several sorts of behavior problems, including increased aggression and reduced levels of emotional regulation. This in turn is linked with a reduction in mental development (Berlin et.al, 2009). The target population that was studied is children between the ages of 1-3 years from White, African American and Mexican American families. The method that was used was to collect and analyze the data is through survey. The potential impact of this research is mainly to assess the effects that spanking has on the development of toddlers. It also helps pediatricians and psychiatrists know the cause of certain symptoms of aggressiveness in toddlers. The results show that spanking children at the age of 1 year leads to the development of aggressiveness at the age of two years. The authors of the article are A W Huang, W T, Soong, and H F Liao. The article was first published on 21 of August 2009. The article is called influences of biological risk at birth and temperament on development at toddlers and preschool children. The hypothesis of the research was biological risks at birth and temperament affect development of toddlers and preschool children. The target population was one hundred and ten full term and ninety-eight preterm children without significant developmental disabilities at toddler and preschool age. Toddler being between 18-36 months while preschool being 51- 67 months of age. The type of methodology used was random sampling to select the target population. Other documents search as the neonatal medical index was used to classify the biological risks. Parental reports were used to give more information on the child’s temperament. Assessment tools used include the comprehensive developmental inventory for infants and toddlers to assess child development. The two-way ANCOVA was conducted to analyze the predictability of biological risk and temperament (Hwang, 2009). These were the results of the study. Toddlers were at a upper biological risk of having significant adverse effects on perceptual-motor development quotients (f1.201=19.4, P Read More