Development of a Child Biologically, Psychologically and Socially - Essay Example

? HUMAN BEHAVIOR Development of a child biologically, psychologically and socially The child develops biologically,psychologically and socially showing the developmental changes that occur in human beings from birth to the period when they end their adolescent age (Baldwin, 1967). Biologically infants grow in weight and height while also developing motor skills as well as strong muscles. Their development undergoes an assessment and approval by the pediatricians on a regular schedule. Children develop motor skills at their earliest ages possible; they enter into the early childhood with very fine motor skills. At the age of 12 months, the child is expected to be able to grasp things with her thumb and index finger and even the prospects of developing more skills like feed her and draw recognizable figures (See, 2007). According to Child care and child development: results from the NICHD study of early child care and youth development (2005), at a considerable age the infant will also develop the ability to move around in new ways as their muscles develop and they will be able to walk around without being assisted and in this state, the child will be in the position of walking up and down the stairs. Over the next period of three years, the child will be able to perform other activities that require more muscle strength like run, jump and kick. At one year old the child will have a height of 28-32 inches that decreases to 2.5 inches per annum after this. The weight at eight months would weigh 17-22 lbs and weight gain slows down slowly over the next few years at a constant weight of lbs. yearly. As the children grow they are in the position of thinking and understanding in many ways and the infants are develop in a variety of ways cognitively such as the ability to imitate others speaking and pointing at things when mentioned like body parts, they recognize colors and understand simple commands. At the age of three, a child thinks seriously about social activities and games, which will dictate that taking of turns and change of directions. Infants born by mothers who use drugs to stimulate them to undertake routine activities extraordinarily do not develop fully. When the parents stop using these drugs seven months into pregnancy; the pregnancy period is characterized with turbulent times where both the father and the mother are not in stable employment hence significant financial problems and a bad relationship results which is not healthy for a childs development (See, 2007). Turbulence and environmental hostility partly explains the reason that the child is born with an underweight of just 5.1 lbs, contributing to this is the fact that the mother due to financial problems was not able to take the child to the hospital for regular checkups. The baby was also born abnormally quiet as compared to the other siblings until a very old age of 20 months when the child started to mimic. He only sat down at the age of 8-10 months and crawled and began to stand by one year of age but did not walk up to close to 2 years. At this age he is expected to be interested in moving objects but he is quite disinterested in toys and is also less curious than her other two children. When other kids play with him with a set of blocks or rings, he seems to get easily distracted and at times seems to forget what they were doing together depicting ho slow they think (Maschinot, 2008). This depicts slow cognitive development in the mind of the child. The harsh environment in which the child was born and brought up has partly contributed this. This is explained by the fact that a child’s brain development is influenced by the environmental factors like food and nutrition, how parents respond to the children, their daily experiences, physical activities around the children and love, all these seemed to have influenced the slow growth of Robert (See, 2007). Environmental and sociocultural factors on child’s development process The development of children is affected by environmental and sociocultural factors; the factors in simple forms can be disintegrated as social, economic, cultural and environmental. They are capable of affecting the development process of children either positively or negatively though at times the adults may take these factors for granted. The four main factors that affect child development from the article are the individual child behavior and health, family life, the learning environment and the socioeconomic environment. A child’s speech and development may be affected by among the other factors; lack of stimulation, delayed motor skills, inadequacy in the awareness of communication, reduction in hearing, frequent changes in the environment, high anxiety and the exposure to many different languages (See, 2007). A baby exposed too many of the factors both before and after births makes the baby slow in speech making him silent most of the time (Baldwin, 1967). Parents interaction with their children can affect the development of the children since children most of the time learn from their parents as the parents spend time teaching and playing with their kids. Parents separated due to domestic conflicts and the mother had to work extra hard to make ends meet. He only spent three months with the baby and had to be away most of the time hence was not in the position of nursing the baby (See, 2007). Children surrounded by strong learning environments both at home and at school/daycare facilities, which are both supportive and with lots of information tend to respond rapidly in terms of their development process. In addition, proper nutrition and food have a direct positive impact on the child’s development both physically and psychologically (See, 2007). As compared to other siblings of Robert, he is quite slow in his developmental process and quite reserved, Luis his brother is quite outgoing and much of an outdoor child. Carella her sister is also happy with her and plays a lot with him who has contributed a lot towards his development (Maschinot, 2008). Critique of the child’s developmental milestones From research, it is evident that social isolation or lack of socialization is a hindrance towards early child hood development like poor speech ability and inability to socialize with others in a civilized way (Baldwin, 1967). The development milestones mentioned above may be socially constructed by visiting a pediatrician or a counseling agency for advice on how to approach the issues. Our expectations for what is considered normal development may be biased at times, as is the case with Robert’s mother, Tisha from the case who thinks her child is a quiet and calm infant without knowing that this is due to his slowness development due to the surrounding factors (See, 2007). References Baldwin, A. L. (1967). Theories of child development. New York: Wiley. Child care and child development: results from the NICHD study of early child care and youth development. (2005). New York: Guilford Press. Maschinot, B. (2008). The changing face of the United States: The influence of culture on early child development. (pp. 1- 11 only) Washington, DC: Zero to Three. Retrieved from http://main.zerotothree.org/site/DocServer/Culture_book.pdf?docID=6921 See, L. (2007). Human Behavior in the Social Environment from an African-American Perspective (2nd ed.). New York: The Haworth Press. Read More