A Brain Development - Essay Example

Some researches support the hypothesis that negative influences like environmental deprivation and lack of early movement experiences in childhood can impact brain development. Environmental deprivation includes poor language environment. Vocabulary growth is influenced by a child’s exposure to word quantity and quality when the language areas of the brain start to become active. On the other hand, the advances made by a child in his motor skills are shown to affect brain development as voluntary movements cause glucose production and more blood flow to the brain.

Both will “in all likelihood” increase neural connections. Their deprivation therefore will imply a missed opportunity for the child to develop the best possible language skills and motor abilities. To prevent this, parents must ensure an enriched early childhood experience through interesting social-emotional, physical-sensory-motor, and language cognition as well as exposure to “repetitive tasks, attention-focused activities, and meaningful tasks.” Moreover, children should be taught both large muscle and small muscle movements in order for them to accomplish correct form and technique in motor skills (Feinstein 187-193).

B Make-Believe PlayJean Paget, one of the chief researchers in child plays, believed that children begin their make-believe plays at the age of two, increasing every year until age six and starts to wane thereafter. The earliest make-believe plays are usually done solitarily without the necessary material, are half-done, inanimate objects being made animate, and pretend activities of certain persons. When the child gets older, the pretend play gets more complex. The child learns to accommodate other children, even assigning them with specific roles.

He may, for example, decide to play a doctor and assign a playmate as a patient and another as a nurse. Advanced pretend plays also are specific objectives. Thus, when children pretend to be pirates, their goal could include looking for sunken treasure and this would entail a host of preparations like costumes, a boat, an underwater search, and a treasure chest. Advanced make-believe play is also characterized by less dependence on realistic objects and the substitution of non-prototypical imagery or invented objects.

For example, children can use long wooden objects for swords or plain paper for money bills (Singer 65-66).Make-believe plays are vital to child development because, through them, children learn and understand more the world around them, absorbing this new knowledge and in the process initiating their assimilation into the world. They develop not only cognitive skills but also social skills when, at advanced ages, they gradually graduate from single make-believe plays to group make-believe plays.

At this stage, they not only start to recognize the knowledge system but also social realities as they learn to control their self-interest and egos as they accommodate other children’s interests to make their games successful.