First Year of Life in Child Development Stages - Essay Example

First year of life in Child Development Stages First year of life in Child Development Stages Introduction The vital role during the child development during any particular development stage is characterized by the cooperative human action or the activity theory that is related to the cultural history. There are a number of activities that play major roles during the development period of a child at any given period. The main activity is believed to be the theory that is based on the nature of social interactions, which is most of the time the most helpful. This is because it produces the chief accomplishments related to the development stages. In addition, it helps the child to prepare for its next period of development. By involving itself in leading activities, the child is in a position to achieve a wide range of capabilities that include its emotional attachment with the people around it. The baby also acquires the motivation, which enables it to engage in social activities that are more complex, to become more creative with social cognitive activities. In addition, it provides the baby with the opportunity to construct the old cognitive abilities. According to Vygotsky, leading activities mainly refer to the socio-dramatic activities. It acted as the source of development in pre-school going children. However, he did not incorporate the term in his child development theory. However, the subsequent neo-Vygotskians included the term as a fundamental item of their concept in activity theory that is concerned with child development. It is this idea that has been extended to a number of periods ad stages in human development. Thus, the leading activity forms part of the broader theory and concept of activity, which makes effort to integrate the motivational, cognitive and social aspects of development. As indicated by Karpov (2003), it is not always provided why or how a child goes through the various psychological processes. For this reason, there is a dire need to explore the leading activities. This makes it possible to explore a number of questions, which include the kind of biological maturation and the learning that is based on response to stimuli. There are certain types of social activities that are known to generate the varied types of development in human beings. As a result of this, Karpov describes the Neo-Vygotskian theory as the most comprehensive approach presented by the major problem of mechanisms and developments in a child since it bears a great nature of attention to causal dynamics. The first Year of life This is the development period of the child from the moment of birth to the end of a one year period. A number of processes and milestones are involved to give out various signs and indications of future developments. The baby’s first year: The expected developmental milestones of an infant This period include the changes that take place from the time that the baby is a helpless infant to the time that it becomes an active toddler. It can be thought that a lot of changes and developments usually take place during this time. In particular it only takes duration of 12 short months for a baby to undergo these incredible changes and developments. It is expected that babies will undergo grow changes at a pace and rate that is astounding. During this period there is a development that is new and exciting which is bound to take place every month. New parents are always concerned as to whether the development steps taking place in their baby is on target. Milestones during the first year Owing to the different complexities kin the milestones involved, the first year of life of an individual is among the critical stages in the development of the child. From the period that they open their eyes, newborns have been known to go through physical and mental transformations that are dramatic in nature. During the initial 12 months that constitute the first year of child development, it is important that infants are appropriately assessed and evaluated to ensure that they undergo the right forms of development. This kind of examination should be performed on a regular basis to eliminate any chances of health since it will be possible to identify these through any earlier presenting symptoms. The early detection of such diseases leads to their appropriate treatment. In addition, any of the potential problems that are vital to the treatment of the child can be treated at the appropriate time (Karpov, 2005). The following table illustrates the different steps that are taken by the baby at different times of its development. Age Speech and hearing Vision Emotional and social Physical 0 to 3 months The child is bale to such and swallow Is able to see objects that are within the range of a mile away, follows objects that are in motion and makes attempts to reach out fofr them They require be comfort and cradle and begin to develop a strong trust towards their caregivers and parents. Has the ability to push up on arms and is able to lift up and hold the head. Between 3 and 6 months There is the enhanced use of consonants sounds while producing the bubbling sounds, which are used to get attention. Improvement and an increased development of the eye movement and the eye and body coordination. In addition, both eyes are able to focus equally on an object. Produces a broad smile when and loud laugh when pleased and has obtained the ability to develop skills that bring about self calming to quite down after he or she has been upset There is the use of hands in self support while sitting and the ability to roll back from the tummy. Before 9 months There is an increased use of vocabularies and sounds that are used in wide variety. The child looks at familiar people and objects when they are named. There is the further development of coordination skills between the eyes and the body. It is also added to the replacement of physical contact with eyer contact. They express their expressions by getting angry, frustrated and upset in case their needs are not met. They begin to show some signs of fear towards strangers. They are able to sit and reach out for items such as toys without losing their balance. The child is also able to move from it tummy or back into the sitting position. Between 9 months and 12 months The baby is able to utter words like “baba” and “dada”. There is the ability to use the eyes to judge distance. The child is able to express a wide variety of emotions that include fear, dislike, happiness and anger. There is the ability to pull himself up and stand as well as the ability to stand alone and take a number of steps independently. It is clearly indicated from the table that infancy stage is filled with the emotional communication between the child and its care giver. This acts as the leading activity during the first year of life as one of the stages in child development. At the time of a child’s first year of life, this leading activity acts in the context whereby there are the developmental achievements that occur during the life of an infant. According to Vygotski, these interactions act as the social foundations that eventually lead to the successful stages of learning and development that is unique in a human way (Karpov 2005). The parents and caregivers who offer primary care to the infant create an emotional contact with them through dialogue. This goes beyond the usual activities that include the constant changing of diapers and the regular feeding actions that are conducted in the form of a routine. In order for this two-way emotional relationship to occur in a smooth way there is an extreme need for what is considered by Bowlby (1969) to be an attachment. This is what serves as the main foundation for future relationships that the child is going to develop. Subsequently, they help to develop the motivation that will enable the child to get involved in later activities that require the acts of sharing. The emotional exchanges by the infants towards their caregivers start with those emotional exchanges that are pure. These include making smiles, cooing back and forth as well as the inclusion of more physical contacts. For instance, the baby is able to produce happy sounds when hugging, tickling or bouncing (Bodrova & Leong, 2007.) The main initiative required from the caregiver during the development of infants is the establishment of a rapport in an emotional sense. They should do this with the infants who in turn move from the area of being passive participants to a point where they become increasingly active in their roles during dialogue. This is why during the second month of the life of an infant they can be seen smiling in response to certain actions by their caregivers. They include when they smile or produce certain voices. In the course of the third month of the earliest year of an infant’s life, the child is able to start smiling, making gestures and vocalizing or cooing. This is especially the case when they are greeted by adults who are familiar to them. As illustrated by Bodrova and Leong, this is usually considered to be the animation complex which is applied by infants in the effort to proactively seek and maintain the attraction of their caregivers. Between the periods of three months to six months, there is the use of high levels of smiles and various types of vocalizations to get the caregivers to take more part in the exchange of emotions and create what has been discovered from a number of research studies to be known as the interaction synchrony (Tronick 1989). Most of the time, parents and caregivers make use of the baby talk or speech that is directed towards the infants during their responses to the pre linguistic vocalizations used by the children. They include the vocalizations in the form of babbling. In response to this, it has been found that the infants tend to respond by making modifications to their babbling. This is in accordance to the structure of phonology present in the utterances of their caregivers as shown by Goldstein and Schwade (2008). This kind of emotional interaction that include vocalizations or what is commonly considered by some individuals to be the vocal communion seems to be linked by attachment and the consequent lexical learning. In this case it plays the formative function in the development of language. After the initial 6 months during the first year of life during the development of the child, there is likely to be an expansion with regards to the interactions of the caregiver towards the infant. They include exchange of emotions especially when they are around different types of objects as is illustrated by Bodrova and Leong (2008). For example, the father of the child may smile and at the same time be shaking a rattle as he responds to the smile of the baby. It is also about this time that the parents may start to label different objects and begin talking about the varied actions that they are involved in performing. For the infants, these objects and activities interest them as they are introduced to them through the emotional interactions that they have with the adults. This is illustrated by Karpov (2005) who in a similar way to Piaget believed that the sensorimotor action used to manipulate objects by the infants is a result of the spontaneous movements of the body. It is in addition to the actions brought about by various manipulatory activities. It can be supported by the fact that children who lack the emotional attachment during the infancy development stage do not engage in a lot of activities that involve the manipulation of objects. This is despite the fact that the objects are made accessible to them and within their reach inside the cribs. It thus supports the assertion made by Vygotski that there is a crucial link between the interactions created in the emotional sense with the caregivers and the level through which the infant can develop in relation to the manipulation of objects and the ability to explore different objects. It is from this new perspective of emotional communication between the infants and their caregivers around the objects that surround them that infants are able to develop their future tools of communication. They include the tools and gestures that are more sophisticated. Thus, an adult can assign different social meanings to the capabilities of the child such as their ability to grasp different objects. This is because the grasping activity develops into the ability of the child to point. This is a future path towards which the child is able to communicate their desires. Similarly to the gestures, the first words of a child are very meaningful to the adult since they can be used to indicate objects, actions and people in future. References Bodrova, E., & Leong, D., J. (2009). Tools of the mind: A Vygotskian-based early childhood curriculum. Early Childhood Services: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Effectiveness, Vol. 3(3), 245–262. Goldstein, M. H., & Schwade, J. A. (2008). Social feedback to infants’ babbling facilitates rapid phonological learning. Psychological Science, Vol. 19(5): pp. 515–523. Karpov, Y. V. (2003). Development through the lifespan: A neo-Vygotskian approach. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. S. Ageyev, & S. M. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context., Learning in doing: New York, NY US: Cambridge University Press: pp. 138–155. Karpov, Y.V. (2005). The Neo-Vygotskian Approach to Child Development. The Neo-Vygotskian Approach to Child Development. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tronick, E. Z. (1989). Emotions and emotional communication in infants. American Psychologist, Vol. 44 (2): pp. 112–119. Read More