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Prenatal Development Theory

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"There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding." (Erik Erikson) Contrary to the outdated psychological models which promoted early childhood as the singular period of growth and change in an individual the influential developmental psychologist Eric Erikson’s "miracle" of "vigorous unfolding" quote provides a metaphor that can be understood as the potential for continued alteration of personality over a life time, however even from a life time development perspective childhood is a critically important phase of human life. In this essay I will analyse the 9 month old baby girl featured in the film “3 men and a baby” via the looking glass of developmental theory. Concepts discussed will include Piaget’s cognitive …show more content…

As early psychological development is tied to pre-natal development it is clear why developmental psychologists deem it relevant to their area of study. The prenatal stage of human development is comprised into the following three sequential stages, germinal, embryonic and fetal stage. The germinal stage occurs between conception and 14 days, the embryonic stage lasts from week 2 until week 8 and the fetal stage lasts from week 8 until the baby is born (K. Cherry "Stages of Prenatal Development"). A number of so called primitive reflexes are present and can be observed in infants. Primitive reflexes are understood to be those reflexes which are displayed by healthy infants but not neurologically normal adults. Rooting reflex, sucking reflex and palmar grasp reflex are all examples of primitive reflexes and in infants are an indicator of normal development. All three are displayed by the baby …show more content…

It proposes four distinct phases in the cognitive evolution of children (Berger, Kathleen Stassen, 2008) these are the Sensory Motor Stage, Pre operational stage, Concrete operations stage and the formal operations stage. As the baby is under one year old the only relevant stage to be discussed here is the sensory motor stage. Piaget’s concept of this first stage was based on the assumption that the in order to understand the world around them infants must create schemas, Schemas are subjective mental representations of the objective world around us. Infants will incrementally build up knowledge and insight of their surroundings via coordinating sensory experiences with physical interactions involving objects in their environment. A normal healthy infant will progress from instinctual reflex actions (palmer grasp, rooting) to informed voluntary actions as it acquires information about objects and the methods by which they may be manipulated (Bernstein, Penner, Clarke-Stewart). In the film the baby passes through the expected cognitive developmental milestones as demonstrated by several scenes where baby grasps the air in the direction of several desired items such as the milk bottle which showcases intentional grasping for a desired object. In other scenes the baby is observed to display curiosity about things as she is

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There is the rooting reflex that happens when you touch a newborn on the cheek and they will turn to the direction of the touch. Next there is the sucking reflex that occurs if anything touches the baby’s lips, they will begin to suck. The startle or Moro reflex has to do with when there is a loud noise and the baby is startled it will extend its arms, legs and fingers. Lastly there is the grasping reflex that if something touches a baby’s hand they will grab it and hold on to it strongly. The lower brain centers like the spinal cord or brain stem are the ones responsible for the reflexes.

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Feral Child Task This task will majorly focus on the lack of social and cognitive development of Genie and its connection with Piaget’s and Erickson’s human psychological development theories. As one of the most well- known feral children in the 20th century, the young girl Genie had been confined to a room, isolated and abused by her parents for over a decade before the rescue. Due to the severely abnormal development occurred in the childhood, Genie’s linguistic ability was nearly undeveloped, her limbs were not fully extended, her development was delayed from various perspectives.

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For example, a baby at two months old development milestones for social and emotional are smiling at people tries to look at parents, calm him or herself down by

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Valeria Oceguera Chapter 9 Extra credit The three stages of prenatal development is the germinal period, the embryonic period, and the fetal period. In the germinal period a zygote is formed, in the embryonic period the placenta develops, and in the fetal period the babies system develops. Cephalocaudal development is when development takes place from the outside in and proximodistal is when development takes place from the inside out

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After the first two 20 minute sessions observing Taylor’s physical development, the following two 20-minute sessions were on Taylor’s cognitive aspects of development. At first, Taylor didn’t show any interest in me. He seemed puzzled by my appearance and would frequently look at me. However, he seemed to have a good understanding of his mother. He would smile at her and was seen frequently lifting his hands when his mother came towards him.

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Infants need movement to learn and to be stimulated. Some Learning Goals for infants brain development may consist of, developing awareness of his/her own body, developing small and large motor skills by learning to control body muscles and learning to pick up things and hold them, developing awareness of own environment. Developmentally appropriate toys, helps infants to grasp and reach, using their small and large motor skills. When infants have play time on their tummy helps build neck and upper-body strength and control. Movement Activities, movement activities encourage infants to be mobile by scooting, crawling, climbing or reaching.

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In order to have a normal development a person must have successful completion of each stage results in a healthy personality and the acquisition of basic virtues, in the other hand the failures to successfully completing a stage can result reduced ability to complete further stages therefore more unhealthy and negative outcomes in personality and sense of self. The first stage of life according to ‘’Erikson’’ is trust vs. mistrust Its occur during the first year life during infancy, the main proses of this stage is to develop confidence trust but without removing the ability to distrust mistrust completely, so the infant must get all the care from his parents by breastfeeding for example, food giving and changing diaper and if this stage did not went successfully then the infant will develop mistrust and this may last with him till he turns to adulthood. The second stage of life is autonomy vs. shame this stage starts from 18 month of age till three years old, here the child start to be more physically active and the child start to walk away from his parents and also learn to feed themselves without the help of caregivers, moreover the child start to develop the way to exploring the environment and start climb a tree and all what

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As the child develops their language and they have more social interaction, there is an increased level of the child’s sense of self. This understanding comes from the baby observing other people perform tasks to achieve a goal. For example, a toddler observes their parent saying “I’m hungry”, and then the parent gets a cookie. The child can recognize the thought led to an action. By age 2 toddlers are aware that people have desires by recognizing phrases like “I wanna sit”, and “lemme see”.

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Developmental psychology is a scientific approach that describes growth, change and coherence throughout life. Developmental psychology looks at how one's thoughts, feelings and behavior change throughout his or her life. An important part of the theories within this discipline focus on development in childhood; because it is the time that elapses throughout the life of the individual when the most change occurs. Developmental psychologists examine broad theoretical domains such as biological, social, emotional, and cognitive processes. Prenatal development refers to the process of development of a baby from a single cell after pregnancy to embryo and then to a fetüs.

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Throughout infancy and childhood, children go through basic milestones around specific

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In this process the baby is aware of its existence with the help of discrete senses and feelings;

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Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages: the sensorimotor stage, from birth to age 2; the preoperational stage, from age 2 to about age 7; the concrete operational stage, from age 7 to 11; and the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and spans into adulthood. He believed that there were four necessary ingredients for cognitive development which included: “maturation of the nervous system, experiences gained through interaction with physical world, social environment, and child’s active participation in adapting to environment & constructing knowledge from experience.” (Sullivan, 2014, Slide 3) The sensorimotor stage occurs between birth and age 2. Infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and handling objects.

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Brief History Jean Piaget was a Twentieth century Swiss psychologist and was the first psychologist to systematically study the cognitive development of children. Thomas (2005) wrote that early in Piaget’s career he worked with children and his observations and interactions with the students led him to the theory that a young person's cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults (pp. 188-9). According to Ahmad, et al. (2005) , Piaget showed that when compared to adults, young children think in differently and he then came to the conclusion that cognitive development was an ongoing process which occurred due to maturation and interaction with the environment (p. 72).

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The first year of a child’s life is spent communicating entirely through nonverbal means. Infants use every part of their bodies to convey their wants and needs as their parents and early childhood educators respond to meet them. Examples of this are reflexes, such as opening their mouths when hungry. Also, crying and whole body movements to demonstrate feelings. Another way that is interesting in infant nonverbal communication is allowing infants to play with each other.

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He has been advanced in the timing that Piaget has created, but it is good to know how infants learn through stages and that they are all individuals and learn at their own pace. Piaget has done something great by discovering these stages of cognitive development that can almost give parents and educators a map of what is happening in a child’s mind as they are growing up. In the video, Inside a Child’s Brain by David Eagleman (2015) it talks about how you become who you are by what is removed from the brain, after the age of 2 the neurons in the brain slow down. The links that you do not use in those first years of age in your brain you lose as you grow (The Brain). The video shows how important the first two years of age are in a child’s life while the sensorimotor stage is

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