Summary Of John W. Santrock's Life-Span Development

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Throughout this whole semester there has been many important concepts about the development of life and how we can analyze the growth of one’s mind after birth. Psychologists make these observations closely in order to have a better understanding of how individual’s mindsets process information. In the textbook “Life-Span Development, 15th Edition” by John W. Santrock, he elaborates on how the brain works in different stages of life. For each stage of life there are different components to how the brain and the human body function properly. In chapter five of the book it talks about the cognitive development in infancy and how through this stage infants are starting to explore. As infants start to explore they become more curious about their …show more content…

Santrock mentions about object permanence in chapter five and it is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Infants tend to have an unpredictable life and difficult time to understand the world around them because they do not have the ability to comprehend it. According to John W. Santrock, he says, “Object permanence is just one of the basic concepts about the physical world developed by babies. To Piaget, children, even infants, are much like little scientists, examining the world to see how it works.”(Pg.141) This shows how infants and children have the same motives to look for an object even when it is being covered away by a big blank board. After learning about object permanence I tested this on my five-month-old niece and the results were accurate related to their reaction. My niece sat on the floor as she stared down at her favorite stuff giraffe and got surprised when I covered the stuff animal with a big white blanket. She started to turn her head in different directions to look for the stuff animal. From there I realized that she has gained the acknowledgement that even though the stuff animal “disappeared”, it still exists somewhere around the living