Child Development and Its Domains: Cognitive, Physical and Emotional

It is possible to see infant growth and be identified as a mechanism that will alter over time. Physical development, intellectual development, language, emotional, and social development are combined. The result will require improvements that are visible and measurable in human growth. Child development could also be identified as children changing over time as they go through various stages of life such as birth, infant, children, adolescent, adult and finally, retirement. These are the stages that people will go through in life. Child development is crucial because it helps the child understand their gross motor skills and fine motor skills, helping them know how to talk to individuals as their language skills grow. Children between the ages of 0-5 have a vocabulary consisting of 50 words. Children’s speech will also widen due to the interactions they have with others. This will socially support them as they would build relationships with people around them. Cognitive, physical, and emotional development are the areas I have selected. Within this reflective essay on child development we will delve into some essential domains, such as cognitive development, explaining how children’s brains develop throughout time. Emotional, since it will illustrate the child's attachment throughout time. The debate on nature and nurture is also relevant because it relates to the genetic and the environmental factors of children behaviours throughout their life span. Finally, the physical domain is essential to illustrate infants' growth from birth to adulthood by developing their fine and gross motor skills. An overall theorist would link back to these domains as they may have come up with the idea or developed on the idea.

Promoting Healthy Physical Development in Children

Physical development is when the body's change occurs; this would include the fine and gross motor skills, the growth of the brain, muscles, and the senses. An example of these would-be babies starts to develop their senses of smell, sight, sound, and taste. This would contribute to child's development as they are growing up and are beginning to experience things for themselves, such as crawling. This would be the child using their, fine motor skills, as they would be investigating their own body and adapting to their environment. Reword the underlined bit Some gross motor skills are skipping or galloping, kicking a football, and throwing a tennis ball. Some fine motor skills are holding a pencil, scissor kills, pushing Lego blocks. These six stages of physical development the first stage is 3-4 years, and with this stage the child starts to walk backwards and climbs stairs and ride a tricycle. This would link back to the gross motor skills as the child would using their larger muscles.

Another example would be fine motor skills, and the movement for this would be the child turning pages of a magazine. The next stage of physical development would be 4-5 years, and at this stage, the gross motor skill would be hopping on one foot, walking in a straight line also tiptoeing. The fine motor skill would be the child using cutlery for their food, creating random objects. The next stage physical development is 5-6 years, and at this stage, the gross motor skills would be the child would learn how to jump over a skipping rope, skip. The fine motor skills would be the child confidently using cutlery, holding equipment such as pencil, and joining up their writing. The second last stage for physical development is stage 6-7 years, the gross motor skill would be riding a bike, running with a fast speed. The fine motor skill would be writing their full name down and writing short stories. Finally, the last for physical development is stage is 7-8 years and for the gross motor skill the child would be hopping on both legs, running in a straight line. The fine motor skill would be using a pair of scissors and cutting correctly. The theorist that would link back to the fine and gross motor skills is Exener and Henderson as they provided an overview of the motor skills and the hand skills in children.

A theorist that would link with physical development would be Arnold Gesell, and he is an American clinical psychologist and paediatrician and a professor at yale. His theory talks about malnutrition development; and demonstrates child development through similar sequences. Gesell had seen that children develop at their own pace, and they all do not develop together. He talks about the development starting before the child's birth. He also suggests that a 'child should be taught complete tasks when they are physically and mentally ready.' Gesell's positive factor points are finding out that each child adapts in different ways, and they all have different needs. Another positive factor point is that Gesell, had stated 'a child should only be taught when they are ready to do so' this quote is demonstrates his theory and how you should let the child do their own, within their own time. However, there are some negatives for this theory such as like Piaget has quoted that 'the child is influenced more by the environment they live in.' with this Piaget is implying that children acts may be influenced by nature, which may be correct as they pick up things from around them, this would link to physical development because children will copy actions what adults do and get used doing it. The quote implies that children are mostly affected by what they have been taught and what see happening around them.

Another theorist is Gallahue. His theory is based on the egological perspective. It has three factors the individual feature, the environment and tasks, and an accurate understanding of the movements within the stages of development. This would compare Gesell's theory as he talks about having no stages and just the child just enjoying their time. Gallahue model talks about the hourglass model is where the movement phase talks about the stability, and the manipulative skills. Another negative factor point about this theory would be Gesell had used this theory on white people, middle-class parents, and their children as gunnie pigs. This is negative because every child is different, and the theorist would have needed to adapt to their needs, not their own. Gesell had only used white children and their parents; this shows us that he was not as diverse on his theory, which needed to prove that it was equal and not one-sided. The adults' role was making sure the children were there and gave Gesell all the information that he needed.

Gognitive Domane of Children Development Process

Cognitive development relates to how a child thinks, how they explore and figure things out. The skills that they would have and relate to cognitive development is problem-solving, puzzles, and math. This would contribute to child development as children would talk and interact with the people around them. By doing these sorts of activities, it would allow the children to learn some essential life skills. Some of the skills would include communicating, problem-solving, interacting with other children, socialising. Children would construct their knowledge by experimenting themselves and in their own time. They would pick up things from people around them, as the brain would remember these actions. A theorist that would relate to child development is Jean Piaget, a Swiss biologist who studied psychology and Philpot. He had started to develop his observations on children and had argued that they think differently to adults. He had created the clear development stages to prove his point. His observation's first stage was the sensorimotor stage, and this is from birth- 2 years. In this stage, Piaget stated that the baby could understand and make things happen, which is the begging of their action. They would start to explore the world by using their senses. By the age of 8-12 months, they know that things exist, but they are hidden from sight. This stage of the theory was put into practice, and it has been said that the baby of the years five months and them entering the setting for the first time. Also, they consider a child being the age of 3 years. The second stage is the preoperational stage, the age of 2-7 years; there are four parts.

The first is the symbolic representation, and the symbol that may be representing their world, by using pictures, numbers, or symbolic play. The second part is egocentric, and this part, children struggle to understand different viewpoints. The third part for this stage is the centration. This would classify different objects by one feature, and they can only reflect on one aspect of the situation at a time. Lastly, animism this would-be treating objects as they have any feeling. The net stage of Piaget's theory is the concrete operational stage, and this is age 7-11years. The critical points of this stage are logical thinking by using past experiences.

Conservation and split into three parts age six years would be numbers, age seven years would be mass and age nine years would be weight. Classification of objects would be according to several features and would be ordered to put them by size. Another theorist for cognitive development is Lev Vygotsky; his theory was also in stages, and he was about speech. He had stated that it comes in three stages external, egocentric, and inner speech, and it occurs from the age of birth to 3 years. Vygotsky states that 'every function I the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later on the individual level; first between people (interpsycological) and then inside the child (interpsycological.)' some similarities for both Piaget and Vygotsky is both have theories on cognitive development. However, Piaget refers to his theories as stages; for Vygotsky perspective, he talks about social interactions that children would become engaged and would help them to discover and create meaningful things. Another similarity is that both theorists are from birth until death as a continuous process. However, there is some differences Piaget theory would suggest that cognitive development, the learning would occur; however, with Vygotsky, his theory would lead the development and after development leaning occurs. Some positives of Piaget theory are that Piaget work had included much detail to the stages. This would also include the experiments that he had did, also the knowledge and relationships that he had created with children. However, there are some weaknesses for piglet theory. He did not look at the influence of social international or the cultural setting, which could affect the development of the pattern of thought. Pierre Danson had found out that 'aboriginal children had developed the ability o conserve at a later stage then Piaget sample.' This quote shows that Dansen had tries to prove Piaget idea. Lastly the role of adults in Piaget's s they would observe the children when they are at home, and then give feedback on what their child has been doing and how that is going to help the experiment of Piaget theory.

Link Between Child and Emotional Development

Emotional development is children bonding together with others around them such as parents, careers, siblings, grandparents etc.; it is attaching developing and repairing the bond between an adult and a child. Nature and nurture would link into this because nature would focus on the genetics and how it runs in the family and nurture will talk about the environmental factors and how this has impacted the child and the role models around them. Child development links to emotional development because the child would start bonding with the mother from birth. They will have a special connection with parent or career from the start. This is because the child would be seeing the adults face from birth and have a special relationship with them. The child would then experience and manage their emotions with the people around them.

An example is when a child cries when they are hungry or even want attention. They would show they are happy by laughing. This is the child showing their emotion, which links with child development because once the child is older, they will start to talk but still have the experience of emotion. A theorist that would link to emotional development John Bowlby, and he is a British child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His theory is the attachment theory, and this is where the bond of affection is between two people, this would show a sense personal security and commitment. (Bowlby had believed that an early experience would later impact on the child’s future life. He had believed that attachment had a basis in evolution. Attachment is affected by the general sensitivity to an infant’s needs. The main ideas of the attachment theory were children having an intimate relationship with a primary figure. “Children can have multiple attachment figures; each child has an innate need to seek out a specific primary figure, which is usually a mother.” Another point for this would be that children requiring and assistant from a primary figure for up to two years. This is because the first 12 months children would require all the assistance and care they require of the primary career. After all, they are dependent on someone looking after them as they are new to the world. Emotionally this would create a strong attachment as when the child s with you, they would have a stronger connection to the primary figure.

Another theorist for emotional development is Mary Ainsworth; her theory was also the attachment theory, and she had gone against the principal body as she strongly believed in her idea. Her idea was about focusing on providing explanations on why there is a difference in the individual attachment. She had created an observation technique which she had named the Strange Situation Classification. She had three parts of theory attachment a which was caused by the child being insecure and avoidant. Attachment B, which was secure children. Lastly, attachment C, and this was children that were insecure and resistant. Each type of attachment could be specific behaviours that the child would show. The secure attachment is where the children are put at distress when the mother is antisocial of another person. Finally, when the mother returns, the child becomes normal and happy again. The avoidant attachment Ainsworth had found out that the child would not care if the mother had left and would play with the stranger, and when the mother returned, the child would show interest in the mother. The best results that Ainsworth had found out was the secure attachment because most children were emotionally attached to their mothers. Both theorists had a similar idea, such as the attachment theory. However, they displayed it differently, such as Bowlby talking about the earliest bonds with the child and primary career, and how they have a special attachment from the start. However, Ainsworth demonstrates how the child's attachment to the mother is, by putting it in practice. The differences are Bowlby talks about evolutionary, hard-wired, also is nature. Whereas Ainsworth talks about the stimulation, the learned behaviour, and the impact in the adult life, this is more nurture as they would pick up actions from people around them and the environment.

The positives and the negative for them both is that they both focus on emotional development and how they imply in into practice. A negative is that Bowlby did not put his into practise; however, Ainsworth did put her ideas into practice and proved some people wrong. Such as body regulation. The adults' role here was the adult creating that special bond with the children and observing the children move and seeing what impacted them the most, nature or nurture.

Conclusion

Finally, in this essay there is cognitive, emotional, and physical development and how these theorists have played their role in each part and finding out how this had affected the people around them and some of these were put into practice. This has taught us more information knowledge of children how this has impacted the way they see things. This has also given us the ability to understand these stages of life and how they work.

References

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