Child development
As a result of this influential conceptualization of development, these environments – from the family to economic and political structures – have come to be viewed as part of the life course from childhood through adulthood.
[9] However, Piaget's main focus on this stage, and the reason why he named it "preoperational," is that children at this point are not able to apply specific cognitive operations, such as mental math.
[9] Concrete: (about first grade to early adolescence) In this stage, children between the age of 7 and 11 use appropriate logic to develop cognitive operations and begin applying this new way of thinking to different events they encounter.
[21] He wrote extensively on child development and conducted research, such as the Little Albert experiment, which showed that a phobia could be created by classical conditioning.
[22] He also helped bring a natural science perspective to child psychology by introducing objective research methods based on observable and measurable behavior.
[24] In accordance with his view that the sexual drive is a basic human motivation,[25] each stage centered around the gratification of the libido within a particular area, or erogenous zone, of the body.
[38][39] Recent advances in neuroscience and wisdom from physiology and physics studies reconsider the knowledge gap on how social interaction provides cognition in newborns and infants.
Research professor in bioengineering at Liepaja University Igor Val Danilov developed the idea of Michael Tomasello by introducing a Mother-Fetus Neurocognitive model:[44] a hypothesis of neurophysiological processes occurring during Shared intentionality.
This is common for gifted children when their cognitive development outpaces their physical and/or emotional maturity, such as when a child is academically advanced and skipping school grade levels yet still cries over childish matters and/or still looks their age.
Encouraging children to participate in activities that cater to their unique personalities is an effective way to help them develop new skills and grow in different environments.
Overall, organized sports can offer a fun and enriching experience while helping children build character and valuable life skills they can carry into adulthood.
Balancing schoolwork and employment required effective time allocation and punctuality while being responsible enough to communicate with managers regarding school-related conflicts.
Children with Down syndrome or developmental coordination disorder are late to reach major motor skills milestones like sucking, grasping, rolling, sitting up and walking, talking.
There are some population differences in motor development, with girls showing some advantages in small muscle usage, including articulation of sounds with lips and tongue.
Environmental factors including food and nutrition, the responsiveness of parents, love, daily experiences, and physical activity can influence early brain development of children.
[131] Between 2 and 3 years of age, the child is able to refer to themself as "me", combine nouns and verbs, use short sentences, use some simple plurals, answer "where" questions, and has a vocabulary of about 450 words.
[133] However, this can be overcome when a highly familiar story is read in the new accent prior to the test, suggesting the essential functions of underlying spoken language is in place earlier than previously thought.
[132] Although the role of adult speech is important in facilitating the child's learning, there is considerable disagreement among theorists about the extent to which it influences children's early meanings and expressive words.
[137] Usage-based theories define language as a set of formulas that emerge from the child's learning abilities in correlation with their social cognitive interpretation and their understanding of the speakers' intended meanings.
Jean Piaget uses the term "acted conversations" to explain a child's style of communication that relies more heavily on gestures and body movements than words.
[145] Perhaps the most obvious environmental cause would be a child that suffers from psychosocial deprivation such as poverty, poor housing, neglect, inadequate linguistic stimulation, or emotional stress.
Autism is recognized as one of the five pervasive developmental disorders, distinguished by problems with language, speech, communication and social skills that present in early childhood.
These sequelae include physiologic instability, altered brain development, and abnormal neurodevelopment, somatosensory, and stress response systems, which can persist into childhood.5,–15 Nociceptive pathways are active and functional as early as 25 weeks’ gestation and may elicit a generalized or exaggerated response to noxious stimuli in immature newborn infants.16American Academy of Pediatrics February 2016 Policy Statement, reaffirmed July 2020[162] Although there are a large number of studies regarding the effect of maternal depression and postnatal depression on various areas of infant development, they are yet to come to a consensus regarding the true effects.
[172] Studies have begun to show that other forms of psychopathology (mental illness) can independently influence infants' and toddlers' subsequent social-emotional development through effects on regulatory processes within the child-parent attachment.
[185] Prenatal marijuana exposure may have long-term emotional and behavioral consequences, as at ten-years-old children who had been exposed to the drug during pregnancy reported more depressive symptoms than unexposed peers.
[188] Adequate sanitation and hygiene (rather than just access to food) play a critical role in preventing undernutrition, malnutrition and stunting[189][190][191][188] and ensuring normal early childhood development.
[207] Poverty can also cause a number of other factors shown to effect child development, such as poor academic success, less family involvement, iron deficiency, infections, a lack of stimulation,[208] and malnutrition.
[222] Poverty-stricken children have fewer opportunities for stimulating recreational activities, often missing out on trips to libraries or museums, and are unable to access a tutor to help with problematic academic areas.
[229] High levels of lead in the blood is associated with attention deficits,[230] while arsenic poisoning has a negative effect on both verbal IQ and on total intelligence quotient.
Then social work staff could consult medical notes to establish if the baby or child is failing to thrive, as a first step in a pathway towards identifying neglect.
