The baby will also have a startle reflex if they hear a loud noise. They will throw their arms and hands outwards, arching their back and straightening their legs.
If a baby is held upright with their feet towards the ground they will start to do walking movements. This is called the walking reflex.
Babies prefer the sound of human voices and soon begin to recognise their own mother’s voice. Babies have no muscle control so they can’t hold their head up, sit, or use their hands to move things deliberately.
Babies at this age go through a sensorimotor stage which is when their thinking is limited to sending objects and performing motor actions.
Infants at this stage have an inbuilt tendency to interact with their careers, by about two months they might start to smile at human faces. At three months they will respond when adults talk, at five months infants can recognise between familiar and unfamiliar faces. They make their first relationship as they form emotional attachments to their careers. In the later stages of infancy they will be playing alongside other children this is called parallel play.
Infants who are securely attached will grow up with emotional resources, which will help to cope with the uncertainty of life, and infants who are insecurely attached may have a reduced ability to be able to cope with the stress and major life events.
Childhood: 4-9 years
Throughout infancy they grow rapidly but this slows down in childhood. As soon as they are about six years old their head is about 90 per cent adult size even though the body is still growing. Until the onset of puberty the organs remain small. The practical abilities in children will continue to develop so at the age of two years old they may be able to run and climb the stairs one at a time. By the age of about 4 the child will be able to kick and throw a large ball. At the age of about six or seven the child will be able to skip or ride a bike.
Experts believe that children cannot think in a logical way as children can use words to communicate but they cannot understand the logical implications involved in language. A child might be able to count to number ten but might not understand what the number ten actually means.
Young children are emotionally dependent on the adults that care for them and they begin to learn social roles and behaviour within their family context, this is called first or primary socialisation. Children learn to co-operate with other children, this is co-operate play. As they grow older they will become more independent and begin to form friendships based on sense of mutual trust, theses friendships become increasingly important, as the children grow older towards adolescence.
Children’s imagination helps them to understand the social roles that other people play and they begin to imagine ‘me’- an idea of self. Relationships with other members of the family may influence how a child feels valued- a sense of self worth. The way a child gets on with people may have an impact on their self-confidence.
Adolescence: 10-18 years
Between the ages of eleven and thirteen girls often start puberty but some may start earlier. Girls often start puberty early but boys usually start between the ages of thirteen and fifteen years if age. All this prepares the body for sexual reproduction. This happens because of the action of the hormones that control sexual development. Children may experience a growth spurt where they might grow faster than normal. During puberty girl’s breasts grow bigger, they have development of pubic hair, increased fat layers under the skin and they start their menstrual periods. Boys will experience the enlargement of their testes and penis, the development of pubic and facial hair and increased muscle strength. Boy’s voices also break and become deeper in tone. This means that they will look and behave differently from children.
At this age it is called the concrete operational stage, which means you can think logically provided the issues are ‘down to earth’ or concrete. In this stage children may be able to understand simple logical puzzles. When the child is about eleven years old and onwards they can solve complex problems in their head. Formal logical operations enable adolescents and adults to use abstract concepts and theories in order to be able to gain an understanding of the world beyond their own experiences.
During adolescents a person’s sense of self worth may be more influenced by other adolescents than by family and they will start to copy the style of dress, beliefs, cultural values and behaviours of their own network of friends. They will have to cope with the development of their own sexuality and the social transition to full independence from the family.
An adolescent needs to seek a sense of identity and self worth; a person needs a clear understanding of their identity to feel secure when they are working with other people or in order to make a loving sexual attachment. This could be a stressful time because self-esteem may depend on the development of identity.
Adulthood: 18-65 years
Young adults are at the peak of their performance between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight. Older adults tend to lose certain things such as strength and speed with age but these changes are often unnoticed outside competitive sport. An older adult could easily achieve a personal peak in fitness if they were to take up exercise in later life but there are many age-related changes that happen, as we get older. When adults reach their mid forties they might find they may need to wear reading glasses, some people cannot hear high-pitched sounds so well during late adulthood and men may notice thinning of the hair or total hair loss. Women in their late teens and early twenties are most fertile but between the ages of forty-five and fifty-five fertility reduce and then eventually come to an end when a woman hits the menopause. This takes several years to complete and it involves:
There will be a gradual ending of menstruation and a large reduction in the amount of eggs in the ovaries, which will have an impact on the amount released each month.
Because of this there will be an increase in the production of the hormone called gonadotropins, which helps to stimulate egg production, which can cause the woman to become irritable, hot flushes and night sweats.
A reduction in oestrogen and progesterone produced by a woman’s ovaries, resulting in some sexual organs shrinking and sometimes there can be a reduction in sexual interest.
Other problems that can occur are osteoporosis, which can be caused by the reduction in sexual hormones.
As you get older people put on weight as adults still eat the same amount of food as when they were younger but are now less active so consequently they gain weight.
Adults with formal operations can think scientifically for example an adult can use judgement to understand why a car won’t start, they can work out many different reason for why the car won’t start so abstract thinking enables us to think through complicated ideas in our head without having to see concrete pictures.
Friendships continue to be very important and for most people the early adulthood is dominated by adult sexual partnerships. Also marriage and parenthood represent a major part in their life. They may experience time pressures as they grow older which can affect their social activities. Mature adults may have to split their time between work, care of parents, other family commitments and wider social activities, but social activities will be reduced because of these pressures.
People also argued that the main thing in early adulthood was learning to cope with emotional attachment to a sexual partner, this could involve to not being too self- centred or defensive and not becoming emotionally isolated.
The final stages of life: Variable
The maximum lifespan for an adult is estimated to be about 120 years old this is because our cells have limited ability to renew themselves so if they cannot renew themselves then we cannot repair ourselves and stay healthy. To increase your potential lifespan you should stay away from toxic substances such as tobacco and you should eat a healthy diet, which means eating your five a day and eating the right amount of food out of each food group.
At the final stages of life adults have been thinking logical and abstract from the age of 11 and onwards but this will gradually decrease, as they get even older.
In retirement adults will have a lot more free time but many adults chose to get more involved with close friends and family rather than extend their network of social contacts.
People have argued that older people need to find a sense of secureness that will help them to cope with physical changes such as ageing and death but if people fail to make a sense of their life they will experience emotional despair.
by
amylouxx (student)
