Development through life stages - infant development

Intellectual development- intellectual development is the ability to improve one's ability to think and reason, which stops them from reacting to things instinctively or emotionally. From birth to six months old infants focus on and follow moving objects with their eyes, they give out signals such as crying when they are hungry, angry or in pain. They turn to locate the source of sounds and forget about the objects they cannot see and they also explore things by putting them in their mouth. From seven month onwards they start to make sounds like 'mama and dada', they repeat actions that cause a response e.g. when they are given a rattle they will shake it and laugh, they respond to simple directions and they may speak their first understandable words by twelve months. Most one-year-olds would be able to name simple objects like shapes. By the age of two they would be able to put words together in a simple sentence and by the age of three they would know the alphabet and would be able to put understandable sentences together, at the age of three they like to have stories read to them. They can also respond to own name different tones in carer’s voice. They also imitate adult enthusiastically and understand simple instructions.

Emotional development- Emotional development comes about with maturity. As a child emotions will be very new. As you grow and mature, your emotional development becomes complete. Life experiences make you better you are more able to handle turmoil when it happens. This shows you that you have good emotional development. A mixture of emotions can develop from sad to happy to angry feelings. Emotional development starts in early childhood and goes up to adulthood. Toddlers cry when they are hungry or wet, coos and smiles a lot; a strong bond should now be established between the child and the carer because it leads to an attachment relationship and then leads to disappointment when the carer is not there anymore they can be clingy to main carer because he doesn’t like separation from carer. They like to be within sight of adults and he knows they can show affection, by a hug. Moreover they do the opposite of what they are told. As they become more troubled they throw tantrums when he/she does not get his/her own way. The terrible twos does not like separation from parents they express violent emotions.

Social development- Social development is learning the skills that enable a person to interact and communicate with others in a meaningful way. Social skills are closely allied to emotional development a kind of intelligence or skill that involves the ability to perceive, assess and positively influence one's own and other people's emotions. In order to interact effectively with others, one has to be able to monitor and control one's own emotional state. They usually sleep for much of the day and night. However they are aware of their surroundings and people when they are awake. They can enjoy baths and caring routines, e.g. feeding and cuddling. Moreover they try and put things into their mouth by helping out (patting bottle) when being fed. Holds her own bottle or cup to try and feed, plays ‘ peek-o-boo’, waves ‘bye bye’ when asked does not put objects in their mouth anymore as much as before. They start to feed themselves and cry when they are with stranger’s copies actions of parent’s plays alongside other children- parallel play. Tends to be possessive with toys, he is not yet able to share.