Child Development And Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development

From birth to four months there are many developmental changes that go on throughout the infant's body. During this time period of birth to four months, infants show a very rapid rate of physical development but can vary from child to child. At this age it is very important that the child is observed closely to insure that they are developing the way they should be such as hitting the physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional developments.

The motor/physical development domain involves gross motor and fine motor skills as well as physical growth. During the growth and development for an infant, they typical develop from head downward and the center of the body outward. At birth, the newborn's head is about 70 percent of its adult

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development helps us to understand the developmental stages of a child. Development from one stage to the next is dependent upon the child's understanding of the environment in that particular stage. He believes that children’s thinking doesn’t come all at once but instead at different points. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is categorized in two different stages during the first four months of life. In Stage 1 the newborn’s behavior is reflexive. Infants quickly start to change their behavior from passive reactions to active. Each of the senses operates by themselves. During Stage 2 in­fants begin to coordinate their senses. They begin to develop hand-mouth coordination, eye coordination, and eye-ear coordination. One behavior can stimulate another. Infants use and refine all their senses which are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, to build physical knowledge about objects, the world, and their place in it. When in the hands of a caregiver, they can use several strategies to enhance the cognitive development. They should provide an environment that commands attention during infants period of alertness by having visually attractive crib, walls next to crib, and occasional music. They should also provide non restricting clothes, uncluttered crib,

Infants start to attend to many different events as they begin to draw conclusions on who they can trust. Feelings of security and trust develop out of relations with others, not by infants on their own. On the way others treat the infants will be how they develop feelings. If their caregiver is giving them attention and showing them comfort the will begin to trust them. “Temperament, or the infant’s basic style of behavior, gradually emerges in the first four months. Some styles are easily recognized, whereas others may be more difficult to observe.” (Swim, 267) Temperament can have an effect on the emotional development of a child. While the link between temperament and attachment security is still empirically debated, Marshall and Fox (2005) found that infants who showed high levels of negative affect in response to stimulation at fonr months were more likely to be classified with an insecure attachment at 14 months than were infants who scored low on affective reactivity. ( Swim, 267) Emotional development demands on the three A’s. Attention, approval and attunement play a crucial part of the developmental process for the emotional bond of infants. The caregiver can use several strategies to enhance the infant’s emotional development. Some strategies can be focusing their attention on the child’s needs, engaging the child-- making eye to