Lifespan Development and Personality Paper free essay sample

Development involves movement from one state to another with the element being change. From the moment we are first conceived, to the day we die, we are constantly changing and developing. Until recently psychologists associated adulthood as a long period of stability followed by a short span of unstable year’s immediately preceding death (Boyd Bee, 2006). The new view is that there are 7 stages: infancy (birth 1), early childhood (2 6), middle childhood (6 12), adolescence (12 18), early adulthood (18 40); middle adulthood (40 60); and late adulthood (60 plus). Each era has a distinct and underlying character of living and each transition causes a basic change in character of an individual’s life, such as career shifts, family. Important changes in development occur in each of these stages which are interpreted to allow an understanding of why a change is occurring. There are three domains of development which are studied in order to understand the age related changes across the lifespan: cognitive, physical and social (Carpenter Huffman, 2010). While some of the changes we undergo are as a result of chance incidents and personal choices, the majority of life changes and stages individual’s pass through are due to biological and psychological heritage. This paper will focus on the infancy stage. Physical Development The speed of physical growth is rapid in the months after birth. In the first few months after birth, infants grow rapidly, gaining nearly one ounce of weight a day and an inch in length each month. Within the space of 2 years, an infant’s body will double in height and quadruple in weight. During infancy bones and muscle also develop quickly. At birth, most bones are soft, pliable and difficult to break. The bones are too small and too flexible to allow newborns to sit up or balance themselves. Calcium and other minerals are deposited into the soft cartilage-like tissues of the young infant causing the bones to harden gradually. In addition to the hardening of bones, the number of bones increases as more develop which become closely interconnected. Muscle fibers become larger and contain less  water whilst stamina improves as the heart gets stronger and the lungs grow. Motor skills advance from simple reflexes to coordinated motor abilities, as the infant progresses from creeping to crawling to walking to running and become able to grasp objects. Neurons grow in increasingly dense connections, becoming coated with layers of myelin, and enabling faster and more efficient message transmission (Feist, 2006). These are many methods and techniques that parents or caregivers can do to stimulate the development of motor, sensory, and perceptual skills in infants. During infancy, motor skills can be developed by incorporate toys into an infant’s daily routine. Toys such as rattles, balls and blocks; anything that they can pick-up, roll, push, allow the infant to explore and figure out what he or she can do. Anything that causes the infant to move, use their hands, feet, arms or legs will aid in the infant learning how to crawl then walk. Infants develop sensory skills by focusing attention on the senses. Taste and smell improve when infants place things in their mouths or by putting things up to their nose. Touch can be developed by allowing the infant to touch an object with different textures, or varying degrees of softness or hardness. Brightly colored toys and lights can aid in visual development. Communication between the caregiver and infant help develop hearing skills as well as playing music. Interaction between a caregiver and an infant aids in the development of the infant’s perceptual skills by playing one-on-one games such as peek-a-boo or moving toys towards and away from them, making them reach for the toy. Cognitive Development Infants take an active role in their cognitive development. The dominant cognitive structures are behavioral schemes that evolve as infants begin to coordinate sensory input (seeing an object) and motor responses (touching an object). Through this integration of sensory and motor skills, the infant is able to obtain information used to construct knowledge of the world. An infant’s mode of thought is very different from that of older children as infant’s problem solving is performed through their actions rather than with their minds. During the first year, two major sensorimotor abilities develop: object permanence and object recognition. Object permanence is the realization that people and objects exist even when they cannot be seen whilst object recognition concerns the characteristics infant’s use to  identify objects such as color, texture and shape. At three months the infant begins cooing and making little sounds such as â€Å"aahh† during conversations with caregivers. By the age of seven months infants are able babble by stringing together consonant-vowel syllables such as â€Å"dadada.† Social, moral and personality development During infancy a baby’s emotional development responses become more developed changing from basic reactions to more complex, self-conscious responses both positive and negative. An infant’s independent behavior increases with parental encouragement in tasks such as feeding, dressing, and toilet training. Infants are able to respond to caregiver’s behavior and trust develops. A development of secure attachment sets stage for childs increasingly independent exploration. Early personality traits, such as introversion and extroversion, develop with infant’s possessing the ability to smile. Language is also an important development. Infants by the age of 1 month have developed different cries for different emotions and needs such as hunger, tiredness, anger and pain. Infants become increasingly aware of their surroundings, especially after 12 months of age. Infant’s gain sense of how to interpret his or her environment through sensory views such as hearing, vision, and communication. When an infant observes another child doing something, depending on the reaction the other child gets from others around him or her, the infant that is observing may try to do similar actions. The infant will then more often than not expect the same type of reaction as the other child received. For example, an infant observes his older siblings playing. He then witnesses one sibling taking a ball away from the other sibling; this then leads him to believe that it is all right for him to take things away from other people. The only way to make him understand that this is not acceptable is to make sure that his siblings are corrected for this type of action and then he too can be corrected when he does this. Theoretical perspectives The social cognitive theory explains how people obtain and maintain certain behavioral patterns (Bandura, 1997) and is perhaps the most influential theory of learning and development with the belief that direct reinforcement cannot account for all types of learning (Kowalski Westen, 2005). Both  the cognitive processing and decision-making skills of the learner are required in order to be effective. Learning as a three way interlocking relationship among the environment, personal factor, and behavior and consists of the three components influencing each other daily. Therefore, according to this theory an individual’s behavior is dynamic and a consequence of the continuous interaction between the person, past events, and the current environment. Thus, describing this learning theory as an internal process that can be affected indirectly or directly. The social learning theory is perhaps the most influential theory of learning and development. This theory explains how people obtain and maintain certain behavioral patterns, while also providing the basis for intervention strategies (Bandura, 1997). While evaluating behavioral change it depends on the factors of the environment, people and behavior. Although rooted with many of the basic concepts of the traditional learning theory, Bandura believed that direct reinforcement was unable to account for all types of learning (Kowalski Westen, 2005). Bandura’s theory added a social element to learning and behavior arguing that people can learn new information and behaviors by watching other people. Known as observational learning (or modeling), this type of learning can be used to explain a wide variety of behaviors and allows for more of an open-minded point of view as the theory bases learning behaviors on not only a cognitive level of understanding but also a social aspect and determines humans also learn through observation. The power of expectancy is also demonstrated by the fact that intermittent schedules of reinforcement produce behavior harder to extinguish than consistently reinforced behaviors (Kowalski Westen, 2005). Conclusion Virtually all aspects of parenting are linked to the development of children. Children are like sponges when it comes to learning and development in the early stages of their lives. As a parent one needs to be careful to set an example that they would want their child(ren) to follow at all times. Parents can facilitate cognitive development by providing a supportive environment, utilizing social interactions and peer teaching, and helping children see the inconsistencies in their thinking. Families impact the development of children by the way they interact with them. By reading to an unborn child, the child will recognize his or her parent’s voices at a  much earlier age and will therefore, begin talking earlier. Parents can increase a child’s socioemotional development and decrease the likelihood of attachment and separation issues depending on how they respond to their child when they do things such as leave the child with a babysitter or with another person who is not an immediate family member. Parents and older siblings who are actively who are engaged with the child will help the child develop language, social, and emotional skills that are advanced for his or her age. Responsive relationships for infants help build positive attachments that support a healthy social-emotional development with these relationships forming the foundation of mental health. The importance is that families have a direct impact on the development of infants. It can go either way depending on how they interact with the child.