401005 Human Relationships And Life Transitions
Question:
Answer:
Human development involves different stages from birth till the end of life. The main stages of development are “infancy childhood, adolescent, adult (early, middle, and late) and old age”. Understanding these stages is important as at every stage an individual is enabled to perform the activities of surviving, struggling and maturing. Human beings have social capabilities and have self-conscious and the changes at different stages of lifespan occur at beyond the physical realm. The aim of the assignment is to explore the cognitive and social development in children and factors influencing the child’s development.
Cognitive development refers to different aspects of brain development such as perceptual skill, information processing, language learning, and other aspects of brain development. This development is important for maximizing their well-being (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017). Cognitive development according to Piaget theory there are four different stages of cognitive development. These are sensorimotor stage (0-2 years), pre-operational stage (2-5 years), concrete operational stage (7-11 years) and formal operational stage (11 years onwards). In the sensorimotor stage the cognitive development occurs by learning movements of the body by sensory data such as learning, hearing, touching. In the pre-operational stage, the child can think of objects symbolically. Intelligence of the child is demonstrated at this age through the use of symbols, matured language, memory and imagination. However, the thinking remains egocentric. In the concrete operational stage, the intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to objects and reversible mental actions. The formal operational stage is marked by showing the ability to think about the abstract concepts such as joy, fear or love. At this stage, they are able to test hypothesis, logically (Feldman, 2016). For this essay, the focus will be on the pre-operational stage (2-5 years), as Jack is 3 years old child.
Social development refers to development of emotional and social skills across the lifespan. The development particularly gives attention to childhood and adolescence. Social development is important as it helps an individual to form positive relationships with family, friends and relatives ((McAdams et al., 2015). The social development theory by Erikson explains eight stages of development until 18 years. These eight stages give plenty of room for growth and development. According to this theory, there are eight stages of social development. These include trust vs. mistrust (infant-18 months); autonomy vs. Shame (18 months-3 years), initiative vs. Guilt (3-5 years); industry vs. Inferiority (5-13 years); identity vs. role confusion (13-21 years); intimacy vs. isolation (21-39 years); generativity vs stagnation (40-65 years), Ego integrity vs. despair (65 and older). For this essay the focus is mainly on the second stage of social development as Jack is 3 year old and is currently in this stage (Overton, 2013). At this stage, Jack and other children of this age group demonstrate interest in learning new concepts that can be applied in real life.
The normative cognitive development in this age group is demonstrated by making rapid progress in learning. The children of this age group can quickly adapts the new words such as “Papa” or “mama” and construct sentences (250 to 500 words). Speech and language is the first step in the thinking development. At this age, Jack is expected to tell stories, say his name or age, recognise himself in mirror, and show greater interest in toys (Berk, 2017). Other activities that show normative social development in children of this age is the intention to perform independently. The child can develop self-care habits such as eating dressing, and using washroom. Children in this age group understand sharing of toys or taking turns in games and other emotional skills such as winning intention in game. Relying on others for these activities may create guilt and shame leading to psychological crisis (McAdams et al., 2015). Parents pay great role in the social and cognitive development of children. Parents help children to learn social roles through secured attachments. With the emotional support from the parents, a child learns to navigate the relationships. It fosters the development through subsequent stages of lifespan. Children interacting with parents learn to express their emotions. Parents provide learning opportunities to children by helping them to accept challenges leading to normative development. Deviating from this pattern leads to non-normative development. In case Jack delayed speech and poor toilet training are non-normative development (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017).
Various factors influence the cognitive and social development in children. Cognitive development is effected by the biological and environmental factors. Biological factors may include sense organs, intelligence, maturation and heredity. Good sense organs collect adequate stimuli and help learn correct concepts. Similarly, children with low intelligence cannot gain attain full mental capacities. Heredity plays a great role in cognitive development. Some children may develop similarly to their parents. The environmental factors may include learning opportunities, economic status, family and society, play and various types of stimuli. If a child gets too many learning opportunities, better will be the cognition as it increases the mental capacities (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017). Children living in family with high economic status have more learning opportunities than low economic status. Play increases a child’s interaction with environment by responding to stimuli. For example playing with toys can improve the knowledge of shape. Family and friends are important in cognitive and social development. Parents can better help a child to understand the environmental stimuli and provide atmosphere to the children to gain good cognitive capacity. Spending time with family and friends gives the child to learn the social and emotional skills. Children will learn to make relationships, express themselves by dancing and become more independent (Bierman et al., 2014).
Applying the knowledge of the Piaget theory of cognitive development, unable to speak at the age of 3 is non-normative development in Jack. The factor that may have influenced his cognitive development is lack of family support. He spends less time with adults as he has working mother, Vanessa. Jack spends two days in a week in care centre. He gets less learning opportunities from his family, which may have delayed his speech. By applying the knowledge of the social development theory by Erikson, it can be interpreted that Jack’s inability to be toilet rained can be due to lack of virtue called will. Due to poor mother-infant relationship, Jack may be failing to venture out to assert his will. The caregivers may not be supporting Jack to develop autonomy (Berk, 2017). Overall it appears that delay in the both the cognitive and social development in Jack is related to environmental factors. as the nurse informed Vanessa that he is having normal development milestones. Vanessa must be more responsive to the situation to enhance the psychosocial development in Jack.
The theories of cognitive and social development discussed in the essay are relevant for the nursing and midwife practice as responsible for designing appropriate interventions for children. Considering the present learning, play, family, peers and social support received by the child the nurses can plan an intervention to reduce delay in cognitive and social skills. Applying the knowledge of the normative and non-normative development, the nurses will be able to identify the abnormalities in child at an early stage. For this case study, the nurse can educate Vanessa about the cognitive and social developmental milestones normal for 3 year old children and factors that may cause non-normative development (Bierman et al., 2014).
The essay was helpful in understanding the child’s cognitive milestones and social developmental stages. The factors that may influence this process are biological and environmental in nature. These theories are of great help for nursing practice and help children to attain their full mental capacities. It can be concluded from the case study analysis that adequate family, and social support is required for normative development and maximizing the well-being.
References
Berk, L. E. (2017). Exploring lifespan development. Pearson.
Bierman, K. L., Domitrovich, C. E., Nix, R. L., Welsh, J. A., & Gest, S. D. (2014). Integrating evidence-based preschool programs to support social-emotional and cognitive development. Promoting school readiness and early learning: Implications of developmental research for practice, 231-252.
Bjorklund, D. F., & Causey, K. B. (2017). Children’s thinking: Cognitive development and individual differences. SAGE Publications.
Feldman, R. S. (2016). Development across the life span. Pearson.
McAdams, D. P., & Zapata-Gietl, C. (2015). Three strands of identity development across the human life course: Reading Erik Erikson in full. The Oxford handbook of identity development, 81-94.
Modgil, S., Modgil, C., & Brown, G. (Eds.). (2013). Jean Piaget. Routledge.
Overton, W. F. (Ed.). (2013). The relationship between social and cognitive development. Psychology Press.
Serafica, F. C. (Ed.). (2015). Social-cognitive development in context (Vol. 27). Psychology Press.
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