Infancy and early childhood stage cover the period between birth to the time when a child is eight years old. At this stage, the child is under full protection and care of the mother. He or she is given a lot of attention and care. Therefore, this case study focuses on the prenatal care during the development of a child. It also focuses on the emotional regulatory process, neurobiology, psychological development, and the relationship between the mother and baby.
During infancy and early childhood, the infant undergoes various processes. The body parts begin to develop fully and start to operate and function in the usual way. When focusing on the norms and the races of the community in which the child is raised, there is a tendency that the brain of the child will develop according to the environment in which he or she is exposed to. In this case, the child becomes a fast learner based on the words spoken and, therefore, will tend to have a very high mastery of the language that is spoken by people around him or her (Glover, 2015). This will be based on the fact that his mind develops to be conscientious of the environment in which he or she belongs. Therefore, at this stage of development the child is capable of learning any language in the world, as long as he or she is exposed to it. It is also at this stage that the child will possess the characteristics or traits of the people around him or her.
During childhood development, several biological changes take place in the child. The immediate one is the maturity of the digestive system where he or she learns to digest solid food. At age three, the child doubles his height and quadruples his or her weight (Berk, and Meyers, 2015). There is also a change in the body proportion. The weight of the head becomes proportional to the height. The head matures at this age and fully develops as that of an adult. Between the ages of four to eight, the body’s major organs and organ system starts to perform various biological and physical functions (Berk, and Meyers, 2015). At this period, the development of male gender and female gender tend to be the same.
Apart from the biological changes that occur in the growth of a child, there are also cognitive changes that tend to vary from infancy up to the age of eight (Bornstein et al. 2014). By age three, the child should be in a position to sit, walk, scribble, and hold things around him or her. At this stage, the child should be in a position to speak simple words and make simple requests based on the first language. They should be in a position to master around 300 to 1000 vocabularies and use the language to learn their environment. At the age of five, the child should be in a position to speak approximately 1500 words.
Language becomes a vital tool in enhancing cognitive development. At age seven and eight the child should be in a position to speak more than nine to ten sentences continuously with the correct us of a language (Lewis, ; Mitchell, 2014). This enables them to communicate with their fellows and have the ability to understand the concepts in their environments. This also allows them to have the analytical skills such as counting numbers.
Apart from the physical, biological and the cognitive development of children at this stage, there also exist psychological development and changes that occur between the ages of infant development (Bornstein et al. 2014). These include the socio-emotional changes that happen in the minds of the children as they develop attention from the mother. There tends to be a strong emotional attachment to the child towards the mother, and it diminishes as the child approaches eight years old. From age three to five, the development occurs regarding gender identification, peer attachments and development of a sense of right or wrong in the child. This is also the period in which the child develops an egocentric feeling that makes them think that the world revolves around them. In this case, they will believe that the world revolves around them and that they should be the center of attention (Lewis, ; Mitchell, 2014).
At this stage of childhood, the child enjoys a feeling of protection from the parent and believes that their parent is the strongest in the world. It also comes with using the parent for defense mechanism as they interact with other kids in their playgrounds (Bornstein et al. 2014). Therefore, the psychological development of the children at this age is such that they are capable of coping with the harsh and the world they are exposed to as they play or interact with others in school or other environments. This stage of child development influences the personality of the child at later age in life. There is a tendency that the lifetime character of an individual is founded at the development stage of the child. An obvious example is a case when the child does not get enough discipline at the early stage; it becomes tough to instill the discipline in the late childhood stage and the adolescent stage. This, therefore, affects their adulthood conduct. This also applies to the emotional attachments that existed in the child at early stages. When a child has strong emotional attachment to the mother at initial stages of development, he or she is likely to have an excellent emotional relationship with the others in their adulthood stage.
Moreover, there is a tendency by the children at this age to identify themselves with unique skills that could easily be noticed by the parents. In this case, some kids become good at numbers while others become well at language (Kogan, 2013). It is, therefore, at this stage where any defect in the child can easily be detected. This is based on the inability to do the basic normal things that are required from a child of that age. An example is a case, where a child with the hearing defect is easily detected due to the inability to respond to communications and actions from the mother and other people around them. It is, therefore, necessary to test the child at this stage for basic life skills and see how he or she responds to them.
When focusing on the cultural diversity and practices of children at this early stage of development, it is clear that these kids do not have any conscious or attitude towards the cultural diversity of people in their environment. In fact, when a child is taken from one community with cultural diversity, to another with a distinct culture, the child quickly adapt to the environment and may develop a full trait of that particular culture if he or she continue to stay there for long(Schore, 2015). It is at this stage that the child can learn actively and have a comprehensive mastery of language.
Infant and early childhood development tends not to be purely uniform to all children. This is because other factors such as genetics determine the development of such children. This may affect their biological and psychological development. In this case, the stages vary with, and some children reach the stage so early. The brain capacity or IQ also becomes a determining factor.
In conclusion, infant and childhood development plays a very critical stage in human development. It is as a stage where environmental factors play a significant role. It is the foundation stage of human development of which it is likely to affect the other stages of development. The psychological factors, biological factors, and cognitive factors play a very critical role in this phase since they help to shape the personality of the individual as they move from the early childhood stage to the middle childhood stage in the human development.
