External Influences Affecting A Child's Cognitive Development

Throughout the first two years of life, infants develop physically, cognitively, and emotionally. Infants master new skills and accomplish many new tasks at an astounding rate. Many external influences affect the success of a child’s developmental progress. Warm and intimate infant-parent relationships and interactions are especially vital in nurturing an infant’s development. Since development often follows a similar path, one can conclude much about a child’s abilities by simply looking at a photograph. This image illustrates a mother with her daughter, who appears to be approximately 18 months old. The mother is interacting with her daughter through a game of peekaboo. The child is actively engaged with the game that she and her mother are
Jean Piaget believed that from birth to two years infants progress through the sensorimotor period of cognitive development (Fiore, Ramkissoonsingh, & Hotham, 2014, p. 34). This period of development consists of six stages. Since the infant in this image is around 18 months old, she would fall into Piaget’s final stage. While progressing through this stage, infants acquire object permanence. Children accomplish object permanence when they “realize that objects continue to exist even when out of sight” (Fiore et al., 2014, p. 112). This infant is testing her knowledge of object permanence. One can infer that she has a novel understanding of this concept, since she is expressing happiness. She is not upset that her mother is gone; rather, she realizes that, although her mother is out of sight, she still exists and is simply hidden by the blanket. Furthermore, this infant may be expressing causality, another accomplishment of the sensorimotor period. Causality infers that “children realize the relationship between actions and their consequences” (Fiore et al., 2014, p. 112). This mother and daughter have presumably played peekaboo prior to this occasion. The child understands the causality of this game. She realizes that if she plays along with the game, mommy will move the blanket, and therefore reappear. The major accomplishments of the sensorimotor period demonstrate the remarkable cognitive growth that infants
In Lev Vygotsky’s second stage of language development, naïve psychology, children explore objects in their world and begin to label these objects (Fiore et al., 2014, p. 115). At her age, this infant would be exhibiting naïve psychology as well as communicating through telegraphic speech. Telegraphic speech includes simple two or three word utterances (Fiore et al., 2014, p. 116). The infant in this image appears to be engaged in talk and communication with her mother. For example, consistent with expected development at this age, she could be saying “Mommy gone”. Uttering simple phrases such as this infers that the infant is developing knowledge of the proper structure of language (Fiore et al., 2014, p. 117). Additionally, from 18 months to 3 years, children’s vocabulary rapidly increases in the word spurt stage (Fiore et al., 2014, p. 116). Although much of language acquisition is innate, an interactionist would infer that parent-child interaction, such as a game of peekaboo, assists children in developing communication skills and vocabulary growth (Kail & Zolner, 2015, p. ??). This mother is aiding her infant’s development and encouraging the beginning of her daughter’s word spurt stage by engaging in one-on-one interaction with the infant. Whether innate, learned, or a combination, language development and communication is