Piaget's Influence On Toddlers

This week examined the development of language in infants. Though many developmental psychologists do not understand what his true findings indicated, Piaget actually believed that you can have something such as a symbolic system emerging from a sensory motor system. Piaget argued that sensory motor engagement gives an infant the bases in which they can build a symbolic system. This system also includes a rule of engagement that infants use to structure other ways in which they interact with the word. In this interaction, there are three key components: an agent, an action, and an object. Researchers have observed toddlers interacting in a playground setting to study their social development. Researchers noted that objects play an important
Toddlers, as well as their parents, were put into a room where they were either no toys or a variety of toys. There was a significant decline in the amount of interaction for toddlers that were assigned to the empty rooms. Even though there were no toys, toddlers put in an empty room still managed to find objects to interact with. They played with their clothes or even hit the wall. Other research observed the toddlers that were brought to a play group or not, and researchers learned that parents act as a scaffold for a lot of the child’s interactions. Parents pretend like the toddler is interacting with them to provide the support and a foundation for the toddler to learn how to socially interact. Parents that do not take their toddlers to play groups are literally moving their toddler along interactions. The toddlers that do attend play groups learn from interacting from the other children, and they use this knowledge and apply it to interacting with their parents. These toddlers are developing a set of rules or routines of social interaction such as scripts. Toddlers learn and apply the interaction of offering and receiving. Toddlers will offer an object to their parents, but they won’t let go. Eventually they learn to let go, but the immediately want the object returned. A script much as this one helps create a foundation for the children to learn in their social
They discussed posture, locomotion, manual actions, and facial actions which were the key components to this development. An infant’s posture is structured as the infant learns to overcome gravity, create a basis for action, and have dynamic postural control. Locomotion relies on the newborn reflexes, creative solutions, learning to walk, and navigating through obstacles. An infant begins to use manual actions that develop due to spontaneous motility, reaching and grasping, exploring objects, and extending abilities with tools. Lastly, the infant has the ability to move areas of the face as they improve their ability to swallow, suck, and chew. They also learn to use their facial features as they make gestures, speak, and look around to explore their environment. Adolph and Franchak’s article showed that the development of motor development cannot be studied independently because there are so many other factors that play a role in the development such as the infants interaction with its environment. Development relies so much on how the infant perceives their environment and how often they interact or practice with the developing motor system. Practicing how to walk actually reduces the time it takes for the infant to learn how to walk. Motor development also relies on culture context. Certain cultures massage the infants muscles which helps them learn how to