Child and Adolescent Development Essay Example
Child and Adolescent Development
PSY 104
6/26/2011
Introduction
From birth through adolescence, a significant amount of developmental changes occur. Children grow and develop physically, cognitively and emotionally. Each individual aspect of development has an effect on the child as a whole. If a child struggles developmentally in any of the areas (physically, emotionally or cognitively), it can affect one of the other areas of development as well. For example, if a child is underdeveloped physically, they may experience emotional development issues because they may be made fun of and teased by other children. For this paper I have chosen to explore two specific age ranges and the developmental changes that occur during these periods. I will analyze the cognitive, psychosocial and physical perspective of age’s birth to two years as well as the age group of eleven to fourteen years old. I will be exploring normal and abnormal child and adolescent development and its relationship to physical development as well for each group. These are two very crucial age ranges for children. Let us begin with the earlier of the two, birth to two years of age.
Developmental Changes for Ages 0-2 Years From birth to two years, many significant changes occur. In this transition from infant to toddler, great deals of cognitive, physical and psychosocial strides are met. During the first year of life, babies learn to recognize their caregiver voices. Although babies can only babble certain things such as “mamma”, “dada”, and “babba”, their language development is increasing much more than that. These infants begin to learn and understand many names of objects and people as well. Vision becomes clearer as babies develop the ability to focus and center on things or people especially. During this crucial stage, babies form a strong bond with their caregivers. It is very important for parents to be very loving and have a great amount of
PSY 104
6/26/2011
Introduction
From birth through adolescence, a significant amount of developmental changes occur. Children grow and develop physically, cognitively and emotionally. Each individual aspect of development has an effect on the child as a whole. If a child struggles developmentally in any of the areas (physically, emotionally or cognitively), it can affect one of the other areas of development as well. For example, if a child is underdeveloped physically, they may experience emotional development issues because they may be made fun of and teased by other children. For this paper I have chosen to explore two specific age ranges and the developmental changes that occur during these periods. I will analyze the cognitive, psychosocial and physical perspective of age’s birth to two years as well as the age group of eleven to fourteen years old. I will be exploring normal and abnormal child and adolescent development and its relationship to physical development as well for each group. These are two very crucial age ranges for children. Let us begin with the earlier of the two, birth to two years of age.
Developmental Changes for Ages 0-2 Years From birth to two years, many significant changes occur. In this transition from infant to toddler, great deals of cognitive, physical and psychosocial strides are met. During the first year of life, babies learn to recognize their caregiver voices. Although babies can only babble certain things such as “mamma”, “dada”, and “babba”, their language development is increasing much more than that. These infants begin to learn and understand many names of objects and people as well. Vision becomes clearer as babies develop the ability to focus and center on things or people especially. During this crucial stage, babies form a strong bond with their caregivers. It is very important for parents to be very loving and have a great amount of