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The Prenatal Period
This period of development lasts from conception to birth. -
Period of Zygote (Implantation)
This lasts for two weeks. The zygote is ususally not susceptible to teratogens. -
Embryonic Period
This stage of prenatal development lasts from week 3 to week 8. The central nervous system begins to form. Eyes, arms, legs, teeth, ears, and the heart are all forming. -
Fetal Period
This period lasts from week 9 to week 36. All of the rest of the development that needs to take place occurs during this time. Skin and fat forms. These are both vital to the survival of the infant, providing it with protection. -
Reflexes
Understanding of environment is attained through reflexes such as sucking and crying -
Milestone
Birth - 1 Month: Secondary circular reactions using limited motor skills -
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Infancy and Toddlerhood
This period of development lasts from birth to 2 years. -
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Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development
Coordination of senses with motor response, sensory curiosity about the world. Language used for demands and cataloguing. Object permanence has developed. -
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Trust vs. Mistrust
This is Erikson's first stage in his Psychosocial theory. This stage of human development concerns the infant’s experiences with the world around him, typically his immediate physical and social environment composed of his home and his family respectively. -
Milestones
1 - 4 Months:
- Awareness of many physical properties
- Deferred imitation of an adult's facial expression after a short delay
- Categorization of objects perceptually, on the basis of similar overall appearance or prominent object part -
Primary Circular Reactions
This occurs when an infant is 1 to 4 months old. New schemas and sensations are combined, allowing the child to engage in pleasureable activities such as sucking his thumb. -
Motor Skill Development
When held upright, holds head erect and steady -
Motor Skill Development
When prone, lifts self by arms -
Motor Skill Development
Rolls from back to side -
Motor Skill Development
Grasps cube -
Secondary Circular Reactions
This substage takes place when the baby is between 4 and 8 months of age. The child is now aware that his actions influence his environment and purposefully performs actions in order to achieve a desired result. -
Milestones
4 - 8 Months:
- Improved physical knowledge and basic numeral knowledge
- Deferred imitation of an adult's novel actions on objects over a short delay
- Categorization of objects on the basis subtle sets of features, even when the perpetual contrast between categories is minimal -
Motor Skill Development
Sits alone -
Crawls
Crawls -
Milestones
8 - 12 Months:
- Ability to search for a hidden object when covered by a cloth, then when a hand deposits it under a cloth
- Ability to solve simple problems by analogy to a previous problem -
Coordination of Reactions
This substage generally occurs when the child is between the age 8 and 12 months. He is now exploring his environment and often imitates the behavior of others. -
Motor Skill Development
Pulls to stand -
Motor Skill Development
Plays pat-a-cake -
Motor Skills Development
Stands alone -
Walks Alone
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Builds tower of two cubes
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Milestones
12 - 18 Months:
- Ability to search in several locations for a hidden object
- Awareness that objects continue to exist in their hidden locations even after the toddler has left the location
- Deferred imitation of an adult's novel actions on objects after long delays and across a change in context, such as from child care to home
- Rational imitation, inferring the model's intentions
- Flexible categorization of objects, first on one basis and then on another
- Displaced referenced of words -
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Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt
This is Erikson's second stage in his psychosocial theory of development. At this tender age, the child struggles with issues of personal control and establishment of the self as an entity separate from others. As he matures physically, cognitively and mentally, the toddler now strives to become partially independent of the adults whom he has become attached to. He now strives to expand his boundaries by doing things such as dressing up, eating and going to the potty by himself. -
Tertiary Circular Reactions
This occurs between the ages of 12 and 18 months. The child begins to experiment and try out new behavior. -
Scribbles vigorously
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Milestones
18 Months - 2 Years:
- Ability to find an object moved while out of sight (invisible displacement)
- Deferred imitation of actions an adult tries to produce, even if these are not fully realized, indicating a capacity to infer others' intentions
- Deferred imitation of everyday behaviors in make-believe play
- Begininning awareness of picutres and videos as symbols of reality -
Walks up stairs with help
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Early Representational Thought
This substage occurs between the ages of 18 and 24 months. The child begins to recognize and appreciate symbols that represent objects or events. -
Jumps in place
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Early Childhood
This period of development takes place from age 2 to age 6. -
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Piaget's Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development
This stage occurs when the child is 2 to 7 years old. The use of language is one of the most significant developments during the preoperational stage. The child can now make use of the internal representational systems to describe people, his feelings, and his environment. Symbolic play likewise evolves at this stage, allowing the child to engage in pretend play using available objects to represent something else, such as a spoon being waved in the air to represent an airplane. -
Walks on tiptoe
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Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
The concept of the More Knowledgeable Other is integrally related to the second important principle of Vygotsky's work, the Zone of Proximal Development. This is an important concept that relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. Vygotsky also views this interaction as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. -
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Initiative vs. Guilt
This is the third stage of Erikson's theory of development. Sense of purpose is very prominent for children at this stage. During this time, conflicts may arise as children start to affirm their power and control over the environment by planning and carrying out activities of their own choosing, at times, resulting in the experience of an emerging conscience related to their choices. -
Information Processing Theory
- Sensory memory processes incoming sensory information for very brief periods of time, usually on the order of 1/2 to 3 seconds. The amount of information held at any given moment in sensory memory is limited to five to seven discrete elements such as letters of the alphabet or pictures of human faces.
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Information Processing Theory
Working Memory: After stimuli enter sensory memory, they are either forwarded to working memory or deleted from the system. Working memory is a term that is used to refer to a multi-component temporary memory system in which information is assigned meaning, linked to other information, and essential mental operations such as inferences are performed. -
Information Processing Theory
Long-Term Memory:
This provides a permanent repository for different types of knowledge. This has infinite capacity and there is a permanent duration of retention. -
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Industry vs. Inferiority
This is Erikson's fourth stage in his phycosocial theory of development. Erikson believes that the elementary years may significantly determine children’s self-esteem based on their view on their ability to do productive labor. The combination of adult’s anticipations and child’s energy to master things leads to the psychological conflict requiring resolution: industry versus inferiority. -
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Middle Childhood
This period of development occurs from age 6 to age 11. -
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Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage of Cognitive Development
The growing understanding of some aspects of the principle of conversation signals the entry to the concrete operational stage. Conversation of volume and weight, however, will take the child a few more years to fully comprehend. The child now begins to think with logic but is still constrained by his affinity to the concrete, physical realities of the here and now. Hence, he still has some difficulty understanding questions and problems of an abstract or hypothetical sort.
