PLAY: Infants and Toddlers

Physical and Motor Development

• Rapid in growth and development (2 yrs).

– Infants triple their weight in the first year & increase in length by 75%.

– Growth is rapid but irratic. Growth occurs in spurts.

• Growth can be described by two rules to development: Cephalocaudal and Proximodistal.

– The first 2 years of life is marked by rapid brain development.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

• Gross Motor Skills: • --Lifting head• --Rolls over• --Sits propped up• --Sits without support• --Stands holding on• --Crawling/Walking• --Kicking/jumping

• Fine Motor Skills: Abilities in grasping objects (6 months). Clapping, Scribbling, Transferring objects from hand to hand (2yrs).

Variations in Physical/Motor Development in Infancy

• Variations in physical development tend to be related to gender, ethnicity, & nutrition.

– Girls tend to be slightly shorter

– African-Americans tend to be larger and more advanced physically

– Japanese infants tend to be smaller than Americans

What affects these variations in Physical development

• Prenatal Nutrition/Neonatal Malnutrition– Infants tend to be smaller/less developed

– Brain development impacted

– Infants born in institutions or low stimulation environments show significant cognitive and physical delays (in sitting-up; walking).

• Cultural Differences– Western culture varies with Uganda & Jamaician cultures toward child

holding and carrying practices.

– Non-western cultures tend to develop motor skills faster.

Play and Motor Development

• Infants are primarily sensorimotor and therefore play is limited to sensory stimulation and reflexes.

– Manipulative Play. Initial play in which infant plays with body (fingers/toes). Grasping reflexes are prevalent in play as infants observe interesting objects and inspect thru grasping, oral exploration, & banging.

– Later part of infancy, infants develop greater ability to sit up and take in more stimuli. Also, greater control over motor skills (can not move hands across body and greater hand/eye coordination).

Toddlers Experience an New Environment

• With growing ability to walk, experience a new environment of stimulation.

– Greater usage of toys with wheels for pushing or pulling.

– Greater usage of durable toys for punching or toys with buttons to push and things to turn. Basic puzzle themes are important.

Adult Roles in Motor Play• Adults facilitate motor growth/play by arranging a stimulating environment.

– Provide stimuli (colorful and variety of sounds).

– Encourage holding, mouthing, banging and rattling.

– Arrange toys where they are obtainable and experimentable.

– Ensure the variety of toys are childproof/safe.

– Arrange soft, sturdy objects so older infants can experiment with standing and walking.

– Provide tiny, soft food objects to facilitate use of fingers and promote self-feeding by older babies.

– Use chairs, hassocks, or pushcarts to promote walking.

– Demonstrate to toddlers and assist them in undressing skills.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: INFANCY & TODDLERHOOD

Cognitive Development

• Piaget identified cognitive development as sensorimotor (0-2yrs).

– Knowledge development is a function of senses and motor abilities to comprehend the world.

– Development of object permanence.

• Cognitive development is fostered by environment, nourishment, care, stimulation.

– Positive and promoting environments stimulate brain development (synaptic links) that last throughout the 1st decade.

– Unused synapses succumb to pruning.

Cognitive Development

• Stimulating environment is essential while infant is resilient (Infant plasticity).

• When infants are not stimulated, there are significant cognitive delays.

– Neglect by parents

– Stressful living conditions

– Social deprivation

– Poverty

Play and Cognitive Development

• 8 to 12 months– Play evolves into Symbolic (Pretend) Play due to the emergence

of object permanence.

• 18 to 24 months– Play becomes more imaginative and planning is reflected.

• Piaget Described 3 stages of play:

– Practice Play. Repetition of schemes (motor or verbal). Babbling or singing for practice.

– Symbolic Play. Toddlers use language to describe the pretend action and demonstrate that the pretending has been planned

– Games with rules.

Language Development

• Infants display sensitivity to language during prenatal.

• Within the 1st two years of life– Infants and toddlers are capable of speaking with a

vocabulary ranging from 50 to 200 words.

Theories of Language Development

• Behaviorist theory (B.F. Skinner): Language is acquired through operant conditioning. Adults reinforce accurate sounds toward language. Imitation/modeling.

• Nativist theory (Noam Chomsky): Children have a biological predisposition to learning language. Coined Language Acquisition Device (LAD).

• Interactionist theory (Lev Vytgotsky): Language is learned through socialization and interacting with other people within family and community context.

Language Development

• Parentese– Adults adjust their style of communication to fit the

infant’s stage of development. Implement high pitch, shorter sentence structure, and simpler vocabulary.

• Holophrastic Speech– A child’s responsiveness (smiles, gestures, and

physical movements) and attempt to imitate the sounds of their parents speech.

Language Development Cont.

• During 2nd yr of life– Children develop private speech and engages more into

pretend play.

• Social play is enacted to enhance language development. Parents also use telegraphic speech, which is play through questions:– What colour– What colour blanket– What colour mop– What colour glass

Social & Emotional Development

• During the first 2 years

– Freud: Oral stage development

– Erikson: Trust/Mistrust; Autonomy/Shame

– Mahler: Children develop an awareness of self. This awareness develops in two phases:

• Symbiosis (around 2 months)– Egocentric child fuses awareness of self with caregiver.

• Separation-individuation (5 months)– With increasing awareness of self, the infant begins to explore beyond the

relationship between infant and mom.

Play and Social Development

• According to Watson – The game is not important to the infant because people

play it, but rather people important to the infant because they play the game.

• Peek-a-boo• Patti-cake

• Attachment is fostered between parent/child when there is positive interaction.

– This translates into later competence development among preschoolers.