Infancy and toddlerhood's Developmental Stage Age Group

Developmental Stages Developmental Stage/Age Group: Infancy and toddlerhood (0 - 3 years) Erickson maintains that the first human developmental stage involves an individual’s interactions with his/her surroundings, normally the baby’s immediate social and physical environment, which is made up of home and family (Levinson, 1986). Especially important at this point (i.e. infancy) is the mother- baby relationship – the very first social bond one forms.

Receptive mothers sensitive to the distinctive requirements of their baby will help cultivate a sound sense of self- worth within the baby, facilitating the development of a sound, all- round physical, emotional and psychological constitution, which happens between 0 and 18 months (Thomas et.al 2000). Babies experience a feeling of uncertainty/insecurity when it comes to the world they are born into. For resolving this insecurity, they rely on their mother (primary caregiver) to acquire stable, consistent care. Hope arises from success at this point.

The development of trust gives rise to hope within the baby that with the advent of novel crises, they can turn to others for support. Fear develops if the baby doesn’t attain this feeling of hope (Thomas et.al 2000). In such instances, the baby will have problems with developing independence and personal control. With increased physical, mental and emotional maturity, the baby – now a growing toddler – will attempt, to some extent, to become independent of his/her caregivers (Levinson, 1986).

The toddler’s mobility increases and he/she slowly discovers the presence of several inherent abilities and skills like wearing their own shoes and clothes, playing with a toy, and so forth. These skills are reflective of the toddler’s developing sense of autonomy and independence (Austrian, 2008).

Between one and three years of age, if the toddler has overly controlling or criticizing parents who don’t accord him/her a chance at self- assertion, the toddler will start doubting his/her ability of surviving independently, not trust his/her abilities, and start becoming over- reliant on other people (Thomas et.al 2000). Piaget believes an individual’s first exposure to language comes when still in fetal form, during the initial few months – babies typically familiarize themselves with their parents’ voices at this point.

According to researchers, the most preferred sound for a fetus is human voices. They get used to spoken language and it is evident that babies are particularly attracted to the voice of their mommy, which they are able to differentiate from strangers’ voices (Levinson, 1986). The first and chief means of communicating after birth is through crying, since the baby has still not learned to make any other sound. Pre- linguistic communication (crying, smiling, etc.) predominantly occurs in the infant’s initial months.

At first, such actions are involuntary but subsequently become voluntary and are used to communicate one’s feelings (Thomas et.al 2000). At roughly six months of age, an infant starts babbling and making consonant- vocal noises such as “da da”. Words first start appearing when the baby turns one (Levinson, 1986).

Between 0 and 6 weeks, three main reflexes are displayed by an infant – sucking objects, closing the fist if anything touches his/her palm, and following any moving thing or anything that interests him/her with his/her eyes. With time, these reflexes turn into voluntarily performed actions. Between 6 weeks and 4 months of age, the infant’s awareness of his/her surroundings heightens and operant and classical conditioning commences. The baby starts imitating or reproducing responses (Austrian, 2008).

Between 4 and 8 months of age, the baby becomes more interested in objects, acquires habits, and repeats actions which lead to desired outcomes. Further, he/she starts reproducing responses using external objects. Between 8 months and 1 year, the infant combines intention with eye- hand coordination and focuses on the goal. Between 1 and 1.5 years, the toddler begins discovering and examining intriguing, new objects and strives to fulfill novel goals – a phase Piaget refers to as ‘the young scientist’ phase.

Between 1.5 and 2 years, the toddler begins employing primitive symbols for forming enduring cognitive representations. This marks the commencement of the creativity phase, which makes way for the preoperational phase (Thomas et.al 2000). An observation of infants will reveal that they suck their thumb, make certain sounds whilst sleepy and love shaking their rattle repeatedly. Continuous repetition of identical behavior reveals circular reactions. Repeated shaking of the rattle implies they love its sound and wish to repeatedly hear it.

By making different sounds (e.g., shaking the rattle on some other surface), the infant will understand that stimulus modification modifies the sound; thus, exploration will commence (Austrian, 2008). Freud believes that at this developmental stage, a baby focuses on and derives pleasure from eliminating or retaining feces;.