Erikson's Psycho-Social Development Stages in Infancy

This assignment explores Erikson's psycho-social development stages in infancy, specifically focusing on the first stage: 'Trust vs. Mistrust'. The document examines how this stage is crucial for a child's social and emotional development, and highlights the importance of caregivers providing a sense of security and responsiveness to their child's needs. Additionally, it discusses how parents can promote healthy language and thinking skills in their infant through interactions, imagination, and pretend play. The findings suggest that gradual care and attention from parents are essential for a child's growth and development throughout infancy.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1- Describing milestone of cognitive development in children between the ages of
approximately 18 to 24 months..............................................................................................1
2- Erikson’s psycho-social development stages that relates to Madeleine’s infancy.............2
3- Findings related to imagination or pretend play that can be applied in daily context for
children...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Changes in terms of physical, emotional, thought process and language from birth till
adulthood of a child is referred to child development. With regards to this, there are mainly four
stages of child development i.e. sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal
operational. In addition to this, the report aims at describing Madeleine’s milestone of cognitive
development between 18 to 24 months. In this account, it is concentrated on specifying Erikson’s
psychosocial development stages that relates Madeleine's description. Lastly, it also describes
factors related to imagination or as a pretend play in childhood.
MAIN BODY
1- Describing milestone of cognitive development in children between the ages of approximately
18 to 24 months.
According to Piaget’s theory, it reflects to comprehensive concept about the behaviour
and nature of an individual's intelligence. In addition to this, the main concept is developmental
stage theory. Here, the Sensorimotor stage of child that is between 18 to 24 months has been
recognized i.e. for two years. (Moore, 2017). Moreover, the cognitive milestones at this stage is
very simple as the baby is growing out of the toys. At this point, it also describes an
understanding of an infant over the time which shows the overall development. Further, the
milestones at this stage shows that they are now capable of understanding meaning of words.
Similarly, Hall's daughter” Madeleine” is also growing in same manner. She also started making
words from da da da to daddy and later she pushes a toy car with making noise like “Brrm”
(Ribot, Hoff and Burridge, 2018). The child starts to identify people in the picture at this
Sensorimotor cognitive stage.
Another viewpoint of this milestone is that parents support their babies by playing with
them. They read books and motivate them in interacting with different pictures. Similarly, proper
care of Madeleine's has also taken as her father also brought wooden car as she could eventually
accomplish and understand the concept to real car. Also a child is familiar about different sounds
like horns, barking, sirens etc. (Golinkoff and et.al., 2018). Madeleine's also made noises like
brrm, aha while playing with wooden car. Finally, children grow initially and also with the help
of their parents at this stage.
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2- Erikson’s psycho-social development stages that relates to Madeleine’s infancy
In this psycho-social stage, there are eight steps but here infancy stage of Madeleine's is
described. In this stage of Erikson's, the child belongs from birth till 18 months of their age. In
addition to this, trust is the most important thing to build in a child as an infant. Small babies are
unknown to everyone at this stage and also feel in-secured. At this point, parents are the ones
who can efficiently take care of their child (Bornstein and Bradley, 2014).
Similarly, Madeleine had also grown in a positive manner as she hugged toy animals that
does not mean she is not aware of her activities. Hall's daughter was aware about differences
between stuffed and actual animals. For example, from her toys, a cow mooed but she did not
react as she is aware about her realistic things and noise. She trusted her parents but moreover,
she was also taught not to trust unknown people (Laos, 2018). She used to take bath with her
parents which shows her trustworthiness. Parents should not be careless towards their child at
this stage of development.
3- Findings related to imagination or pretend play that can be applied in daily context for
children
From the article of Madeleine's, the imaginative play of children is necessary which
explains her interesting acts of daily life. It is necessary as it encourages the imagination power
and also supports in developing child socially and emotionally. Pretend play is helpful in
developing the self-esteem and awareness in the child. At this phase, language and thinking skills
are improved in toddlers. Further, Hall's daughter started repeating the words of her parents like
poop, Ba-bo, Wawa, etc (Mangin, Horwood and Woodward, 2017). Language and choice of
words of parents affect their children in developing the five stages such as social, emotional,
physical, language development along with increase in language skills also. For example, if
Pamela tried to put on new diaper on Madeleine, she reacted, "Bukreh!" which meant her mother
had to back up and wipe her butt, dry her off and re-apply some oil. These different reactions
result in positive ways. They are able to learn emotions of people and also behave positively to
other people. It results in good manner as they are able to choose words wisely and carefully.
However, this shows her language and thinking skills are developing widely. This is supportive
in growing baby in terms of language, motor skills, etc. As Madeleine's also started with rhythm
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and songs like “Un Di Felice”. But Pamela relies less on rhythm and concentrated on her
speaking expressions.
In daily life, imagination and pretend play helps in improving communication skills of
the children. Lastly, she focused on her daughter's vocalization by keeping her finger on lips
which shows to be quite. This resulted positively as Madeleine picked this up immediately
(Meins, Bureau and Fernyhough, 2018). This pretend play benefits in enhancing the child
physically. These findings helped to know that parents should gradually take care of their child
as they grow over the time.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it is evaluated that psycho-social development stage of Erikson is
useful in developing trust in a child at infancy level. In addition to this, the above findings
showed that child at Sensorimotor stage describes that they are now capable of understanding
meaning of words. Lastly, it is also described from Madeleine's findings that imagination or
pretend play is useful in special development of language and thinking of a baby. Overall, it can
be reported that development of a child is necessary at every level from birth till adulthood.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bornstein, M. H., & Bradley, R. H. (2014). Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child
development. Routledge.
Golinkoff, R. M. & et.al. (2018). Language Matters: Denying the Existence of the 30‐Million‐
Word Gap Has Serious Consequences. Child development.
Mangin, K. S., Horwood, L. J., & Woodward, L. J. (2017). Cognitive development trajectories of
very preterm and typically developing children. Child development 88(1) 282-298.
Meins, E., Bureau, J. F., & Fernyhough, C. (2018). Mother–child attachment from infancy to the
preschool years: Predicting security and stability. Child development 89(3) 1022-1038.
Moore, R. C. (2017). Childhood's domain: Play and place in child development. Routledge.
Ribot, K. M., Hoff, E., & Burridge, A. (2018). Language use contributes to expressive language
growth: Evidence from bilingual children. Child development 89(3) 929-940.
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