Child Development

This research focuses on the observations and milestones related to child development. It includes a case study on a child's interaction and environment, as well as discussions on key psychology theories, cognitive development, emotional development, and developmental milestones.

RUNNING HEAD: CHILD DEVELOPMENT 0
Child Development
In this case, various observations and milestones regarding the development of the
child is deliberated accordingly. 2019

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
The Child’s Environment................................................................................................................2
Child-Caregiver Interaction.............................................................................................................2
Structured Observation....................................................................................................................3
Key psychology theories..................................................................................................................3
Cognitive development....................................................................................................................4
Emotional development...................................................................................................................4
Developmental milestones...............................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The paper is prepared considering participation in KinderGym session majorly at a local
KinderGym. KinderGym is gymnastics Australia program majorly for the children that are under
the age of 5 years in which they get involved in the fun movement based program for the
children with the age under five joining with their parents. The parents take the responsibility for
their child safety as well as supervision. The paper shows the teaching initiative that will be
hands on experience observing as well as interacting with the children and their guardian. This
initiative consist of attending the KinderGym Inc. majorly in the small group of five people
where I have a being a supervise encounter with the child and their guardian. The paper includes
the case of a child to whom I met at Australian KinderGym and observation that link with
different theoretical content.
The Child’s Environment
James is a 13 months old baby. He has green eyes and fine, short brown hair. He has a very light
skin tone and almond formed eyes. He is sitting on the bed in his room, which is sparingly
equipped with a television and two settees. The room looks to be very comfortable with his
coziness and security in mind.
Child-Caregiver Interaction
Is there any contact of the adult with the newborn? What behavior states affect the infant-
caregiver connection?
James is sitting on the bed with his toys around him. Catherine (his mother) sits at the corner of
the bed to keep him safe from the corner and he begins to hand his toys to his mother. He is
concerned towards the response of the mother while handling her toys and the blocks, one by
one. James takes initiative, snatches the blocks, and give them to his mother. He looks at her face
and waits for her response (Berk, 2015). She then says him the color and letter on the block. He
go-aheads and pretends to pick one more block.

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After picking blocks and handling them over to his mother, he then sneaks across the bed to a
soft toy and through it on the floor and waits for the mother reaction. He give a smile to his
mother and his mother smiles back and says, “Is that your soft toy?” he smiles again and
continues to play (Charlesworth, 2016). He does watch his mother to see whether she is paying
attention on him or not. His mother starts organizing the room by picking up his toys from the
bed and floor, and periodically he goes over to her and becomes attentive in what she is doing.
James seems to be very reliant on his mother. It seems that there is a positive relationship
between James and his mother.
To ensure the reduction in the demand characteristics and biological strength an unrevealed
‘non-participation observation’ was approved.
Structured Observation
The most significant skills required for the structured observation is consideration of the
developmental theories and the milestones. A structured observation has been defined as the
separate demanding approach, which is adopted by the researchers in a realistic measured
observation (Thomas et al., 2017).
Objective - Objective is free from personal thoughts and feelings. For example: experiences,
values and attitude. In the observation, making broad view, communicating individual thoughts
and classification is been practiced.
Listening skills (both non-verbal and verbal communication) - The straight observation of the
non-verbal behavior adds up the information about demonstrative states.
Retaining the role of the observer – this is done by initiating, avoiding and responding towards
the child.
Avoid impulsive clarification, without looking for the context in which performance happened.
Accurate recordings in a chronological and factual manner and these are helpful when relates to
the observed behaviors to psychological theories (Booren et al., 2015).

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Key psychology theories
Erickson as well as Freud’s psychological phases of development proposes certain approvals to
what child at this age is expecting for development and what will be the consequences when
these prospects are not met (Carley, 2015).
Freud determined that the age between the infancy and eighteen months is the oral stage. On this
stage, the adolescent focuses on the oral pleasures, where the kid is very sensitive towards the
environmental changes. Instinctually the oral drive is been given to the child by nurse in order to
survive, this drive is predicted onto the whole domain. Infants put anything in their mouth and
use them to discover themselves and the countless vibrations, which occurred in the child. In this
case, James is trying to have a conversation between him and his mother through passing smiles
and handling her toys (Newman & Newman, 2014).
For Erickson, the stage for 0-2 year old child is the stage of Trust vs. Mistrust where the child
generates a trust with the caregiver (Mannoni, 2015). In this case, James takes initiative to gain
attention and generate trust on his mother through non-verbal communication. James and his
mother have a sweet interaction where James focus on the reaction of his mother while throwing
the toys on the floor.
Cognitive development
Between 0 to 12 months, James started to react to the different voices and sounds. James learned
how to follow the objects through his eyes; one thing followed by him was his toys. He almost
learned how to put toys in and out of the basket. He could also interact; the person James
interacts the most is his mother where they both try to have a communication through facial
expressions (Galotti, 2015).
James knew how to respond on the simple directions. While handling his toys he knew how to
give those toys to his mother. James learned to speak the first letter “M” of mother. He used to
call this mother through murmuring letter ‘M” repeatedly.

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Emotional development
Before James was born, the family bonding for James started when Catherine was talking to him
during the time of pregnancy. She stated that she ate lot of fruits and drank a lot of water at the
time of pregnancy. Most of the time, she used to be sick and reads novels, at the same time
James could also get to read the same. She believes that this nature of James has a role in his
personality because James has a naughty nature.
James has an emotional attachment with Catherine and he seems to be very open with his
emotions. Which burst out, when Catherine is hurt or sad he suddenly starts crying and screams
until he makes sure that his mother is safe and is not feeling sad. He has begun a new stage of
being cautious (Wilson & Wilson, 2014). He is not shy towards Catherine but has started been
shy in front of the people he always knew such as, uncles, grandparents and aunts.
Developmental milestones
Once the child is between the ages of 0-2 years, they are officially known as toddlers. At this age
of child, parents are not sure about the skills of the baby. The following developmental
milestones are been checked out in order to know the skills of James. Kids develop at different
places, which make them learn few things lately (Petty, 2015).
0-3 month milestones
Motor milestones: At this stage, James started lying on tummy and used to push his arms, lift
his head, bring his hand to his mouth.
Sensory milestones: Lying on his back, James tries to reach the toy, he tracks the toy moving
from side to side, enjoys the changes and the movement while performing the activities.
Communication milestones: James used to give smiles in respond of the sound made by his
mother.
Feeding milestones: At this time, James started to swallow and suck well through feeding.
4-6 months milestones

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Motor milestones: He began to use his hands to support himself while sitting and standing with
a support made his body accepts entire weight on his legs.
Sensory milestones: Make use of both the hands to explore the toys and try to bring them to his
mouth. James started enjoying various movements at this stage.
Communication milestones: This time, makes the child learn using consonant sound in
muttering eg. James started calling his mother through “ma, ma, ma”.
Feeding milestones: Shows concern more in food and begin to eat pureed foods and cereals
like- carrots, sweets potato etc (Plooij & Plooij, 2017).
7-9 months milestones
Motor milestones: At this cycle, James started sitting without support and shows more control
while sitting and rolling.
Sensory milestones: Explores more objects by using both the hands and examines the amount of
force to be needed for picking up the objects.
Communication milestones: James followed some repetitive instructions when was join up
with the gestures and started participating in two-way communication by using simple gestures.
Eg, shaking head for saying “no”.
Feeding milestones: In a high chair, the child learns to hold the bottle and drinks from it. James
began to eat mashed table foods and thicker pureed.
10-12 months milestones
Motor milestones: Moves out and in of several positions to explore the surroundings and get
favorite toys. The child at this stage learns to clap hands.

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Sensory milestones: At this period, James started enjoying the songs and try to explore more
toys with fingers, mouth and hands (Jager, 2019).
Communication milestones: The child at this age meaningfully uses “mama”: or “dada” and
begins to use hand activities to connect whatever he wants or needs.
Feeding milestones: The child begins to use open cup and eats an increasingly variety of food.
James started adoring new tastes and smells.
Conclusion
In this research, the study is done about several milestones, which a person or any individual
may face in his childhood. Apart from that, theory of Erickson and Freud is also briefly
described which provides the reason behind these milestones and how to overcome them.
According to the theories which we discussed above, milestones are totally depend upon the
failures in different stages of life and these stages are categorized in different ways by different
experts. In this research, a case study is performed on a kid whose age is between 0-2 years and
explains the growth and development of the same child at the age of learning and performing
things.

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Bibliography
Berk, L., 2015.
Child Development. 9th ed. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Booren, , Downer, & Vitiello, V., 2015. Observations of Children’s Interactions with Teachers, Peers, and
Tasks across Preschool Classroom Activity Settings.
U.S. National Library of Medicine, 23(4), pp.517-38.
Carley, , 2015.
Erik Erikson: Post-Freudian Theory. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Charlesworth, R., 2016.
Understanding Child Development. 10th ed. Cengage Learning.
Galotti, , 2015.
Cognitive Development: Infancy Through Adolescence. SAGE Publications.
Jager, , 2019.
Brain Development Milestones and Learning. Mind Moves.
Mannoni, , 2015.
Freud: The Theory of the Unconscious. Verso Books.
Newman, B. & Newman, , 2014.
Development Through Life: A Psychosocial Approach. 12th ed. Cengage
Learning.
Petty, K., 2015.
Developmental Milestones of Young Children. Redleaf Press.
Plooij, & Plooij, P., 2017.
The Wonder Weeks Milestone Guide: Your Baby's Development, Sleep and
Crying Explained. Kiddy World Publishing.
Thomas, et al., 2017. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: A Meta-analysis.
AAP News & Journals, 140(3).
Wilson, & Wilson, , 2014.
Understanding Emotional Development: Providing insight into human lives.
Routledge.

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