Exploring Cognitive and Social Development in Early Childhood

The essay provides an in-depth analysis of cognitive and social development throughout childhood, leveraging key psychological theories by Piaget and Erikson. It specifically focuses on the case study of a child named Jack who faces developmental challenges such as delayed speech acquisition and toilet training. The text discusses potential factors that contribute to these issues, including inadequate parental support and environmental influences. By integrating insights from nursing and psychology, the essay underscores the importance of tailored interventions by healthcare professionals to foster optimal development in children like Jack.

Running Head: NURSING CASE STUDY
Nursing Case study
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The purpose of the assignment is to explore the life span development that refers to age
related changes that continues until old age. The main stages of lifespan are infancy, childhood,
adolescent, adult (early, middle, and late) and old age. These stages are important in life as at
each stage the life form is enabled to accomplish the task of surviving, thriving and maturing.
Human beings have self conscious and social capabilities and hence it is important to have these
stages where change occurs beyond physical realm. In response to the case study, the assignment
aims to examine the important aspects of the cognitive and social development that occur in
children.
According to Piaget theory of cognitive development, mental processes results from the
environmental experience and biological maturation. This theory explains that cognitive
development is central part of human being. The two aspects knowledge and understanding are
obtained via cognitive development and language is contingent on this two aspects. The theory
states that children understand the world by experiencing on their own (Modgil et al., 2013).
Piaget put forward the stages of cognitive development that reflects the increasing
sophistication of thoughts in children. From birth to 2 years of age, the cognitive development is
known to be in sensorimotor stage where the child learns that the objects exist. For example,
child may show interest in toys. They coordinate experiences such as hearing or vision with the
physical interaction with objects such as sucking, and grasping. The age of 2-5 years is
characterised by the Pre-operational stage of the cognitive development. In this stage, the child is
able to think about the objects symbolically. This stage is followed by the concrete operation
stage (7-11 years) which marks the beginning of the operational or logical thought. From 11
years onwards, the formal operation stage begins. This stage lasts till adulthood and in this stage

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the children develop the ability to think about the abstract concepts (love, fear, joy). They can
even logically test hypothesis (Feldman, 2016).
In the given case study, Jack is 3 years old and thus his cognitive development is in the
Pre-operational stage. At this age, the child begins to learn how to speak and make rapid
progress. They can quickly accommodate new words (eg. Mama or papa) and phrases and
construct simple sentences. It indicates that the child is moving from immature to mature state
and from illogical to logical state. This stage may last until seven years. At this stage, a child
wants to learn everything. External speech is the first step in the “development of thinking”. At
this age, a child mainly deals with gestures, movement, and not words (Berk, 2017). In the case
study, Jack is able to speak one or two sentences by babbling. Several factors can delay speech
development.
One of the factors may be that Jack has late onset of the Pre-operational stage. It may
happen that in case of Jack the significant part of the language includes movements, gestures,
and sounds. Since these are not words, the child may not be able to express the same. Jack may
be lacking the ability to view things from different perspective other than his own. Therefore,
his language has not become socialised (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017). Jack may not be able to
gain different perspectives because he spends very less time with adults. Vanessa is working
mother and Jack spends two days in a week and four hours each in day centre. Infants adopt the
speaker’s communicative intent, which acts as guide for their language learning. When children
are in environment that involves more verbal communication, they are to quickly learn the
language when compared to spending time alone. Spending with families speaking verbally to
child increases the rate of speech development. This is not the case with Jack as he spends
mostly with toddlers and children of his age. Although Jack may be meeting all the milestones,

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his speech is delayed. Considering the case of other children in day care centre they may be
spending quality time with the family. Piaget explained that direct or intelligent thought aids in
language and the child may be learning this intelligence. Jack may be lacking the right
environment to develop speech and thus Vanessa may modify his learning environment. Nurse
can state these factors to Vanessa and refer her to speech therapist in case the problem persists
(Feldman, 2016).
Erikson’s theory of social development includes eight stages upto the age of 18 years. It
means that there is plenty of room for development and continued growth. From infancy to
adulthood, a crisis occurs at each stage and is of psychological nature. The crisis emerges from
the psychological needs of the individual (Psycho), which seems to conflict with the societal
needs (McAdams et al., 2015). Considering the case study of Jack only the on stage out of the
eight stages will be considered in this essay. This stage is 18 months-3 years and refers to the
psychological crisis- Autonomy Vs Shame & doubt. Pertaining to this stage Erikson emphasised
that children should be taught to take care of themselves. The need for the child to take self-care
such eating, changing clothes, or toilet is important. Relying on others may create a feeling of
shame and guilt. If a child observes that other members of same age can perform basic activities
independently, it may create doubt on not able to behave in same manner (Overton, 2013).
In the given case study, Jack is not yet toilet trained during the day. As per Vanessa, other
children of his age have mastered these skills. It means Jack is lacking virtue called will. With
the growth, the child tends to become independent and gain control over eliminative functions. In
order to reach this stage parents need to provide strong security. In case of Jack, parental support
is poor. Thus, he fails to venture out to assert his will. The caregivers encourage the self-
sufficient behaviour in children due to which they develop autonomy (McAdams et al., 2015). In

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this case the caregivers may not be encouraging Jack. Alternately, the caregivers may be
demanding too soon from Jack due to which Jack may doubt his abilities to handle the crisis.
Parents must teach the children to learn from their failures and attempt new challenges. Being
too must restrictive can create emotional issues in children that is associated with poor toilet
training (Berk, 2017). Vanessa foes not seem to offer such supportive environment to Jack. Lack
of adequate parental support may have delayed the psychosocial development in Jack. Vanessa
may not be aware of being responsive to this situation at home. She needs education by the child
and family welfare nurse to overcome her parental limitations (Serafica, 2015).
It is essential for the nurses and midwifes to the understand the life stages because
paediatric nurses are responsible for designing appropriate interventions for children. When
planning the intervention the nurses and midwifes must consider the child’s social setting and
rate of cognitive development. It will help identify any abnormalities at early stage (Bierman et
al., 2014). In this case child and family health nurse may educate Vanessa about behaviours that
are not in alignment with the Piaget’s cognitive development milestones or Erikson’s social
development stages. It will help Vanessa to improve her parental care. The nurse must educate
Vanessa about speech disabilities and the causes and factors hampering toilet habits.
In concussion, the essay has helped to understand the aspects related to cognitive and
social issues throughout the lifespan and factors that may hamper the normal development of
children.

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References
Berk, L. E. (2017). Exploring lifespan development. Pearson.
Bierman, K. L., Domitrovich, C. E., Nix, R. L., Welsh, J. A., & Gest, S. D. (2014). Integrating
evidence-based preschool programs to support social-emotional and cognitive
development. Promoting school readiness and early learning: Implications of
developmental research for practice, 231-252.
Bjorklund, D. F., & Causey, K. B. (2017). Children's thinking: Cognitive development and
individual differences. SAGE Publications.
Feldman, R. S. (2016). Development across the life span. Pearson.
McAdams, D. P., & Zapata-Gietl, C. (2015). Three strands of identity development across the
human life course: Reading Erik Erikson in full. The Oxford handbook of identity
development, 81-94.
Modgil, S., Modgil, C., & Brown, G. (Eds.). (2013). Jean Piaget. Routledge.
Overton, W. F. (Ed.). (2013). The relationship between social and cognitive development.
Psychology Press.
Serafica, F. C. (Ed.). (2015). Social-cognitive development in context (Vol. 27). Psychology
Press.