Child Development: Health Nurses' Role in Cognitive and Social Skills

This essay explores the multifaceted role of health nurses and midwives in fostering child development, specifically focusing on cognitive and social skills. Through a case study of a 3-year-old child named Jack, who faces challenges in toilet training and speech development, the essay highlights the practical application of developmental theories such as Bowlby's attachment theory, Piaget's cognitive development theory, and Erikson's social development model. It emphasizes the importance of nurses in facilitating cognitive and social growth, promoting parental involvement, and creating supportive environments for children. The essay discusses the impact of nurses' interventions on issues like attachment, cognition, and social development, while also considering the influence of factors like health and genetics. The conclusion reinforces the essential contributions of nurses and midwives in identifying developmental problems, providing appropriate solutions, and guiding parents to support their children's growth, ultimately improving children's communication and toilet training skills. The essay provides a comprehensive overview of child development and health nurse interventions.

Running head: CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Child development
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The case study here reflects on different challenges that a child faces in the overall
developmental processes such as cognitive and social development. The child named Jack
mentioned in the case scenario faced problems in toilet training and speech development.
Thus in the following essay, the roles of the health nurses will be discussed by adopting
theories as examples in developing the cognitive and social skills to help children between
the ages of two and five years in their proper development taking Jack as example in
developing his toilet training skills and speech development.
Role of nurses and midwives in child development
The health nurses and midwives play a vital role in the development stages of the
child through proper take care. In this present case scenario, it discusses about a child named
Jack, 3 years old who had been attending a day care center. Jack was found to experience
difficulties to master skills in toilet training and also in speech development. This bothered
his mother as the other children of his age had already mastered the skills. Thus, based on this
problems, there warranted a proper focus on the social and cognitive development through
different theories that effectively contributes towards the personal development of the child.
With this respect, the nurses could play a major role in the toilet training and also can also
encourage the child to participate in different playing sessions along with other kids in the
day center.
Child attachment
The midwives are found to play a potential role in child attachment development
which could be explained by Bowlby’s attachment concept (Sarsfield, 2014). He in this
theory stated that every child came in this world with certain emotions of attachment that

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were preprogrammed which helps them in their survival. Any kind of separation between the
parents and the child inculcate feelings of getting unsecured and anxiety within the child
(Hechter, 2017). In the present case study as the mother was a working person was not able to
spend enough time with her child. Thus the prolonged detachment of the child from his
mother could have negatively affected the development of cognition followed by feeling
lonely and unsecured within the child. Thus to combat this kind of situation interactive
sessions should be arranged to initiate the learning process via digital platform. According to
DeVellis (2016), this learning session develops increased interest within the child followed
by an assistive framework to develop the cognition. According to the theory the mother
should also involve more actively with her child that would help the child in developing the
communication and learning prospects.
Cognitive development
The nurses can effectively help the child in developing the cognitive behaviour and
the development of the cognition in the child could be explained by the Piaget’s theory of
cognitive development (Harvey & Park, 2015). Jean Piaget believed that the way a child
views the world is strongly influenced by age, maturation and experience. According to his
theory, the 3 years old child can be placed under the “preoperational stages of cognitive
development” (Moore, 2014). This stage reflects the ability of the child to imagine with
strong intuition, although have difficulties in processing abstract and complicated thoughts.
He also explained that the child should be capable enough to properly express his thoughts
through proper use of grammatical words and syntax. But in this case, Jack faced difficulties
in speech that made the expression process problematic in him. In this context, the nurses
should provide a deliberate assistance by considering the concerns of the child by breaking
down the difficult words into simple terms that were clear to him. The nurses should

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encourage him continuously to speak more often as much as possible and also provide a
proper friendly environment to support him in developing the cognition (Pritchard &
Gidman, 2012).
Social development
Jack in this case was also facing trouble in toilet training and communicating clearly
thereby reducing the social etiquette development. One of the theories that explain the social
development is Erikson’s social development model. This theory entails the psychosocial
problems of the child. At this stage, the child undergoes mixture of feelings comprising of
autonomy versus shame and forbids from the self management of daily activities of life.
Thus involving the child actively in the process of care planning would generate more
excitement and curiosity within the child (Trollvik et al., 2013). Apart from this, the nurses
could provide increased autonomy in child by incorporating proper decision making within
the practice. This type of compassionate environment would help the child to be more
proactive and more expressive verbally (Howlin et al., 2014).
Thus the nurses could effectively impact the overall development of the child by
advocating policies for increased appropriate home, nutrition and learning (Behrman &
Urzúa, 2013). In the cognitive development of the child nourishment had been found to play
a major role (Bernier et al., 2012). In addition, the nurses assisting the parents in developing
the parental skills could also be helpful by participating in community action programs.
Therefore, referring the mother of the child to one of the community programs could be an
effective alternative.
Cognition development example
The cognition development between the age group of three to five is explained by the
Piaget’s theory. This theory is further divided into sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete

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operational and formal operations (Case, 2013). Among these the most important stages are
the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages as they act as a platform for processing language
and individual development. Development of concrete operations is based on sensory
memory that relates the way the adults talks with each other either through phones or in
persons. The development stages of cognition are associated with different changes in
biology and psychology (Nisbett et al., 2012). The normal cognition development will
increase based on the processing thoughts in the age group of three to five years. Thus, based
on this, the child should be involved in an environment with competitive group that supports
the optimal child growth (Hart, 2013).
Social development example
The Erikson’s theory explains clearly the social development in a child. Both the
social and psychosocial factors help to increase the social development of the child through
eight stages (Newman & Newman, 2017). The first stage involves the stages of making
queries for which they are usually dependent on their mother. In between the age of 2-7 the
child develop the urge to learn. For example, it can be included the developing skills in
clothing themselves and toilet training which was not properly developed in the child. This
impairment could be due to reduced interactions with the parents and the peers. With this
context, Vygotsky’s theory explaining the cognitive development could be considered for the
social development that preceded the community interactions of the child (Forrester, 2013).
Factors influencing the cognitive social development
Evidential studies have reported that both the health and the genetic constitution affect
the cognitive social development. Other factors include the physical development and health.
The cognition can be impaired with the advent of the stress. Reduced health conditions of the

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child influence the child’s power of thinking, interacting, learning and reasoning that is
essential in the cognitive social development (Tzuriel, 2013).
Relevant factors understanding to nurses and midwives
By employing the Piaget theory, the nurses and the midwives would be able to guide
the parents in their child overall development. The nurses should directly interact with the
parents and help them to understand the major reason of depression leading to impaired
learning in the child (Hockenberry, Wilson & Rodgers, 2016).
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that the nurses and the midwives
play a vital role in the overall development of the child. By implementing different theories
of development such as Erikson’s theory for social development and the Piaget’s theory of
cognition development the nurses could assist effectively in developing the skills by
providing a perfect environment to the child. These theories also assist them to provide the
parents the exact guidelines to help their child in growing and developing. Thus, the nurses
exert a perfect role in identifying the critical problems and provide the appropriate solutions
to overcome the speech difficulties that hamper communication and helps in toilet training as
identified in the current case study.

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