Nursing Assignment: Human Development and Life Transition Essay

This nursing assignment is a formal essay that examines human development and life transition issues, focusing on cognitive and social development. The essay uses the case scenario of a 3-year-old child, Jack, to illustrate key concepts. It applies the theories of Jean Piaget on cognitive development and Erik Erikson on psychosocial development to analyze the child's progress through the preoperational stage and the toddlerhood stage. The assignment explores the interrelation between cognitive and social development, highlighting the importance of understanding developmental milestones for providing appropriate nursing care. The essay emphasizes the role of nurses in recognizing and addressing the unique needs of children at different stages of development, supported by relevant literature and research.

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Nursing Assignment
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Assessment 2: Formal essay on human development and life transition issues
Human development is a dynamic process that constitutes passage through several life
transitions. Contemporary nursing has laid considerable attention to these diversifying life stages
to provide a deeper insight onto the aspects of human development so that prudent and pragmatic
approaches may be conferred as applicable to the unique stages. Development of an individual
follows a path where physical, social, moral or cognitive issues throughout the lifespan play
distinctive roles in shaping the personality of the individual (Feldman, 2016). Therefore, it is
imperative to understand the developmental milestone with respect to each stage for ensuring the
provision of the most suitable nursing care delivery. The following assignment will highlight the
cognitive and social development based on exposure to a variety of predictable as well as
unpredictable life transitions by referring to the case scenario of 3 years old child named Jack
who has been attending day care twice a week and for two hours a day. Works of eminent
theorists like that of Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson will be utilized in the discussions of the essay
thereby offering scope for exploring the cognitive and social development of children
thoroughly.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development may be referred to for understanding the
concept associated with cognitive upbringing of the child. This comprehensive theory adequately
addresses the nature and development surrounding human intelligence and was first promulgated
by the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. It has laid considerable emphasis on
deciphering the modality of understanding. In this respect, assimilation and accommodation have
been recognized as complementary processes that help an individual to become aware through
internalization. A dialectical relationship defines these two components’ interaction, as they are

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intimately associated despite the fact that one may essentially predominate other at a given
instance. As per this theory, the intellectual or cognitive development of a child may be
categorized into four distinct stages comprising of sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete
operational and formal operational stages. It has been opined that each child goes through all
these stages in the exact same order while child development is determined by virtue of
biological maturation and environmental interaction. However, the rate of progression to the later
stages may vary for each child. Further, according to this theory a child of 3 years as applicable
in case of Jack, he may be found to belong to the preoperational stage that spans the timeframe
of age 2 to 7 years (Carey, S., & Gelman, 2014). Thought process at this stage is mostly based on
symbols for the children, as they are able to make a thing, an object or a word to represent
something other than its usual meaning. Another crucial feature of this stage is that thinking is
essentially egocentric and the child encounters issues on accepting the viewpoints of others. The
child presents greater efforts in better expressing its feelings and emotions through acquisition of
linguistic skills as language development happens in this time span itself thereby indicative of
prioritizing the childcare needs for the caregivers (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017).
However, in Jack’s case his mother Vanessa has expressed concern that he has not
attained his developmental milestone with respect to speech development as he spoke in one-to-
two word sentences while mostly resorted to babbling rather than uttering coherently in distinct
sentences. Thus, the stark features as reported in preoperational stage are not so prominent in
Jack. Further, it may be speculated that certain constraints are restricting his speech and normal
language development. His mother being working, the child is likely to feel lonely and rejected
thereby adding to his egocentric nature that characterizes this stage.

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Another crucial developmental theory in relation to psychosocial development may be
studied in the light of the theory postulated by eminent psychologist Erik Erikson by virtue of
which development may be segregated into eight stages constituting the time from infancy until
adulthood. It has been mentioned that in each of the stage, the individual is most likely to
confront certain psychological crisis that might have either positive or negative impact with
respect to personality growth. In case, a child is unable to overcome these challenges in course of
his or her developmental stage it might turn into perpetual problems at later hours. According to
this theory, a child of three years belongs to the age of early childhood or toddlerhood where the
basic virtue of will predominates to counteract the psychological crisis surrounding autonomy as
opposed to shame. Ongoing physical development and enhanced mobility characterizes this stage
when the child simultaneously engages in exploring the world around him. The caregivers if
nurture the child’s abilities and provide sufficient encouragement by burgeoning independence,
the child might assert his or her own rights thereby gaining a sense of autonomy. Contrarily,
feelings of shame might generate in the child in case the parents or caregivers foster excessive
dependence or discourage the child. Socialization skills develop eventually in the child through
emergence of awareness with respect to both self as well as others (Dunkel & Harbke, 2017).
Further, it has been stated in relevant literature that subjected to provision of suitable
encouragement from the caregivers and parents, the child may attain confidences and nurture
requisite skills to survive in the world. A delicate balance is expected out of the parents to enable
the child to do things on his own rather than criticizing his efforts so that he might attain a state
of self-control without losing self-esteem through continual encouragement (Friesen & Besley,
2013).

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Observations with respect to Jack in the given scenario reveal that he has not yet been
able to acquire toileting skills in contrast to his same age counterparts. Physical separation from
his mother due to enrolment in the day care facility twice a week has posed hindrance to his
ability to socialize. He has not been self-sufficient to do things on his own in absence of support
from concerned persons like that of her mother at home due to her work engagements.
Social and cognitive development is vastly an interrelated affair and has been topic of
investigation in various literatures. Personality development and the manner in which a child
interacts with his near environment are largely dependent on his communication and relationship
with the individual components. Early years of a child’s life is very much crucial to his or her
development in later years and significantly affect the actions in subsequent years. Both social as
well as cognitive development drives a child’s response to his near environment and aids in
building trusted relationships with others. Interlink between these two modalities of development
is crucial for the holistic development of the child that enables him to develop as a responsible
citizen of tomorrow. Almost in line with the acquisition of linguistic skills through speech
development, social skills tend to appear in greater prominence (Bremner, 2017). A child who
has satisfactorily attained his developmental milestone is capable of displaying his social skills in
a likewise manner as well. A reciprocation of social skills may be achieved through higher
cognition and complex thought process that set in eventually as the child passes through
distinctive developmental phases. Hence, nurses must be proactive in their endeavors to
succinctly understand the developmental benchmarks unique to each transitory phase in course
of a child’s development for providing optimal care facility tailored to perfection for catering to
distinct needs of the child (Olds, 2016).

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Nursing practitioners must undertake proactive initiatives and efforts to render suitable
nursing care to the children in accordance with their age depending upon the developmental
milestone achieved by the individual in the life stage in which they belong. Human development
does not follow a singular discourse, rather is reliant upon interactions among several
intermittent stages that exerts their unique influence. Theory of the social development as
proposed by Erikson and theory of cognitive development as put forward by Piaget are helpful in
this context that pave the way for greater and adequate understanding of human development for
the nurses to streamline the nursing care delivery catering to the developmental needs.

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References
Bjorklund, D. F., & Causey, K. B. (2017). Children's thinking: Cognitive development and
individual differences. SAGE Publications.
Bremner, J. G. (2017). An introduction to developmental psychology. John Wiley & Sons.
Carey, S., & Gelman, R. (2014). The epigenesis of mind: Essays on biology and cognition.
Psychology Press.
Dunkel, C. S., & Harbke, C. (2017). A review of measures of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial
development: Evidence for a general factor. Journal of Adult Development, 24(1), 58-76.
Feldman, R. S. (2016). Life span development: A topical approach. Pearson.
Friesen, M. D., & Besley, S. C. (2013). Teacher identity development in the first year of teacher
education: A developmental and social psychological perspective. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 36, 23-32.
Olds, D. (2016). Building evidence to improve maternal and child health. The
Lancet, 387(10014), 105-107.