Assessment 2: Psychosocial Development and Early Childhood Stages

This essay delves into the concept of psychosocial development, primarily focusing on Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial stages, particularly as they relate to early childhood. The essay analyzes a case study of a 2.5-year-old child, Andrew, discussing his developmental stage and the interplay of various factors influencing his growth. It highlights the importance of family dynamics, peer interactions, and environmental influences, including toilet training, parenting styles, and attachment styles. The essay also considers the contributions of other developmental psychologists, such as Vygotsky and Piaget, and emphasizes the significance of these factors in shaping a child's personality and cognitive abilities. Finally, the essay concludes by underscoring the crucial role of nurses in supporting children's healthy development during these formative years, including effective communication with parents and providing holistic care to address the challenges and opportunities presented during the transition through developmental stages.

Running Head: Human Development 1
Human Development
Developmental stages of the assessment will be done by gathering information about the
child with the help of given data in case studies. The first part of the essay provides information
regarding the psychosocial theory. Following the introduction of psychosocial theory, Andrew’s
case will be addressed. The important aspects of Andrew’s case and what factors helped in the
development of Andrew will be discussed in this phase. Afterward, it will be discussed that what
will be the important factors that can influence on Andrew’s development. At the end, a
conclusion will be given that describe the role of the nurses in the developmental process of the
children.
Psychosocial development refers to the psychological development with the interaction
of the society (Benzies et al., 2013). Psychosocial developmental Psychologist also explained
that psychosocial development determined the personality of a person, and it starts from the
infancy (when a child interacts with his/her caregiver) to adulthood (Colmar, 2014). Erik Erikson
worked on the psychosocial development of the personality, and he explained eight stages from
the infancy to adulthood. During each psychosocial stage of Erik Erikson, a person can also
experience a psychosocial crisis that can be positive and negative in its outcome (Walle, 2016).
According to the case of Andrew, Andrew was 2 and half years old. Erikson’s second stage is
between 1-2 years of age children whereas his third stage is from 3 years to 6 years of age child.
Andrew according to his age is going through transition and between the second and third stage
of psychosocial theory of Erikson. Erikson’s second stage named as autonomy vs. shame and
doubt whereas third stage named as initiative vs. guilt that exists between 3-6 years of age. This
stage occurs preschool years of the children in which children begin to affirm their power and
wanted to control over the world through play and social interaction. As Andrew is attending the

Running Head: Human Development 2
daycare three days in a week he is interacting and socializing with his classmates. According to
the Oaks et al., (2015) children learn during the interaction with the other children and
environment has positive influence in this (2-6 years) transition of the children.
There are many other psychologists who worked on the developmental phases of the
children. Some works on the socio-cultural development and some on psychosocial
development. Like Erik Erikson who worked on the psychosocial development of the children,
Vygotsky work on the socio-cultural development of the children (New South Wales Health,
2015). In his theory, Vygotsky talked about the language acquisition of the children (Sansavini et
al., 2010). In the case of Andrew, it is reported that he is able to speak four to five words
sentence. Vygotsky explained that the environment plays an important role in the acquisition of
language development (Baker, 2012). According to the McMurray, & Clendon (2014) Piaget
described the developmental stages in which Andrew is in the preoperational stage of the
cognitive development in which children develop their language and symbolically represent the
things, and have illogical thinking patterns. He mainly focuses on the cognitions of the children
that how they think, reason and solve their problems. According to Purcal et al., (2014) children
have great impact of environment on their cognitions. Peer relationship and learning
environment is significant cognitive development of the children.
According to the case study, it can be Andrew’s father, Tom who cares about his child
and spent quality time with him. As Andrew being a first child, he got attention from all the
family member that also play an important role in the language development of the Andrew.
Lotzin et al., (2015) show significant results of the environment and the language development
of the child. In the case study, Maria also explained that Andrew plays and enjoy music, dancing,
singing with his father and herself which also give him a strength to grow positively. The

Running Head: Human Development 3
positive play with his father also plays an important role in the acquisition of language
development (Armijo-Olivo et al., 2014). According to the case, as Tom spent quality of time
with Andrew that developed a secured attachment style of parenting between Andrew and his
father. According to the Ainsworth secured attachment style have positively affected and is
significant with the learning of the children (Walle, 2016).
Erik Erikson described his second stage of psychosocial development as autonomy Vs.
Guilt. This stage is continuous at the age of early development (2-3 years) and focused on a
sense of personal control of the child (McMurray, & Clendon, 2014). Toilet training is a vital
part of this stage. In his theory, Erik Erikson believed that if the child attained his goal of toilet
training, it develops to a sense of control and independence in the child whereas the problem of
attaining his goal leads to the sense of inadequacy and self-doubt (Roberts, & Kaiser, 2012).
According to the case of Andrew, who is in the transition of second and third stage of
psychosocial development. Andrew’s mother Maria is worried about his toilet training as she
saw many children who were toilet trained at the same age. According to the age of Andrew,
toilet training may influence on his psychosocial development if he toilet trained without any
problem then able to maintain his confidence and self-control in later life whereas the problem in
proper toilet training may influence him and leads towards the self-doubt and sham in his future
life (Oakes et al., 2015).
According to the Cooklin et al., (2014) parenting style and the parental relationship also
affected the psychosocial development of the children (Oaks et al., 2015). In a parental
relationship, domestic violence and the post-natal depression have a negative influence on the
psychosocial development of the children and created a feeling of low confidence and insecurity
in their later life (Lotzin et al., 2015). In this stage, reinforcement on specific behavior encourage

Running Head: Human Development 4
the child to do that behavior again in future while punishment on specific behavior will
discourage the child to do that behavior again (Barkway, 2013). According to the Redmond
(2010) children’s behavior will be encouraged by the reinforcement methods it helped to shape
their positive behaviors (Beebe, & Steele, 2013). Many parents used the method of reinforcement
to train their children for toilet training and studies resulted that this method helped them a lot to
do it accurately (Sansavini et al., 2010). According to the Banaji (2011) in this stage of the
cognitive development most of the children develop their concepts by the imitating the behavior
of their parents. It also indicated that most of the time environment effects to shape the child
personality like their parents (Colmar, 2014).
At the end of the essay, it can be concluded that developmental process of the children
are more crucial part for the parents. There are many factors like peer relationship, environment
of the children, toilet training that either can be positively affected or negatively affected to
children (McMurray, & Clendon, 2014). Positivity of these factors leads to successful transition
from the age while negativity leads to crisis in the specific stage of the children (Purcal et al.,
2014). Parenting styles, attachment styles, modeling, learning through observation are all
transitions are important in the development of the children that’s why during this transition of
the children nurses should communicate effectively with the patients in order to provide holistic
care.

Running Head: Human Development 5
References
Armijo-Olivo, S., Ospina, M., da Costa, B. R., Egger, M., Saltaji, H., Fuentes, J., Cummings, G.
G. (2014). Poor reliability between Cochrane reviewers and blinded external reviewers
when applying the Cochrane risk of bias tool in physical therapy trials. PloS one, 9(5),
e96920. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0096920
Baker, E. (2012). Optimal intervention intensity in speech-language pathology: Discoveries,
challenges, and unchartered territories. International Journal of Speech-Language
Pathology, 14(5), 478-485. doi: 10.3109/17549507.2012.717967
Banaji, M. (2011, October 12). Reinforcement theory. Harvard gazette. Retrieved from
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/multimedia/reinforcement-theory/
Barkway, P. (Ed.). (2013). Psychology for health professionals. Chatswood, Australia: Elsevier
Australia. [Good for theoretical material and theorists and age-spans]
Benzies, K. M., Magill-Evans, J., Kurilova, J., Nettel-Aguirre, A., Blahitka, L., & Lacaze-
Masmonteil, T. (2013). Effects of video-modeling on the interaction skills of first- time
fathers of late preterm infants. Infants and Young Children, 26(4), 333-348. doi:
10.1097/IYC.0b013e3182a4ed5e
Beebe, B., & Steele, M. (2013). How does microanalysis of mother–infant communication
inform maternal sensitivity and infant attachment? Attachment & Human Development,
15, 5-6, 583-602. doi: 10.1080/14616734.2013.841050
Cooklin, A.R., Lucas, N., Strazdins, L., Westrupp, E., Giallo, R., Canterford, L., & Nicholson,
J.M. (2014). Heightened Maternal Separation Anxiety in the Postpartum: The Role of
Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Journal of Family Issues, 35 (11), 1497–1519.

Running Head: Human Development 6
Colmar, S. H. (2014). A parent-based book-reading intervention for disadvantaged children with
language difficulties. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 30(1), 79-90. doi:
10.1177/0265659013507296
Lotzin, A., Lu, X., Kriston, L., Schiborr, J., Musal, T., Romer, G., Ramsauer, B. (2015).
Observational tools for measuring parent-infant interaction: A systematic review. Clinical
Child and Family Psychology Review, 18, 99-132. doi: 10.1007/s10567-015-0180-z
McMurray, A., & Clendon., J. (2014). Community health and wellness: Primary health care in
practice (4th ed.). Chatswood, Australia: Churchill Livingstone Elsevier Australia. [Good
for general community and childhood issues/cultural issues]
New South Wales Health. (2015). Our babies: the state’s best asset a history of 100 years of
child and family health services in NSW. NSW: NSW Health.
Oakes, A., Ma, M., McDuffie, A., Machalicek, W., & Abbeduto, L. (2015). Providing a parent-
implemented language intervention to a young male with fragile X syndrome: Brief
report. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 18(1), 65-68. doi:
10.3109/17518423.2014.967416
Purcal, C.,Brennan, D., Cass, B., & Jenkins, B. (2014) Grandparents raising grandchildren:
impacts of lifecourse stage on the experiences and costs of care Australian Journal of
Social Issues, 49 (4), 467-488.
Roberts, M. Y., & Kaiser, A. P. (2012). Assessing the effects of a parent-implemented language
intervention for children with language impairments using empirical benchmarks: A pilot
study. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 55, 1655-1670. doi:
10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0236)

Running Head: Human Development 7
Redmond, B.F. (2010). Reinforcement Theory: What are the Rewards for My Work? Work
Attitudes and Motivation. The Pennsylvania State University; World Campus.
Sansavini, A., Guarini, A., Justice, L. M., Savini, S., Broccoli, S., Alessandroni, R., & Faldella,
G. (2010). Does preterm birth increase a child's risk for language impairment? Early
Human Development, 86, 765-772. doi: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2010.08.014
Walle, E.R. (2016). Infant Social Development across the Transition from Crawling to Walking.
Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1-10. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00960