A Comprehensive Study of the Developmental Stage of Infancy

This essay provides a detailed analysis of the developmental stage of infancy, covering cognitive, psychosocial, and psychosexual aspects. It references Piaget's theory of cognitive development, highlighting the sensorimotor stage where infants learn through sensory experiences and object manipulation. Erikson's theory of psychosocial development is discussed, focusing on the 'Trust vs. Mistrust' stage, emphasizing the importance of caregiver dependability. Freud's psychosexual theory is also examined, particularly the oral stage, where the mouth is the primary source of interaction and pleasure. The essay concludes by stressing the importance of understanding these developmental aspects for caregivers and healthcare professionals to support children's successful development.

Running head: DEVELOPMENT STAGE OF INFANCY
DEVELOPMENT STAGE OF INFANCY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
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DEVELOPMENT STAGE OF INFANCY
Introduction:
The term infant is applied for young children who are under one year of age. The time
of the child from its birth to that of its first birthday is called infancy (Aslin, 2017). This is
the specific period when infants are seen to bond and form attachments to their caregivers.
This assignment would mainly discuss the various developmental attributes of infants
discussing in details about the cognitive, psychosexual as well as psychosocial developmental
aspects as well.
Discussion:
Developmental milestones:
Within one year, infants are seen to master a number of developmental milestones.
These are sitting without assistance and even getting into hands and knees position. They
start crawling and pulling themselves up for standing. They are seen to start walking by
holding onto furniture and even manage to travel a few steps without support. They are seen
to use the pincer grasp like properly using the thumb and forefinger. They start calling words
like “mama” and “dada” and are often seen to use exclamations like that of “oh-oh”
(Adamson, 2018). They are also seen to be imitating words and responding to “no” as well as
making simple verbal requests. They learn making simple gestures like that of shaking head
to say “no” or waving “bye-bye”. They are seen to try in exploring objects in different
manners like shaking, dropping, throwing as well as banging. They begin utilising objects in
the correct manner like to drink from cups or brush hairs and others. They are able to find
objects easily and they are seen to look at correct pictures when an image is named.

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Cognitive developments:
Children of the stage of infancy are seen to undergo rigorous cognitive developments
and in order to discuss the stage in details, Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
would be referred. His theory suggests of the fact that children mainly transfer through four
different stages in order to achieve their mental development. The theory mainly helps in
focusing not only on the understanding about the ways that children acquire knowledge but
they also tend to help in understanding the nature of the intelligence. Infants are seen to
mainly belong to the first stage called the sensorimotor stage that extends from birth to that of
two years that include the infancy stage (Kenny, 2018). During this phase, infants are seen to
acquire different knowledge through the sensory experiences as well as manipulation of the
objects. Studies are of the opinion that the entire experience of the children during this stage
occurs through basic forms of senses, reflexes and motor responses. They go through period
of dramatic growth as well as learning where they learn interacting with that of their
environment. They continue making newer discoveries about the working ways of the world
(Carey et al., 2015). The cognitive development of the children of this stage occurs relatively
for a shorter period of time but are also seen to be involving a great deal of growth making
them learn to perform physical actions like crawling and walking and also about language
because of their interaction with other people. They start believing that things continue to
exist even when they cannot be seen or not. They think themselves to be separate beings from
the people and objects around them and start believing that their actions can cause impacts to
happen in the environment around them (Flensborg-Madsen & Mortenson, 2015).
Psychosocial development:
In order to analyse the psychosocial development of infants, Erikson’s theory of
psychosocial development can be referred. The author was of the opinion that personality

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actually is built up in a series of multiple stages based on the principle that impact of social
experience shapes the personality across the whole lifespan. In each of the stage, Eriksson
was of the opinion that these conflicts are centred on development of a psychological quality
or the complete failure to develop that specific quality. At every of the stages, the potential
for personal growth is high but their potential to lose also remains high. Studies have found
that if individuals successfully deal with the conflicts, they might come out from the stage
with psychological strength that serve them well for rest of their lives and if they fail, they
may not develop the skill needed for a strong self (Chung, 2018). The stage called “Trust and
Mistrust” is associated with infants. Infants are found to be utterly dependent and
development of trust can be seen to be based on the dependability as well as the quality
exhibited by the caregivers. In such stage, child depends entirely in his caregiver for
surviving starting from food, safety, love, nurturing and warmth. In such scenarios, the
caregiver fails in providing adequate care and love, children feel that she or he cannot trust
the adults in his or her life. If the child in this stage develops trust successfully, he or she
would start feeling secure and safe in the world. Studies have found that caregivers who are
inconsistent or rejecting of emotionally unavailable participate in contributing feelings of
mistrust in the infants. It has been found that failure in developing trusts ultimately results in
developing fear and unpredictability (Fraser & Rosina, 2017). When infants are treated
cruelly or that when the needs of the infants are not met in an appropriate manner, they would
likely to grow with senses of mistrust for people and even for the worlds.
Psychosexual development:
Freud had proposed the psychosexual development theory that talks about the
psychosexual phases when children ultimately move through childhood and develop adult
personality. Freud was of the opinion that personality mainly developed with the help of as
series of childhood stages when the pleasure seeking energies of the id become focused on

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certain erogenous areas. This is mainly characterised as the area of the body, which is mainly
sensitive towards stimulation. To discuss the stage of infancy, the oral stage needs to be
referred which accounts for the time from birth to 1 year. Here the erogenous zone is the
mouth (Slentz et al., 2017). During this phase, the primary source of interaction of the infant
occurs through the mouth and hence the rooting as well as the sucking reflex is essentially
significant. Studies have found that mouth is the vital part for eating and the infants are also
found to derive pleasures from that of oral stimulation through the various gratifying
activities like tasting and sucking. Many of the studies opine that infants are since dependent
on caregivers who feed them, they develop a sense of trust as well as comfort from that of
oral stimulation (Wallerstein et al., 2018). The main conflict found in this stage is called the
weaning process when the children must become less dependent on caregivers. The
psychologist was of the opinion that if fixation occurs in this phase, the infant might develop
issues with dependency as well as aggression. Oral fixation in this stage can also lead to
problems with smoking, drinking, eating, or nail biting
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it can be found that the developmental stage of infancy
tales up to 1 year of age where children need to achieve the developmental milestones to
exhibit proper growth. Healthcare professionals, parents, caregivers and family members
need to be well aware of the cognitive, psychosocial and psychosexual developments so that
they can exhibit their best sides helping the children to develop successfully and in a positive
manner.

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References:
Adamson, L. B. (2018). Communication development during infancy. Routledge.
Aslin, R. Ν. (2017). Development of smooth pursuit in human infants. In Eye movements (pp.
31-51). Routledge.
Carey, S., Zaitchik, D., & Bascandziev, I. (2015). Theories of development: In dialog with
Jean Piaget. Developmental Review, 38, 36-54.
Chung, D. (2018). The Eight Stages of Psychosocial Protective Development: Developmental
Psychology. Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science, 8(06), 369.
Flensborg-Madsen, T., & Mortensen, E. L. (2015). Infant developmental milestones and adult
intelligence: A 34-year follow-up. Early human development, 91(7), 393-400.
Fraser, J., & Rosina, R. (2017). Psychosocial development and response to illness. Paediatric
Nursing in Australia: Principles for Practice, 55.
Kenny, D. T. (2018). Bringing up baby: The psychoanalytic infant comes of age. Routledge.
Slentz, K. (2017). Early childhood development and its variations. Routledge.
Wallerstein, R. S. (2018). On transference love: revisiting Freud. In On Freud's"
Observations On Transference-Love"(pp. 57-74). Routledge.