Title: PLAY: Infants and Toddlers
1PLAY Infants and Toddlers
2Physical and Motor Development
- Rapid in growth and development (2 yrs).
- Infants triple their weight in the first year
increase in length by 75. - Growth is rapid but irratic. Growth occurs in
spurts. - Growth can be described by two rules to
development Cephalocaudal and Proximodistal. - The first 2 years of life is marked by rapid
brain development.
3CHARACTERISTICS OF MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
- Gross Motor Skills
- --Lifting head
- --Rolls over
- --Sits propped up
- --Sits without support
- --Stands holding on
- --Crawling/Walking
- --Kicking/jumping
- Fine Motor Skills Abilities in grasping objects
(6 months). Clapping, Scribbling, Transferring
objects from hand to hand (2yrs).
4Variations in Physical/Motor Development in
Infancy
- Variations in physical development tend to be
related to gender, ethnicity, nutrition. - Girls tend to be slightly shorter
- African-Americans tend to be larger and more
advanced physically - Japanese infants tend to be smaller than
Americans
5What affects these variations in Physical
development
- Prenatal Nutrition/Neonatal Malnutrition
- Infants tend to be smaller/less developed
- Brain development impacted
- Infants born in institutions or low stimulation
environments show significant cognitive and
physical delays (in sitting-up walking). - Cultural Differences
- Western culture varies with Uganda Jamaician
cultures toward child holding and carrying
practices. - Non-western cultures tend to develop motor skills
faster.
6Play and Motor Development
- Infants are primarily sensorimotor and therefore
play is limited to sensory stimulation and
reflexes. - Manipulative Play. Initial play in which infant
plays with body (fingers/toes). Grasping
reflexes are prevalent in play as infants observe
interesting objects and inspect thru grasping,
oral exploration, banging. - Later part of infancy, infants develop greater
ability to sit up and take in more stimuli.
Also, greater control over motor skills (can not
move hands across body and greater hand/eye
coordination).
7Toddlers Experience an New Environment
- With growing ability to walk, experience a new
environment of stimulation. - Greater usage of toys with wheels for pushing or
pulling. - Greater usage of durable toys for punching or
toys with buttons to push and things to turn.
Basic puzzle themes are important.
8Adult Roles in Motor Play
- Adults facilitate motor growth/play by arranging
a stimulating environment. - Provide stimuli (colorful and variety of sounds).
- Encourage holding, mouthing, banging and
rattling. - Arrange toys where they are obtainable and
experimentable. - Ensure the variety of toys are childproof/safe.
- Arrange soft, sturdy objects so older infants can
experiment with standing and walking. - Provide tiny, soft food objects to facilitate use
of fingers and promote self-feeding by older
babies. - Use chairs, hassocks, or pushcarts to promote
walking. - Demonstrate to toddlers and assist them in
undressing skills.
9COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT INFANCY TODDLERHOOD
10Cognitive Development
- Piaget identified cognitive development as
sensorimotor (0-2yrs). - Knowledge development is a function of senses and
motor abilities to comprehend the world. - Development of object permanence.
- Cognitive development is fostered by environment,
nourishment, care, stimulation. - Positive and promoting environments stimulate
brain development (synaptic links) that last
throughout the 1st decade. - Unused synapses succumb to pruning.
11Cognitive Development
- Stimulating environment is essential while infant
is resilient (Infant plasticity). - When infants are not stimulated, there are
significant cognitive delays. - Neglect by parents
- Stressful living conditions
- Social deprivation
- Poverty
12Play and Cognitive Development
- 8 to 12 months
- Play evolves into Symbolic (Pretend) Play due to
the emergence of object permanence. - 18 to 24 months
- Play becomes more imaginative and planning is
reflected. - Piaget Described 3 stages of play
- Practice Play. Repetition of schemes (motor or
verbal). Babbling or singing for practice. - Symbolic Play. Toddlers use language to describe
the pretend action and demonstrate that the
pretending has been planned - Games with rules.
13Language Development
- Infants display sensitivity to language during
prenatal. - Within the 1st two years of life
- Infants and toddlers are capable of speaking with
a vocabulary ranging from 50 to 200 words.
14Theories of Language Development
- Behaviorist theory (B.F. Skinner) Language is
acquired through operant conditioning. Adults
reinforce accurate sounds toward language.
Imitation/modeling. - Nativist theory (Noam Chomsky) Children have a
biological predisposition to learning language.
Coined Language Acquisition Device (LAD). - Interactionist theory (Lev Vytgotsky) Language
is learned through socialization and interacting
with other people within family and community
context.
15Language Development
- Parentese
- Adults adjust their style of communication to fit
the infants stage of development. Implement
high pitch, shorter sentence structure, and
simpler vocabulary. - Holophrastic Speech
- A childs responsiveness (smiles, gestures, and
physical movements) and attempt to imitate the
sounds of their parents speech.
16Language Development Cont.
- During 2nd yr of life
- Children develop private speech and engages more
into pretend play. - Social play is enacted to enhance language
development. Parents also use telegraphic
speech, which is play through questions - What colour
- What colour blanket
- What colour mop
- What colour glass
17Social Emotional Development
- During the first 2 years
- Freud Oral stage development
- Erikson Trust/Mistrust Autonomy/Shame
- Mahler Children develop an awareness of self.
This awareness develops in two phases - Symbiosis (around 2 months)
- Egocentric child fuses awareness of self with
caregiver. - Separation-individuation (5 months)
- With increasing awareness of self, the infant
begins to explore beyond the relationship between
infant and mom.
18Play and Social Development
- According to Watson
- The game is not important to the infant because
people play it, but rather people important to
the infant because they play the game. - Peek-a-boo
- Patti-cake
- Attachment is fostered between parent/child when
there is positive interaction. - This translates into later competence development
among preschoolers.