PLAY: Infants and Toddlers

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PLAY Infants and Toddlers
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Physical 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.

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CHARACTERISTICS 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).

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Variations 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

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What 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.

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Play 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).

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Toddlers 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.

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Adult 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.

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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT INFANCY TODDLERHOOD
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Cognitive 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.

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Cognitive 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

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Play 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.

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Language 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.

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Theories 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.

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Language 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.

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Language 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

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Social 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.

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Play 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.