The New Born Observation
Abstract
Infant growth moves from the general to the specific. This is an important facet of human development It rests upon the principle of generalized movement by the infant directed toward more specific actions and precision as time passes. This can be seen readily in the infant whose movements are random at first when attempting an act, then becoming more exact and deliberate, from flailing arms to more specific hand control and finally finger coordination as the infant tries to "pick up" from a flat surface; this represents neuro-muscular maturation, reaching first with an entire limb in an awkward manner and then concluding with natural, self devised restrictions imposed on the arms facilitating more finite hand/finger aptitude. Time and genes allow for this kind of growth; external interferences can do little under this organic sequence. This paper explores\d the different aspects of the growth and development of an infant such as physical and brain growth, , motor and perceptual development, cognitive and language and literacy development and social and emotional development
Growth and Development of Infants
Brain Growth
A baby is born with approximately 100,000,000,000 brain cells (Lamb: 2002). Long thin fibers called Synapses produce and join the brain cells at the age of five. This forms the neurological; base of trillions of links upon which a child assembles a lifetime of skills. The final number of synapses is largely determined by his or her earliest experiences. Brain development early in the baby’s life is incomparable. Their brain masters numerous skills so intensely in mind. The baby’s first few years learn vocabulary, math and logic skills which significantly affect their emotional stability.
Physical Growth
Physical growth is very fast during the infancy stage it is considered to have directionality as its general principle (Porges: 2002). Physical development continues to be cephalocaudally because of a child’s head to tail physical growth. The visual system of the child matures faster than the legs, his vision matures earlier than the baby’s locomotion, and they do also have controlled visual much earlier in life than they begin to walk. Then the child’s physical development proceeds to what the experts called proximodistally, here, the center of the body outward. During the third stage, mass to specific development occurs, from large muscle groups to fine muscles. While in the fourth stage of development, usually engages hierarchical integration, here, simple skills are enhance separately and then become more compound through shared integration.
Motor Development
Motor development is as remarkable as physical growth (Adolp: 1997). The infant’s capability to synchronize physical progress develops remarkably in the first 21/2 years. Activities seem unrestrained for the first few months, but coordination enhances swiftly subsequently. For instance a newborn baby still cannot roll over from the position in which his/ her mother placed, emerges the toddler who is progressively more skillful. Definitely, these stages of development always depends on the growth of the baby’s limbs and muscles, physically powerful and prepared to act in a corresponding fashion, it is just right to assume a instantaneous progress of neural control over muscle movement. The progress and coordination of motor development depend on both physical maturation and experience. There are two related neurological systems that controls motor activity and these are, pyramidal system, which controls the skilled movements of the child’s extremities and the extrapyramidal systems that controls the child’s posture and coordination.
Perceptual Development
Perception is composed of both experiencing and interpreting the world that an infant live in this is according to some philosophers, psychologists, physiologists and physicists (Aiken: 1996). The infant’s daily experiences increase his or her fascinating perceptual questions. Infants are responsive to binocular and kinetic information by 3 to 5 months of age except they may not be sensitive to static information until about 7 months of age. It is significant to point out, though, that infants younger than 3 months of age probably perceive depth.
Cognitive Development
Cognitive development of an infant can be described as both biological and social because they work harmoniously (Richardson: 1998). Therefore, the biological progress of growth and development is a continuous psychological development of a child. Since the human mind is considered to be a product of a developmental biological potential, it is also referred to as a given socio-cultural context. In this perspective, cognitive development is obtaining complex knowledge would not be possible if all humans did not share some a priori limitations that limits the range of learned knowledge.
Language and Literacy Development
Language is based on the accomplishments in the perceptual, cognitive and social growth of an infant, Infants first recognizes words during the 9th month, until 12 months on the average (Aslin et. Al.:1998). Comprehension follows during the 13th month, where an infant understands 50-words. For instance, a baby can understand his mother saying “yourecandyisonthetabledarling.” The child learns to separate the sound stream into individual word forms. The child must be able to decode at the same time as speech is heard. However, compound, theoretical, and formidable language is, the cognitively undeveloped child quickly becomes superficial in both understanding and speaking.
Social Development
The quality of infant-parent attachments is itself influenced by a variety of factors, of which the harmony of infant-parent interaction and the infant’s temperament has been most widely studied (Ainsworth: 2003). The newborn baby is characterized by marked, sudden, unpredictable changes in state and by poor coordination of movements. Behavior becomes more organized over time as internal neural control mechanisms develop. During the first 2 months, caregivers have a major impact on the baby's state of arousal. When babies are distressed, adults intervene to soothe them; even when babies are drowsy they become alert when held erect at the adult's shoulder. Doing so is obviously important, because infants can learn little about their environment—either social or physical—outside these periods of alertness. Relatively long periods of alertness simply do not occur spontaneously during this early phase: It is only through adult intervention that their value can be optimized. Practically, this means that when infants are alert and able to learn about the environment they are often in the arms of their caregivers. Because the caregivers who are close by can be felt, smelled, heard, and seen when infants are alert, babies may come to learn a great deal about them, and rapidly learn to associate their presence with alertness and the relief of distress
Emotional Development
Emotional development and temperamental individuality have been topics of compelling interest to students of infancy because they help shape the child's encounters with the social and object world (Lamb: 2002). Emotional reactions organize how a baby responds to events, and parents devote careful attention to these reactions in their efforts to manage, pacify, accentuate, or redirect them. Over the course of the first 2 years of life, changes in a child's emotional reactions demarcate important transitions in development that are meaningful to caregivers, whether they concern the first elicited smiles, the earliest indications of stranger wariness, or the emergence of nascent expressions of embarrassment. These emotional reactions are significant also because they are viewed by parents as indicators of an emerging individuality—as cues to what the child's behavioral style is like now and will be like in future years. Along with variations in activity level and other dimensions, individual differences in predominant mood, suitability, and emotional intensity define dimensions of temperamental individuality by which infants become behaviorally organized early in life, and by which parents increasingly characterize their children.
Observation of a Newborn and an Interview with the Mother
A newborn baby girl and her mother was observed and interviewed for this study. The baby girl is 2 months and 18 days already, her name is Twanyelle. Physically, Twanyelle is way ahead from other babies same as her age; this is according to her mother. Her weight and height gain is two times greater than other babies. Her limbs are stronger than any other two months old, she can actually lift her head and refuses to be carried lying down. Twanyelle can already control her vision; she is fond of looking at bright colors and can see objects 12 meters away from her.
According to her mother, during her pregnancy, Twanyelle is very active inside. She is constantly and very actively moving everyday. She started feeling movements during her 3rd month; usually other pregnant women feel these movements during the fourth month. The social and emotional development of Twanyelle is also rapid. She can now play with her parents and other members of the family. Her mother said that she can now shout and laugh whenever she is having fun talking and playing with her caregivers. Moreover, Twanyelle is already making sounds as her form of response to her caregivers while playing.
Her mother believes on the above explanations and theories about the growth and development of infants. She is a teacher and a psychology major that is why she is very knowledgeable about each stages of a child’s development. However, she believes that, each child have different phases of development. A mother should not be alarmed if her daughter’s speech is delayed than the son of her best friend. The physical development of a child is a very important factor in their growth and development.
Activities would Promote Growth and Development of the Newborn
Studies prove that the quality of child care have a great impact to the growth and development of the child. Infants have diverse personalities and temperaments, they develop at different rates (Ainsworth: 2003). Their self-esteem is an important aspect of their development, that is why parents and caregivers should give them constant praise and encouragement. The following points should be considered in order to help boost the development of a child:
- Communicate to your offspring what needs to be done at that moment.
- Redirect his or her attention or activity by using neutral or positive language.
- Say no while maintaining love.
- Explain the reason for your rule.
- Give limited tasks and be specific in your request.
- Acknowledge children's feelings, but set limits.
- Help them understand how their actions affect others.
- Help kids use words to communicate their frustrations.
- Acknowledge positive behavior.
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