Psychology

According to Vaughn (2009), the first year of a babys life is a very significant stage of development. The infancy stage of development is the shortest stage of all stages that a baby undergoes in the process of development. At this stage, the fetus must first adjust to the life outside its mothers womb. The development during this stage is mainly concerned with increase in control of the babys muscles and development of consciousness. The facial structures and the brain of an infant are the first things to develop followed by the ability to control the facial and head movements. Physical development at infancy starts from head and continues towards the tail. According to Logsdon (2009), the baby also portrays a proximodistal type of development whereby development starts from the central part of the body and continues outwards. Smaller muscles of the body also develop at this phase.

The development of the fine muscles allows the baby to perform easy movements with the hands and the feet. The muscles of the babys fingers develop and the baby can grasp objects. The baby portrays considerable bodily plays which indicate development of motor capability. Babies also develop ability to control the larger muscles of their body such as the legs, hands, and other body muscles. The neck muscles build up and the baby can turn his head from side to side (Logsdon, 2009). Various body senses also develop at this phase. By the end of about a month, the baby develops the sense of taste and smell. His eyes also start to focus although he can only see objects which are very close. The baby also starts responding to noise in his surroundings and tracks them with his eyes as he turns his head. The baby also recognizes her mothers voice from familiar voices. By the end of the third month, he can recognize various human faces. At about the eighth month, the baby develops the ability to distinguish emotional expressions. The baby first learns that crying is her way of communication. The baby also starts making sounds as a way of learning how to control his voice. This is usually accompanied by facial expressions and tongue movements. The baby starts moving every object heshe grasps into the mouth. This greatly helps in building up muscle harmonization that will be useful later in speech development (Vaughn, 2009).

Cognitive development is composed of mental activities such as learning, memory, reasoning, and symbolization. According to Piaget, infants are born without mental framework. Piaget claims that mental framework of an infant develops later as a result of the environment the baby is encountering. Piaget argued that infants do not have perception of self or things and they simply experience a wash of feelings (Huitt  Hummel, 2003). They only have elementary schemas for interacting with the rest of the world. That is to mean that they will only hold things that are placed on their hands, move their eyes to trace moving objects and suck things placed on their mouth as an assimilation schema. If the infant wants to modify the sucking schema generated by sucking on a pacifier, then that would be referred to as an accommodation schema (Huitt  Hummel, 2003).

Later on, the infant develops a more advanced perception of the intricate world. As a result, a more comprehensive and conceptual sense of the world and the place of the infant in that world develops within the infant. At the end of infancy, the baby will have developed a primitive understanding of things and actions as separately existing in time and space. For Piaget, the end result of infancy is the development of figurative capacity which allows the baby to realize the existence of an object even when the object has been removed. Piaget helps us to identify the four stages of cognitive development. These include sensory motor or the infancy stage which has got six sub stages. Intelligence is demonstrated through the use of motor activity while perception of the world is limited but developing. According to Huitt  Hummel (2003), there is increased physical development which allows the babys intellectual ability to begin developing. The second stage is the preoperational stage in which intelligence is demonstrated through the use of signs. Memory and imagination are developed as use of language matures. The third stage is the concrete operational stage whereby intellectual capacity is demonstrated through reasonable and organized manipulation of symbols related to tangible objects. The last stage is the formal operational stage in which the intelligence is portrayed through rational use of symbols related to theoretical ideas (Huitt  Hummel, 2003).

Oswalt (2007), states that infants begin to develop trust for others when they start recognizing the work done for them by their caretakers. Infants start crying to express feelings of hunger, pain, and anger. Creation of attachments with the caregivers is the most important aspect in the development of a healthy social life during infancy. The baby reflexes such as crying during infancy helps in drawing the attention of caregivers. During the pre-attachment phase, the babies are not yet emotionally involved to any one caregiver and will accept even the care provided by strangers. Babies however have an exceptional way of recognizing their mothers voice and smell from delivery. Babies may smile in response to voices and touch at about the age of two months. Increased interactions with their caregivers help to increase their psychological, expressive and social development (Oswalt, 2007).

With time, babies start acting differently to strangers in relation to their primary caregivers. At the age of about eight months, babies make gestures that are aimed at encouraging their care givers to increase their relation to them. At this age, babies have developed a solid attachment to their primary care givers and any form of separation creates unnecessary anxiety which may include crying for example when the father leaves. Babies start enjoying participation in certain social ritual practices like biding someone goodbye or saying hello. Babies also watch how their caregivers react to definite rituals like a hug or a tap on the door. By the second year, babies learn how to negotiate with their caretakers to meet their needs. Environmental and other individual factors can hinder social and expressive development. A very good example is the identification of the symptoms persistent developmental disorders such as autism. These children experience problems even in relating to other children. They are also not able to interpret the emotional expressions of other people. The other environmental factor that can affect the emotional development of a child is the withdrawal of consistent love and affection (Oswalt, 2007).