Child Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Child Development - Essay Example For the realization of an optimal development, the cognitive, social, emotional, and language development of children needs to be well understood. There was the need to establish an in-depth understanding towards the development of a child cutting across cognitive, emotional, social and language development. This paper explores a case study of Kevin’s development explaining the areas where Kevin achieves the developmental steps every day. This case study will refer to Kevin as the main subject of the paper in order to maintain confidentiality. Kevin is 9 months years old and resides with his mother and father, in their home, in the country. He was born in UK. His father is an African where as his mother is an Arab. Kevin’s parents have full time employment. They not only speak English as a second language but also French and Arabic. Kevin lives with his parents, two older brothers of ages eight and six years old, and a sister who is nine years old. They also have neighb ors who do not speak English as their first language. Kevin has toys that he likes to play with them. He also likes to eat biscuits. Kevin does not like a separation from the mother and finds it difficult to adjust to his mother’s attempts to live him in the kitchen alone. In this study, Kevin’s observation shall take place in their quiet home environment. This observation would be carried out in different stages. First, Kevin shall be observed with his mother in the kitchen. The second observation will be done in the presence of Kevin’s brothers and sister. Cognitive development. According to the cognitive development observation (Appendix A) Kevin could be able to repeat actions intentionally so as to trigger environmental responses. For instance, Kevin moved his legs and smiled when his mother showed him his milk bottle. In this case, Kevin was confidence to identify his milk bottle. In this case, Kevin demonstrated figurative intelligence by perceiving his m ilk bottle. Figurative intelligence involves a static intelligence aspect which involves the representations that are used to retain the state of mind. Like for the case of Kevin, figurative intelligence involved the mental imagery, and perception of the milk bottle. When his mother shows him his milk bottle a mental picture is created in his mind thus making him perceive the milk bottle. When he identifies the shape of his milk bottle and smiles he shows that he obtained intervened transformation in his mind. Piaget (2001, p .7) points out that the figurative intelligence aspects obtain their meaning from the operative intelligence aspects. Operative intelligence in this case involves covert or overt actions that are undertaken so as to anticipate objects transformation for the interest of a child. In addition to this, Kevin identification of his milk bottle was a representative aspect of intelligence development. This was also a clear indication of assimilation of new ideas. Piage t (2001, p.8) argues out that assimilation occurs in children when they come across unfamiliar ideas and refers to the information learnt previously so as to make sense out of it. When Kevin saw his milk bottle, he remembered using it some other time hence making sense of it. To recognize the milk bottle, Kevin focused on the objects contours, recognize the size of the object, thus developing mental schema of the milk bottle thus operative intelligence. This was evidenced when he looked at the milk bottle and smiled, showing out that he had gained enough object performance, and, therefore, reaction coordination. This was also an indication of a construction of knowledge that is new without the knowledge being poured into a child's head. During observation, when Kevin realized that his bottle was missing, his face changed,