Theoretical Blog Assignment

Natalie Ramsey

Theoretical Blog

           Chapter 6 on Infancy seeks to explain/describe the different theories of infant development. One of the leading theorist, Erik Erickson identifies the stage of infancy as trust vs mistrust. His research suggest that children who are nurtured, given care and interacted with will learn to trust and will develop confidence, security, optimism and other attributes of a well-developed human being.  Whereas, infants whose needs are not met, will experience insecurity, worthlessness, and general mistrust in the world. 

           A contrasting theory by Jean Piaget describes how infancy cognitive development takes place. His infancy stage is a sensorimotor stage that lasts from birth to age two. In this stage language and thought are develop. In essence, this stage where an infant starts to develop their five senses and become aware of the world around them.
Considering these two theories one might speculate that Erikson suggest that the emotion development whereas Piaget theories are on how infants brains develop. Both of these theories describe fundamental development of infants and one cannot be said to be more important than the other.  This is foundational to the development of the other stages of growth. If the affects of these vital developmental stages do not take place, theoretically, all other stages remain in jeopardy.

           In cases where children do not receive the emotional development they need, they can show signs of nonorganic failure to thrive, where there is no underlining medical condition. Cases of nonorganic failure to thrive usually have been attributed to emotional deprivation (Ashford & LeCroy, p.274).  In the brain research that has been conducted, it has been shown that an infant’s neurons will double in size by the time he/she is two years of age (Nowakowski R.S.).

 

Reference:

Ashford, J., & LeCroy, C. (2013). Human behavior in the social environment: A multidimensional perspective (5th ed.). Australia: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

Nowakowski R.S. Stable neurons numbers from cradle to grave. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.2006;103(33):12219-12220