Early Childhood Development for a Mentally Retarded Child
Early childhood development is a common stage in human life, which defers in individuals child pace brought about by his/her interaction with the environment. Several factors influence children emotional, cognitive and physical changes some posing challenges to children development. In order to gain insight into children’s behavioral, thinking and strategies a step by step careful observation of the changes are considered for investigation bearing in mind the ages and sex of the children (Swift, 2005).
Considering a 4-year-old child (still in early childhood), being is introduced to Brooklyn Flatbush day care with the conditions that he is mentally challenged.
Observations and explanation
- When he the teacher asks him of his name, he does not know or even remember after being taught. This shows that he is slow in behavioral first changes as compared to normal children first week of engagement with other children and the teacher.
- At this age, the boy should be experiencing rapid growth both mentally and physically but however due to the challenge he is slow as he faces difficulty in socializing for instance in his third month in Brooklyn when he is asked to go and play with other children, he runs and forcefully collect other children’s toys.
- On average, the estimated height and weight increase is stipulated at 2 to 3 inches and about 5 pounds of weight respectively every year but the challenged records sluggish growth as he grows at rate of 1.5 inch and 3 pounds of weight. Boys are always slightly muscular while girls retain some fats but due to the highest rate of height increase in respect to weight. The child grows slimmer, this a sign of the milestone transformation from infancy causing body differences which are pronounce in this stage, for instance a boy of the same age with the mentally challenged weighed less and had a less height than average. One evening when the teacher measured the height and weighed the boy 3 months after he join Brooklyn he was 10 pounds and 1.5 feets, which is an increase of 0.5 pounds and 0.5 inch.
- In the first week, the boy played around with several groups of children in the evening but spends most of his morning alone with his toys. During this eek the child is not selective of whom to play with as every different day the teacher observes that the boy plays with different gender groups unlike other children who are selective.
- On brainy tests, One evening when the boy is asked by the teacher on what he learn in class that evening the boy is not sure and keeps on bubbling unlike for his colleagues who clearly remember what they learn even in the morning lessons. The teacher asks him to beat one of his collegue and the boy directly goes to act but the teacher stops him. This shows that the child is not developing the sense of right and wrongs for example the creation of peer relation and gender identification. These are fundamental skills, which define the character of a child as they give, room for others perspectives and opinions. Children brought up in under good conditions have exhibited a faster mental development unlike the mentally pat abed child who is strained by the low IQ.
- The primordial limitations to social and emotional development of the infancy are overcome at early childhood stage ranging from (3-4 years) as the child starts the act of interaction with other members of the society. Social development is usually influenced by mundane and social setting at infancy for instance child engagement with his or her parents like playing with sister, brother mother, and father which forms the early training to basic socialization however the boy finds it difficult to socializes as he behaves as if to be in his own world. A time he plays alone and seemed to be annoyed with every person even the teacher.
- The boy does not show any cultural and gender roles identification even after he detaches from his parents, this is exhibited by the fact that the boy plays around with every person irrespective of age and gender. Through this interaction in his third month in Brooklyn the boy starts express emotional experiences mostly happiness.
- Motor development of a child depends mostly on training and feeding habits and food nutritional elements. For example, calcium and vitamin D, which have scientific, prove to help in born development to prevent bore legs (cricket) disorder the boy exhibits some malnutrition signs. This might have caused his slow motor capability as in the first week when he tries to run he keeps on falling down but he runs stably after the third week in Brooklyn. The boy also starts throwing and handiness late at the fourth week in brooklyn and up to the fourth year now he is at least developing. However, mental retardation and disabilities may affect the use of specific hands has a result of damages to specific brain hemispheres which is attached to prenatal difficulties which affect the infant’s brain. This disco-ordinate the brain systems and therefore impairs the functioning of the brain (Swift, 2005).
- Various vocabularies are learn as at the age of 3 years an average child as a 3000 words but the boy exhibits less communication capacity and difficulty in fluent speaking. The brain accommodates and understands majority of words than using them in communication.Generally, a mentally challenged infant undergoes normal stages of growth while exhibiting slowness inearly childhood, middle age and adolescent. Physical development involves the general body expansion and heightening. The is faced withdiseases causing illness and impairing eating habits thus resulting to malnutrition, reducing the possibility of resistance to diseases by the infant body, and his general health is in doubt.
- Mental development is of great interest as it determines the social and emotional growth as it is the essence of humanity and thus the education aspect. Education is the key factor in human development as it orients the child to a new environment using theoretical models and experiments, which is achieved through the socialization process among pupils and teachers.
- Mental development is affected by the overall social, cultural, in born and economic factors revolving around the geographical and political environment. Psychological perception has the general determination on growth and development as it influences other elements of early childhood development. Social and emotional advancements are because of mental development and perception based on interaction with the environment, which gives various feedbacks leading to different emotional expressions.
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OBSERVATION RECORD CHAT
A number of challenges are attributed to the difference in early childhood development observable in various children across the globe. Various factors facilitate and hinder early childhood development differently considering the variability of other environmental factors. Health factors are one of key factors determining the fate infant development as it hinders the mental and physical growth by weakening the victim. It is recommendable therefore that the nutritional and the cleanness of the infant should be paid attention so as to prevent malnutrition and diseases through provision of balanced diet and immunization against disease vectors.Parental care and brought up is of significant consideration as the parents especially the mother is every child’s first teacher thus determining the early fate of the child social understanding of the world. The conditions of living may hinder or mislead the child by pimping him or her with incorrect orientation and information about the world. The general growth and development environment should be harmonized to facilitate and create conducive atmosphere for growth and development.
In recent years the has been increased uniformity in growth of children due to improvement of health facilities and services and also the harmonization of various environmental factors for instance earlier there existed a gap in weight and height of about 2 pounds and half inch respectively between the economically advantaged and disadvantaged children (Swift, 2005).
The process of child development has been subjected to many environmental factors where some are controllable and others being beyond the control of human effort. The environment in which the child grows has a greater impact on the growth and development of the children. These environmental forces are therefore responsible for various growth and development changes in the life of children. Different forces have different impact on the health the growth and development of the children. These forces may include social factors, cultural factor as well as the economic conditions of the people raising the children. The physical environment may also have a lot of impact on the growth of the children across several stages because it influences the preparedness of the child to that physical location. This therefore calls for the analysis of all factors that relate to the growth of children to understand the whole process of child growth and development.
In the context of the social factors, the development of children is greatly affected by the changes in the social environment and how the society regards the whole issue of children in general. The social factors are therefore of great essence in the growth and development of the children. Some communities gives a lot attention to the growth of the issues pertaining to children, this therefore makes the growth of children gets enough consideration and focus. This attention of the society to the growth of children helps in shaping the lives of their children by ensuring that social order and peace prevails in order to take care of their children. The social environment has a great impact on the lives of many children because it will affect how they interact with the other children as well as parents in the society. The society consists of people of different sorts and behaviors and this makes the children adapt what they see, hear, or see from the society. The disciplinary actions taken by the teachers to correct such actions therefore affects the way in which children behaves it may be either positive or negative giving them the characteristics of the society. The effects on the growth of children is an issue that needs critical analysis because they affect the future lives of these children therefore should be taken good care of.
In the context of language development, children are subjected to various languages in the environment therefore affects their language development patterns and structure. This influences how the child pronounce words depending on their first language they are exposed to. The interaction between children from different families may be subjected to various languages therefore affects their language development especially when it comes to pronunciation of words. The parents influence the language development of a child in that their language is likely to be the first language of the child therefore goes a long way in influencing the speech of the child. The influence of the teachers also have an impact on the language of the young children since they spend most of their time in school, for instance in the case of Brooklyn School (Neugebauer, 2008). The children spend time with teachers from 6am to 6pm.The physical environment in school affects how the children develop their physical skills as they engage in the physical activities in order to develop physical fitness. The growth of the children is also affected by the economic conditions of their parents or the society. If the children have are raised in poor economic conditions, they are likely to face hard life conditions which may deny them access to various social amenities like quality food, health and safe as well a sufficient water for consumption. These will affect the growth of children in that they may be face conditions of depression due to the difficult conditions they face in their childhood. This may therefore have a negative influence on the growth of the children therefore affecting their development especially in respect to the emotional part of their lives. On the other hand, the children brought up under good care with regard to accessibility of the health facilities, other basic needs tend to be happy, and they end up being emotionally satisfied and help them grow happily without stress. The emotional effects on the life of the children at their early age will have a great impact on their normal life thereby affecting their growth and development in their day-to-day activities.
The growth and development of children is greatly influenced by the health and nutritional factors in the life of the child. The children who have no access to quality health may experience complications related to their growth due to various ailments, which inhibit their growth. This will affect the growth and development of the affected children. Children may be exposed to lack of nutritional food leading to malnutrition conditions, which affects them greatly leaving them malnourished. These conditions of malnutrition affect the way the children grow.The physical environment has a great impact on the development of children as well there as the influence on how they grow. This therefore needs to be addressed in order to take measures in which the children grow. The physical factors influence the growth of children, for instance, noise affects the children who are next to the noisy places, and this interrupts their studies leading to delays and low rates of concentration in their studies, which in turn leads to poor performance. The exposure to chronic noise in the long-term may affect cognitive development in children, which affects their long-term memory. The effect of noise always depends on the volume of noise. The noise may also affect the teachers in schools making them tired therefore may not be able to teach their children in a right manner decreasing the performance of children in the long run. Large noise may also lead to increase in blood pressure of the children as well as stress hormones leading to anxiety disorders.
The growth of children is also affected by the overcrowding and congestion of towns leading to psychological torture and depression. This results from the fact that parents does not respond to their children easily. The relationship between the children and the parents is reduced which in turn affects the performance of the children due to the stress inflicted on them. The overcrowding effect therefore makes the happiness low. The poor quality of housing also denies the people happiness (Neugebauer, 2008).
In conclusion, the research on child growth and development shows that there are various stages that children pass through in their development and growth. The strengths and weaknesses of the children are influenced by several factors, which dictate the way the children behave due to the changes of the environment.
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