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UH6311003 FACULTY OF COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY

GROUP REPORT

SUBJECT: PT10103 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

TOPIC: COGNITIVE AND DEVELOPMENT OF INFANTS

AND TODDLERS
NAME: 1. FARAH BINTI MOHD MAHADZIR
[BP23110379]
2. NUR SAJIDA BINTI MOHAMAD NIZAM
[BP23110377]
3. AINI HUSNA BINTI MOHD BAJURI
[BP23110071]
GROUP: GROUP 2

DATE AND 4th DECEMBER 2023

DAY:

CONTENTS:

NO. CONTENT PAGE

1. Introduction 3

2. Personal Stories of Infants and Toddlers Development 4-6

3. Hypothesis based on Infants and Toddlers Development 6

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4. Research Method 7-9

5. References 10

INTRODUCTION:

The topic we will choose is developmental psychology, with a focus on physical,

cognitive, and motor development from neonates to children aged 12 years. Our group
selected this topic for two reasons. First, through studying children, we can gain an
understanding of the environmental elements that impact a child's physical, emotional, and
psychological development. A parent's attitude toward education, for instance, may have an
impact on how well their child does in school. The second reason is that we want to become
future parents who are more perceptive and aware of kid development, thus we are

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interested in learning about and comprehending infancy and childhood development. Good
early childhood development has been repeatedly linked to improved long-term health
outcomes for children as well as increased opportunities, academic success, and economic
potential.

This can be seen through my own experience where one of my cousins, Marlina.
Marlina is now a mother of 3 children. During the period of her children growing up, she
used to be a strict and fierce type of mother to her children, especially towards her second
child, Darwish. The obvious problem that she had with her second child is when Darwish still
cannot score in studies, have no motivation in studies and always disturbed all his friends at
school. The teacher said that he can speak well like a normal child but slow in writing and
learning. Then, the teacher suggests to refer Darwish to a doctor that expert in this child
development. The result turns out state that Darwish one of the children who slow learner
diagnosed. Since that day, Marlina start to frequently talk to Darwish and answer any
questions her son asked just to not make Darwish feel left out and always praise her son in
each little thing he do just to make sure Darwish happy and excited in learning new things.
Marlina not even realized this issue before due to her busy schedule and divorce cases that
she dealing with her ex-husband really affects her life as a single mother.

Furthermore, there are so many current world phenomena happened in Malaysia.

For instance, stunted growth. Health Ministry issued a statement where nearly 30% of kids
in Malaysia have stunted growth due to unhealthy diet (Lee et al., 2023). According to
ministry’s data from last five years, 29.7% of children zero to four years old are currently
suffering from stunted growth said Deputy Health Minister Lukanisman Awang Sauni.
Moreover, the highest ratio of children suffering stunted growth are from Kelantan and
Putrajaya (Lee et al., 2023). This proves that this issue was not limited to those in the B40 or
T20 groups. Frankly, the rising cost of living over the past few years causing those with lower
incomes tend to go cheaper and plentiful such as sausages and nuggets. I believe that they
know that kind of food is less nutritional but due to their limited financial resources, they
have to buy and eat to survive. Meanwhile, the T20 group which is more career focused
have little time to cook at home. The easiest way for them is to eat fast food especially for
breakfast. Therefore, their children are like to eat fast food more than healthy food. This is a
huge contributor to stunted growth and children suffering from stunted growth are more at

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risk of developing disease like obesity. The future productivity of the country will be affected
due to the productivity capacity of obese children when they reach adulthood.

PERSONAL STORIES:

Based on my personal experience, when I first got my nephew, I took care of

him because my sister-in-law was still recovering from giving birth and we all wanted her to
have more time to relax. For the first two weeks of the baby's life, he slept all day and only
opened his eyes to get milk. From this, I learned that babies require a lot of sleep and need
to eat every three hours (Mahmood Nazar,1992). Then I noticed that every time I put my
finger on his palm, he always grips back my finger. This shows physical development during
babies which is reflex in babies and known as grasping reflex. My nephew also will turn his
head, open his mouth and try to grab my hand when I wipe his mouth, which is a rooting
reflex because he is searching for nipple. I still remember one time where my nephew
showed me a Moro reflex where he cried and fling his arms outward and then brought them
together on his chest as if holding something because of loud banging outside from my
house. Reflexes are a collection of innate (present from birth) behavioural tendencies. This
response aids in the survival of new-borns and assesses the health of their neurological
system (Ciccarelli &White,2017, p.362). All these reflexes I experience while taking care of
my nephew are related to cognitive development in infants where this shows that my
nephew's reflexes are signs of normal functioning.

Another experience with children age between two until seven years old is when I
am being a teacher at a kindergarten. This place also provide nursery for children from age
of infants until children six years old. I have experienced for one months in nursery section
while another three months of being a teacher for children age four until six years old kids.
Usually early morning my job is to welcome each one of the children, take them from their
own parents and bring them into the nursery house or in kindergarten. I realised the
response of each children are different like some of the children will starting to cry. In this
situation, we can see of how the autonomy versus shame and doubt of Erikson’s theory
work. Then, we can notice of how some of the toddlers understand that they can control
their own action. Also, attachment and social bonding happen where some of them will
happily greet me and walking themselves into the nursery house or kindergarten while
saying “bye” to their parents. These events expose of how children experiences shape their

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emotional understanding. Other than that, I did saw most of the children at the age of two
until three years old starting to climb the gate of the nursery house door when the
babysitter not holding them or warning them to not doing it. Not only that, some of the
toddlers would prefer to do few things by themselves like wash their own hands
themselves. This behaviour can be including by how the toddlers build their own self-
esteem. Next experience is when I being a teacher towards 5 to 6 years old toddlers, I found
that most of them keep on asking so many questions regarding of whatever they saw. This
situation also can relate of Erikson’s theory which is initiate versus guilt phase where
toddlers start to compete with each other. Example situation, there is a toddler who always
active in the class usually have the urge to ask all his classmates marks first and some of
them also start compare with each other about their marks.

At the age of 2 to 7 years old, toddlers have that “egocentrism” which they only can
see the world through their own eyes and no other people. This “egocentrism” can be seen
when I tell them a story of a situation and asked them to tell me what they might feel if they
are in the situation that I explained about. Then, all of the toddlers gave me different
answer at one time which shows on how they only gave their answer based on their point of
view and thought that everyone sees and have the same thought as how they did. This
“egocentrism” usually will start to disappear when the toddlers at early age of 7 years old. In
addition, this “egocentrism” phase is based from Jean Piaget theory. Other than that,
toddler at this age are actively practising their gross and fine motor skill by walking, running,
colouring picture in book using pencil colour, practising write alphabet, learning to write
word by words and make it into sentence.

Another experienced that I had is when I take care and watching my youngest brother

growing up from seven to 12 years old, as a sister I can tell that when he is six to nine

years old, he likes to draw so much. He draws things he adores like motorcycle and

he create various type of motorcycles using his imagination. According to Jean

Piaget, children actively build their knowledge to understand their environment and

environment does not shape children’s cognitive (Perkembangan Fizikal Dan Kognitif

Kanak-kanak, n.d.) . This situation occurs through various processes of exploration,

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 manipulation and evaluation of the physical environment. Piaget introduced 4 main

concepts which is schema, assimilation, accommodation and equilibrium. Apart from

that, his physical development grows much better and increased his self-confidence.

I can see him become braver as he performs singing and dancing at an event in his

school. The development of friendship also grows much better and he got a lot of

friends. As kid nowadays are exposed to rapidly developing technology, their ways to

bond with friends are by playing games together through online video games.

Moreover, my brother loves to ride a bicycle when he was seven to 12 years old. In

the evening he will ride bicycle around my backyard house and sometimes we will

ride together and go to the grocery store to buy ice cream. At this stage, the child’s

motor development is better and shows better coordination.

HYPOTHESIS:

Infants that exposed to a variety of sensory stimuli during the first year of life will
demonstrate more efficient cognitive processing, as reflected in their ability to focus
attention, explore their environment, and exhibit curiosity toward novel stimuli.

Emotional regulation skills in childhood are associated with healthy emotional

development and psychological health. Effective emotion regulation and management in
children helps them cope with stress, build healthy relationships, and navigate social
settings, all of which are important for their overall emotional wellbeing.

Another hypothesis about the development of motor skills is that early exposure to a
variety of physical activities corresponds positively with the growth of fine and gross motor
abilities, which in turn improves coordination and motor abilities in later life.

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RESEARCH METHOD:

REASON CHOOSE METHOD

Research method that we choose is naturalistic observation where we observe the

children based on our surroundings and experiences. We believe this method allows us to
look closer of how the development and how the first months till 12 years old children react
towards their environment, peers and caregiver. The reason we choose this method,
because we have many videos of the growth of infant and children from our own experience
and we also saw most of the development process can be relate with all the videos that we
have. Next, theory of child development by Jean Piaget which he uses observation method
influence us to also do the same. However, this method cannot get in one day and one night
only but it took years to truly observe but we manage to use this method by taking care of
our own siblings, nephew, cousins, and be a teacher of kindergarten.

POPULATION AND SAMPLE

Sample is a smaller set of data that a researcher chooses or selects from a larger
population using a pre-defined selection bias method (Fleetwood, 2023).The population and
sample for our title which is physical, cognitive and motor development. It depends on the
specific research question and objectives. For instance, a systematic review on the effects of
physical activity on motor skills and cognitive development in early childhood focused on
healthy preschool children with a mean age between 4 and 6 years. In our study, we used
infants and children as our population and the samples are baby from zero to one years old,
children two to six years old and children seven to twelve years old.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS METHODE NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION

STRENGHTS

This approach is appropriate as we are working with infants and young children, who
can require a lot of time to recover and are not appropriate for use in a laboratory. Since
young children and babies might not be able to communicate verbally, observation

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techniques let us see how they behave, express themselves, and interact with one another,
giving us a better understanding of their mental and emotional states. Naturalistic
observation is a non-experimental method, you’re not bound to strict procedures (Bhandari,
2023).

Examining children's genuine colours, or their naturalness, is the most crucial aspect
of studying them. One benefit of this approach is that it lets researchers see children in their
natural settings like homes, schools, or playgrounds where they can engage in spontaneous
interactions and behaviours without interfering with their daily routine. This is a result of
kids' natural behaviour in familiar settings. The best way to look at the behaviour of animals
or people is to watch them behave in their normal environment (Ciccarelli & White, 2017,
p.63)

As we all know, children and infants change rapidly as they mature. Observations
made over an extended period of time offer a thorough grasp of how behaviours change
and develop. This approach works effectively for documenting emerging cognitive abilities,
social interaction modifications, and developmental milestones.

WEAKNESS

Even though observation is a useful research approach, it has drawbacks and

limitations when used, particularly when studying new-borns and young children. When we
observe the subject, they can change their behaviour because they are aware, they are
observing. Therefore, this is one of the weaknesses of naturalistic methods where the
sample does not show their true behaviour. Their behaviours to act in more socially
desirable ways to confirm your expectations, or the perception of high or low expectations
may cause a Pygmalion effect (Bhandari, 2023).

One of most famous disadvantages for this method is that observer bias. This can
occur because it can also be particularly difficult to analyse the behaviour of new-borns and
young children since actions can have more than one meaning, and researchers may force
their own views on the subjects such as the researchers have the idea of reflex in infants
therefore they can be bias to always focus only in reflex. That happened when persons
doing the observing has a particular opinion about what he or she expect to see (Ciccarelli &
White, 2017, p.63).

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Can add in summary

In summary, the observation method is well-suited for studying infants and children
because it allows researchers to capture the richness of their behaviours in natural settings,
respects ethical considerations, and provides a holistic understanding of development. It
complements other research methods and contributes valuable insights to our
understanding of child development.

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REFERENCE:

Ciccarelli, S., & White, J. N. (2017). Psychology, Global Edition.

Azura, S., Kamsani, S. R., Shaari, A., Orcullo, D. J. C., Saad, Z. M., Ishak, N. A., Musa, M.

M., & Ibrahim, N. (2018). Pengantar psikologi (UUM Press). UUM Press.

Bhandari, P. (2023, June 22). Naturalistic Observation | Definition, Guide & Examples.

Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/naturalistic-observation/

Syaza Yasmin bt Ismail (2008, Mac 27). Perkembangan Fizikal Dan Kognitif Kanak-kanak
Peringkat Umur 6-12 Tahun. Scribbr.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/4853347/Perkembangan-Fizikal-dan-Kognitif-Kanak-
kanak
Fleetwood, D. (2023, October 12). Sample: Definition, Types, Formula & Examples.
QuestionPro. https://www.questionpro.com/blog/sample/
Lee, B., Carvalho, M., Vethasalam, R., & Ibrahim, J. (2023, November 1). Nearly 30% of
kids in Malaysia have stunted growth due to unhealthy diet, says Health Ministry. The

Star. Nearly 30% of kids in M'sia have stunted growth due to unhealthy diet, says Health
Ministry | The Star

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