Infant/Toddler Childhood Portfolio

Infant/Toddler Childhood Portfolio

Nauras Faiyazuddin
Louisiana State University
INFANT/TODDLER
CHILDHOOD PORTFOLIO
10/21/2020
CHAPTER 5
 Child Profile for Physical Development:
The child’s that I observed is named Adam
Elkhanoufi. Adam is 5 months old and his parents live
in the suburbs. The child has both parents and is in
good contact with both of his grandparents.
INTRODUCTION Socially/economically the child lives in a middle-
class household. The home is peaceful, quaint, and he
has an older brother that is 5 years older than him. At
home and at school, English is the first language
spoken as English is Adam’s native language.
 PHYSICAL
DEVELOPMENT
Physical development refers to the current and
ongoing skills and abilities a child learns in order to
control their bodies. It is one of the main domains of
infant and toddler development and relates to the
growth and skill development of the body. This
includes the brain, muscles, and senses.
 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT:
BODY GROWTH
Adam will be undergoing many major changes in body size. His height will
be 50% greater than at birth and increase as he ages exponentially. The birth
weight will double, and Adam will grow his body size in little spurts. This
muscle to fat makeup can be noticed through the weight gained through the
spurts. These growth spurts will have Adam more irritable and hungrier. His
body proportions will all grow at different rates. For example, the
“cephalocaudal trend” is where Adam’s head will grow more quickly than
his lower body. Later in the second wave of body proportions changing, his
center will grow outward following the “proximodistal trend.” There are
however variations in the rate of physical growth that will occur to Adam
over the first two years. Because Adam is a boy, he will be taller and heavier
than a female. He may have a different rate of physical growth and make a
faster progress towards developing a mature body.

Artifact 1: cephalocaudal
trend
 Physically Adam’s growth will depend on hereditary factors,
nutritional factors, and parental affection. His hereditary status is
important to his physical growth because his height and weight are
PHYSICAL determined by it. His genetic makeup will affect his body weight and
determine how his weight will be as he grows up. His nutrition plays a
DEVELOPMENT very important role in his growth. Because Adam’s brain is growing so
rapidly, his infant energy needs are twice those of an adult. Adam will
: INFLUENCES need to be fed appropriately for his organs to develop and function
properly. Nutritionally he needs the correct balance of fat and protein
ON PHYSICAL and either needs to be breast fed or given infimal. Avoid giving Adam
food that is loaded with sugar, salt, and saturated fats or it can cause
GROWTH childhood obesity to form. Although these two domains are important
in Adam’s physical growth, a parent who does not actively love and
care for their child can stunt their child’s physical growth. Not being
attentive, watching for changes, or not feeding the child well can lead
to malnutrition and neglect. Parents need to be loving and watchful of
Adam or his development can suffer.
 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT:
LEARNING CAPACITIES
Adam came into this world with built in learning capacities. The more Adam
experiences the more he will profit from them. Adam is capable of 2 forms of
learning. The first form of learning is classical conditioning. This condition
occurs once Adam’s nervous system makes the connection between the 2
stimuli and is then able to produce the behavior by himself. This is valued
because it helps Adam recognize events that occur together in the world and
be able to anticipate what is going to happen next. The second form of
learning is operant conditioning. It occurs when Adam can act and operate on
the environment by following his behavior change the probability that the
behavior will occur again. The value of this is that Adam will be able to learn
about positive and negative reinforcers and the occurrence of a response
called punishment. For example, if Adam drinks sour tasting milk it punishes
his sucking response and causes him to purse his lips and stop sucking.

Artifact 2: classical vs operant

conditioning
 Generally Adam will develop his motor skills and learn to have
control over his actions for him to get around in his
PHYSICAL environment. He will learn to crawl, stand, and walk and even
learn finer motor skills like reaching and grasping. This course
DEVELOPMENT of development will start at having control of his head and upper
chest, then get on all fours to reach and combine into crawling
: MOTOR that will lead to walking. Some factor that will influence this
development is his physical environment. For example if Adam
DEVELOPMEN grows up near stairs, he will be able to challenge his motor skills
and advance them. Cultural influences also playa big factor in
T early movement because Japanese mothers believe motor
development is unnecessary while mothers in Kenya increase
rapid movement.
 During Adam’s infancy he will experiences many changes. Hearing
wise he will display a sense of musical phrasing and distinguish
musical tunes. He will be able to become familiar with songs and
recognize melodies when even played at different keys. Adam will
PHYSICAL also be able to judge the distance of objects from one another and from
himself through depth perception. Adam may seem small and
DEVELOPMENT unbothered as an infant but even he will prefer looking at patterns that
are more complex. For example, he will be able to tell the difference
: PERCEPTUAL in the amount of light between patterns through “contrast sensitivity.”
Even in Adam’s first week of life he will be able to understand “size
DEVELOPMEN constancy” and look at larger objects. He will develop active “shape
constancy,” even before his motor skills! Even as an infant Adam’s
T world is rich and filled with intermodal perceptions. Adam will
naturally turn towards the direction of sound as an infant and perceive
it. He will receive input from different sensory systems that will peak
his hearing, vison, and touch. Intermodal sensitivity is crucial for
Adam’s perceptual development.
 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Materials in the Environment:
In the observation the material that was used in this domain was
a reading book. The teacher was propping it on her knee while
the children were sitting and listening. Some of the children
wanted a closer view so they wobbled up to scooch up closer
and if that didn’t work, they would stand up and hover near the
book. The children were inclined to use their physical motor
skills to lean forward, move, and reach for the story book. The
other material that was used in this domain was an infant gym
that the children could play and stretch their bodies in. The
children can use this gym to help increase their standing skills
and grow out of their crawling skills in order to establish balance
completely.

Artifact 3: infant gym

 Parent Recommendation (s):

PHYSICAL
DEVELOPMEN
T
NAEYC suggests that parents should be carful not to limit
physical development because for example “when children
begin to crawl or walk, they gain new possibilities for
exploring the world, and their mobility affects both their
cognitive development and sense of autonomy” (Copple,
2009, p. 11).
 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Theorist: Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov studied classical conditioning and this learning refers to
involuntary responses that result from the experiences that occur
before a response. Classical conditioning occurs when you learn to
associate two different stimuli. This theorist connects to this domain
because in “learning capacities,” the section describes how the first
form of learning is classical conditioning that a child learns. This
condition can occur for an infant once their nervous system makes
the connection between the 2 stimuli and is then able to produce the
behavior by themselves. Pavlov’s theory is a learning capacity that
children learn at infancy and helps with their overall physical
development.
CHAPTER 6
 Child Profile for Physical Development:
The child’s that I observed is named Adam
Elkhanoufi. Adam is 14 months old now and his
parents live in the suburbs. The child has both parents
and is in good contact with both of his grandparents.
INTRODUCTION Socially/economically the child lives in a middle-
class household. The home is peaceful, quaint, and he
has an older brother that is 5 years older than him. At
home and at school, English is the first language
spoken as English is Adam’s native language.
 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Cognitive Development refers to the

student’s understanding of concepts and the
ability to think and reason. Language and
information processing influences cognitive
abilities.
 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: PIAGET’S
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL
Adam is a busy, motivated, explorer whose thinking
develops as they act directly on the environment. His
mind will be able to form and modify psychological
structures, so they achieve a better fit with external
reality. Piaget’s sensorimotor stage will span Adam’s
first 2 years of life. Adam will be thinking with his
eyes, ears, hands, and other equipment. He will be able
to make sense of his experiences at an early age
through a process called schemes. He will be going
through changes that mark the transitions from
sensorimotor to soon preoperational thought
processing.

Artifact 4: sensorimotor stage

 Adam is an active, incurring being and can focus on many
aspects of thinking. Information processing will help aid Adam
in tasks and or problems he may undergo. Information will first
COGNITIVE enter Adam through the “sensory register” where sights and
sounds are represented directly and stored briefly. Then in the
DEVELOPMENT second part of Adam’s mind, the “short-term memory store,” we
: retain attended-to information briefly so we can actively “work”
on it to reach our goals. Finally he can take that information and
INFORMATION turn it into “working memory,” which is the number of items
that can be briefly held in mind while also engaging in some
PROCESSING effort to monitor or manipulate those items.
 Adam, although young, can figure out important
properties of language on his own. Adam has a
language acquisition device, an innate system that
COGNITIVE contains a universal grammar, or set of rules common
to all languages. It enables Adam, to no matter which
DEVELOPMENT: language he hears, to understand and speak in a rule-
LANGUAGE oriented fashion as soon as he picks up enough words.
There is a specific biological based timeframe for
DEVELOPMENT optimum language development and Adam cannot
miss that sensitive period.
 COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Materials in the environment:
The material that was used in the observation
was a song that was sung, and a spray bottle
was sprayed at certain time periods. The
teacher was enhancing the sensory experiences
a child must hone and develop cognitively,
hence why she used such materials in the
observation. Spraying the water would touch
on enhancing the sensorimotor stage that is
talked about in Piaget’s theory.

Artifact 5: spray bottle used in observation

 Parent recommendation (s):

NAEYC suggests that parents should understand

that cognitively a child’s “language development COGNITIVE
influences their ability to participate in social
interaction with adults and other children,” and in DEVELOPMENT
turn influences other domains (Copple, 2009,p. 11).
 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests that

children move through stages of mental development.
His theory focused on understanding how intelligence
works and how it directly ties back to how children learn.
The four stages are sensorimotor, preoperational,
concrete operational, and formal. This theory connect
Theorist: Jean Piaget directly to this domain because the first section “Piaget’s
Cognitive Developmental,” focuses directly on this
theorist. Piaget believed that children take an active role
in the learning process and can make observations in
order to learn about the world. This accommodation of
new information I what is picked up early in a child’s
infancy.

Artifact 6: Piaget’s stages of development

 CONCLUSION:

In summary both domains physical development and cognitive development are

important factors in a child developmental process. These developmental domains pay
extra attention to the infancy/toddler stage that a child grows up in because it is the
optimal time for a child to learn these important skills and actions. Early childhood
depends on these domains as providing the foundation of successful growth and
development in a child. Each domain addresses important functions a child should do
and undergo in order to move onto the next developmental stage in their life.
 Berk, Laura E. (2016). Infants and children : prenatal through
middle childhood. Boston :Pearson,
REFERENCE
PAGE Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (Eds.) (2009). Developmentally
appropriate practice in early childhood programs: Serving
children from birth through age 8. Washington, DC: NAEYC.