Infant and Childhood Development Flashcards
What are some examples of unproblematic behaviour that can also be concerning?
A 2-year-old who is not distressed about separation from her mother
A 3-year-old who always does what he is told
A15-year-old who never tests the limits with his parents
What are the different domains of development?
Physical Development
Cognitive Development
Social and Emotional Development
What are the different domains of physical development?
Physical growth
Gross motor skills
Fine motor skills
Physical changes associated with puberty
Health/Illness
What are the different domains of cognitive development?
Language
Knowledge
Memory
Reasoning
Planning
What are Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?
0-2: sensorimotor - learning about the world through sensory exploration.
2-7: preoperational - Representing the world through language, symbols, internal representations of the world.
7-12: concrete operational - logical reasoning about concrete events/ideas/stimuli.
12+: formal operational - abstract and hypothetical reasoning.
What changes during emotional development?
Emotion language
Emotion knowledge
Emotional recognition
Emotion regulation
What different emotional difficulties and development exist?
Difficulties with feeding/sleeping/settling in infancy
Vs. depression and eating disorders in adolescence
True or false: the same disorder may present differently at different ages?
True, e.g. anxiety and depression.
What form of anxiety may present in early childhood?
Separation anxiety
What form of anxiety may present in middle childhood?
Specific fears/phobias
What form of anxiety may present in adolescence?
Social anxiety, generalised anxiety
What form of depression may present in early childhood?
Tantrums, quick mood changes
What form of depression may present in middle childhood?
Irritability, somatic complaints, school refusal
What form of depression may present in adolescence?
Sleep and appetite disturbances, hopelessness, suicidal ideation.
What is children’s development influenced by?
Risk Factors – e.g.: Poverty, Harsh or inconsistent parenting, Family violence, Single parent family, Parental mental health
Vulnerabilities – e.g.: Difficult temperament
Protective Factors - e.g.: “Easy” temperament, Positive stable relationship with an adult other than parents, High intelligence, Positive parenting
Multiple factors operate together dynamically and bi-directionally
What comprises the transactional processes in children’s development?
See image
What is a repercussion of inadequate understanding of the adjustment to illness?
Inadequate understanding can increase anxiety and impact on adherence
What can childhood illness interfere with?
Achievement of normative developmental tasks
What is prominent in infants and toddlers?
Motor and sensory exploration
What are the limitations of infants and toddlers?
Limitations in verbal expression; gaps between expression and understanding
Will struggle with logical explanations
Focus on “here and now”
Limited understanding of illness;
How is thinking in pre-schoolers?
Relatively literal, concrete, egocentric
What are the developments of pre-schoolers in?
Independence , curiosity, language
How is illness understood by pre-schoolers?
Illness understood as contagion/contamination
May attribute cause to something that co-occurred temporally
“Magical thinking” is common
“I didn’t put my seatbelt on, so we had a car crash”
“I was too naughty so Mum got sick”
What are the developments of primary schoolers?
Logical thinking and abstract reasoning
What is the primary school understanding of disease?
Understand causes of disease beyond contagion – e.g.: Internal causes, Body processes, Prevention of illness
Simple analogies and hypothetical examples can be understood
What are the developments of adolescents?
More advanced reasoning and problem-solving skills:
- Higher-order abstract/hypothetical reasoning
- Future-oriented thinking
- Holding multiple possibilities in mind
- “Shades of grey”
What is still developing in adolescents?
Regulation of emotion and behaviour
How do adolescents understand illness?
- Organs and their functions
- Disease processes/mechanisms
- Role of own behaviours in causing/preventing illness
- Physical and psychological aspects of illness
What must be considered when communicating with children?
- Children are not just “little adults”
- Considering developmental factors is critical in communication
- Children communicate in many different ways
- Helpful communication can promote current and future adaptation
How do children often communicate?
- Non-verbally
- Younger children often will not describe feelings, fears etc. in words
- BUT they have a “language” that adults can learn to translate
- Behaviour, play, drawings, fantasy are the “words” of this language
What are some helpful communication strategies for children?
- Developmentally-appropriate, unambiguous language
- Checking understanding; opportunities for questions
- Reducing threat-related language
- Honesty whilst promoting coping
- Choices (within limits)
- Use of visual aids and concrete referents
