W1: Child development

Question 1

What is meant by critical events in child development?

Answer 1

An event, usually sudden, that overwhelms the child’s coping abilities, normal routines, responses and procedures. Act as major stressors that can have long term physical, psychological and behavioural impacts.

Question 2

What is meant by a critical point in child development?

Answer 2

A time when an event has the potential to have a significant impact on development. Time when more vulnerable to a problem as the plasticity of the brain is very dependent on environmental influences and experiences.
From foetus to 2/3yrs old.

Question 3

What are the key landmarks in gross motor development?

Answer 3

Newborn - stepping reflex
6 months - sit with support
15-16 months - walking (red flag is not by 18 months)
2yrs - running and using stairs
3yrs - using a tricycle
4yrs - hops

Question 4

What are the key landmarks in fine motor development?

Answer 4

Newborn - grasp reflex
6 months - reaching for objects
15-16 months - scribbles with palmar grasp, 2 block tower
2yrs - 6 block tower, circular strokes and mark making with pen
3yrs - 9 blocks and draws circle
4yrs - block bridge and copies a cross with pen

Question 5

What are the key landmarks in speech and language development?

Answer 5

Newborn - reflex to sound
6 months - cooing or attempts to make sound
15-16months - should know and be able to say 8-10 words
2yrs - should be able to put 2-3 words together to form sentences
3yrs - asking questions (why? etc)
4yrs - says songs and tell stories

Question 6

What are the key landmarks of social development?

Answer 6

Newborn - blinking, by three months should recognise and smile at familiar faces.
6 months - recognise strangers, responds to name
15-16 months - copies parent tasks
2yrs - ask for food and drink, should start make believe play
3 yrs - share toys
4yrs - group play

Question 7

What are the multifactoral elements that need to be considered when looking at how an illness affects normal development?

Answer 7

Physical
Emotional
Social/family
Education/friends.

Question 8

What are the direct impacts of cerebral palsy?

Answer 8

Decline in gross and fine motor function - struggle to move limbs, relatively immobile, difficulties with vision, proprioception and other senses
Speech and language - deafness, autism spectrum disorder
Social - impaired by senses, environment they are restrained to and certain conditions such as autism spectrum disorder

Question 9

What are the indirect effects of cerebral palsy?

Answer 9

Decrease energy - struggle with oral feeding, use more mental resources to complete activities of daily life
Affect general health - risk of chest infections
Sleep disruption - due to pain
Pain and unpleasant sensation - desensitization
Regression of skills
Critical time for some skills -harder to develop milestones at a later date as conditions in body and environmental stimuli have changed
Reduced stimulation to activities that encourage skill pain and personal growth - due to isolation from others and limited opportunities

Question 10

How does cerebral palsy affect gross motor development?

Answer 10

Direct: weakness, stiffness, contractures, co-ordination problems and many more
Indirect: surgical, drug and physio treatments, increased energy expenditure
Consequences: delayed milestones, gait difficulties,

Question 11

How does cerebral palsy affect fine motor movement?

Answer 11

Direct: weakness, stifffness, contractures and co-ordination problems among others
Indirect: opportunities, self conscious, expectations
Consequence: delayed milestones, needs for aids at home and school

Question 12

How does cerebral palsy affect speech and language?

Answer 12

Direct: affect oromotor coordination
Indirect: longer time for complex words or speech, expectation and exposure
Consequence: difficulty expressing themselves and hard to engage in social situations

Question 13

How does cerebral palsy affect social development?

Answer 13

Direct: time away from school/freinds when ill, unable to engage in physical activity.
Indirect: loss of opportunities, expectation, embarrassment, overprotective
Consequence: difficulty with socialisation - most prominent at school

Question 14

What are some ways to maximise development in children with cerebral palsy?

Answer 14

Early input intervention
Prevention v treatment
Encourage development by play
Involved multi-professional teams: physio, occupational health, school inclusion etc
Funding
Inclusion and disability discrimination act - schools must make reasonable adjustments to help children engage in activities.

Question 15

What are Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?

Answer 15

Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete operational
Formal operational

Question 16

What are the key ideas in the sensorimotor stage of development?

Answer 16

From birth to 2yrs
Understand world through senses and actions.
Understands that the are separate from the people and things around them, realise there action can cause things to happen in the world,

Question 17

What are the key ideas of the preoperational stage of development?

Answer 17

From 2 to 7 yrs
Understand world through language and mental images
Only aware of immediate environment
Only consider one thing at a time
Cannot generalise observations or experiences to make connection to previous
Tend to be egocentric and struggle to understand other peoples perspective
Empirical reasoning - facts from observation - I was naughty now I am ill, therefore I am ill because I am naughty

Question 18

What are the key ideas of the concrete operational stage of development?

Answer 18

From 7-12 yrs
Understand the world through logical thinking and categories
Can differentiate themselves from others
Uses elementary logic to solve problems - tests cause and effect, still very concrete in thoughts
Use inductive logic - specific to the general principle
Can understand more than one dimension of a situation
Not capable of hypothetical ideas

Question 19

What are the key ideas of the formal operational stage of development?

Answer 19

From 12yrs and onwards
Understand the world through hypothetical thinking and scientific reasoning
Differentiate themselves from the external world
Think hypothetically and abstractly
Can fill in gaps in knowledge by generalisation from prior experience
Starts to understand illness due to its physiological effects and cause of symptoms
Start using deductive logic - can apply a general principle to specific information
Personal identity develops

Question 20

What are primitive reflexes?

Answer 20

Normal reflexes present in newborns that are gradually inhibiyed as more mature movement patterns and behaviour are established.
Disappear between 3-6 months
Can be released from injury such as a stroke in lateral life.

Question 21

What are the different primitive reflexes?

Answer 21

Grasping
Routing reflex
Sucking reflex
Stepping reflex
Babinksi sign
Swimming reflex
Moro reflex (startle response)
Tonic neck reflex or fencer neck reflex