Infancy Stage of Human Development

Development during Infancy Stage 

Introduction 

Infancy Stage of the Pre-school Period (0-5 years)

This period ranges from birth to five years of age. These years are of tremendous importance from the point of view of development. This stage has a prolonged period of dependency on parents but quite independent as regards to the basic function of the body like respiration, digestion. circulation, and maintaining constant temperature are concerned. After birth the child is called neonate (the first four weeks of life). In Hindu scriptures Infancy is called "Kumaravastha". According to Freud, the child by the age of 4-5 years, becomes, what he has to grow in the coming life. Hurlock called the infancy age as a period of "Appealing Age". Strang writes, "Infancy" is a period of foundation for his future". Thus the environment of the family and parental activities has a direct bearing and affect the future thinking,reasoning. development and style of his life.

Chief Characteristics of Infancy

During infancy, the children possess the following characteristics from the viewpoint of their physical, mental, linguistic, emotional and social development:

1. Rapid Physical Growth: Infants from birth to 3 years of age

have faster physical development than any other period of life, all their external and internal organs grow in size and weight, they accumulate physical energy. During the stage of 3 to 6 years, their physical development is rather slow, but the already developed physical organs become strong and mature.

2. Rapid Mental Growth: According to psychologists, mental development of  infants during this stage is more than any other period of life and it occurs at a very rapid rate. In the first three years of life (birth to 3 years), their brain and mental activities (attention, sensation, imagination and memory) develop and in the next three years (3 to 6 years) this development is strengthened and the instinct of curiosity becomes very strong.

3. Sharp Tendency of Imitation and Repetition: By the time an infant completes one year of age, he starts to imitate the activities and sounds of the persons he comes into contact with. In the second year, he imitate their behaviour norms. The infants mostly learn by imitation. In starts to imitate their facial expressions and in the third year, he starts to that they have learnt and this tendency to repeat helps than in learning this age group, the infants often repeat their questions, repeat the facts greatly. Due to this tendency, they learn small poems and take interest in their repetition.

4. Rapid Language Development: In the view of psychologists, Educational infancy is the most suitable period of learning a language. By the age of 1 year, an infant starts to imitate sounds, he starts to repeat the words by imitation. By the completion of 2 years of age, he starts to repeat small sentences and by the age of 3 years, he starts to express his feelings. The age from 3 to 6 years is the most important stage for learning a language At this time, whatever language is taught to him, he picks it up fast, provided he is interested in it and it is taught to him at play spontaneously. 

5. Strong Tendency of Curiosity : By the age of one year, an infant starts to inculcate the tendency of curiosity; it is another thing that he is not able to express it in the absence of language. This tendency is very strong in infants of 3 to 6 years of age, they want to know every new object and activity. This tendency is very helpful in learning.

6. Tendency of Imagination: An infant from 3 to 6 years of age has a very strong power of imagination, he often go down deep into his imaginations. Thorndike, on the basis of his experiments and observation, revealed that the infants during 3 to 6 years often live in a semi-dream state.

7. Tendency to Play : The tendency to play has four chief characteristics interest, freedom, activity and joy. This tendency is very strong in infants. They like to do those activities in which they are interested and in which they are free and in which they take joy. The infants of this age group do not accept any type of rules or bindings play, they want to play the games freely and until the time they take joy in them.Psychologists lay emphasis on deriving advantage of this tendency in their education.

8. Emotional Development : Emotions start to develop during infancy. In the beginning, an infant is dependent on others, he expects love, sympathy and cooperation from others. As he grows a little, he himself starts to display love for others. In case of inattention, be expresses anger and if he perceives fearfulness, he expresses fear. These emotions become stronger by six years of age.

9. Social Development : In the beginning, the infant behaviour is instinctive. As he comes into contact with the persons in the family and society he proceeds on the path of adjustment with them and thus his social development takes place. The infants from 2 to 3 years of age start to display interest and disinterest in the persons in their environment.

10. Intensity of Satisfaction of Needs : Children have rapid physical development during infancy, they need nutritious food. As soon as they feel hungry, they want food. The tendency to play develops rapidly during this stage. Their tendency of curiosity is very intense during this stage they desire that their questions should be answered immediately. They desire that everybody should love and cooperate with them. They want immediate action and response in every field.

11. Rapid Rate of Learning:  Infants accumulate the physical and mental capability from birth to 3 years, and on the completion of 3 years, their abilities start to become stronger. At this time, their tendencies of imitation and curiosity become very strong, so the infants learn more and faster during the age of 3 to 6 years, provided they are given opportunity to learn according to their tendency to play. Psychologists have revealed on the basis of their experiments and observations that what children learn during 6 to 12 years of age, they learn double of that during birth to 6 years of age.

Development During Infancy 

(a) Physical and Motor Development 

During infancy, the following development within the body of the child takes place, i.e., height and weight, respiration and circulation, muscular and motor development. These development takes the following shapes :

(1) The entire structure of the body starts functioning and a sort of balance comes in the various organs of the body. 

(2) Growth is very rapid, the brain develops very fast, change is seen in shape of the child, increase in arms and legs, and the sense organs rapidly develop. 

(3)Entire weight of body, coordination between the mind and the body of three, child starts at the age of three, and speed of the nervous system is quite fast and quick. 

(4) At the age of five a child will be about 35 to 40 inches tall and will weight about 35 pounds. 

(5) Almost all the organs of the body start functioning during this period and so there is a balance and co- ordination in the action and activities during this period. 

(6) The process of muscle maturation is very slow and motor skills are acquired very slowly.

 The psychologists have studied the development of various motor skills in children which are given below :

Thus it can be said that physical development here includes height and weight of the child (length 16 to 18 inches and weight 6 to 8 pounds at the time of birth to 35 to 40 inches tall and weight about 35 pound at age 5), respiration and circulation (lungs develop rapidly and breathing capacity is increased and heart grows in size but developmental rate of the heart varies with children); Muscular development (slow development and proceeds from bigger to smaller muscles) and motor development (motor skills are acquired very slowly, to grasp an object an infant will exhibit several unnecessary movements of the shoulders, upper arms and elbows, and action refined in advances in age and greater speed in movements). Thus motor growth is the development of strength, speed and precision in the use of arms.

(b) Intellectual development in relation to perception, Imagination, concept formation and Language development :

(1) A new born child perceptions are vague and diffused. Gradually the child is able to discriminate between differences in brightness and colour. The sense of taste develops and sensitivity to pain become keener. The child can distinguish between heat and cold and is able to be aware of his biological need between the age of three years. Between 3 and 6 years, colour attracts more attention and by the age of 5 a child is able to differentiate between letter and number forms. Self-concept is, however, hardly developed but the ability to perceive the shape of objects develops.

(2) Imagination and memory are very active and strong. Children at this stage love repetition and love nursery rhymes and songs, fairy tales and fantasy.

(3) Child's concepts are concrete and determined by immediate perception but not acquired the concept of conservation. Concept formation is difficult in relation to the difference between day and night.

(4) The period from 3 to 5 years is the phase of rapid mental development. Vocabulary develop and child talks incessantly. The how and why questions are more predominant. Abstract thinking is not proper but the child learns by trial and error. The concept of time develop gradually but the concept of quantity is cleaner, able to count in small series.

(5) According to Burt-The child may concentrate 4-5 minutes at the age of 3 and 5 to 6 minutes at the age of 4 and learn things as a whole rather than by parts. 

(c) Language Development :

Regarding language development it can be said that the first word is uttered around the child's first birthday. After few months of the 1st year dramatic improvements occur. Development of growth of vocabulary are presented below approximately:

Thus, the development of language helps the child to differentiate between objects of his environment and increases his self-identity.

(d) Emotional Development :

Woodworth says that emotion is stirred up state of an organism. The following are the emotional development during infancy.

(1) Emotional response of the new born is undifferentiated excitement. As the child grows in age he expreses distress and delight, anger and fear, elation and affection. Jealousy appears by about 18 months of age and joy further differentiates from elation and affection.

(2) In early infancy any sudden or intense stimulus such as a flash of light or loud noise, etc., produce fear. Physical injury and other bodily discomforts, strange objects, dogs, doctor, blood, ghosts, death, lighting, dark places and loneliness develop fear.

(3) Anger is aroused and cause violent kicking, yelling and even rolling on the floor. Happiness is expressed when parents or elder brother or sister plays with him by clapping his hands and jumping up and down at the age of 4. 

(4) Gradually child uses language to express his emotions rather than violent reactions. Infants show fear, anger, love and hate from the beginning of life and the emotions are spontaneous.

(5) The emotions of the child are intense and common emotions of children during infancy are Fear, Anger and Jealousy.

(e) Moral Development :

Moral behaviour means behaviour in conformity with moral code of the social group.

It is a well known fact that during infancy the moral development of the child has not taken place and so he is not able to distinguish between right and wrong. He is guided by the advice and directions of his elders and parents. Thus. Hurlock have the opinion that since the infant has no conscience, what is told to him by parents is taken by him either as bad or good according to their direction.

(f) Social Development :

Social development means acquisition or the ability to behave in accordance with social expectations or attaining of maturity in social relationship (Hurlock, 1950). The following are the social behaviour during Infancy :

(1) Smilling is the first social behaviour that appears at the third month. He imitates the speech sound of others at the 9th month. From 15th month the baby shows increasing interest in adults and a desire to be with them. The child start imitating each other during the second year and adjust and cooperate in play by the time they become three years old.

(2) The mother is the first company of the infant and early socialisation develops between the infant and the mother is called attachment. Hurlock called it a security blanket of the child. The child is self-centred in his social behaviour. Quarrelling, negativism and aggression, etc., found out with children. With the increase in age the child becomes increasingly anxious to win the approval of others and choose company from members of the same sex and become increasingly aware of themselves as people.

(g) Educational Importance of Infancy :

(i) During this period the children are too young to cope up with the work of the primary school but they are mature enough to start preparing for it. Thus, Kindergarten training is very important to expose the child to get the first experiences of school life. He gets accustomed to being separated from his mother and learns to adjust to a fixed schedule. Hence, learning atmosphere of the nursery school should be lively, interesting and joyful.

(ii) Activity must form an integral part of nursery training. As the children are acquiring new motor skills, they have an innate urge to practise them. Thus activity based teaching like action song and games like running, skipping and jumping and repetition type of work can be practised for effective training in the nursery school.

(iii) As eye movements and hand to eye co-ordination are not perfect during infancy, reading and writing must not be given undue emphasis.

(iv) The immediate problem of the new school entrant is separation from his mother. Sometime the child may require special attention, but the teacher must neither be too harsh nor should she be over indulgent.

(v) During the first 3/4 years, the child is the centre of attention at home. But due to training in nursery school the child changes in his attitude and learns that he cannot have his own way in everything. Thus, teachers of Kindergarten schools should give more emphasis on social and emotional development of the child rather than rigid type of cognitive development through teaching of the three R's only.