Question

Compare infants to toddlers and to adults (yourself)

Discuss the variability that you observed among your subjects.

What does this tell you about the difference between average and normal?

Answer 1

Infants are the new neonates and toddlers belong to the age group of 1-3 years.

The differences among the infants, toddlers and adults are immense. An infant does not have much control over their own bodies. By following the principles of development, infants gain control over their physical and psychological selves. The various principles of human development are-

1. Proximo-distal- this means the development among toddlers will follow the pattern of nearer to the core of the body and then towards the periphery. In other words, an infant will first sit then will develop gross and fine motor skills.
2. Cephalo-caudal- this principle says that human infants will first gain control over their head and then with the passage of time will start walking.

There are certain other rules. Like development is multidimensional, in the sense that development of one area is not secluded but will develop simultaneously with other aspects of development.

An infant acts and behaves in manner which is totally different from that of adults. infants do not have the necessary abilities and skills to take care of themselves. They are totally dependent on adults to cater to their needs of hunger, thirst and cleanliness. With the passage of time, months at a stretch that they leran to walk and take years to acquire language.

Language acquisition, emotional-social development, physical strength, moral development, cognitive development and other such aspects and areas of development, all proceed slowly and it takes years for infants and toddlers to develop and become fully functioning individuals. If infants and toddlers are given an enabling environment to learn and acquire abilities, then only they develop into adults which are an asset to the society as well.

The developmental milestones are highly individualistic and this accounts for the variability among the people. The role of nature and nurture also contributes to the individual differences and variability among individuals.

There are certain dimensions which act as a normative data for comparing the growth and development of individuals. The researches in the area of developmental psychology is largely conducted in the form of longitudinal, cross-sectional and cohort studies.

Overall, it may be said that human development starts form conception and continues till death and has myriad hues and flavors.