Running Head: INFANCY AND TODDLER DEVELOPMENT 1

Infancy and toddler development

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INFANCY AND TODDLER DEVELOPMENT 2

Infancy and Toddler development

Early childhood development, maybe both dependent and vulnerable to a variety of

factors that either positively or negatively influence their stages. In most cases presented, these

factors tend to affect the child throughout their development or critically at the prenatal period or

the early childhood stages. With the Reeves family, some of the biological factors that seemed to

affect the infant's development included genetic influences, from the mother whereby Emma was

diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) as the mother was an alcoholic and drank while

pregnant. Also, another biological factor affecting Emma includes the lack of sufficient and

proper nutrition that is acquired through breastfeeding an infant as the mother left them

immediately after her birth. Environmentally, the infant lacked maternal love and care, due to her

mother's absence immediately after her birth leaving her under the care of the father. The

distance between the infant and the mother might highly affect the child both physically and

emotionally as they develop as well. Also, the attention is not enough, and in some instances, the

father is overwhelmed due to the demands of the toddlers in the house and thus could affect all

the children. In the Reeves family, the toddler was affected by the cultural differences during her

growth. Lack of both parents’ care adequately tends to affect the toddler’s socialization skills due

to the lack of sufficient experience in the mother’s influence on language and interactions with

the rest of the toddlers around her (Osher et al. 2020).

Technically, the awareness of the various factors and their possible influences on an

infant's development helps to ensure effective regulations by the parent’s/care providers to

ensure they influence the infant’s development positively. Additionally, knowledge about how

each of the factors would possibly affect the development of the toddler it would help to ensure

that the care providers are aware of the possible measures to utilize in treating the infant’s health
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(Hodgson et al. 2020). When counseling the family, one would possibly encounter a variety of

challenges, and these may include inconsistency with the counseling therapies for both of the

parents. In the presented case, the wife is already absent as she abandoned the family due to the

guilt of alcoholism. Also, the husband is already overwhelmed with handling all the toddlers in

the house, and thus these may fail to cooperate with the counselling sections as arranged.

However, through understanding, then they could all ensure availability, and therefore both can

contribute to the positive development of their toddlers together.

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References

Hodgson, L., Growcott, C., Williams, A. E., Nester, C. J., & Morrison, S. C. (2020). First steps:

parent health behaviors related to children’s foot health. Journal of Child Health

Care, 24(2), 221-232.

Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2020). Drivers of human development:

How relationships and context shape learning and development1. Applied Developmental

Science, 24(1), 6-36.

Reeves Family case:

https://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/COUN/6215/WEEK02/reeves.html