1

Student’s Name

Professor’s Name

Course

Date
 2

Explain the sensorimotor stage of development and language development of young

children.

The sensorimotor phase is the initial stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It

starts from a child’s birth to about two years, involving rapid mental growth. During the

sensorimotor stage, a child understands the world through coordinating sensory skills such as

observing and hearing with motor deeds like grasping and touching. In this stage, children

understand that objects are natural and events occur in the world autonomously of an individual’s

activities. A baby reacts to the outside stimulus with biological reflex actions in the first month

of life. Between one to four months, a baby repeats enjoyable activities centered on their body.

At four to eight months, they repeat enjoyable actions centered on their bodies and movements

that involve objects. They then indicate utilizing their acquired knowledge to reach a goal at

eight to twelve months. They, after that, develop the ability to adapt to specific situations

intentionally and later develop the ability to form a mental representation of objects.

According to the emergentist theory of language development, language is an outcome of

the relation of the external language environment and a kid's internal understanding abilities. The

theory assumes that a kid might not be born with certain predetermines for grammatical

formations. Still, how brain neurons are structured and function result in learning language

associations. On the other hand, the behaviourist theory assumes that children learn oral

language from adults through imitation, rewards, and practice.

What are the characteristics of the preoperational stage of cognitive development?

The preoperational phase of cognitive development is characterized by centration,

egocentrism, play, symbolic representation, pretend play, animism, artificialism, and

 3

irreversibility. Children can only concentrate on one thing at a time and have trouble to decenter.

They also cannot view a situation from another individual’s perspective. Kids in this stage

engage in parallel play and undergo a remarkable increase in applying the symbolic function.

Kids also pretend to be people they are not and believe that everything has human feelings and

intentions. They then start thinking that some environmental aspects are made by humans and

then undergo the incapability to retreat the direction of a chain of outcomes to their starting spot.

Explain the concrete operational stage of cognitive development, including Piaget's ideas of

moral development of moral realism and autonomous morality.

The concrete operational stage of cognitive development happens between seven to

eleven years of age and is featured by sensible and rational cogitating development. In this stage,

children begin to develop logical thoughts. Although a child can use logical thought or

operations thoughts, they can only employ logic to physical items. Kids Children achieve the

capabilities of conservation, reversibility, seriation, transitivity, and class inclusion. They

develop the ability to solve issues logically but cannot think hypothetically. According to Piaget,

children in moral realism believe that all rules are absolute and cannot be changed. Piaget

assumes that punishment increases with the increase in damage caused by a child's action, and

one should not consider a child's intention. Piaget also believes that when a child reaches the age

of 9-10, they start seeing other moral perspectives of other individuals. According to autonomous

morality, children start realizing that rules aren’t infallible, but they can change, be implemented

relatively or unfairly, and some rules are required to prevent disaster.

Explain the characteristics of formal operations, including hypothetical thinking and

sophisticated symbols.
 4

The formal operational stage is characterized by formulating hypotheses and

systematically testing them to answer a problem. Children thinking becomes more sophisticated

and advanced. The formal operations that kids do at this stage are logical, have deductive

reasoning, and are systematically planned. Children in the formal operational stage apply rational

symbols linked to abstract concepts. In deductive reasoning, kids can use a general principle to

determine a particular outcome. They draw specific conclusions from abstract concepts using

logic. Hypothetical reasoning enables babies to think about conceptual and theoretical ideas.

They then develop several solutions to a single problem and produce the most suitable solution

to a problem.

Explain attachment and types of attachment and how this impacts infants, early childhood,

middle childhood, and adolescents?

According to Bowlby, attachment is an emotional bond with another individual. It is also

believed to be a production of the evolutionary process. The four types of attachment include

ambivalent, avoidant, disorganized, and secure. Attachment impacts a child’s early childhood as

it establishes a mental basis a kid will utilize to relate with others and direct how they feel

regarding themselves. It creates an affirmative or undesirable way for infancy development to

impact how kids establish ties and relate with others into adulthood. Secure attachments equip

babies to form strong attachments in adulthood. Children with secure attachments are trusting,

confident, independent, and explorative in middle childhood and adulthood. On the other hand,

children with unsecure attachments exhibit poor social skills, problem-solving skills, survival

skills, increased irritability, dependent and reserved behavior, and hostility from early childhood

to middle childhood and adulthood. Due to the difficulty of making and keeping social
 5

relationships, these children can develop depression in their youth, attention deficit hyperactivity

disorder, and conduct disorder in middle childhood.

Explain the different types of parenting styles and their characteristics

There are four parenting styles: permissive, authoritative, neglectful, and authoritarian.

Parents assume a friendship role with their kids in the permissive parenting style. They try to

avoid misunderstanding and concede to their kid’s requests at the first indication of misery.

Parents using this parenting style offer limited guidance to their children and exercise whatever

they like. It is also characterized by a lack of rules and the significant efforts parents put into

meeting the demands of their kids to make them happy.

In an authoritative parenting style, parents are nurturing, encouraging, and in sync with

their kids' needs most of the time. Parents direct their children through open and candid

dialogues to educate them on tenets and logic. This parenting style is characterized by frequent

communication, clear rules and expectations, understanding and flexibility from parents,

increased responsiveness and demandingness, and natural aftermath.

Neglectful/uninvolved parenting includes a general sense of apathy. Parents have reduced

commitment with their kids and rarely execute laws. They tend to be emotionless to their

children due to their issues. This parenting style is characterized by minimal nurturance,

guidance and attention, decreased responsiveness and demandingness, parents are indifferent

with their kid's requirements or busy with their issues, and parents experience low self-esteem

and have trouble forming relationships.

The authoritative parenting style uses strict discipline. The parent is in total control and

does not accept feedback from their child. This type of parenting is characterized by one-way
 6

communication, strict rules with little or no consideration of the kid’s emotions or needs, high

demandingness and minimal responsiveness. An action is punishable because a parent stated so.

Explain Kohlberg's three stages of moral development, their stages, and the problems

behind his methods.

According to Kohlberg, there are pre-conventional morality, conventional morality, and

post-conventional stages of moral development. In the pre-conventional stage of morality, kids

below 9 lack a personal code of ethics and instead make ethical decisions following the adult’s

standards and the outcome of obeying or disobeying their rules. This stage contains obedience

and punishment orientation and individualism and exchange. In the obedience and punishment

stage, children are moral to avoid punishment. A child then realizes that different people have

different perspectives in the individualism and exchange stage of the pre-conventional stage of

moral development.

In the conventional stage of moral development, children start to adopt the ethical

principles of adult paradigms. Children do not question authority but internalize it and think it is

established on the rules of the community they belong to. This stage has the stage of good

interactive relations where people behave well to be perceived as good people and maintain the

social directive stage where children become aware of the more comprehensive societal rules.

Hence, they obey the rules to uphold the law and avoid guilt.

In Kohlberg's post-conventional stage of moral development, people understand the

universal ethical guidelines. Individuals begin understanding the conservancy of life at all efforts

and the significance of human self-esteem. In this stage, self-chosen principles guide personal

judgement and individual rights and justice guide moral thinking. In the social contract and
 7

individual stage of the post-conventional stage, people discern that guidelines and laws may be

present for the benefit of the majority. Still, sometimes they will operate against certain

individuals’ interests. In the universal principles stage of the post-conventional stage of moral

development, people establish their array of moral principles which possibly will or will not

match the law.

Kohlberg’s methods have problems as the puzzles are feigned. They lack natural

legitimacy since most problems are uncommon to people. Kohlberg's sample is biased as it is an

all-male sample. The puzzles are also hypothetical because they mainly depend on a character's

reaction to a simulated problem. Kohlberg's research design is also poor. He uses a cross-

sectional research design to interview kids of different ages to determine their moral

development level instead of interviewing children of the same age.

Explain information processing includes sensory memory, working memory, long term

memory, recall memory, and metamemory.

According to information processing theory, humans receive stimuli from the

environment through various senses. The trigger is then defined and stored in the short-term

memory for a short while and afterwards stored in long-term memory and retrieved when

needed. They can then recall what they through retrieving the information in the long-term

memory. After that, they can use the information to make well-informed decisions and are sure

that they have the information.

Sensory memory grasps info that the brain identifies through different senses like visual,

olfactive, and acoustic info. After sensory information has engaged and got the mind's attention,

it is then moved to short-term memory. Data in the working memory lasts for a short time. Long-
 8

term memory has unlimited capacity and stores information for an extended period. Recall

memory involves remembering the information encoded previously and stored in the brain, and

metamemory forms memory judgments.

Adolescence- explain how the following influence primary and secondary sexual

characteristics: feedback loop, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland.

Teen years re-initiates positive feedback within the hypothalamus and pituitary gland to

promote primary and secondary sexual characteristics. In humans, the negative feedback loop

begins about two years after birth. The hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis returns to

positive feedback at about nine years of age. There is a more significant delay between puberty

and first reproduction, usually about 5 to 10 years. During this period, adolescents experience

primary further development in sex secretors and transformations in the genitals, chest, and

genital, facial, and body hair. Boys develop deeper voices.

Explain Erikson’s identity versus identity Diffusion stage and Marcia’s four identity

statuses: moratorium, diffusion, foreclosure, and achievement.

According to Erikson’s stages of psychosocial behavior, most adolescents attain a sense

of identity regarding who they are and what they would like to be. Most adolescents develop

superego identity since they gain confidence as they prepare for their future careers and achieve

sexual identity during the transition from childhood to adulthood. Although some undergo role

confusion, they certainly achieve a sense of identity.

In contrast, youths in Marcia’s identity diffusion have not devoted themselves to any

direction of their future conceptually or career-wise and are not struggling to establish any

course. Those in identity foreclosure status explore less but are more committed. Adolescents in
 9

this status are not actively straining to define what is eminent to them. They are obliged to their

ideals and life objectives and do not inquire which they ought to be, nor do they care about other

options.

Adolescents in the moratorium status exhibit a high degree of exploration but are less

committed. Adolescents explore and test various tenets, beliefs, and objectives in this status.

They have not effected any conclusive decree on which ideas and ideals they consider largely

valuable and what guidelines should direct them. Consequently, they are not staunch to a definite

identity.

Identity achievement is the last stage. In this stage, adolescents in this status portray

increased investigation and a high level of devotion. When one is in this status, they pick what

principles and objectives they consider most significant and what function and duty will

influence their lives. They give precedence to what is important and sort across the many

probabilities of who they wish to become. In general, adolescents in this status are confident and

optimistic about their beliefs and values.

Explain a concept that resonates with you.

The identity achievement status resonates with me. I am optimistic and confident about

my decision to pursue my course, and I am sure of the profession I want to practice. I am

committed to pursuing my career and exploring what it offers. I am confident of the principles

and goals that are most important to me and what mission is guiding my life. I have prioritized

my academic course among all the possibilities of who I can be.