Developmental Information and Toys for Infants and Toddlers

Developmental information for each age range

What Developmental Information Is Presented For Each Age Range?

Is It Consistent With Research Presented In The Text?

How Do The Recommended Toys Appeal To Infants’ And Toddlers’ Developing Learning Capacities? 

How About Perceptual Development? Using What You Know About Stimulation, Are The Toys Appropriate For The Age Range? Why Or Why Not?

For the first age range of 6 to 12 months, the developmental information that is presented inform that the baby is in the stage of figuring out new  things, including how different objects function. They are moving to the stage of making cooing and babbling sounds as precursors for language development. Physically, the baby starts to pick up small toys and through conversation can associate words with objects. They also respond to feedback and encouragement and positive reinforcement.

For the second age range of 18 to 24 months, the baby has developed the primary communication skills and is able to express various moods and emotions. The linguistic development is complemented by an expanding vocabulary ranging from 50 to 200 words. Physically the child is able to walk in multiple directions. Cognitively, the child is able to identify shapes and sort them, ride mobility toys and play with cognitively challenging toys and games.

The research presented in the text identifies various stages of development for the child. It states how through conditioning methods like operant and classical conditioning (Berk, 2017, pp. 441 – 443), the early learning phase of the child is complimented. The website also discusses how the child progresses to responding to positive reinforcement, a vital component of operant conditioning. Besides, in terms of motor development, the first stage (6 – 12 months) shows that the child starts from rolling on the sides to gradually being able to stand up and walk in small steps through holding stationary objects for support (Berk, 2017, pp. 451 - 452). In the second stage (18 – 24 months), the child shows significant development of motor skills where he is able to walk and even run small distances, is able to jump in one spot and can also climb up the stairs with some support (Berk, 2017, p. 452). So the information presented in the website is consistent with that in the text.

In the chosen age range for this assignment, that is, 6 - 12 months and 18 – 24 months, the main focus is development of movement and motor skills.

Consistency with research presented in the text

Between 6 to 10 months, infants first begin crawling and make sense of their surroundings. They learn to understand the motion of their arms and legs (Sacrey, Karl, & Whishaw, 2012) Therefore the toys in this category have stuffed animals with labelled body parts so that the child could learn with the aid of their guardians and mobiles and ‘jumperoos’ which also encourage movement. This category also consists of smart toys which have built-in mechanisms for communicating with the child. This is because the babbling stage in the child’s developmental stage is simultaneously occurring around this time (Day, 2014).

In case of 18 to 24 month old infants, they are already actively moving and speaking. This is when more complex ideas such as family and the surroundings is introduced. This section consists of play-sets which help in developing personality; and wagons, toy buses and scooters to encourage development of motor skills (Smith, 2009).  

Perceptual development is defined as the development of the five senses of the human body (Bornstein, 2017). Even though, in case of children, it does not include taste and smell when it comes to development of toys. In both categories, the toys have light-coloured bodies and the sounds which accompany such toys are also soothing and playful. This is because in the mentioned age groups, the children go through several stages of emotional and mental development. Therefore the toys for the older infants have bright colours and playful music; whereas the toys for the younger infants are coloured with very mild colours such as pink and baby blue. This is because the younger children are more prone to get scared of objects which are stand out too much from their surroundings (Skelton & Franklin, 2019).

References

Berk, L. E. (2017). Exploring lifespan development. Pearson.

Bornstein, M. H. (2017). Perceptual development: Stability and change in feature perception. In Psychological Development from Infancy (pp. 37-81). Routledge.

Day, K. (2014). Exploring phonological relationships between babbling and early word productions (Doctoral dissertation, Memorial University of Newfoundland).

Sacrey, L. A. R., Karl, J. M., & Whishaw, I. Q. (2012). Development of rotational movements, hand shaping, and accuracy in advance and withdrawal for the reach-to-eat movement in human infants aged 6–12 months. Infant Behavior and Development, 35(3), 543-560.

Skelton, A. E., & Franklin, A. (2019). Infants look longer at colours that adults like when colours are highly saturated. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1-8.

Smith, L. B. (2009). From fragments to geometric shape: Changes in visual object recognition between 18 and 24 months. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(5), 290-294.