Ellenpsych

The First Two Years: Day Care

Infant’s development is a progressive stage that is marked with distinct phases that characterize language development and their ability to express themselves to others with little or no inhibition. The case of Sean, a 17 months old boy showed the distinct psychological developments in a child who only spoke little about his daytime activities while he was in the former day care center, but suddenly showed an impressive and an exponential growth in his acquisition of vocabulary and increased levels of concentration after transferred to the new day care center.

Burger (2010) in her book noted that a day care center provides different levels of quality service to children that in return influence the pace of a child’s development. In the case of Sean, the problem of his lack of motivation to share his day time experiences could have probably resulted from the child’s exposure to low quality care in the first day care center. Low quality service in his former day care center could have resulted from probable poor quality training of the care givers, presence of many children to be taken care of by a single care giver, and perhaps a feeling of intimidation by the presence of other children at the center. A good ratio of care giver to the infants could probably have been one of the key factors that contributed to Sean’s fast language development when he was enrolled in new day care center.

A common characteristic of infants is that they develop a close attachment to their care givers regardless of whether they are taken care of by their real mothers, relatives or a care giver at a care center (Berger, 2010). High quality care that Sean could have probably received from the second day care center could have prompted a close attachment to a caregiver that facilitated the infant’s increasing openness in his communication with the dad.

Sean’s behavior also showed improved cognitive abilities with an impressive concentration level. The...