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The focus of this stage is shared
attention. To learn and interact socially, children need to be able
to focus, be calm, and actively take in information from their
experiences with others; from what they see, hear, smell, touch, and
taste; and from the way they move. The abilities to maintain a calm
and organized state and pay attention to the environment allow
children to learn and develop relationships.
The focus of this stage is on the development of a warm, loving and
trusting bond between a child and his or her primary caregivers. Through engagement with special adults, children learn to
distinguish between the pleasure of the human world and interest in
objects. This level further develops intellectual learning because
the child begins to recognize patterns in voices, touches,
gestures and other signals of those special adults in his or her life.
In this milestone, a child begins to engage in
back and forth emotional signaling, or two-way communication. For
example, a baby smiles at his mother; he gets a smile back, so he
smiles again. This is what is called a “circle of communication”. His smile becomes purposeful when he smiles to get a smile in
return. Different facial expressions, vocalizations, and gestures
become part of this signaling. It is also at this stage that logic
and a sense of reality
begin. This is seen in the child’s developing ability to participate
in many cause and effect interactions.
Within this stage, children take two-way communication and put it to
use to solve problems. They learn to take a parent’s hand, gesture
to open the door to the yard, and then point to the swing to
show they want a ride. Shared social problem solving emerges as
children use patterns that involve three or four steps toward
achieving a desired result.
By this point, children’s motor skills have developed to the point
that they can regulate mouth muscles and vocal chords. Their
intellectual skills have progressed to the point that they can begin
to use language to express themselves. In addition to the use of
words as symbols for objects and ideas, imaginative play also is a
vehicle by which children show their ideas. At this stage, children
use pretend play to symbolize real or imagined events such as tea
parties or monster attacks. They also may begin to use symbols to
manipulate ideas in their minds without actually having to carry out
the actions. This allows for new flexibility in reasoning, thinking
and problem solving.
Within this stage of emotional
development, children show increasing ability to connect symbols
together logically, making thinking and reflecting possible. Thinking emerges from more elaborate pretend play, as well as from
debates over bedtime or cookies, and from caregivers asking about
his or her opinions. Questions such as, “Why do you want to go
outside?” “to Grandmas?”, “to the park?” teach the child to connect
her ideas and be a logical thinker. As a child begins to build
bridges between ideas, play has a logical beginning, middle and
end, taking time and space into account. Realistic conversations
and pretend play stories are now made up of logically connected
ideas, with clear motives and anticipated consequences. The child
also can now abstract and reflect on various feelings and lessons to
be learned.
 
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