Impact Of Playing On The Early Childhood Development | Observation Analysis

Early Childhood Studies: Critical and Sensitive

Observation of Collin’s Playing Activities

Describe about the report the Early Childhood Studies.

According to Diem-Wille (2011), early childhood is basically the most critical and sensitive part of overall lifecycle where proper care, continuous growth, appropriate circumstances, good health, language development and learning competency of children works together to build-up a healthy human being. The only difference between animals and humans are they style and skill of living which starts from early life stages. One of the most importance factors that contribute to early childhood development is play (Nurse, 2009). Playing in early childhood is a collaborative effect of different activities that contributes to the overall growth of children by enhancing social, emotional, physical and cognitive well-being (Hughes, F. P., 1991). Children get involved in playing activities because it provides them excitement and pleasure. Through playing, children can get opportunities for articulating, communicating, and getting engaged with their parents as well as society (Woodfield, 2004).

Further, as playing is proved to be involved in the cognitive development of children where it helps in the expression of different feelings like anger, sadness, self-control, happiness etc. which help them to understand emotions and their application in daily life. For example- the feeling of sadness after losing a game explain children the importance and power of success in life (Callander, 2010).  In this essay a clear understanding towards the impact of playing on the overall reactivity, creativity and functionality of a child named Collin is observed by making critical observations on the video film showing his activities. Further, discussing the early childhood development with the help of a theory that supports the analysis.

Analysis of Collin (observation analysis)

In the observation, Collin is seventeen months old child whose playing activities explain the excellent early childhood development effort and intelligence of this child. Collin, at the beginning, was observed running around a table placed in the room. Collin for the last forty-six minute has been observed doing different activities one by one. Collin was exposed to a good environment that is free of harmful objects creating environment-friendly position of the child. Collins was observed moving around the table and further positioning the cassettes and alphabet block that highlighted the uniqueness of his early childhood stage. There was no one else present in the room while the observations were performed; hence the activities done by Collin are clearly based on his own intelligence, experiences and learning capabilities.

Collin is at a Cognitive stage of early childhood that is considered to be the dumb stage in which a child can arrange things, deform things as well as construct innovative things but can’t express their capabilities (Broadhead, 2004). Collins at this initial age was observed collecting DVDs and cassettes as well as trying to arrange them to the correct position on the shelf. Collin is trying to arrange the DVDs in their correct shelves and at the same time trying to differentiate them from their cassettes. But, Collin is not able to express his complexity and confusion because he was observed for performing whimpering noise and rubbing his face that expresses his confusion while positioning the DVDs and cassettes. This complexity generated due to lack of language power and communication capabilities that do not get completely developed in this initial stage of life. However, the intelligent activity of correctly arranging cassettes and DVDs performed by Collin while playing with these things explains that Collin is having exceptional cognitive development, intelligent brain and powerful thinking capacity because such activity is less expected from a seventeen-month-old child (Diem-Wille, 2011).

Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Language is considered to be an essential element for expression of feelings, requirements, desire and other cognitive behaviors (Sheppy, 2009).  Collin was only heard making some noises and counting numbers that he might have been taught by his parents.  Collin was able to capture some short words that he can remember quickly. During this observation, Collin applied his taught words in his playing activities. Collin is seen counting the blocks that he is holding; he can count loudly one by one. For example, he picks the block-by-block, counting “1” up to “6” putting them inside the box. He is self-confident while counting; as if he knew that the order he was using to count the blocks were correct. Collin’s used facial expression and voice sounds as tools of language for explaining or expressing his feelings.

Emotions were also noticed in Collin’s forty-six minutes observation.  It was through social play in which Collin was seen quiet but emotion can tell his confused and complex condition. Collin was engaged in the parallel plays, where he was actually playing without interacting with anybody. He is able to express his feeling in the situations through his expressions. Collin was heard making a whimpering noise, at the same time, he is observed rubbing his face when he wants to pick up the box. It shows that Collin is either critically thinking, or confused with his activities. However, at the end stage of observation, he was observed clapping his hands explaining his excitement and joyous feeling after completing his playing activity. It is been studied that children after observing audience clapping after completion of any activity or parents clapping after a good act by children, they try to copy this clapping episode to express their joy and happiness (Robinson, 2008).  Similar activity was observed in Collin’s observation.  Therefore, this activity performed by Collin indicates the importance of playing in early childhood stage where Collin was able to express his intelligence, learning skills, emotions, communication, excitement, happiness, confusion and complexity that he developed in the different stage of overall act. Colin was only playing as a normal child but the critical observations made of his playing activities helps to understand the importance of playing in early childhood stage of life.

Jean Piaget Theory of cognitive development linked with observation analysis

In the cognitive theory developed by Jean Piaget, it is been stated that the early child growth and development take place through complex and multiple processes. The action here is though and processed for the development of human intelligence. The actions influence what come after another one in the human life. Piaget theory further indicates about “Schemas”; where it described that both mental as well as physical action helps in interpreting and also understanding the growth of the world (Robinson, 2008). Theory indicates that a lot of new information is gained and processed in early childhood stage of life. Piaget believed that at the age of 1-2 years, cognitive development follows a certain fixed procedure that is modified by the activities, learning and experience at this stage. Furthermore, the theory describing ‘Schemas’ indicate that more and more physical as well as mental processes work to develop the cognitive behaviour of individual (Macintyre, 2007). Similar was observed in the case of Collin, where more about mental and physical action involved as seen in the playing activities of Collin. Therefore, the Schemas of early childhood stage are working together for the cognitive development and expression of observed child Collin.

Language and Emotional Development in Early Childhood

Piaget’s theory indicates that first stage of human life is the 0-2 years period where the child will be learning the world that surrounds him or her through what comes through his senses. Objective performance is the greatest essence of this stage as Piaget puts it (Rathus et al. 2015). The theory states that this is the stage where a child also learns from the existence of certain objects that can be viewed, touched and felt by human conscious. Further, theory indicates that the rate of learning or the learning power at initial life stages like childhood is very high when compared to the adulthood learning power (Neaum, 2010). According to Robinson (2008), there are various reasons that explain this high rate of learning power. One is the biological reason indicating that brain cells are in the naive stage of development in early childhood, and therefore, cells performing a higher activity for development lead to increase in learning power. Second reason explaining accelerated learning power in early childhood is their interest development in socialization, interaction and relationship making process, which generally get lower till adulthood. Lastly, development of experiences accelerates the learning power in early childhood stages. Children have high learning capacity and empty mindful state that leads to the development of higher learning power (Rathus et al. 2015).

Hence, in this case of observational analysis, it is also observed that Collin at this stage of life is having a very high learning power where he learned different activities in initial stages and expressed them in his playing activities. For example – clapping performed by Collin indicates that he has learned or observed someone clapping before as an expression of happiness, which he applied to express his own happiness after completing the activities. Piaget theory also states that at early childhood stage, children always gather information and store them in their conscious (Neaum, 2010). They mostly get knowledge through their sight (watching), grasping and most importantly, through listening. They learn to keep off from danger, Collin is seen moving around the table but cannot climb on it, and the reason behind climbing on it is to avoid the danger and harm (Rathus et al. 2015). These were the major points of Piaget’s theory of early childhood cognitive development that were observed in the current case analysis of playing activities performed by Collin. The critical observations made in Collin’s activity clearly show a direct link with the major cognitive development points explained in Piaget’s theory.

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