ECHE1180 Infant Memory Analysis Assignment Sample

• Subject Code : ECHE1180
• University : Macquarie University My Assignment Services is not sponsored or endorsed by this college or university.
• Subject Name : Early Childhood

Infancy and Early Development

Table of Contents

Introduction.

Role of the environment in which the child is reared.

Necessary Environmental improvements.

Methods Used in Articles.

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction to Infant Memory Analysis

A child develops his or her memory by engaging in continuous interactions with others. Additionally, they come to know about various things by experiencing live events. All these interactions and experiencing processes occur at their surrounding environments. In case a child does not fully understand an event, he or she will be less likely to remember it once is grown up. This also results in incorrect recall of the events in a proper way (Kelleher et al. 2012, p.171).

According to scientists and child experts, the development of the brain primarily occurs at the early stages of an individual, during the childhood period. This is where the intensity to remember things is the strongest as compared to other stages and periods of life. It is important for the researchers and other individuals to successfully understand and grasp the aspects of memory and its capacity. It is not necessary that a child’s memory capacity have to be equal to that of his or her memory’s size. Rather it depends on their ability to utilize these elements of memory toward their development. Although it is the fact that young children are capable of great things and possesses huge potentials, their memory capacity is somewhat limited in certain areas (Reese et al. 2010, p.23). This holds true for the stage of early memory development. According to recent researches, young children has the ability to recall memories having minute and specific details, which can even be difficult sometimes for adults. A sense of self is usually developed by the children when they are around two years old (de Kieviet et al. 2012, p.314).

As can be seen from various scenarios, the memory capacity is not fully developed until the early childhood period, around the age of eight years, which is crucial for acquiring and building the memory development. The adult play a significant role in aiding the children to memorize things and plays a crucial part in their lives for their development of brain including memory capacity and the ability to perceive various ideas and concepts during their lifespan.

Role of The Environment in Which the Child Is Reared

An environment can be described as the surroundings and its conditions of an individual. Here, the environment plays a major role in shaping the development of memory during infancy and childhood. A child is likely to develop more memory capacity if he or she gets a positive learning environment and is surrounded by intellectual adults. On the other hand, a child having a poor environment that does not support learning processes will develop poorer memory as compared to the previous child. Remembering and understanding are closely related to one another. Without remembering an occurrence, understanding cannot take place. The adults are responsible for the development of the memory among children. They carry out joyful, responsive, and nurturing interactions with the infants and children, thereby playing a crucial part in their development and growth. One of the most effective and simple ways played by the adults can be narrating experiences and telling stories to children. Therefore, for this reason, storytelling is considered as an important activity for children that help them to develop their learning capacities along with their overall development. On the other hand this provides a channel for the adults to express their thoughts, revisit events from their past, and provoke certain thoughts, and most importantly help the children recall what they cannot remember (Kelleher et al. 2012, p.187).

In a study when the candidates were asked to recall their earliest memories from their childhoods, they failed to do so. This is due to the fact that the majority of the individuals have no recollection of the memories during their early stages of life, which is during their infancy or early childhood. Childhood amnesia is a common occurrence among many individuals. Psychologists were puzzled over this concept for many years and this is primarily regarding the importance of early experience in development of human beings. According to empirical researches carried out recently, children can show signs of brain development including their capacity of memory from their very early days. This when accompanied by suitable and proper environment gets accelerated, thus making their ability to learn and express things more efficiently. This is the reason child specialists and professionals in the field are hired to teach and coach young children at their early stages of life.

Necessary Environmental Improvements

The environment provided by the child’s family can be said to be one of the major aspects in the development of the child and his or her other traits and characteristics like the development of memory and ability to remember things. How the child interacts with his environment provided by the parents as well as teachers can be a major point of change and development for the child. The rate of development is also dependent upon the maturity of the child and his or her ability to perceive and understand things around. Studies have shown that an environment that is enriching and healthy fosters healthy overall development of a child including his ability to remember things. This can be aided by other elements like emotional support, love, and scopes for exploration and learning. It has also been noticed that in situations where only one parental figure is concerned, the development process becomes slower relatively as compared to normal circumstances and where both of the parents are present. Therefore in order to promote the development of memory during infancy and childhood an ideal environment is needed along with supporting adults who can teach and make the children learn about various elements of life (Kelleher et al. 2012, p.173).

Methods Used in Articles

In the paper presented by Elaine Reese, Chen Yan, Fiona Jack, and Harlene Hayne, the method that has been used to study the development of memory in early childhood periods is narrative. It has been found that adults often narrate their life experiences to children in order to teach them make them learn the important lessons of life. Although the children may transit quickly to adolescence, their development at later stages of life according to the paper is majorly based upon their learning and developments at early childhood. As said previously, the early childhood can be said to one of the major portions of life that contribute to the development of the children as a whole, including their memory retention capabilities and learning abilities (Reese et al. 2010, p.24). In other terms it can be stated that the newfound realizations have foundations that are deeply rooted to the experiences and capacities that has been developed from the early childhood. Here, it has been described that the main way that we use to learn about ourselves is narrative, which can be in form of stories that we share with other individuals. This includes both way communication to learn about ourselves and others.

In the paper presented by John E. Opfer, Clarissa A. Thompson, and Ellen E. Furlong the method that has been used to study early development of childhood memory is related to spatial and quantitative performance. The directional biases are examined related to the use of numeric information on tasks that are spatial in nature by the pre-reading pre-schoolers. The use of this special information and their application on numeric tasks are elaborated in this paper. According to the results, the special numeric associations are usually developed long before the formal reading of the children (Opfer, Thompson and Furlong, 2010, p.762). The candidates answered correctly to the majority of the questions provided in the paper, which supports this fact at the end. Also, it has been noticed that the children were able to locate the hidden objects from left to right. On the other hand, this can become tremendously difficult for the students in case the same sets of objects are arranged from right to left.

In the paper presented by Ida Sue Baron, the primary method that has been used is neuropsychological evaluation. Neuropsychology can be said to be a subject that is growing at a rapid pace and has been a reliable area in psychology for the past few decades. Doctoral level professionals are involved in this study, who are particularly trained for studying brain behaviour and related relationships in the field. It has been observed that with sufficient motivation a pre-schooler can be actively engaged in certain tasks, ranging from easier ones to the ones having higher difficulty levels, as labelled by the experts. In the given case certain considerations have been made, like separation of the child from his parents while conducting the test to identify how the child behaves when being separated from his or her parents along with his comfort zone (Baron, 2018, p.71). Also, it has been observed that pre-schoolers require immense emotional support and can perform better while providing constant assistance along with a suitable and learning friendly environment.

In another paper presented by Donna Bryce & David Whitebread, observational analysis has been utilised to notice the behaviour of young children while solving problem. This particular article deals with the understanding of development of metacognitive skills among young children who are between 5 and 7 years old. The quantitative and qualitative changes are observed along with other improvements under the influence of their environments. Also, the tendency of the metacognitive skills to change along with age has also been observed in the given study. The results pointed towards the fact that processes of monitoring get improved with age, whereas the processes associated to control improve with both task-specific ability and age. Furthermore, these task-specific abilities are responsible for affecting the metacognitive skills that has been described previously (Bryce and Whitebread, 2012, p.198).

In the article presented by Joan & Jernigan (2010) the subject of brain development including the development of memory capacity among the young children has been described. The method used here is magnetic resonance imaging to determine the developments of brain and its functioning. According to the findings, the procedure and process that guide brain development is related to the on-going interactions of environmental and genetic factors (Stiles and Jernigan, 2010, p.328).

Conclusion on Infant Memory Analysis

It can be concluded from the above findings that the development of memory during infancy and childhood is indeed dependent upon the maturity and growth characteristics of the children and the environment in which he or she has been developed. A learning friendly environment along with a continuous flow of emotional support to the child can help to develop one’s memory during the period. It has been often noticed that children has the greater ability to learn as compared to their adult counterparts, and in some cases children after growing up find it difficult to remember the childhood memories. This can be due to inadequate development of their memory capacity during their early childhood days. This can be improved by providing a suitable environment to the children while they are growing up.

References for Infant Memory Analysis

Baron, I.S., 2018. Neuropsychological evaluation of the child: Domains, methods, & case studies. England: Oxford University Press.

Bryce, D. and Whitebread, D., 2012. The development of metacognitive skills: Evidence from observational analysis of young children’s behavior during problem-solving. Metacognition and Learning, 7(3), pp.197-217.

De Kieviet J.F., Zoetebier, L., Van Elburg, R.M., Vermeulen, R.J. and Oosterlaan, J., 2012. Brain development of very preterm and very low‐birthweight children in childhood and adolescence: A meta‐analysis. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 54(4), pp.313-323.

Kelleher, I., Connor, D., Clarke, M.C., Devlin, N., Harley, M. and Cannon, M., 2012. Prevalence of psychotic symptoms in childhood and adolescence: a systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based studies.

Opfer, J.E., Thompson, C.A. and Furlong, E.E., 2010. Early development of spatial‐numeric associations: evidence from spatial and quantitative performance of preschoolers. Developmental Science, 13(5), pp.761-771.

Reese, E., Yan, C., Jack, F. and Hayne, H., 2010. Emerging identities: Narrative and self from early childhood to early adolescence. In Narrative development in adolescence (pp. 23-43). Springer, Boston, MA.

Stiles, J. and Jernigan, T.L., 2010. The basics of brain development. Neuropsychology review, 20(4), pp.327-348.

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