Infant Observation

For the infant observation, I decided to observe my best friend’s one-year-old son. I chose to observe him at his house because I thought that it would give me a better understanding of just how he acts when he is a setting that he is used to and comfortable in. The observation took place on March 14, 2015 at around 2:00 pm. There were two other people present during this observation, them being the child’s parents.

I started my observation around 2:00 pm and I did not end up leaving until about 4:30 pm. I have always been around this child, but while I was conducting the research to complete this paper I found a few things that I have not noticed before. I seen that this child has a few special characteristics that I have not really noticed in other toddlers his age. He is very outgoing and not shy at all. His father is an actor and I believe that he will take after him because he will sit back and just watch movies and then will repeat the words back the best he can. It was really neat to see that a one-year-old baby can mimic words like that. Although the words are being repeated in baby talk, some of them are very noticeable in context.

This child has a very interesting physical development. He was walking earlier than most children do and he is on his way to being semi potty trained. He will point at toilet from time to time and then he will go pee-pee. This child has a positive large muscle development happening. As I stated before, he is speaking a few words that are very clear and it’s easy to understand what he is trying to say. I noticed that he likes to sniff his mother’s shirt because it smells like her perfume. After he takes a big sniff of it, he will say “mmm” which made me laugh.

I think that cognitive and language development is one of the most important aspects in child development. This child is already very intelligent. I noticed that when I gave him a pen and a notebook that he knew what to do with it. Of course, he could not draw or write, but he did hold it the best way a baby his age could and also knew that the pen went with the notebook. The child’s language development is very good. He can say words such as “mommy” and “dada.” For some odd reason he calls me “momma” which makes me laugh. This child is very interested in movies. He will watch a movie over and over with his favorite being “The Muppets Christmas Carol.” This makes me consider that the child has a great attention span and focus on things that interest him.

While observing, I noticed just how important the emotional development is to a one-year-old child. He makes it known that he is in the room and if someone isn’t completely focused on him then he will yell and run to you until you acknowledge he is in the room. He knows where is hair and nose are. It’s funny because he will take his mothers hair and put it on his head which makes me realize that this child has his own sense of self-expression. Whenever he is mad, he will cry just like any other baby would do. He screams until he gets picked up and held. I think it’s funny and cute when babies do that because it shows that they have self-expression and awareness.

This child has one of the best personalities that I have ever seen. He is very sweet and funny with other people. He is more attached to his mother than his father, which is because she is much more nurturing which attracts babies. When in a group setting, he is always itching to become the center of attention. He takes after his father a lot when it comes to that because that’s how he always was growing up. When he gets into trouble, he will say “uh oh” and then try to kiss whoever is disciplining him.

As I was finishing up my observation, I noticed that there were some similarities and differences regarding this child and the expected norms. He is just like every child when it comes to crying and screaming when something is not going his way, but the way he does it makes a huge different than what I have ever seen before. I never seen a child recognize he did something wrong and then try to fix it the best way he knows possible whether it being hands on with the incident or trying to be sweet by kissing someone. I think that these differences exist because it’s about who his family is and how he is raised. He is growing up in a loving and energetic family who loves to stand out from the crowd. His father is an actor and his mother is a very good singer. This child attends daycare and they told his parents that he was their “favorite student.” This makes me very happy to hear because he is a unique child and deserves to be recognized with his differences.

In conclusion, this observation was a great success. I think the major cognitive development would be that he knew how to hold a pen and that it’s supposed to go with the notebook. The major physical development would be how early he started walking and the emotional development would be his attentiveness of when he makes an accident and says “uh oh” when he knows he is about to get into trouble. This observation did benefit my knowledge of development because it allowed me to see just how this baby acts when he is in his own home. I would like to continue my observation in a more public setting to see how different he acts. Overall, I had a fun time and I learned a lot of great things regarding this child’s development.