Assignment
Part 1- Motor, Sensory, & Perceptual Development
This activity will reinforce your knowledge and understanding of infants' sensory and perceptual abilities and provides an opportunity for you to apply this knowledge. For this assignment, you should examine toys targeted to infants (birth to 24 months) to see if the toys are appropriate given what we know about infant motor, sensory, and perceptual abilities. You should go to the toy section of a store or review toys online at a URLs such as www.amazon.com. You should find one toy that you deem to be "appropriate" for the given age group (i.e., the age group identified by the toy manufacturer) and one toy that you deem to be "inappropriate." In a written report (1 ½ to 2 pages), you should clearly articulate why you deem the toys to be appropriate or inappropriate using information from the textbook on motor, sensory, and perceptual development/skills. Please include a picture of each type of toy you discuss.
Part 2- Emotional Development and Attachment
In this project, you will examine attachment behavior using naturalistic observation. At a local shopping mall or playground, observe for 15 minutes a mother with an infant 12 to 18 months old. It's important that you observe a mother/child pair that you do not know and that it is in a public place. You may have to observe a few infant/mother dyads to find a good example to complete this assignment. For example, if the infant/mother is only in your view for 6 minutes and leaves, you shouldn't write about them or if the mom sits on the bench the whole time on her phone, barely interacting with her child, it may be difficult to complete the assignment. Record the behaviors you notice in a notebook. Attachment behaviors may include talking, clinging, mutual gaze, smiling, crying, hitting, and retrieving. Be sure to maintain an unobtrusive presence and disclose your purposes should anyone ask.
In a written report (2 pages), discuss your findings with reference to the following questions:
· Who did you observe? (i.e., mother-son, father-son, mother-daughter, father-son)
· Where did you conduct your naturalistic observation?
· What kinds of behaviors did you observe? Be detailed?
· Were the interactions generally positive or negative? How so?
· Did the infant appear to use the mother as a secure base? How so?
· Of the attachment categories discussed in the text, which seems to best characterize this pair? Explain.
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.