TMA01

TMA01:
Using the photos as a starting point, describe how children are active participants in their own development, as well as being influenced by the environment around them.

Tom Turner (F4792734)

E225: Child Development Birth To Adolescence

Neil Crowther

08 November 2025

The field of child development explores explanations for how children grow and adapt. Central to this is recognising that children are active partakers in shaping their environment through reciprocal processes. This essay will show how this interaction works by analysing four photographs, focusing on how universal principles and cultural settings connect. It will demonstrate that, through crying, coordinating attention, imitation, and playing, children actively participate in their own development all while being shaped by their surroundings.

Photo One depicts a crying baby. This illustrates an infant's inherent desire to connect with caregivers. Demonstrating how infants are not passive beneficiaries, but are in fact actively manipulating their environment to ensure the acquisition of their needs. This demonstrates a dynamic intersection between nature and nurture (Ibbotson, 2025b). Said participation is evident through the crying, but also the infant’s physical features such as large eyes, which evolved to elicit caregiver attention. Research has shown that both men and women react in an instinctively positive way towards ‘cute’ infant faces, with mothers across diverse cultures showing a preference for plump infants who display approximately 15% body fat (Ibbotson, 2025b p.20). Newborns also make eye contact and focus on faces to initiate  and strengthen this connection.

Such signalling relies on a responsive caregiving network. The quality of this response, termed sensitive caregiving, involves perceiving and promptly addressing distress (Foster 2025, p.9). Consistency in this responsiveness is essential, as human infants require extensive support throughout uniquely prolonged childhoods. Given that global infant mortality rates remain around 3% (Ibbotson, 2025b), this support is critical. Traditionally, this support comes from a broad social network that includes not only parents but also alloparents (The Open University 2025a).

Caregiving quality and cultural context also shape children's expectations from the caregiver, determining if they view a caregiver as a secure or insecure safe haven. These early relational patterns inform the child's internal working model and influence further development (Foster 2025, p.6). Although the patterns of child development are universal, the way it is expressed culturally varies significantly across the world (The Open University 2025d).

Photo 2 depicts a child and adult building a block towe together. This  demonstrates an active participation in social tasks and learning through shared intentions and focus (Ibbotson, 2025c, p.38). This cooperative play demonstrates a chil’d acquisition and development of Theory of Mind (ToM) – i.e the capacity to conceptualise others' goals, beliefs and intentions (The Open University, 2025c). At around 9 months, an infant can actively observe goal-directed behaviour, and can demonstrate an early ToM ability that shifts interaction from two-person exchange to play that focuses on a mutual goal. Behne and colleagues (2005, cited in Ibbotson, 2025c) discovered that by 9 months of age, infants distinguish between adults who are unwilling versus unable to give them a toy, displaying impatience only in the unwilling condition, thereby demonstrating intention-reading capabilities.

Although the foundations for ToM is present from birth, environmental influences shape its development. Social interactions, particularly those between primary caregiver and child, provide a crucial framework from which a child can begin to understand the minds of others (Ibbotson, 2025c). By openly discussing a child's thoughts and feelings in their presence, caregivers actively encourage perspective-taking skills, thereby improving the process. Siblings increase opportunities to practise ToM, as they bring a diversity of perspectives. Studies show that four-year-old children are flexible in their ability to work and play with others, with 40% of them demonstrating cooperation skills successfully without any verbal communication. This ability to coordinate intentions allows children to later engage in the type of cooperation that makes human civilisation possible (Ibbotson, 2025c).

Photo 3 depicts a child copying an adult's gesture, this captures social learning through imitation. Imitation is a foundational way in which children engage with and assimilate others' behaviours, emerging in its most basic form in the first year (Ibbotson, 2025e). Meltzoff's classic study found that 67% of 14-month-old infants spontaneously reproduced a head-touching gesture only one week after observation, demonstrating children remember, and can mimic actions from memory (1988, cited in Ibbotson, 2025e). Children don't passively absorb things; instead, they are builders of their own rules. This can be seen in language development, where they apply grammatical rules broadly such as "I eated" or "I bringed";  demonstrating active problem-solving. Observers notice children's resistance to grammatical correction, with them persisting with forms like "writed" and "holded" despite correction (Ibbotson, 2025d).

In comparison to other primates, human children are "over-imitators" because they frequently copy actions that seem unnecessary (Ibbotson, 2025e, p.77). However, this behaviour is not irrational; rather, but a  sign that the action is culturally relevant (The Open University, 2025d). Such imitation enables the handing down of cultural knowledge and social practices. This balance between creative rule-generation and environmental input of group conventions helps them become culturally competent adults who fit into society (Ibbotson, 2025d).

Photo 4 depicts a child feeding a doll, highlighting play as active, self-directed learning. Children are 'expert information foragers, ' combining known facts with exploring new possibilities. Research using the blicket detector task revealed that 4-5 year-old children outperformed adults in exploratory learning as they had an innate curiosity and so experimented, whereas adults had a fixed view on how things work (Gopnik et al 2015 cited in Ibbotson, 2025e). Pretend play helps develop key cognitive skills, particularly reasoning and counterfactual thinking; the ability to imagine alternative outcomes and "what if" scenarios. According to Buchsbaum and associates, children between 3 and 4 years old who were good at imaginative play were also better at counterfactual reasoning, which suggested that they applied what they learned in pretend play to new tasks (2012, cited in Ibbotson, 2025e). It is argued that a more exploratory approach is often better than direct instruction for improving adaptability and general problem-solving skills.

This learning process is both self motivated and environmentally shaped. The length of human childhood provides protected time for exploration without immediate demands (Ibbotson, 2025a). Additionally, what play looks like is culturally informed. Though self-driven, play often mirrors the world of adulthood. Salali and colleagues’ study of Mbendjele BaYaka people discovered that play reflected gendered adult roles, with boys engaging in hunting-related play and girls in gathering activities (Ibbotson, 2025f). Demonstrating how children's play was guided by cultural contexts, ensuring the development of skills important to that society.

In conclusion, children develop due to the interaction between the child and their surroundings. Children actively participate in their  own development; guaranteeing caregiving through crying, constructing communication rules through imitation, and practising grown up roles through play. Yet this is only successful because of responsive caregvers, relevant cultural contexts, and supportive communities. This dynamic demonstrates that development cannot be assigned to nature or nurture exclusively. Instead, children are active participants who shape and are shaped by their environment in turn.

(1081 Words)

References

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Ibbotson, P. (2025a) ‘Chapter 1: Perspectives on Child Development’, in Child Development: Birth to Adolescence. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–18.

Ibbotson, P. (2025b) ‘Chapter 2: Why Does Love Matter?’, in Child Development: Birth to Adolescence. Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–35.

Ibbotson, P. (2025c) ‘Chapter 3: Are Children Mind Readers’, in Child Development: Birth to Adolescence. Cambridge University Press, pp. 36–50.

Ibbotson, P. (2025d) ‘Chapter 4: How Do Children Learn Language?’, in Child Development: Birth to Adolescence. Cambridge University Press, pp. 51–66.

Ibbotson, P. (2025e) ‘Chapter 5: How Children Learn So Much So Quickly?’, in Child Development: Birth to Adolescence. Cambridge University Press, pp. 67–85.

Ibbotson, P. (2025f) ‘Chapter 6: Growing Up Globally: The Early Years’, in Child Development: Birth to Adolescence. Cambridge University Press, pp. 86–104.

The Open University (2025a) ‘2.2 It takes a village’, E225 Week 2 Perspectives on child development [Online]. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2396580&section=5 (Accessed 5 November 2025).

The Open University (2025b) ‘4.2 Do triangles play tricks’, E225 Week 4 Are children mind readers [Online]. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2396732&section=4 (Accessed 5 November 2025).

The Open University (2025c) ‘6.2: Do apes ape’, E225 Week 6 How do children learn so much so quickly?  [Online]. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2397370&section=5 (Accessed 5 November 2025).