ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on development and the ways developmental care could be supported with infants. Predictable changes in physical functioning occur from birth through uncoordinated and jerky actions to smooth and intentional co-ordinated movements. Observing infants playing with different types of mobile hangings at various lengths is a playful way of observing infants’ growing capacity of interest and physicality and perception of their surrounding environment. The sense of motion and position begins to develop prenatally through the mother’s movement of swinging, rocking her body through everyday movements. The self refers to the child’s sense of who they are as a person, and the foundations of the child’s sense of self during first four years of life. Approaching infant development from differing perspectives enables interactions within a family context to be included in the understanding of, and responses to, infant’s needs. Communication and language include all the different ways an infant understands and communicates, only part of which is spoken language.