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I am Born
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Period: to
My Life So Far
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Infancy: Cognitive Development
At the age of 5 months, my parents and older brother started to play peek-a-boo with me. By the age of 7 months, I began laughing and giggling during this "game". This shows that I developed object permanence which is apart of the Sensorimotor Stage. I knew they were there even when I could not see them, leading to anticipation of the "boo" that I knew was coming. Peek-a-boo was how people would get me to smile for pictures such as this one. -
Infancy: Physical Development
I started walking when I was about 10 months old. -
Infancy: Emotional Development
During Infancy I was insecurely attached to my mother. I never wanted to be separated from her. If I was, I would often cry the entire time. I was not able to adapt to the environment without her and was always scared of other people. -
Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
When I was learning to talk, my parents would read books to me daily. They would often read something, point to it, and try to get me to repeat it. This added my language development greatly! -
Early Childhood: Emotional Development
When I was young, everyone described me as sweet and shy. This fits with Thomas and Chess's "slow to warm up" temperament style. I was very withdrawn and did not adapt well to change. I was so withdrawn that I would not even smile in pictures for several years. Everyone's view of me matched my actual temperament style at that age. -
Early Childhood: Physical Development
- My exercise level in early childhood was moderate. I am not ure how many hours per week.
- I did the typical little girl activities such as running around and playing on the playground.
- I throughly enjoyed physical activity at this age because it allowed me to get my energy out and I felt accomplished as I developed new physical skills.
- This mostly consisted of gross motor skills that required the development of posture and ability to walk.
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Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
People often ask me what my dreams and life goals are. They have been the same since the age of 4. I want to be a mother. I would always pretend that my stuffed animals were children and I was their mother. I even made sure to tuck them into bed every night. This shows that I was in the Preoperational stage because of my ability to understand and use objects as symbols. -
Early/Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development
When I was a child I often saw other children who could listen and understand a concept or instructions. It often puzzled me how they were able to do this. I was told many times that I was "choosing not to listen". I knew this was not the case which led me to believe that I was simply not intelligent. It wasn't until after I graduated high school that I found out I have ADHD which leads me to struggle with many different aspects of intelligence. -
Early Childhood: Cognitive Development
As a child my favorite thing to do was pretend. I pretended mostly with dolls and playing dress up. My favorite thing to dress up as was a princess or book character. This fits with the research on children's concept formation and categorization which concluded that girls focus on dress-up, books, and the like. -
Middle/Late Childhood: Physical Development
- In middle to late childhood my physical activity level remained moderate. It averaged about 4 hours per week.
- My main physical activity was ballet which I started when I was around eight years old.
- Ballet was my favorite thing to do which made it easy to stay at a healthy level of activity.
- Ballet required more refined gross motor skills. It required me to balance on on leg while simultaneously spinning in circles. Muscles also increased to allow me to lift my legs high in the air.
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Middle/Late Childhood: Cognitive Development
When I was in elementary school, I struggled with math. The one thing that helped was using concrete objects to work out the logics behind adding, subtracting, fractions, etc. This implies that I was in the Concrete-Operational Stage. The math curriculum I used was even titled "Math-U-See", which was based around the concept of this stage. -
Adolescence: Physical Development
I entered puberty at the same time as everyone else, although it took longer to become fully developed than it did my peers. Many people my age assumed I was significantly younger, leading to me being left out of many activities. This lead me to have no real friends during most of my adolescent years. -
Adolescence: Physical Development
- During my adolescent years I had a high level of physical activity. I averaged around 9 hours per week.
- This included ballet, point, tap, and modern.
- I loved all four of my dance classes; ballet, point, tap, and modern.
- In addition to gross motor skills, these advanced ballet classes required control over fine motor skills. I had to position my fingers in the right form, as well as use my toes to stand on point. I also had to make small repetitive motions with the ball of my foot.
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Adolescence: Emotional Development
As a teenager, I fell in love with a boy like every high school girl does. Being my first love, I was passionate, emotionally intimate, and committed to him. Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love would identify this as "Consummate Love". -
Adolescence: Cognitive Development
As a teenager, everyone asked me what my plan was, where I would go to college, what I wanted to do with my life, etc. I began to imagine my dream life, in the future as well as in the present. I wanted to be adventurous, live in another country, and spend endless amounts of time with friends (pictured is me being adventurous with friends in the Dominican Republic). I created a picture of what my ideal life would be like. This is a characteristic of the Formal Operational Stage. -
Graduated High School
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Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development
Although I sometimes still need physical objects to understand logic (Ex. math), I now have the ability to preform hypothetical-deductive reasoning. Being a science major, this is an important skill to have. Science requires me to recognize a problem, and form a hypothesis to test. This is a part of the Formal Operational Stage. -
Early Adulthood: Physical Development
- I currently have a very low level of physical activity.
- I will occasionally go kayaking or go to the gym and use the weights and elliptical.
- My feelings towards physical activities change depending on the activity. I love to kayak but I absolutely hate going to the gym.
- Kayaking requires gross motor skills for my arms to dig the paddle into the water and push. I also have to use fine motor skills to firmly grasp (palmer grasp) my fingers around the paddle.
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Early Adulthood: Emotional Development
I have a tendency to be hesitant for fear of being hurt. During times of relational stress I become even more distant. This alines with the avoidant attachment style. It has caused many problems in my past romantic relationships. Non romantic friendships are much easier for me. My attachment style with my closest friends would be secure attachment. It is easy to get close to them and trust them. This picture is a great representation of my relationship with my best friend Keely. -
Adulthood: Emotional Development
Sternberg's Triangular theory of Love would identify me as having a "fatuous love". I am passionate, and committed, but I struggle with intimacy. -
Graduated with an Associate's Degree
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Moved to Birmingham and Started at UAB!
