Various factors affect the development of an infant in different realms of growth such as language, motor functioning, and their cognitive capacity. Among the most influential upbringing elements that determine the developmental trajectory of infants are mental health status of parents, the parent-infant bond, and the health of mother-father relationship (Parfitt, Pike & Ayers, 2014). The mentioned factor contribute to the holistic development of an infant, whereby they directly influence its mental capacity, language skills, and motor movements. In the study, the researchers confirmed the impact of the factors stated above, and according to the scholars, their effects have long-lasting consequences on the life of an infant. From the study, it was established that parental discernments of a child’s individualities are critical predictors of the child’s perceptive, language, and motor functioning.
The subject factors of the study had a varied impact on a child’s holistic development with the gender of the parent having an essential input in their growth trajectory. The mother-child relationship was primarily linked to the baby’s dialectal development, while the relationship between the father and the toddler affected motor development (Parfitt et al. 2014). Further, the researchers ascertained that where the mother had PTSD the child’s cognitive and language behaviors were hugely affected. Principally, the findings on PTSD were relatively new and astonished the researchers, and they recommended future studies on the same. The study, however, downplayed the impact of the general parent-child relationship on the developmental trajectory of an infant. The researcher nevertheless gave weight to the contribution of the gender of a parent. Hence the study shows that individual parents play independent roles in the growth of their child.
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Indeed, parental characteristics significantly impact the development of an infant in different spheres such as language, motor, and cognitive abilities. Significantly, the gender of a parent influences infant-specific characteristic. The impact of mother’s PTSD intrigued the researchers that they recommended further investigations.
Reference
Parfitt, Y., Pike, A., & Ayers, S. (2014). Infant developmental outcomes: a family systems perspective. Infant and Child Development , 23 (4), 353-373.