What is working well in my draft?

- I feel like I’m am doing a good

job explain some of the scientific
information in a simple way.

What needs work?

- I feel like I state something or

use a quote from an outside
source and it just feels out of
place.
- Also, I think I messed up the
boundaries for the paragraphs
and I don’t know how to fix
them.

What roadblocks or problems are you

facing at this point in the IP process?

- I’m just having a hard time

making the paper sound
interesting and I’m a little bit
stressed that I won’t make it to
six pages from where I am now.

Austin Harris
 Harris |1

Austin Harris
Mrs. Coco
English 1001
13 April 2018
Audience: Parents who want to understand their role for their child’s development and the
severity of parental neglect.
“The Self-Taught Child”

A solid foundation is essential to becoming a strong, well-rounded individual.

With it, we can over come any obstacle that life throws at us and without it we crumble to

pieces. I know for a fact my foundation came from my parents. They taught me the

difference between right and wrong and distilled the belief that I am a special individual

and I was created for a purpose. This belief is what drives me today to be the very best I

can be and make the right choices in my life. Without my parents I would be lost in the

world having to figure out everything myself and making bad choices along the way

because I wasn’t taught any better. This is what many people have had to do in their lives

because their parents were either not around or just didn’t simple didn’t care enough to

teach them. This led me to the question, “How does parental neglect affect the mental

development during childhood?

How does a child develop?

As the CDC states in its article on Early Brain Development and Health,

“Although the brain continues to develop and change into adulthood the first 8 years can

build a foundation for future learning, health and life success.” The reason for this is Commented [AH1]: Paragraph 1
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/childdevelopment/early-
brain-development.html
because during those eight years the child’s brain is very malleable and easily adapts to

change. Since the child has little to no knowledge during this time its only way of
 Harris |2

learning is through experiences. Of course, people still learn from experiences when they

are older, but they can also learn from reading new things and being verbally taught new

things. A child isn’t able to do this so the only option they have for learning new things is

physically doing it. The most common and effective way a young child has experiences is

through “playing”.

“While play is often seen as something frivolous that children do to pass the

time, play is an incredibly important part of a child’s healthy development.” Commented [AH2]: Paragraph 1
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/the_power_of_play_part_1
_stages_of_play
(Rymanowicz, 2015) As a child plays, more and more connections are made and

strengthened in the brain. Strengthening in the brain refers to the neural connections

becoming more insulated allowing transmissions between these connections to become

faster. In simple terms, this means that whenever you do a task over and over again that

task eventually becomes like “muscle memory”. As Harvard’s Center on the Developing

Child presents in their article InBrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development,

“Early experiences affect the quality of that architecture by establishing either a sturdy or

a fragile foundation for all of learning.” This architecture refers to that solid foundation I Commented [AH3]: Paragraph 1
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-
science-of-ecd/
described at the beginning of this paper. So simple tasks like crawling around the house

and simple hand-eye coordination have to be learned through constant trial and error, but

this paves the way for more advanced physical activities to be learned later. However,

you may ask yourself, “If physical activities are learned through play time how does a

child learn to start communicating through words if it can’t understand us?”

Why is a parent important?

This is where parents have a key role in their child’s experiences because a

child will learn most of its social and language skills from its parents. As Elizabeth
 Harris |3

Rainwater explains it in her research paper on Parenting Styles and Child Development,

“Parents are a child’s primary example of an adult therefore if parents do something that

a child finds intriguing he will attempt to do the same.” While it is true that during the Commented [AH4]: Page 22, Paragraph 2
http://alfredadler.edu/sites/default/files/Elizabeth%20Rain
water%20MP%202011.pdf
early stages of life a child truly doesn’t understand what we are saying to it as the child

becomes older the brain starts to see our sounds as words and start to mimic them. This is

why babies start to babble because they are trying to learn how to properly communicate.

It’s important for parents to also know that, “Children learn best when parents take turns

when talking…”. (CDC, 2018) This is the concept of keeping quiet when someone else is Commented [AH5]: Paragraph 4 (2nd sentence)
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/childdevelopment/early-
brain-development.html
speaking to you, so when a baby is babbling to you wait till he/she is finish and then talk

back to the child in order to for the child to learn this very important social skill. Also,

even when the child has grown out of the baby phase parents still play an important role

because they continue to teach the child about the world and start to instill, hopefully,

good beliefs in order for the child to understand he/she is wanted and needed.

What happens because of neglect?

When a child is neglected this mistreatment causes many psychological

problems. It’s horrible to think that a parent would do this to their own child because they

also lose out on the love and care that nurtures someone into becoming a strong

individual. Surprisingly enough this neglect happens more often than it should. The CDC

did a survey in 2014 and stated that, “At least one in four children have experienced child

neglect or abuse at some point in their lives, and one in seven children experienced abuse

or neglect in the last year.” This “one in seven” statistic is very astonishing because the Commented [AH6]: In “Prevalence: 1 in 4 children suffer
abuse”
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childmaltreatmen
outcome of neglect leads to mental underdevelopment.
t/consequences.html
 Harris |4

Work Cited:

Boeree, George C. “Personality Disorders.” General Psychology, 2006,

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/persdisorders.html

“Child Abuse and Neglect: Consequences.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 Apr. 2016,

www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childmaltreatment/consequences.html.

“Early Brain Development and Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Feb. 2018,

www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/childdevelopment/early-brain-development.html.

“InBrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development.” Center on the Developing Child at

Harvard University, Harvard University, 2006,

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/.

Rainwater, Elizabeth Ann. “Parenting Styles and Child Development.” Parenting Styles and

Child Development | Adler Graduate School, Alder Graduate School, Jan. 2011,

http://alfredadler.edu/library/masters/2011/elizabeth-ann-rainwater

Rymanowicz, Kylie. “The Power of Play – Part 1: Stages of Play.” MSU Extension, Michigan

State University, 6 Oct. 2015,

http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/the_power_of_play_part_1_stages_of_play
 Harris |5

What Comes Next?

Specific effects of impaired mental development.

- Possible go into statistics on criminal active of kids who have neglectful parents.

- Personality Disorder’s? (Don’t go into full detail but enough to explain severity of the

illness)

- Mirroring incorrect behavior from parents.

- Talk about how these kids are not good at keeping long term relationships