10 Jul One common experience of many young infants is to be left in the care of others for a short time. Babysitting infants can be a breeze or a challenge, and if you have eve
One common experience of many young infants is to be left in the care of others for a short time. Babysitting infants can be a breeze or a challenge, and if you have ever done so, you may recall some infants who were easier than others to babysit. One potential explanation for this is where the infant is in terms of emotional development. To understand why this might be, write a response to the following question. You should incorporate information about emotional development during infancy in your response. Your textbook would be a good resource for this task.
1. For the discussion posting think first in terms of the emotional development of an infant and discuss when you think is the best time for an infant to be babysat? Please explain the reason for your answer making sure to relate this response to the information from your text.
2. Consider that not everyone has the luxury of staying home with their children, and some parents choose not to for many reasons. Discuss (providing a few examples) what qualities you think are important in a childcare environment to promote healthy attachment.
The First Two Years: The Social World
chapter four
Invitation to the Life Span
Kathleen Stassen Berger | Fourth edition
1
At About This Time: Developing Emotions
| Birth | Distress; contentment |
| 6 weeks | Social smile |
| 3 months | Laughter; curiosity |
| 4 months | Full, responsive smiles |
| 4–8 months | Anger |
| 9–14 months | Fear of social events (strangers, separation from caregiver) |
| 12 months | Fear of unexpected sights and sounds |
| 18 months | Self- awareness; pride; shame; embarrassment |
As always, culture and experience influence the norms of development. This is especially true for emotional development after the first eight months.
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Emotional Development (part 1)
Early emotions
High emotional responsiveness
Pain
Pleasure
Crying
Typical: Hurt, hungry, tired, frightened
Colic: Uncontrollable; reflux and immature swallowing
Excessive
Reactive pain and pleasure progresses to complex social awareness.
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Emotional Development (part 2)
Smiling and laughing
Social smile (6 weeks): Evoked by viewing human faces
Laughter (3 to 4 months): Often emerges as curiosity
Anger
First expressions at around 6 months
Healthy response to frustration
Sadness
Indicates withdrawal and is accompanied by increased production of cortisol
Stressful experience for infants
Emotional Development (part 3)
Infant emotions
Fear
Emerges at about 9 months in response to people, things, or situations
Stranger wariness
Infant no longer smiles at any friendly face but cries or looks frightened when an unfamiliar person moves too close.
Separation anxiety
Tears, dismay, or anger when a familiar caregiver leaves
If it remains strong after age 3, it may be considered an emotional disorder.
Both Santa's smile and Olivia's grimace are appropriate reactions for people of their age.
Adults playing Santa must smile no matter what, and if Olivia smiled that would be troubling to anyone who knows about 7-month-olds.
But why did someone scare this infant by putting her in the grip of an oddly dressed, bearded stranger?
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Emotional Development (part 4)
Toddlers’ emotions
Anger and fear become less frequent and more focused.
Laughing and crying become louder and more discriminating.
Temper tantrums may appear.
New emotions
Pride
Shame
Embarrassment
Disgust
Guilt
Require an awareness of other people
Emerge from family interactions, influenced by the culture
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Emotional Development (part 5)
Self-awareness
Person's realization that he or she is a distinct individual whose body, mind, and actions are separate from those of other people.
Emotional Development (part 6)
Mirror Recognition
Classic experiment (M. Lewis & Brooks, 1978)
Babies aged 9–24 months looked into a mirror after a dot of rouge had been put on their noses.
None of the babies younger than 12 months old reacted as if they knew the mark was on them.
15- to 24-month-olds showed self-awareness by touching their own noses with curiosity.
At 18 months, he is at the beginning of self-awareness, testing to see whether his mirror image will meet his finger.
8
Temperament (part 1)
Temperament
Biologically-based core of individual differences in
Style of approach
Response to the environment that is stable across time and situations
Temperamental traits are genetic; personality traits are learned.
Temperament is not the same as personality, although temperamental inclinations may lead to personality differences.
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Temperament (part 2)
Three dimensions of temperament are found
Effortful control (regulating attention and emotion, self-soothing)
Negative mood (fearful, angry, unhappy)
Exuberant (active, social, not shy)
Each dimension
Affects later personality and achievement.
Is associated with distinctive brain patterns and behaviors.
Do Babies’ Temperaments Change?
Sometimes it is possible. Especially if they were fearful.
Adults who are reassuring help children overcome an innate fearfulness.
If fearful children do not change, it is not known whether that's because their parents are not sufficiently reassuring (nurture) or because they are temperamentally more fearful (nature).
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Development of Social Bonds (part 1)
Synchrony
Coordinated, rapid, and smooth exchange of responses between a caregiver and an infant
Synchrony in the first few months
Becomes more frequent and elaborate.
Helps infants learn to read others' emotions and to develop the skills of social interaction.
Usually begins with parents imitating infants.
Is Synchrony Needed for Normal Development?
Experiments using the still-face technique
Experimental practice in which an adult keeps his or her face unmoving and expressionless in face-to-face interaction with an infant
Babies are very upset by the still face and show signs of stress.
Conclusions
Parent's responsiveness to an infant aids psychological and biological development.
Infants' brains need social interaction to develop to their fullest.
Development of Social Bonds (part 2)
Attachment
Lasting emotional bond that one person has with another
Begins to form in early infancy and influences a person's close relationships throughout life.
Attachment Types (part 1)
Insecure-avoidant attachment (A)
An infant avoids connection with the caregiver, as when the infant seems not to care about the caregiver's presence, departure, or return.
Secure attachment (B)
An infant obtains both comfort and confidence from the presence of his or her caregiver.
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Attachment Types (part 2)
Insecure-resistant/ambivalent attachment (C)
An infant's anxiety and uncertainty are evident, as when the infant becomes very upset at separation from the caregiver and both resists and seeks contact on reunion.
Disorganized attachment (D)
A type of attachment that is marked by an infant's inconsistent reactions to the caregiver's departure and return.
Measuring Attachment (Ainsworth)
Strange Situation
A laboratory procedure for measuring attachment by evoking infants' reactions to the stress of various adults' comings and goings in an unfamiliar playroom.
Key observed behaviors
Exploration of the toys. A secure toddler plays happily.
Reaction to the caregiver's departure. A secure toddler misses the caregiver.
Reaction to the caregiver's return. A secure toddler welcomes the caregiver's reappearance.
Can You Use Attachment Theory to Explain What You See?
Excited, Troubled, Comforted—This sequence is repeated daily for one-year-olds, which is why the same sequence is replicated to measure attachment. As you see, toys are no substitute for a mother’s comfort if the infant or toddler is secure, as this one seems to be. Some, however, cry inconsolably or throw toys angrily when left alone.
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Insights from Romania
In late 1980s, thousands of Romanian children were part of international adoptions.
Infants adopted before 6 months fared best; those adopted after 12 months often suffered a variety of adverse outcomes.
What have you learned about attachment that might explain these outcomes?
Predictors of Attachment Type
Use Table 4.1 to complete the information.
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Secure attachment (type B) is more likely if:
Insecure attachment is more likely if:
Development of Social Bonds (part 3)
Social referencing
Seeking emotional responses or information from other people
Observing someone else's expressions and reactions and using the other person as a social reference
Development of Social Bonds (part 4)
Parental social referencing
Mothers use a variety of expressions, vocalizations, and gestures to convey social information to their infants.
Synchrony, attachment, and social referencing are all apparent with fathers, sometimes even more than with mothers.
Social referencing has many practical applications.
22
Development of Social Bonds (part 5)
Fathers
Within every U.S. ethnic group, contemporary fathers are more involved than previously noted.
Involvement influenced by many factors
Social contexts
Within-group role models
Less rigid gender roles
Cultural variations
Social referencing has many practical applications.
23
Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development (part 1)
Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud: oral and anal stages
Oral stage (first year)
Anal stage (second year)
Potential conflicts
Oral fixation
Anal personality
FREUD: Oral and anal stages
Oral stage (first year): The mouth is the young infant's primary source of gratification.
Anal stage (second year): Infant's main pleasure comes from the anus (e.g., sensual pleasure of bowel movements and the psychological pleasure of controlling them)
Potential conflicts:
Oral fixation: If a mother frustrates her infant's urge to suck, the child may become an adult who is stuck (fixated) at the oral stage (e.g., eats, drinks, chews, bites, or talks excessively)
Anal personality: Overly strict or premature toilet training may result in an adult with an unusually strong need for control, regularity, and cleanliness.
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Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development (part 2)
Psychosocial Theory
Erikson: trust and autonomy stages
Trust versus mistrust
Infants learn basic trust if the world is a secure place where their basic needs are met.
Autonomy versus shame and doubt
Toddlers either succeed or fail in gaining a sense of self-rule over their actions and their bodies.
Early problems
An adult who is suspicious and pessimistic (mistrusting) or who is easily shamed (insufficient autonomy) can be created.
Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development (part 3)
Behaviorism
Bandura: social learning theory
Parents mold an infant's emotions and personality through reinforcement and punishment.
Behavior patterns acquired by observing the behavior of others
Gender roles in particular are learned.
The Effects of Parenting
Proximal parenting
Caregiving practices that involve being physically close to the baby, with frequent holding and touching
Distal parenting
Caregiving practices that involve remaining distant from the baby, providing toys, food, and face-to-face communication with minimal holding and touching
According to behaviorism, each action reinforces a lesson that the baby learns, in this case about people and objects.
Research findings
Notable cultural difference exists with newborns and older children. Culture is especially pivotal for the proximal/distal response.
Distal parenting results
May produce children who were self-aware but less obedient.
Proximal parenting results
May produce toddlers who were less self-aware but more compliant.
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Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development (part 4)
Cognitive Theory
Working model: Set of assumptions that the individual uses to organize perceptions and experiences
The child's interpretation of early experiences is more important than the experiences themselves.
New working models can be developed based on new experiences or reinterpretation of previous experiences.
Working models formed in childhood echo lifelong.
A person might assume that other people are trustworthy and be surprised by evidence that this working model of human behavior is erroneous.
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Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development (part 5)
Evolutionary theory
A human child must be nourished, protected, and taught much longer than offspring of any other species. Infant and parent emotions ensure this lengthy protection
Evolutionary theory holds that the emotions of attachment— love, jealousy, even clinginess and anger— keep toddlers near caregivers who remain vigilant.
Allocare (the care of children by caregivers who are not their biological parents) is important
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High-Quality Day Care
High-quality day care during infancy has five essential characteristics:
Adequate attention to each infant.
Encouragement of language and sensorimotor development.
Attention to health and safety.
Professional caregivers.
Warm and responsive caregivers.
High-quality day care during infancy has five essential characteristics:
1. Adequate attention to each infant. A small group of infants needs two reliable, familiar, loving caregivers. Continuity of care is crucial.
2. Encouragement of language and sensorimotor development. Infants need language— songs, conversations, and positive talk—and easily manipulated toys.
3. Attention to health and safety. Cleanliness routines (e.g., handwashing), accident prevention (e.g., no small objects), and safe areas to explore are essential.
4. Professional caregivers. Caregivers should have experience and degrees/certificates in early-childhood education. Turnover should be low, morale high, and enthusiasm evident.
5. Warm and responsive caregivers. Providers should engage the children in active play and guide them in problem solving. Quiet, obedient children may indicate unresponsive care.
30
Conclusions
Individualized care with stable caregivers seems best.
Relationships are important; each infant needs personal responsiveness.
Instability of nonmaternal care is problematic.
,
The First Two Years: Body and Mind
chapter three
Invitation to the Life Span
Kathleen Stassen Berger | Fourth edition
1
Growth in Infancy
Body size
Average weight
At birth: 7 pounds
At 24 months: 28 pounds
Average length
At birth: 20 inches
At 24 months: 34 inches
These numbers are norms or average measurements.
Averages and Individuals
Eat and Sleep. The rate of increasing weight in the first weeks of life makes it obvious why new babies need to be fed day and night.
Norms and percentiles are useful—most 1-month-old girls who weigh 10 pounds should be at least 25 pounds by age 2. But, although females weigh less than males on average, lifelong, it is obvious that individuals do not always follow the norms. Do you know a 200‑pound woman married to a 150‑pound man?
3
Sleep
Sleep specifics vary because of biology and the social environment.
Newborns sleep about 15-17 hours a day, in one- to three-hour segments.
Newborns' sleep is primarily active sleep.
Newborns have a high proportion of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.
Overall, 25 percent of children under age 3 have sleeping problems, according to parents surveyed in an internet study of more than 5,000 North Americans.
Newborns sleep about 15-17 hours a day, in one- to three-hour segments.
Newborns' sleep is primarily active sleep: often dozing, able to awaken if someone rouses them, but also able to go back to sleep quickly if they wake up, cry, and are comforted.
Quiet sleep: slow brain waves and slow breathing.
Newborns have a high proportion of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, with flickering eyes and rapid brain waves.
Variation is particularly apparent in the early weeks. As reported by parents (who might exaggerate), 1 new baby in 20 sleeps 9 hours or fewer per day and 1 in 20 sleeps 19 hours or more.
4
OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES
Where should babies sleep?
U.S. middle class infants sleep separated from parents; sleeping patterns are changing.
Decision to co-sleep or bed-share linked to culture, age of infant, mother’s education level, depressive state, and father involvement.
Asian, African, and Latin American infants co-sleep or bed-share.
Asian and African mothers worry more about separation; European and North American mothers worry more about lack of privacy.
Co-sleeping is a matter of custom, not merely income.
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Brain Development (part 1)
Prenatal and postnatal brain growth (measured by head circumference) is crucial for later cognition.
Head-sparing is a biological mechanism that protects the brain when malnutrition disrupts body growth.
The brain is the last part of the body to be damaged by malnutrition.
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Brain Development (part 2)
Exuberance and pruning
Specifics of brain structure and growth depend on genes and maturation, but even more on experience.
Early dendrite growth is called transient exuberance.
Unused dendrites whither (through pruning) to allow space between neurons in the brain, allowing more synapses and thus more complex thinking (sculpting)
Experience-expectant
Experience-dependent
Expansion and pruning of dendrites occur for every aspect of early experience.
Transient exuberance followed by pruning.
Early dendrite growth is called transient exuberance: exuberant because it is so rapid and transient because some of it is temporary.
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Brain Basics
Neuron
One of billions of nerve cells in the central nervous system (CNS).
Axon
Fiber that extends from a neuron and transmits electrochemical impulses from that neuron to the dendrites of other neurons.
Cortex
Outer layers of the brain where most thinking, feeling, and sensing occurs.
Prefrontal cortex
Area of the cortex at the very front of the brain that specializes in anticipation, planning, and impulse control.
Brain Development (part 3)
Dendrite
Fiber that extends from a neuron and receives electrochemical impulses transmitted from other neurons via their axons.
Synapses
Intersection between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites of other neurons.
Neurotransmitter
Brain chemical that carries information from the axon of a sending neuron to the dendrites of a receiving neuron.
Neurons and synapses proliferate (increase rapidly in number) before birth. This increase continues at a fast pace after birth, but soon an opposite phenomenon occurs: the elimination, or pruning, of unnecessary connections.
The last part of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex, the area for anticipation, planning, and impulse control.
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Connecting
The color staining on this photo makes it obvious that the two cell bodies of neurons (stained chartreuse) grow axons and dendrites to each other’s neurons.
This tangle is repeated thousands of times in every human brain.
Throughout life, those fragile dendrites will grow or disappear, as the person continues thinking.
The infant brain actually contains billions of new dendrites.
Every electrochemical message to or from the brain causes thousands of neurons to fire, each synapse to neighboring neurons.
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Face Lit Up; Brain, Too
This young boy enjoys the EEG of his brain activity.
Such research has found that babies respond to language long before they speak.
Experiences of all sorts connect neurons and grow dendrites.
Stress and the Brain
Infants need protection.
Shaken baby syndrome is a life-threatening injury that occurs when an infant is forcefully shaken back and forth. This motion ruptures blood vessels in the brain and breaks neural connections.
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Moving and Perceiving: The Senses (part 1)
Sensory development
Typically precedes intellectual and motor development.
Sensation
Response of a sensory system (eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose) when it detects a stimulus
Perception
Mental processing of sensory information when the brain interprets a sensation
Moving and Perceiving: The Senses (part 2)
Perception follows sensation.
Infants' brains are especially attuned to their own repeated social experiences and perception occurs.
Infant brain and auditory capacity to hear sounds in the usual speech range
The parts of the cortex dedicated to the senses develop rapidly.
Moving and Perceiving: Hearing
Sense of hearing
Develops during the last trimester of pregnancy.
Most advanced of the newborn's senses
Speech perception by four months after birth
Hearing occurs in the temporal lobe of both hemispheres, the green and some of the pink parts of the brain.
Language comprehension is mostly in the left hemisphere, here shown in the brown/orange region that responds to known words, and Broca’s area, the pink bulb that produces speech.
Note that a person could hear but not understand or understand but not speak if Broca’s area is damaged.
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Moving and Perceiving: Seeing
Vision
Least mature sense at birth
Newborns focus between four and 30 inches away.
Experience and maturation of visual cortex improve shape recognition, visual scanning, and details.
Binocular vision between 2 and 4 months
Depth perception is usually present by 3 months, but understanding depth requires experience.
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Moving and Perceiving: Tasting and Smelling
Sense of smell and taste
Smell and taste function at birth and rapidly adapt to the social world.
Foods of culture may aid survival.
Adaptation occurs for both of these senses.
Learning About a Lime—As with every other normal infant, Jacqueline’s curiosity leads to taste and then to a slow reaction, from puzzlement to tongue-out disgust. Jacqueline’s responses demonstrate that the sense of taste is acute in infancy and that quick brain perceptions are still to come.
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Moving and Perceiving: Touch and Pain
Touch
Sense of touch is acute in infants.
Although all newborns respond to being securely held, soon they prefer specific touches.
Some touches may be experience-expectant for normal growth.
Pain and temperature
Pain and temperature are often connected to touch.
Some people assume that even the fetus can feel pain.
Others say that the sense of pain does not mature until months or years later.
Ability to be comforted by touch is one of the skills tested in the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale.
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Moving and Perceiving: Gross Motor Skills
Every basic motor skill develops over the first two years of life.
Course of development
Cephalocaudal (head-down) and proximodistal (center-out) direction
Sequence of emerging skills
Sitting unsupported
Standing, holding on
Crawling (creeping)
Standing, not holding on
Walking well
Walking backward
Running
Jumping up
See chart on p. 94 for additional information about age norms for gross motor skills.
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Moving and Perceiving: Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills
Physical abilities involving small body movements, especially of the hands and fingers, such as drawing and picking up a coin
Shaped by culture and opportunity
Sequence of emerging skills
Grasping rattle
Reaching to hold object
Thumb-and-finger grasping
Stacking two blocks
Imitating vertical line
See chart on p. 95 for additional information about age norms for fine motor skills.
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Infant Cognition: Piaget (part 1)
Sensorimotor intelligence
Piaget's term for the way infants think—by using their senses and motor skills—during the first period of cognitive development.
Sensorimotor intelligence
Piaget's term for the way infants think—by using their senses and motor skills—during the first period of cognitive development.
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Infant Cognition: Piaget (part 2)
Stage One
Reflexes
Stage Two
First acquired adaptations (stage of first habits)
Stage Three
Attempts to produce exciting experiences; making sights last
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Infant Cognition: Piaget (part 3)
Stage Four
New adaptation and anticipation (means to the end); more attuned to goals of others; increased social understanding
Object permanence
Stage Five
New means through active experimentation
Little scientists; trial and error
Stage Six
Mental combination use; intellectual experimentation via imagination
Deferred imitation
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Piaget Evaluated
Careful observation of child cognition at each stage; inspired future research
Underestimation of age at which various accomplishments occurred (e.g., object permanence, deferred imitation)
Sensory and motor ability emphasis limited understanding of early child cognition
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Infant Cognition (part 1)
Information-processing theory
Modeled on computer functioning
Involves step-by-step description of the mechanisms of thought.
Adds insight to understanding of cognition at every age.
Has overturned some of Piaget's conclusions—including the concept of object permanence.
25
Infant Cognition (part 2)
Early memory
According to classic developmental theory, infants store no memories in their first year (infantile amnesia).
Developmentalists now agree that very young infants can remember; memory improves monthly.
Rovee-Collier’s mobile kicking research and others
Brain is an active organ even in infancy.
Infants remember not only specific events and objects but also patterns and general goals.
Language: The Universal Sequence (part 1)
Language and responding
Child-direct speech (motherese)
Babbling
Gestures
First words
Holophrase
Verbs and nouns
Naming explosion
Putting words together
Grammar
MLU
27
Language: The Universal Sequence (part 2)
Listening and responding
Child-directed speech
High-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants (Also called baby talk or motherese).
Babbling
Extended repetition of certain syllables, such as ba-ba-ba, that begins when babies are between 6 and 9 months old
Gradual imitation of accents, cadence, consonants, and gestures in the environment
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Language: The Universal Sequence (part 3)
First words
At about 1 year, babies speak a few words.
Spoken vocabulary increases gradually (about one or two new words a week).
Holophrase
Single word used to express a complete, meaningful thought
Infants differ in use of various parts of speech, depending on the language they are learning (e.g., more nouns and fewer verbs).
Cultural differences in language use
All new talkers say names and utter holophrases.
29
Language: The Universal Sequence (part 4)
Verbs and nouns
Naming explosion
Once vocabulary reaches about 50 expressed words, it builds rapidly, at a rate of 50 to 100 words per month
21-month-olds say twice as many words as 18-month-olds.
Ratio of nouns to verbs vary from place to place.
This language spurt is called the naming explosion because many early words are names of people and things.
Theories about naming explosion
Some languages are more verb-friendly than others.
Social context provides interactions with specific objects and responses to people.
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Language: The Universal Sequence (part 5)
Putting words together
Grammar includes all the devices by which words communicate meaning.
Sequence, prefixes, suffixes, intonation, volume, verb forms, pronouns, negations, prepositions, and articles
Proficiency in grammar correlates with sentence length (MLU)
31
Theory One: Infants Need to be Taught
B. F. Skinner (1957) noticed that spontaneous babbling is usually reinforced.
Parents are expert teachers, and other caregivers help them teach children to speak.
Frequent repetition of words is instructive, especially when the words are linked to the pleasures of daily life.
Well-taught infants become well-spoken children.
Theory Two: Social Interaction Approach
Social interaction fosters infant language.
Infants communicate be
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