Myers in Modules, Module 8 Module 8 Infancy and Childhood

Myers in Modules, Module 8

Module 8Infancy and Childhood


Physical Development

• Brain Development:* peak neuron production at 28 weeks prepartum

* 23 billion neurons at birth

* only a few connections in the neural network

* ages 3-5 most of the neural connections in frontal lobe (rational and logical operations)

* language and agility neural connections continue growing into and through puberty


Cerebral Cortex Sections



• Maturation and Infant Memory• Prior to age 3.5 years, long-term memories

fade and are not readily recoverable• We typically cannot remember events earlier

than this• 3-month olds CAN remember that moving their

leg moves a mobile toy for over a month• 11-month olds can remember being shown

how t make a rattle by putting a button in a box for some months

• 3-year olds will recognize out of focus pictures more readily if shown a clear version of the picture as long as 3-months earlier



• Motor Development – universal pattern– Babies rollover before they can sit up– They creep on al fours before they can walk– There are normal variations:

• 25% N. Am. Babies walk by 11 months

• 50% by 12 months

• 90% by age 15 months

– Identical twins typically sit up and walk on almost the same days. (Genetic influence on motor coordination)

– Bladder and bowel control also require motor neuron maturation…no coaxing will accelerate it.


Cognitive Development

• Piaget’s Theory and Current Thinking– Piaget’s views emerged from systematic

observation of children – predominately his own.– His interest started when attempting to develop

questions for a child’s intelligence test.– He became intrigued with the reasons for wrong

answers when trialing these questions. He perceived a different intelligence at work, in the wrong answers.

– He concluded that children’s way of thinking and rationalizing are dramatically different from older humans


An Impossible Object



• Piaget’s Theory and Current Thinking– Piaget determined that a child’s mind develops through

a series of stages.– Therefore an 8-year old can understand what a 3-year

old cannot.– He believed that the driving force behind the

development was a ceaseless struggle to make sense of our experience….to pattern and understand our world.

– The brain builds these patterns or concepts which Piaget called SCHEMA

– We ASSIMILATE a new Schema from new experiences (moose)

– We ACCOMMODATE the new experiences into our old or existing Schema (e.g. fitting a moose into a cow schema)


Pouring Experience into Mental Modes




Sensimotor Stage– Infants lack Object Permanence (out of sight; out of mind) up to

6 months of age. Simply covering an object removes it from their world.

– At 8 months , even after being restrained, the will look for object– Infants stare longer at impossible actions, like a ball hovering in

the air.– Infants (5-months) stare longer at impossible counting outcomes

(c.f. below)– They can count drum beats before a jack-in-the-box emerges

and are startled when it erupts before that number of beats.– If they see a person turning on a light switch with her head, they

will imitate. However if they see that hr hands are occupied at the time, they will simply use their hands.


Baby Mathematics



Pre-Operational Stage – before age 6 or 7– Children too young for 3-D mental operations– 5-year old believes that too much milk is in a tall glass, but that

an acceptable quantity to drink is in a short glass.– In this stage, the child lacks the concept of Conservation of

matter. – Symbolic thinking can occur at age 2.5 years when kids can use

a model of a room where a small toy is hidden, to find it. (DeLaoch, ’87)

– Piaget didn’t think that the stages of development were abrupt but gradual improvement in more abstract thinking (cognition)

–EGOCENTRISM: Young children cannot perceive from another’s point of view. –e.g. 3-year old makes himself ‘invisible’ by covering his eyes.–e.g. Pre-schoolers who block a TC from our vision, assume you can see what they do.


Cognitive Development Pre-Operational Stage – before age 6 or 7EGOCENTRISM: Young children cannot perceive from another’s point of view. – e.g. Pre-schoolers who block a TV from our vision, assume you can see what they

do.– e.g. 3-year old makes himself ‘invisible’ by covering his eyes.

THEORY OF MIND: Children start thinking of other people as thinking individuals with their own views and priorities and fears.

_ e.g. They start to infer intentions from other’s behaviour or looks. – e.g. They come to realize that others may hold false beliefs and relish in knowing

the reality themselves. e.g. 3-year olds being surprised to find that there are pencils in a band-aid box: asked what a child who hadn’t seen the box would think was in it, they responded “pencils”.

– By 4-5 years old, delighted in anticipating their friend’s false belief.

AUTISM: A disorder which is marked by an impaired Theory of Mind._ features deficient communication and social interaction skills. – Have difficulty inferring other’s minds (thoughts and feelings) by their looks and

behaviour.– Concrete Operational Stage– Formal Operational Stage


Theory of Mind Test



Concrete Operational Stage – between age ~ 7 and 12

CONSERVATION: Children begin to grasp that change in shape doesn’t mean change in quantity.

– e.g. Kids gain the ability to comprehend mathematical transformations and conservation.

– e.g. At concrete stage students are aware that as 4+8 = 12, so to does 8 + 4 = 12.

Formal Operational Stage – ~age 12 and aboveABSTRACT THINKING: Children are able to project and think into the

future_ they begin to use abstract thinking, imagined realities, symbols for

chemistry or mathematics. _ they start being capable of solving hypothetical questions (“what

if ?”) _ They begin to deduce consequences for their actions. _ e.g. If X then Y; X is the case then what about Y?


Cognitive Development• Reflecting on Piaget’s Theory

– Piaget’s Stage Theory is not accepted without reservations– Widespread studies confirm that human cognition develops roughly

as he suggested– Today’s researchers think of development as more continuous and

a blurring of the timing when additional mental capabilities develop in the child.

– We also note variable developmental rates for the mind.– Piaget contended that children construct their understandings from

interactions with the entire world around them.– This means that teaching is more effective when we build on what is

already known; not introducing new things or ideas out of context. – Young children and developmentally slow learners, learn better

through concrete demonstrations. – Children’s mental or cognitive immaturity is adaptive in that it keeps

them close to the protection of adults; providing time for learning and socialization


Social Development

• Origins of Attachment p.146: intense mutual, parent/infant bond.– Body Contact: Harlow’s baby monkeys preferred warm

cuddly terrycloth artificial mother to a wire ‘mother’ who provided nutrition. (1950’s – serendipity).

– Other qualities which attracted comforted the baby monkeys were rocking motion, warmth, and feeding that enhanced the cloth ‘mother’.

– Human infants also seek security and safety with parental figures who represent a safe haven.

– As we mature, we shift this requirement to peers.

• Stranger Anxiety: doh! Fear of strangers Newborns prefer familiar faces and voices and coo with pleasure when they are nearby.

Soon after toddlers become mobile and develop object permanence, they develop a fear of strangers.


Social Development

• Responsive Parenting– Secure attachments occurs as a result of

several factors: relaxed, attentive parents(rat studies of adoptive mothers).

– Human babies of inattentive, insensitive, unresponsive mothers were insecurely attached and exhibited fear of separation and strange environments

• Familiarity: Attachments to parental figures occur in most animals during some Critical Period in their early development. Imprinting occurs in birds (e.g. ducks, geese : 24-48 hrs) on a parental figure which is the first moving object seen during the first hours after birth. (Konrad Lorenz) Human newborns don’t imprint, but they do grow

attached to the familiar.c.f. http://www.animalbehaviour.net/Imprinting.htm

http://music.musictnt.com/biography/sdmc_Image:Lorenz.gif


Social Development

• Responsive Parenting - Mothers– Van de Boom’s experiments in sensitive motherhood indicate

variations in child’s security. 100 tempermentally difficult 6-9 year olds. Half of their mothers provided sensitivity training. 68% of the trained mothers’ kids became securely attached; vs 28% for control group.

• Responsive Parenting - Fathers– Expectant fathers’ sex hormone levels change in parallel with pregnant mothers.– Father’s love and attention are equivalent to mothers in developing secure

attachments. (100 studies worldwide)– Parental deprivation resulting from non-marital birth, divorce, separation, or

death, puts kids at higher risk of various psychological and sociological problems. (Myres 2000)


Infants’ Distress Over Separation from Parents

Day care vs. home rearing experience made little

difference in separation

anxiety


Social Development

• Secure Attachment and Social Competence– Longitudinal studies identified infants securely attached at 12-

18 months and studied them at 2-4 years of age– Sroufe et al observed that these kids at 2-4 years functioned

with more confidence in social environments. – Erickson (1990’s) suggests that securely attached children

approach life with a sense of confidence and basic trust in the world’s predictability.

– Predicted that kids with sensitive, responsive parents form a lifelong attitude of trust, rather than fear.

– The works of others indicate that we do approach syyles of romantic love either with:i. secure trusting attachmentii. insecure, anxious attachment; oriii. no attachments


Social Development

• Deprivation of Attachment– Institutionalized babies are often withdrawn , frightened or

speechless, and many had deep emotional scars. – The unloved become the unloving. Most abusive parents

report being abused as children. 30% of abused children become abusers.

– However, most abused children do NOT become abusers themselves.

– If maltreated in early life children often the effects of delinquency disappeared by adolescence.

– Terrorized children exhibit life-long emotional scars of their trauma. The stresses cause long-term depression of serotonin levels, which calms aggressiveness in normal humans.

– This permanently alters the brain’s emotional processing limbic system.


Social Development

• Daycare and Attachment– The research indicates that although separation anxieties are indistinguishable

between home-reared and day-care centre reared kids, that qualitative differences emerge.

– High quality child care (whether home or outside) involves warm, supportive interactions with adults in a safe, healthy and stimulating environment.

– NICHD (2002) studied 1100 children from 1 month of age. Now at age 4.5 – 6 years, day care reared kids had slightly advanced thinking and language skills. (Why? Are we sure?)

– They also had slightly higher levels of aggressiveness and defiance. (Again, why?)– Children thrive within varied types of responsive care-giving. E.g. Pygmies of Zaire

multiple caregivers- held and fed by the community. “It takes a village to rear a child.”

– Extended family constellations can provide some of this stimulation


• Self-Concept: a sense of one’s own identity and worth

- The major outcome of childhood at age 12

- Self-awareness (measured by mirror recognition) occurs between 6-18 months

- By age 5, kids describe their own physical and personality features, as well as their role in a group.

- The see themselves as skilled in some areas but not others: “I’m a good soccer player”

- Children with positive self-concepts are more confident, independent, optimistic, assertive, sociable.

Child-Rearing Practices

Social Development


• Child-Rearing Practices (3 styles)

– Authoritarian: (impose rules; expect obedience)– Permissive: (make few demands, use little punishment)– Authoritative: (exert control; demanding; responsive)– Children with authoritative style parents have the

highest self-concept.

CONTROL: Kids given some control become motivated and self-confident. Not: helpless and incompetent!

On the other hand, do kids affect parenting styles?

KIDS INSPIRE TRUST: Parental warmth and control vary even within a family between different children. Do agreeable, easy-going children elicit greater trust, confidence and control? Twin studies say “YES!”

Social Development


Social Development

• Child-rearing PracticesTHIRD VARIABLE: Authoritative parents are often better educated and are often not stressed by poverty, divorce.- This variable could account for the correlation between

authoritative parenting and positive self-concept in kids.

FOURTH VARIABLE: Perhaps genes from competent parents are also present in competent, self-confident children.- The genes predicate agreeable self-confident children.- Different parenting styles are a result of many of these factors

and no one style is perfect for every situation.

Practice review section on page 154.


Authoritative Parenting and Social Competence

Documents

Myers in Modules, Module 8 Module 8 Infancy and Childhood