Www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Integrative framework to learning and development 20.12.2015 Käyttäytymistieteellinen tiedekunta / Henkilön nimi / Esityksen

www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto

Integrative framework to learning and development

21.04.23Käyttäytymistieteellinen tiedekunta / Henkilön nimi / Esityksen nimi 1

Nina Sajaniemi


• The needs of children are universal• special needs are adaptations to somewhat more

extraordinary profiles of development

• to be looked upon – and loved: to be seen for who one is, enjoyed, cherished

• to be heard – and thus valued as someone worthy

• co-regulation of inner state – to stay within the window of tolerance

• to be given freedom to explore and find mastery

• to be taught the values and expectations of ones culture

• to be an accepted part of their own group

What do children need for development



WE ALL HAVE UNIQUE BRAIN

• The function of the brain is to incorporate information and guide behavior on this basis



• Information is brought in by the senses

• Five senses connecting to physical world

• Interoception “body sense” keeps us in touch with how we react to situations

• Social senses tell of the intentions and experiences of others

• Mirror neuron systems are the physical basis of empathy

• Connect others to inner experience of self and to understanding

Development and learning



• The most complex system known to man (Siegel 2012)

• Billions of neurons and near infinite possibilities of interconnections and net-works

• Absolutely unique to every child

• More biological possibilities than ever will be used

• Cultural molding through use and disuse

The brain-body system



• Develops slowly throughout childhood

• New levels of information processing and integration come on-line

• Use-dependent: use it or lose it

• Brain growth vs. body growth

The brain-body system



• Autonomic level ready from birth: function

• Bodily regulation and basic activation

• Fight-flight or freeze –reactions to stress

• Limbic level develops fastest in first years: feeling

• primary emotions such as fear, joy, surprise, and delight

• attachment to those that take care – every moment matters

The levels of brain-body functioning



• Cortical level of integration and thinking: meaning

• Two different systems of processing: holistic and analytical

• Right-dominated holistic integration connected to body and limbic system

• Liveliness, play, imagination

• Left-dominated analytic function notices differences

• Manipulates reality with symbols

The levels of brain-body functioning



The brain divided

• Hemispheric differences are ancient and necessary

• Animals, birds, even toads reach out to things with their left hemisphere and create contact with others with right

• Division is not on what but on how

• All activities are carried out but both hemispheres together

‒ language, mathematics, emotions, art…

21.5.2013Jukka Mäkelä: Ecological Interpersonal Model 9


The brain divided

• The crucial difference between hemispheres is how:

• How attention is focused leads to different views of reality

• Right has global, whole image attention• Global attention gives possibility to pick up particulars

• Feeling of being alive – feeling of communion

• Left gives attention to individual separate bits

• Gives manipulative power

• Feeling of alienation and deadness



Difference and co-operation

• Right is primary, experiential, in-the-moment

• First to develop, larger, more integrative

• Right frontal lobe prominent

• empathy and feeling of me (in relationship with others)

• guides intentions and reactions

• communication of meanings through prosody

• Communicative musicality: music was before words



Difference and co-operation

• Left picks up particulars and re-presents them

• Grabs, dissects, manipulates parts as a machine that can be controlled

• Denotative language is secondary to communication

‒ things can be manipulated and a new reality created

‒ what is created in words is real, what is experienced is suspect

• Time is flattened

• Right brings both together to create integration



Differences as list

Right Left

Fresh presence, new Representation, familiar

Metaphor Denotative language

Connections and context Parts and abstraction

Co-operation and communion Control and competition

Unique lived experience Generalization and machines

Empathy Dehumanization

Time and depth Sequence and flat

Melody, timber, harmony Raw beat

Deep emotions (sorrow, awe, joy, pride, shame…)

Anger and unbound optimism

www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto 21.5.2013Jukka Mäkelä: Ecological Interpersonal Model 14


Educating the whole brain



Dual powers of development

• The brain and culture are in interaction: growth, change and learning

• Culture is the shared set of meanings• transmission of culture is what learning is about

• what is acceptable and sought after in behavior

• what is needed and valued in skills

• practical and social

• what is possible in thinking and creating

• intent participation learning (B. Rogoff 2003)



• The human being is an ultra-social species

• Much (most?) of our brain capacity is used for interaction

• Face, voice, hands, body and language form the social communication system

• Throughout life, communication is what matters most

• The most painful destiny is to be left without an answer

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Inclusion is the human default-mode

Jukka Mäkelä: Supporti

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• The primary goal of humans is to be an accepted and valued part of society

• We are not individuals seeking own satisfaction

• Hard-wired to recognize similarities between people

• If feeling safe

Inclusion



• We have an inborn need to be a part of a group

• All children have a deep need to be an accepted and valued part of their natural community

• Natural means family, day-care, school, neighborhood, kin…

• Human parenting has always been co-operative (S.Hrdy

2009)

Inclusion



• Social exclusion is the greatest developmental risk factor for children and adolescents

• 5 – 10 % of youth in Finland are at potential risk of social exclusion

• tremendous loss of human potential for the society + an estimated life time cost of 1 – 2 million €

• Exclusion is the accumulated experience of being left out

• increases malicious intentions (J Twenge, R Baumeister 2005)

• Humans easily notice non-resonance, not receiving an answer

• shame –reactions lead both to depression and to aggression

• true pain: same brain areas are activated as in physical pain

• exclusion is a human catastrophe

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Social exclusion is painful


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• The capacity of the ECD system to offer an experience of inclusion to all children is a value in itself

• it must organize itself so as to accommodate the individually different developmental needs of children

• this is a vital form of primary prevention of social exclusion

• Individual developmental needs are not a diagnosis

• They are met when the moment by moment needs for co-regulation of inner state are sensitively answered to

• Inner state can be understood as the combination of motivated activation and its regulation

• children signal their state continuously and search for answers that support the positive and manage the negative

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Being accepted as a part of ones culture feels good


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The power of positive emotions

• Responding to an other diminish his/her stress• being heard and

answered to in an appropriate way

• affect attunement

• positive emotions strengthened, negative attenuated

• Positive emotions give room for development


The power of positive emotions

• Specific net-works in the brain (Panksepp 1998)

• Signal of an optimal state of activation

• Curiosity and mastery

• Making sense of the world i.e. learning

• Play and creativity

• Enjoying the world of other people and things

• Rough-and –tumble play enhances learning

‒ brain-growth factors elevated for a long time (J Panksepp 2007)

• Nurture

• Being comforted when in need makes one courageous


Basic capacity towards the interpersonal

• Primary interest in other people: inborn capacities to notice and assess relations• neuroception and the

social engagement system (S. Porges 2007)

• synrythmia (C. Trevarthen 1998)

• affect attunement (D. Stern 1985)

• prosocial moral assessments (JK Hamlin, K Wynn 2011)

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Interpersonality

• Humans experience co-operation as rewarding

• Children share food and other spoils with others

• Prosocial tendency

• Consolation and comforting, especially of those smaller

• Helping others in their individual pursuits

• “Helpers and hinderers”: only if others have human eyes



Interpersonality

• Basic feelings of pleasure arise from engagement• pleasure tells us that our system is in positive balance

• integrative brain functioning and development is made possible

• Breaches in relational being are traumatic• reconnection is crucial (E.Tronick & al.1978), and is the

responsibility of the adult, parent or teacher

• Brains are in pain when being excluded

• “kaveria ei jätetä – never leave your buddy”



Complexity

• Complexity brings resilience• The more complex a system is, the more flexible it is

• Power of groups

• Supporting development is to support learning• Integration of various levels of information processing

• Body: gut reactions and

• Emotion: empathy and mirroring

• Thought: moral and social evaluations



Complexity

• Rigidity and chaos are alternatives to integration• highest integrative centers not ready until after adolescence

• integration needs work: regulation

• in childhood, integration is upheld by self-regulating adult

• Regulated stress supports integration and learning



Stress regulation: the core of well-being

• Children are responding to any kind of stressors with a set of highly integrated, neurobiological stress responses.

• Events that triggers stress responses varies from actual threat to potential positive learning experiences

• Stress-sensitive neurobiological system is extremely immature and vulnerable over early childhood years (Gunnar 2007)

• Stress regulation skills are poor during school years

‒ Teachers need skills in co-regulation


Zone of proximal development –zone of proximal stress regulation

• Practically everything has to be learned

• Children have to learn to communicate their feelings, intentions and thoughts in various social contexts.

• In addition, they have to learn facts, rules and behavioral strategies of the socio-cultural environment they are living in

• Moreover, they are learning self-help skills and various cognitive skills like literacy and numeracy.


Stress regulation

• Need for self-regulating other to cut down stress

• Learning is always enhanced with regulated stress

• Challenge: How to function in emotionally loading situations without drawing on unnecessary extremes

• Withdraw, overt aggression, acting out etc.

• How to tolerate arousal in the zone of proximal development

• Great temperamental differences in reactivity

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Chronic stress and unbalanced stress regulation

• Where stress is chronic cortisol levels remain elevated for a long time

• Harmful effects on brain development, especially on frontal lobe functions

• Ultimately the body adapts to the atypical cortisol levels

• Hypocortisolism

• Hypercortisolism

• Where stress regulation is unbalanced, there is a risk for behavioral problems, learning difficulties and exclusion


Stress regulation

• Traumatic stress is loss of continuity

• Child should not be left alone

• Sense of being alone is fear-provoking in itself

• Being in connection is fundamental


• Noticing signals that children send, while keeping group functioning a priority• group sensitivity (Ahnert & Lamb 2006)

• warmth of expression, attuned oversight (Singer et al 2013)

• Supporting stress regulation through interpersonal engagement• fostering social development through supporting the inherent

sympathetic capacity towards other children

• Creating a rhythm between play and intent learning• play creates space and incentive to learning (J.Panksepp 2007)

• making sense together: verbal structuring

• creating possibilities for intent participation (B.Rogoff 2003)

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Pedagogical sensitivity


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• Every child is absolutely unique in his/her developmental possibilities

• interplay of genes and environment

• a child cannot attain his/her possibilities without adult support (scaffolding)

• Children develop in and through interpersonal experiences

• child needs adult´s higher integration to set upon new paths and to strengthen those with most difficulties

• experiences with peers are immensely important for positive emotions, prosocial learning and being valued

• Strong engagement is the key to effectual interaction

• non-engagement is very common in ECEC

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The knowledge needed for pedagogical sensitivity


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Documents

Www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto Integrative framework to learning and development 20.12.2015 Käyttäytymistieteellinen tiedekunta / Henkilön nimi / Esityksen