Chapter 3- Infancy and Toddlerhood PDF

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SOWK 1101 Professor Edwards-Knight...

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SOWK 2182-003 September 12, 2017 ●

Developmental niche- physical and social customs, caretaker psychology ○ Culture guides every aspects of the developmental process ■ Ex- Native American culture ● Rituals ● Rites-of-passage ■ Royal Family ■ Bar mitzvah / bat mitzvah ■ Orthodox ■ Japanese parents try to shield their infants from frustration ○ 3 interrelated components ■ Physical and social settings of everyday life ■ Child-rearing customs ■ Caretaker psychology

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT ● Newborns depend on others for basic physical needs ● Infants grow rapidly in the first 2 years of life ○ Pace of growth slows in toddlerhood ● Toddler- more mobile, independent ○ 12-36 months ● Nutrition ○ Impacts growth, brain development, physical stature, motor skills ○ Malnutrition contributes to 3.1 million deaths of children age 5 or younger Self-Regulation ● Regulate body functions ○ Temperature control ○ Sleeping ■ A newborn sleeps about 16 hours/day ■ Co-sleeping- child sleeps with parent ○ Eating ○ Eliminating Sensory Abilities ● Full-term babies are born with a functioning sensory system ○ Hearing, sight, taste, smell, touch, sensitivity to pain ○ Continue to develop rapidly in the first few months ● In the early months, the sensory system functions at a higher level than the motor system ● Sensory system allows infants to participate in and adapt to their environments ● Learning happens through listening and watching ○ Hearing is the earliest link to the environment

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Earliest infant smiles are evoked by the sound of human voice At about 4 months, infants see objects the same way adults do ■ But do not have cognitive associations with objects ○ Human faces have particular appeal for newborns ○ By 3 months, infants can distinguish parents’ faces from the face of a stranger ○ Infants are distressed by lack of facial movement in the people they look at ● Taste and smell begin to function in the uterus ○ Newborns can differentiate between sweet, bitter, sour, and salty ■ Preference for sweet taste is innately present ○ The first few minutes after birth is particularly sensitive for learning to distinguish smells ● Touch plays an important role in infant development ○ Cuddling, rocking, etc ○ Infants use touch to learn about their world and their bodies ■ Early infants use their mouth to explore the world ■ By 5-6 months, infants have controlled use of their hands to explore objects in their environment ● From the first days of life, babies feel pain Reflexes ● Involuntary muscle responses to certain stimuli ○ Aid the infant in adapting to life outside the womb ● Presence and strength reflect neurological development ● 2 critical ○ Rooting ■ When an infant’s cheek is stroked, they will turn their heads in the direction of the touch and open their mouth to attempt to suck the finger ■ Aids in feeding- guides toward nipple ■ Disappears at 2-4 months ○ Sucking ■ When a nipple or some other suckable object is presented to the infant, it sucks it ■ Important tool for feeding ■ Disappears at 2-4 months ● Presence of an infant reflex after the age it usually disappears can be a sign of brain or nervous system damage Motor Skills ● The ability to move and manipulate in an orderly, logical sequence ● Fine ○ Tying shoes ○ Using scissors ● Gross ○ Don't require a lot of thinking, time, or intricate detail ○ Catching a ball

The Growing Brain ● Neuron- a specialized nerve cell that can store and transmit information ○ Carry sensory information to the brain ○ Carry out the processes involved in thought, emotion, and action ● Synapses- gaps between the neurons that function as the site of information exchange from one neuron to another ○ Synaptogenesis- the creation of synapses ● Blooming- overproduction of synapses ● Pruning- reduction of synapses to improve efficiency ● Brain plasticity ○ Brain changes throughout life ○ Brain changes in response to what it experiences ● Exposure to speech in the first few years expedites the discrimination of speech sounds ● Exposure to patterned visual information in the first few years is necessary for normal development of some aspects of vision ● Positive physical and psychological experiences activate and stimulate brain activity

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT ● Cognition- the brain’s ability to process and store information and solve problems Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development ● Sensorimotor stage ○ Birth to 2 years ○ Infant is egocentric ○ Gradually learns to coordinate sensory and motor activities ○ Develops a beginning sense of objects existing apart from the self ○ Movie analogy: ■ Can only look at one frame of the movie at a time ■ When the next picture appears on the screen, infants focus on it and cannot go back to the previous frame ○ Six substages ■ Reflex activity ● Birth to 1 month ● Reflexes become the foundation to future learning ○ Infants build on reflexes ■ Primary circular reactions ● 1-4 months ● Repeat behaviors that bring them a positive response ● Limited anticipation abilities ■ Secondary circular reactions ● 4-8 months ● Performing acts and behaviors that bring about a response ● Reacts to responses from their environment

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Coordination of secondary circular reactions ● 8-12 months ● Mastery of object permanence ○ Understanding that an object exists even if they don't see it ○ Related to rapid development of memory abilities ● Stranger anxiety ○ Reacts with fear and withdrawal to unfamiliar people ○ Occurs at 9 months ● Separation anxiety ○ Remembers previous separations ○ Becomes anxious at signs of impending separation from parents ○ Learns that the parent will eventually return ■ Tertiary circular reactions ● 12-18 months ● Become more creative in eliciting responses ● Better problem solvers ■ Mental representation ● 18 months - 2 years ● Retain mental images of what is not immediately in front of them ● Remember and imitate observed behavior Preoperational stage ○ 2-7 years ○ Develop symbolic functioning ■ The ability to use symbols to represent what is not present ○ Remains primarily egocentric ○ Discovers rules/regularities that can be applied to new incoming information ■ Tends to overgeneralize rules, which causes cognitive errors ○ Movie analogy: ■ Can remember the sequence of the pictures in the movie ■ Do not necessarily understand what has happened or how the pictures fit together Concrete operations stage ○ 7-11 years ○ Solve concrete problems through the application of logical problem-solving strategies ○ Movie analogy: ■ Can run the pictures in the movie backward and forward to better understand how they blend to form a specific meaning Formal operations stage ○ Ages 11 up ○ Gain the capacity to apply logic to various situations and to use symbols to solve problems

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Movie analogy: ■ Understand the observed movie ■ Add or change characters ■ Create additional plot or staging plan Pre-language Skills ● Left hemisphere of the brain- ability to receive and produce language ○ Language starts at 2 months of age ■ Not necessarily words, can be sounds (cooing, babbling) ■ Words start at 18-24 months ● Toddler learns one new word each week ○ Stimulation (talking to the child) is important ● By the age of 2, toddlers know about 50-100 words and begin to combine two words together ○ Can be understood by adults about half the time ● Growing cognitive abilities ● Adults need to provide opportunity for interaction

SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development ● Each stage requires the mastery of a developmental task ● Mastery at each stage depends on mastery in the previous stages ● Stages: ○ Trust vs mistrust- birth - 1.5 years ■ Trust ● Develop a sense that needs will be met by the outside world ● Develop an emotional bond with an adult ● Important that physical and emotional needs are consistently met ○ Also protection from injury, disease, etc ○ Needs to receive adequate stimulation ■ Mistrust ● Infants who develop mistrust will become suspicious of the world and withdraw ● React with rage ● Deep-seated feelings of dependency ● Lack drive, hope, and motivation for continued growth ● Cannot trust their environment ● Unable to form relationships with others ○ Autonomy vs shame and doubt- ages 1.5-3 ■ Autonomy ● Growing sense of self-awareness ● Begins to strive for independence and self-control

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Feel proud that they can perform tasks and have control over bodily functions Relate well with close people in the environment Begin to exercise self-control in response to parental limits Need firm limits for controlling impulses and managing anxieties ○ But still need the freedom to explore their own environment Need an environment rich with stimulating objects and with opportunities for freedom of choice

Doubt ● Fear a loss of love ● Overly concerned about their parents’ approval ● Ashamed of their abilities ● Develop an unhealthy kind of self-consciousness ● Other stages not yet applicable: ○ Initiative vs guilt ○ Industry vs inferiority ○ Identity vs role diffusion ○ Intimacy vs isolation ○ Generativity vs stagnation ○ Ego integrity vs despair Temperament ● The individual’s innate disposition ● Three types: ○ Easy ■ Good mood ■ Regular patterns of eating/sleeping ■ General calmness ○ Slow to warm up ■ Few intense reactions ● Either positive or negative ■ Low in activity level ○ Difficult ■ Negative mood ■ Irregular sleeping/eating patterns ■ Difficulty adapting to new experiences and people ● Six dimensions of emotional style that have a strong neurobiological basis ○ Resilience ■ How quickly one recovers from adversity ○ Outlook ■ How long one can sustain positive emotion ○ Social intuition ■ How good one is at picking up social signals ○ Self-awareness

■ How well one perceives bodily indications of emotions Sensitivity to context ■ How good one is at taking the context into account in regulating emotions ○ Attention ■ How sharply and clearly one uses focused attention Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment ● Attachment- the ability to form emotional bonds with other people ● Infant’s instinct for survival ● Attachment advances through four stages ○ Preattachment ○ Attachment in the making ○ Clear-cut attachment ○ Goal-corrected attachment ● Transitional object- a comfort object to help cope with separation anxiety Ainsworth’s Theory of Attachment ● Three types ○ Secure attachment ■ The child uses the mother as a home base and feels comfortable leaving to explore the playroom ■ Returns to mother periodically to make sure she is still present ■ When the mother leaves, the child will cry and seek comfort from the mother when she returns ■ Child is easily reassured by mother’s return ○ Anxious attachment ■ Child is reluctant to explore the playroom and clings to the mother ■ When the mother leaves, child cries for a long time ■ When mother returns, child seeks solace from the mother but continues to cry ● May swat at or pull away from mother ○ Avoidant attachment ■ Child is indifferent to presence/absence of mother ○ Insecure disorganized/disoriented attachment ■ Child attempts physical closeness, but recoils when not given attention ■ Mother is usually depressed Attachment and Brain Development ● Attachment directly affects brain development ○ Without emotional bonding with an adult, the orbitofrontal cortex (part of the brain that allows social relationships to develop) cannot develop well ○

THE ROLE OF PLAY ● Enhances motor, cognitive, language, emotional, social, and moral development ● Types of infant play ○ Vocal play ■ Playful vocalizing to experiment with sound and have fun with it ○ Interactive play ■ Initiating interactions with caregivers ● Smiling and vocalizing to communicate and make connection ○ Exploratory play with objects ■ Exploring objects with eyes, mouth, hands ● Learn about their shape, color, texture, movement, sounds ○ Baby games ■ Participating in parent-initiated repetitive games (peek-a-boo) ● Types of toddler play ○ Functional play ■ Engaging in simple, repetitive motor movements ○ Constructive play ■ Creating and constructing objects ○ Make-believe play ■ Acting out everyday functions and tasks ■ Playing with an imaginary friend ● Important aspect- parent/child interaction ● Vehicle for developing peer relations DEVELOPMENTAL DISRUPTIONS ● Developmental delay ○ Significant lag in development ○ May be temporary or may be a symptom of a lifelong condition ● Developmental disability ○ Lifelong impairment that results in functional limitations ○ Ex- intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy, autism RISKS TO HEALTHY INFANT AND TODDLER DEVELOPMENT ● Poverty ○ Link between poverty and infant mortality (death of a child before age 1) ● Inadequate caregiving ● Child maltreatment ○ Abuse/neglect

PROTECTIVE FACTORS IN INFANCY AND TODDLERHOOD ● Factors that mediate between the risks children experience and their growth and development ○ Maternal education ○ Social support ○ Easy temperament...