Infancy Development PDF

Infancy Physical, cognitive and socio-emotional development Patterns of growth Cephalocaudal pattern-the sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top (the head) with physical growth and differentiation of features gradually working their way down from top to bottom Same princi...

Infancy Physical, cognitive and socio-emotional development Patterns of growth Cephalocaudal pattern-the sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top (the head) with physical growth and differentiation of features gradually working their way down from top to bottom Same principles can be applied in the top/head area (e.g., eyes and brain vs jaw development) Visual and motor development Proximodistal pattern-the sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the extremities E.g. trunk muscles vs arms The principle of hierarchical integration Simple skills typically develop separately and independently but these simple skills are integrated into more complex ones (e.g., grasping and control) The principle of the independence of systems Different body systems grow at different rates (the patterns of growth for body size, the nervous system, and sexual maturation are different) Physical growth and development In the first few days of life most newborns lose 5 to 7 percent of their body weight before they adjust Rapid gain of weight of 5-6 ounces per week, doubled weight by 4 months, tripled until their 1st birthday Grow about 1 inch per month and doubling height by the first birthday At 2 years of age one fifth of and adult‘s weight and one half of height  The brain A newborns brain is about 25% of its adult weight, and at their second birthday it is at 75% 100-200 billion nerve cells The brain is developing rapidly, and the infant‘s head should be protected and never to be shaken Shaken baby syndrome-includes brain swelling and hemorrhaging Risks for brain scannings (PET, MRI); EEG? Development and changes of the neurons Brain areas do not mature uniformly The basis of neurons: Axons, dendrites Myelin sheath Myelination Terminal buttons and neurotransmitters Synapses  Changes in neurons Myelination-the process of encasing axons with fat cells, begins prenatally and continues after birth, even into adolescence Connectivity among neurons increases, creating new pathways New dentrites, synaptic connections proliferate This facilitates the speeding of neural pathways Pruning-happens when we lose synaptic connections because we do not need them  Mapping the brain: Forebrain (cerebral cortex and what lies beneath) Cerebral cortex-two hemispheres Due to the structure of the cortex- lobes Frontal lobe-voluntary movements, thinking, personality, purpose Occipital lobe-vision Temporal lobe-hearing, language processing and memory Parietal lobe-spatial location, attention, motor control  Changes in the regions of the brain Growth and later pruning of synapses in the visual, auditory, and prefrontal cortex “Blooming and pruning” varies considerably by brain region For example, the peak of synaptic overproduction in the visual cortex occurs at about the fourth postnatal month However, in the prefrontal cortex (higher-level thinking and self-regulation) the peak of overproduction takes place at about 1 year of age Both heredity and environment are thought to influence the timing and course of synaptic overproduction and subsequent retraction Meanwhile, the pace of myelination also varies in different areas of the brain Myelination for visual pathways occurs rapidly after birth and is completed in the first six months Auditory myelination is not completed until 4 or 5 years of age  In general, some areas of the brain, such as the primary motor areas, develop earlier than others, such as the primary sensory areas The frontal lobes are immature in the newborn However, as neurons in the frontal lobes become myelinated and interconnected during the first year of life, infants develop an ability to regulate their physiological states (sleep, and gain more control over their reflexes) Cognitive skills that require deliberate thinking do not emerge until later in the first year  To some extent, the type of information handled by neurons depends on whether they are in the left or right hemisphere of the cortex E.g., speech and grammar, humor, complex tasks such as reading This specialization of function in one hemisphere of the cerebral cortex or the other is called lateralization It already starts at birth E.g. greater electrical activity in the left hemisphere when listening to speech sounds Differences from adult brains in cellular and structural levels  Early Experience and the Brain Children who grow up in a deprived environment may have depressed brain activity This is supported by results found in animal studies  E.g. Kittens experiment Use of goggles: making them unable to see horizontal lines or vertial lines Younger vs older cats There is a sensitive period for the development of vision Particularly susceptible to environmental influences Does an unusually high level of stimulation during sensitive periods produce developmental gains beyond what a more commonplace level of stimulation would provide? Are the effects of deprived environments irreversible? E.g. Children suffering from seizures Neuroscientists believe that what wires the brain—or rewires it is repeated experience Plasticity  Infancy cycles Body rhythms— waking, eating, sleeping, and eliminating—govern the infant‘s behavior, often at seemingly random times in the first few days These are controlled by a variety of bodily systems It takes some time and effort for infants to integrate the separate behaviors One of the newborns major missions is to make its individual behaviors work in harmony (e.g., helping to sleep through the night)  RHYTHMS AND STATES Behavior becomes integrated through the development of various rhythms (repetitive, cyclical patterns of behavior) Some rhythms are immediately obvious (wakefulness to sleep); some are are more subtle but still easily noticeable (breathing and sucking patterns); other rhythms may require careful observation to be noticed (leg jerking) Some are apparent just after birth, others emerge slowly over the first year as the neurons of the nervous system become increasingly integrated  Major body rhythm-an infant’s state-the degree of awareness it displays to both internal and external stimulation Include various levels of wakeful behaviors (alertness, fussing, and crying) and different levels of sleep as well Alterations in the amount of stimulation required to get the infant’s attention Produce changes in electrical activity in the brain At the age of three months brain waves become more regular  SLEEP The major state that occupies a baby‘s time The typical newborn sleeps approximately 18 hours a day, but newborns vary a lot in how much they sleep The range is from about 10 hours to about 21 hours Infants also vary in their preferred times for sleeping and their patterns of sleep By about 1 month of age infants have begun to sleep longer at night At 6 months of age, they usually have moved closer to adult-like sleep patterns, spending the most time sleeping at night and the most time awake during the day Sleeping like a baby?  The most common infant sleep-related problem reported by parents is night waking 20 to 30 percent of infants have difficulty going to sleep at night and sleeping through the night Cultural variations influence infant sleeping patterns Excessive parental involvement in sleep-related interactions Intrinsic factors (daytime crying and fussing) and extrinsic factors (distress when separated from the mother, breast feeding, and sleeping with parents in their bed) Shared Sleeping Sleeping arrangements for newborns vary from culture to culture Shared sleeping, or co-sleeping, is a controversial issue among experts Several benefits and several negatives  REM Sleep Another cyclic pattern Similar but no identical to adult REM Developmental changes in the average number of total hours spent in REM and non- REM sleep Adults spend about one-fifth of their night in REM sleep (it usually appears about one hour after non-REM sleep) However, about half of an infant’s sleep is REM sleep, and infants often begin their sleep cycle with REM sleep rather than non- REM sleep A much greater amount of time is taken up by REM sleep in infancy than at any other point in the life span At 3 months of age, the percentage of time they spend in REM sleep falls to about 40 percent, and REM sleep no longer begins their sleep cycle  Why do infants spend so much time in REM sleep? We are not certain Added self-stimulation-autostimulation Might promote the brain’s development Since infants spend more time than adults in REM sleep, can we conclude that they dream a lot?  Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) A condition that occurs when infants stop breathing, usually during the night, and die suddenly without an apparent cause The highest cause of infant death in the US with nearly 3,000 infant deaths annually attributed to SIDS Risk of SIDS is highest at 2 to 4 months of age Sleeping on the back and pacifiers Impairs arousal from sleep and restricts the ability to swallow Low birth weight, SIDS siblings, sleep apnea, cigarette smoking, soft  Nutrition Nutritional Needs and Eating Behavior Individual differences among infants in terms of their nutrient reserves, body composition, growth rates, and activity patterns A number of developmental changes involving eating characterize the infant’s first year As motor skills improve, they change their eating patterns As their fine motor control improves in the first year, they transition from being fed by others toward self-feeding Caregivers play very important roles in early development of eating patterns Poor dietary patterns can result in infants being overweight E.g. Being breast fed vs bottle fed and weight gain  Breast Versus Bottle Feeding Outcomes for the Child Lower gastrointestinal infections, respiratory track infections, allergies, asthma, ottis media, atopic dermatitis, overweight and obesity, diabetes, SIDS Outcomes for the Mother Lower rates of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes Return to prepregnancy weight, reduced osteoporosis, pospatrum depression Attachment bond between the mother and the infant A mother should not breast feed when she is infected with HIV or some other infectious disease that can be transmitted through her milk, if she has active tuberculosis, or if she is taking any drug that may not be safe for the infant  Malnutrition in Infancy Two life-threatening conditions that can result from malnutrition are marasmus and kwashiorkor Marasmus is caused by a severe protein-calorie deficiency and results in a wasting away of body tissues in the infant’s first year The infant becomes grossly underweight and his or her muscles atrophy Kwashiorkor is caused by severe protein deficiency, usually appears between 1 and 3 years of age Sometimes children appear to be well fed as the disease may cause the child’s abdomen and feet to swell with wa Causes a child’s vital organs to collect the nutrients that are present and deprive other parts of the body of them The child’s hair also becomes thin, brittle, and colorless, and the child’s behavior often becomes listless The negative influence of chronic maltnutrition on children’s cognitive development-attention and memory If fed well-improves social development as well (more active, more involved, more helpful with peers, less anxiou and happier)  Nonorganic failure to thrive-a disorder in which infants stop growing due to a lack of stimulation and attention as the result of inadequate parenting No biological reasons Usually occurring by the age of 18 months Can be reversed through intensive parent training or by placing children in a foster home where they can receive emotional support  THE DYNAMIC SYSTEMS VIEW Infants and children develop rolling, sitting, standing, and other motor skills in a fixed order and within specific time frames Motor development comes about through the unfolding of a genetic plan, or maturation According to dynamic systems theory, infants assemble motor skills for perceiving and acting To develop motor skills, infants must perceive something in the environment that motivates them to act and use their perceptions to fine-tune their movements Motor skills represent solutions to the infant’s goals The new behavior is the result of many converging factors: the development of the nervous system, the body’s physical properties and its possibilities for movement, the goal the child is motivated to reach, and the environmental support for the skill  Even universal milestones, such as crawling, reaching, and walking, are learned through the process of adaptation Infants modulate their movement patterns to fit a new task by exploring and selecting possible configurations E.g. offering a toy to a baby Motor development is not a passive process in which genes dictate the unfolding of a sequence of skills over time, but the infant actively puts together a skill to achieve a goal within the constraints set by the infant’s body and environment  REFLEXES Reflexes are built-in reactions to stimuli They govern the newborn’s movements, which are automatic and beyond the newborn’s control Reflexes are genetically carried survival mechanisms They allow infants to respond adaptively to their environment before they have had the opportunity to learn E.g. rooting and sucking Coughing, sneezing, blinking, shivering, yawning With time, we become more complex and develop voluntary control Training infants? Responsiveness of the parents  GROSS MOTOR SKILLS Skills that involve large-muscle activities, such as moving one’s arms and walking The Development of Posture As a foundation, these skills require postural control Posture is a dynamic process that is linked with sensory information in the skin, joints, and muscles, which tell us where we are in space; in vestibular organs in the inner ear that regulate balance and equilibrium; and in vision and hearing Learning to Walk The neural pathways that control leg alternation are in place from a very early age, possibly even at birth or before Kicking movements, alternating steps What are some developmental changes in posture during infancy? Despite these early abilities, most infants do not learn to walk until about the time of their first birthday These are difficult biomechanical problems to solve, and it takes infants about a year to do it When infants learn to walk, they typically take small steps because of their limited balance control and strength  In the second year of life, toddlers become more motorically skilled and mobile Can pull toys, climb up steps, can walk quickly or run stiffly for a short distance, balance on their feet in a squat position while playing, walk backward without losing balance, stand and kick a ball without falling,  Can parents give their babies a head start on becoming physically fit and physically talented through structured exercise classes?  FINE MOTOR SKILLS Fine motor skills involve finely tuned movements Grasping a toy, using a spoon, buttoning a shirt, or anything that requires finger dexterity demonstrates fine motor skills Initially, infants reach by moving their shoulders and elbows crudely, swinging toward an object Later, when infants reach for an object they move their wrists, rotate their hands, and coordinate their thumb and forefinger Infants do not have to see their own hands in order to reach for an object Cues from muscles, tendons, and joints, not sight of the limb, guide reaching by 4-month-old infants  Infants refine their ability to grasp objects by developing two types of grasps: Initially, infants grip with the whole hand, which is called the palmer grasp Later, toward the end of the first year, infants also grasp small objects with their thumb and forefinger, which is called the pincer grip Their grasping system is very flexible They vary their grip on an object depending on its size, shape, and texture, as well as the size of their own hands relative to the object’s size Infants grip small objects with their thumb and forefinger (and sometimes their middle finger too), whereas they grip large objects with all of the fingers of one hand or both hands  Perceptual-motor coupling is necessary for the infant to coordinate grasping Which perceptual system the infant is most likely to use in coordinating grasping varies with age Four-month-old infants rely greatly on touch to determine how they will grip an object 8-month-olds are more likely to use vision as a guide This developmental change is efficient because vision lets infants preshape their hands as they reach for an object Experience plays a role in reaching and grasping  WHAT ARE SENSATION AND PERCEPTION? Infants and children “know” things as a result of information that comes through the senses Without vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, we would be isolated from the world-we would live in dark silence, a tasteless, colorless, feelingless void Sensation occurs when information interacts with sensory receptors—the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin Perception is the interpretation of what is sensed E.g. The air waves that contact the ears might be interpreted as noise or as musical sounds  THE ECOLOGICAL VIEW We do not have to take bits and pieces of data from sensations and build up representations of the world in our minds-Instead, our perceptual system can select from the rich information that the environment itself provides We directly perceive information that exists in the world around us Perception is designed for action Objects have affordances, which are opportunities for interaction offered by objects that fit within our capabilities to perform activities What affordances can infants or children detect and use?  VISUAL PERCEPTION Visual Acuity and Human Faces At birth, the nerves and muscles and lens of the eye are still developing Newborns cannot see small things that are far away The newborn’s vision is estimated to be 20/240 By 6 months of age, though, on average vision is 20/40 Infants show an interest in human faces soon after birth Looking at their mother’s face than a stranger’s face as early as 12 hours after being born By 3 months of age, infants match voices to faces, distinguish between male and female faces, and discriminate between faces of their own ethnic group and those of other ethnic groups Color Vision The infant’s color vision also improves By 8 weeks, and possibly by even 4 weeks, infants can discriminate some colors By 4 months of age, they have color preferences that mirror adults’ in some cases (e.g. preferring saturated colors such as royal blue over pale blue) In part, these changes in vision reflect maturation Experience, however, is also necessary for vision to develop normally  Perceptual Constancy Perceptual accomplishments An infant’s perception goes beyond the information provided by the senses This is the case in perceptual constancy-sensory stimulation is changing but perception of the physical world remains constant If infants did not develop perceptual constancy, each time they saw an object at a different distance or in a different orientation, they would perceive it as a different object It allows infants to perceive their world as stable Two types of perceptual constancy are size constancy and shape constancy Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same even though the retinal image of the object changes as you move toward or away from the object Babies as young as 3 months of age show size constancy However, at 3 months of age, this ability is not full-blown, it continues to develop until 10 or 11 years of age Shape constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same shape even though its orientation to us changes As with size constancy, researchers have found that babies as young as 3 months of age have shape constancy (but they do not have shape constancy for irregularly shaped objects)  Perception of Occluded Objects In the first two months of postnatal development, infants don’t perceive occluded objects as complete, instead only perceiving what is visible Beginning at about 2 months of age, infants develop the ability to perceive that occluded objects are whole Infants develop the ability to track briefly occluded moving objects at about 3 to 5 months of age Infants can better predict moving object when they disappear gradually rather than abruptly or imploding  Depth Perception Visual Cliff Experiment  Most infants would not crawl out on the glass, choosing instead to remain on the shallow side, an indication that they could perceive depth The 6- to 12-month-old infants in the visual cliff experiment had extensive visual experience Two- to 4-month-old infants show differences in heart rate when placed directly on the deep side of the visual cliff instead of on the shallow side May mean that young infants respond to differences in some visual with no actual knowledge of depth Fine-detail depth perception-stereoacuity Stereoacuity does not improve from 6 to 12 months of age but improves rapidly after 1 year of age Binocular vision develops in the first 3-4 months, and it is the ability to combine the images coming to each eye to see depth and motion  OTHER SENSES Other sensory systems besides vision also develop during infancy Hearing, touch and pain, smell, and taste Hearing During the last two months of pregnancy, the fetus can hear sounds such as the mother’s voice, music, and so on Experiment on novels (The Cat in the Hat) Not only can a fetus hear but it also has a remarkable ability to learn even before birth The fetus can also recognize the mother’s voice  What kind of changes in hearing take place during infancy? They involve perception of a sound’s loudness, pitch, and localization Loudness-Immediately after birth, infants cannot hear soft sounds quite as well as adults can; a stimulus must be louder to be heard Pitch-Infants are also less sensitive to the pitch of a sound than adults are (the perception of the frequency of a sound) Infants are less sensitive to low- pitched sounds and are more likely to hear high-pitched sounds By 2 years of age, infants have considerably improved their ability to distinguish sounds with different pitches Localization-Even newborns can determine the general location from where a sound is coming (by 6 months of age; throughout the second year)  Touch and Pain Do newborns respond to touch? Can they feel pain? Smell Newborns can differentiate odors Pleasant and unpleasant smells They require several days of experience to recognize odors Taste Sensitivity to taste might be present even before birth E.g. saccharin added to the amniotic fluid of a near-term fetus increased swallowing Even at only two hours of age, babies make different facial expressions when tasting sweet, sour, and bitter solutions At about 4 months of age, infants begin to prefer salty tastes, which as newborns they had found to be aversive  INTERMODAL PERCEPTION We are experiencing many visual inputs The ability to relate and integrate information from two or more sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing Early, exploratory forms of intermodal perception exist even in newborns Can coordinate visual-auditory information involving people Infants as young as 3 months old look more at their mother when they also hear her voice In the first six months, infants have difficulty connecting sensory input from different modes, but in the second half of the first year they show an increased ability to make this connection mentally  PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR COUPLING The distinction between perceiving and doing Action can guide perception, and perception can guide action Only by moving one’s eyes, head, hands, and arms and by moving from one location to another can an individual fully experience his or her environment and learn how to adapt to it Perception and action are coupled Babies, for example, continually coordinate their movements with perceptual information to learn how to maintain balance, reach for objects in space, and move across various surfaces and terrains They are motivated to move by what they perceive For example, watching an object while exploring it manually helps infants to discriminate its texture, size, and hardness  NATURE, NURTURE, AND PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT Much of early perception develops from innate (nature) foundations and the basic foundation of many perceptual abilities can be detected in newborns, whereas others unfold maturationally As infants develop, environmental experiences (nurture) refine or calibrate many perceptual functions, and they may be the driving force behind some functions Cognitive development in infancy  Perceptual Development and Expectations Young infants interpret the world as having predictable occurrences Research also suggests that infants develop the ability to understand how the world works at a very early age Infants as young as 3 to 4 months expect objects to be substantial (in the sense that other objects cannot move through them) and permanent (in the sense that objects continue to exist when they are hidden) Core knowledge approach States that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems An intriguing domain of core knowledge that has been investigated in young infants is whether they have a sense of number Infants can distinguish between different numbers of objects, actions, and sounds  Piaget’s theory tells us how biology and experience sculpt cognitive development What are the ways in which infants learn? Action = Knowledge Not from facts communicated by others, nor through sensation and perception The product of direct motor behavior Piaget thought that we build mental structures that help us to adapt to the world Adaptation involves adjusting to new environmental demands Children actively construct their own cognitive worlds and information is not just poured into their minds from the environment He sought to discover how children at different points in their development think about the world and how systematic changes in their thinking occur  COGNITIVE PROCESSES What processes do children use as they construct their knowledge of the world? Schemes, assimilation, accommodation, organization, equilibrium, and equilibration Schemes As the infant or child seeks to construct an understanding of the world, the developing brain creates schemes These are actions or mental representations that organize knowledge Behavioral schemes (physical activities) characterize infancy, and mental schemes (cognitive activities) develop in childhood A baby’s schemes are structured by simple actions that can be performed on objects Older children have schemes that include strategies and plans for solving problems  Assimilation and Accommodation Explain how children use and adapt their schemes Assimilation occurs when children use their existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences Accommodation occurs when children adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences into account E.g. Think about a toddler who has learned the word car to identify the family’s car Assimilation and accommodation operate even in very young infants E.g. The sucking reflex  Organization To make sense out of their world, children cognitively organize their experiences Organization in Piaget’s theory is the grouping of isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher-order system Continual refinement of this organization is an inherent part of development Equilibration and Stages of Development In trying to understand the world, the child inevitably experiences cognitive conflict, or disequilibrium That is, the child is constantly faced with counterexamples to his or her existing schemes and with inconsistencies An internal search for equilibrium creates motivation for change Children constantly assimilate and accommodate as they seek equilibrium Equilibration is the name Piaget gave to this mechanism by which children shift from one stage of thought to the next  The result of these processes, according to Piaget, is that individuals go through four stages of development A different way of understanding the world makes one stage more advanced than another Cognition is qualitatively different in one stage compared with another In other words, the way children reason at one stage is different from the way they reason at another stage  THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE Simple reflexes The first sensorimotor substage corresponds to the first month after birth In this substage, sensation and action are coordinated primarily through reflexive behaviors, such as rooting and sucking Soon the infant produces behaviors that resemble reflexes in the absence of the usual stimulus for the reflex First habits and primary circular reactions This is the second sensorimotor substage, which develops between 1 and 4 months of age In this substage, the infant coordinates sensation and two types of schemes: habits and primary circular reactions A habit is a scheme based on a reflex that has become completely separated from its eliciting stimulus E.g. sucking-with and without a bottle A circular reaction is a repetitive action A primary circular reaction is a scheme based on the attempt to reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance Habits and circular reactions are stereotyped—that is, the infant repeats them the same way each time During this substage, the infant’s own body remains the infant’s center of attention-there is no outward pull by environmental events  Secondary circular reactions is the third sensorimotor substage, which develops between 4 and 8 months of age In this substage, the infant becomes more object-oriented, moving beyond preoccupation with the self The infant’s schemes are not intentional or goal-directed, but they are repeated because of their consequences The infant also imitates some simple actions, such as the baby talk or burbling of adults, and some physical gestures However, the baby imitates only actions that he or she is already able to produce Coordination of secondary circular reactions To progress into this substage the infant must coordinate vision and touch, hand and eye Actions become more outwardly directed Significant changes during this substage involve the coordination of schemes and intentionality Related to this coordination is the second achievement—the presence of intentionality The A-not-B Error An important feature in the progression into substage 4, coordination of secondary circular reactions, is an infant’s inclination to search for a hidden object in a familiar location rather than to look for the object in a new location The error that occurs when infants make the mistake of selecting the familiar hiding place (A) rather than the new hiding place (B) as they progress into substage 4 in Piaget’s sensorimotor stage; also called AB error  Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity In this substage, infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things that they can make happen to objects Present are schemes in which the infant purposely explores new possibilities with objects, continually doing new things to them and exploring the results Piaget says that this stage marks the starting point for human curiosity and interest in novelty Internalization of schemes In this substage, the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols For Piaget, a symbol is an internalized sensory image or word that represents an event Primitive symbols permit the infant to think about concrete events without directly acting them out or perceiving them Moreover, symbols allow the infant to manipulate and transform the represented events in simple ways  Object Permanence There is no differentiation between the self and world; objects have no separate, permanent existence in the beginning of the sensorimotor period By the end of the sensorimotor period, objects are both separate from the self and permanent Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched Acquiring the sense of object permanence is one of the infant’s most important accomplishments, according to Piaget  CONDITIONING Operant conditioning (in which the consequences of a behavior produce changes in the probability of the behavior’s occurrence) For example, if an infant’s behavior is followed by a rewarding stimulus, the behavior is likely to happen again Operant conditioning is helpful to determine what infants perceive For example, infants will suck faster on a nipple when the sucking behavior is followed by a visual display, music, or a human voice Carolyn Rovee-Collier (1987) has also demonstrated how infants can retain information from the experience of being conditioned  ATTENTION Attention, the focusing of mental resources on select information, improves cognitive processing on many tasks Even newborns can detect a contour and fix their attention on it Older infants scan patterns more thoroughly By 4 months, infants can selectively attend to an object Attention in the first year of life is dominated by an orienting/investigative process This process involves directing attention to potentially important locations in the environment (that is, where) and recognizing objects and their features (such as color and form; that is, what) From 3 to 9 months of age, infants can deploy their attention more flexibly and quickly Another important type of attention is sustained attention, also referred to as focused attention New stimuli typically elicit an orienting response followed by sustained attention It is sustained attention that allows infants to learn about and remember characteristics of a stimulus as it becomes familiar Researchers have found that infants as young as 3 months of age engage in 5 to 10 seconds of sustained attention  Habituation and Dishabituation If you say the same word or show the same toy to a baby several times in a row, the baby usually pays less attention to it each time This is habituation—decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus Dishabituation is the increase in responsiveness after a change in stimulation Infants’ attention is strongly governed by novelty and habituation When an object becomes familiar, attention becomes shorter, and infants become more vulnerable to distraction  Joint Attention Joint attention-individuals focus on the same object or event Joint attention requires: (1) an ability to track another’s behavior, such as following the gaze of someone; (2) one person’s directing another’s attention, and (3) reciprocal interaction Early in infancy, joint attention involves a caregiver pointing, turning the infant’s head, snapping one’s fingers, or using words to direct an infant’s attention Emerging forms of joint attention occur at about 7 to 8 months, but it is not until toward the end of the first year that joint attention skills are frequently observed At 10 to 11 months of age infants first begin engaging in “gaze following,” looking where another person has just looked And by their first birthday, infants have begun to direct adults’ attention to objects that capture their interest Joint attention plays important roles in many aspects of infant development and considerably increases infants’ ability to learn from other people E.g., Language  MEMORY Memory involves the retention of information over time Attention plays an important role in memory as part of a process called encoding, which is the process by which information gets into memory What can infants remember, when? Implicit memory-memory without conscious recollection; involves skills and routine procedures that are automatically performed Explicit memory-memory of facts and experiences that individuals consciously know and can state Babies do not show explicit memory until the second half of the first year What changes in the brain are linked to infants’ memory development? From about 6 to 12 months of age, the maturation of the hippocampus and the surrounding cerebral cortex, especially the frontal lobes, make the emergence of explicit memory possible Explicit memory continues to improve in the second year, as these brain structures further mature and connections between them increase Less is known about the areas of the brain involved in implicit memory in infancy  Do you remember your third birthday party? Most adults can remember little if anything from their first three years of life This is called infantile or childhood amnesia The few reported adult memories of life at age 2 or 3 are at best very sketchy Elementary school children also do not remember much of their early child years During these early years the prefrontal lobes of the brain are immature The brain is believed to play an important role in storing memories for events In sum, most of young infants’ conscious memories appear to be rather fragile and short-lived, although their implicit memory of perceptual-motor actions can be substantial By the end of the second year, long-term memory is more substantial and reliable IMITATION Can infants imitate someone else’s emotional expressions? Imitative abilities are seen as biologically based-infants can imitate a facial expression within the first few days after birth These do not resemble a hardwired response but rather involve flexibility and adaptability Meltzoff (2007) concluded that infants don’t blindly imitate everything they see and often make creative errors He also argues that beginning at birth there is an interplay between learning by observing and learning by doing Deferred imitation occurs after a time delay of hours or days E.g. Meltzoff (1988) demonstrated that 9-month-old infants could imitate actions—such as pushing a recessed button in a box, which produced a beeping sound—that they had seen performed 24 hours earlier Engagement in deferred imitation at 9 months of age was a strong predictor of more extensive production of communicative gestures at 14 months of age  CONCEPT FORMATION AND CATEGORIZATION Categories-Infants group objects, events, and characteristics on the basis of common properties Concepts are ideas about what categories represent, or said another way, the sort of thing we think category members are They help us to simplify and summarize information Without concepts, you would see each object and event as unique; you would not be able to make any generalizations Infants as young as 3 months of age can group together objects with similar appearances These early categorizations are best described as perceptual categorization-that is, the categorizations are based on similar perceptual features of objects, such as size, color, and movement, as well as parts of objects, such as legs for animals It is not until about 7 to 9 months of age that infants form conceptual categories rather than just making perceptual discriminations between different categories Further advances in categorization occur in the second year of life Many infants’ first concepts are broad and global in nature, such as ‘animal’ or indoor thing, but in their second year often categorize objects on the basis of their shape  Study example of categorization: In one study of 9- to 11-month-olds, infants classified birds as animals and airplanes as vehicles even though the objects were perceptually similar-airplanes and birds with their wings spread Do some very young children develop an intense, passionate interest in a particular category of objects or activities?  MEASURES OF INFANT DEVELOPMENT Individual differences in infant cognitive development have been studied primarily through the use of developmental scales or infant intelligence tests E.g., GES The current version of the Gesell test has four categories of behavior: motor, language, adaptive, and personal- social The developmental quotient (DQ) combines subscores in these categories to provide an overall score The widely used Bayley Scales of Infant Development assesses infant behavior and predict later development The current version, Bayley-III, has five scales: cognitive, language, motor, socioemotional, and adaptive The first three scales are administered directly to the infant while the latter two are questionnaires given to the caregiver The Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence focuses on the infant’s ability to process information in such ways as encoding the attributes of objects, detecting similarities and differences between objects, forming mental representations, and retrieving these representations PREDICTING INTELLIGENCE Tests for infants contain far more items related to perceptual-motor development and include measures of social interaction Overall scores on such tests as the Gesell and the Bayley scales do not correlate highly with IQ scores obtained later in childhood  HOW LANGUAGE DEVELOPS Whatever language they learn, infants all over the world follow a similar path in language development Recognizing Language Sounds Long before they begin to learn words, infants can make fine distinctions among the sounds of the language From birth up to about 6 months of age, infants recognize when sounds change most of the time, no matter what language the syllables come from-but over the next six months, infants get even better at perceiving the changes in sounds from their “own” language (the one their parents speak) and gradually lose the ability to recognize differences that are not important in their own language Still, infants begin to detect word boundaries by 8 months of age  EARLY SOUNDS AND COMMUNICATION Cooing, crying, gurgling, murmuring, and assorted types of other noise Prelinguistic communication is communication through sounds, facial expressions, gestures, imitation, and other nonlinguistic means Sign language Gestures By 6 months it reflects the language Babbling and Other Vocalizations Long before infants speak recognizable words, they produce a number of vocalizations The functions of these early vocalizations are to practice making sounds, to communicate, and to attract attention Babies’ sounds go through this sequence during the first year: Crying Babies cry even at birth Crying can signal distress, but there are different types of cries that signal different things Cooing Babies first coo at about 2 to 4 months These are gurgling sounds that are made in the back of the throat and usually express pleasure during interaction with the caregiver Babbling In the middle of the first year, babies babble—that is, they produce strings of consonant-vowel combinations, such as “ba, ba, ba, ba”  Gestures Two of the most common infant gestures are (1) extending the arm to show caregiver something the infant is holding, and (2) pointing with the arm and index finger extended at some interesting object or event Infants start using gestures, such as showing and pointing, at about 8 to 12 months of age: They may wave bye-bye, nod to mean “yes,” show an empty cup to want more milk, and point to a dog to draw attention to it Some early gestures are symbolic Pointing is considered by language experts as an important index of the social aspects of language Lack of pointing is a significant indicator of problems in the infant’s communication system (for example, failure to engage in pointing characterizes many autistic children)  First Words Children understand their first words earlier than they speak them As early as 5 months of age, infants recognize their name when someone says it On the average, infants understand about 50 words at about 13 months, but they can’t say this many words until about 18 months In infancy receptive vocabulary (words the child understands) considerably exceeds spoken vocabulary (words the child uses) A child’s first words include those that name important people (dada), familiar animals (kitty), vehicles (car), toys (ball), food (milk), body parts (eye), clothes (hat), household items (clock), greeting terms (bye), and states (wet) Holophrases - One-word utterances that stand for a whole phrase, whose meaning depends on the particular context in which they are used These were the first words of babies 50 years ago, and they are the first words of babies today Children often express various intentions with their single words E.g. “cookie” might mean, “That’s a cookie” or “I want a  The infant’s spoken vocabulary rapidly increases once the first word is spoken The average 18-month-old can speak about 50 words but by the age of 2 years can speak about 200 words This rapid increase in vocabulary that begins at approximately 18 months is called the vocabulary spurt However, the ages for the first word of individual children varied from 10 to 17 months and for their vocabulary spurt from 13 to 25 months Children sometimes overextend or underextend the meanings of the words they use Overextension is the tendency to apply a word to objects that are inappropriate for the word’s meaning E.g. Childrens use of “dada” With time, overextensions decrease and eventually disappear Underextension is the tendency to apply a word too narrowly; it occurs when children fail to use a word to name a relevant event or object E.g. A childs use of the word boy They also use different styles Referential style is a style of language use in which language is used primarily to label objects Expressive style is a style of language use in which language is used primarily to express feelings and needs about oneself and others  Two-Word Utterances By the time children are 18 to 24 months of age, they usually utter two-word utterances To convey meaning with just two words, the child relies heavily on gesture, tone, and context Identification: “See doggie.” Location: “Book there.” Repetition: “More milk.” Negation: “Not wolf.” Possession: “My candy.” Attribution: “Big car.” Agent-action: “Mama walk.” Action-direct object: “Hit you.” Action-indirect object: “Give Papa.” Action-instrument: “Cut knife.” Question: “Where ball?” These are examples from children whose first language is English, German, Russian, Finnish, Turkish, or Samoan The two-word utterances omit many parts of speech and are remarkably succinct In every language, a child’s first combinations of words have this economical quality; they are telegraphic Telegraphic speech is the use of short and precise words without grammatical markers such as articles, auxiliary verbs, and other connectives It is not limited to two words. “Mommy give ice cream” and “Mommy give Tommy ice cream” also are examples of telegraphic speech  BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES Biological Influences The ability to speak and understand language requires a certain vocal apparatus as well as a nervous system with certain capabilities Some language scholars view the remarkable similarities in how children acquire language all over the world as strong evidence that language has a biological basis There is evidence that particular regions of the brain are predisposed to be used for language Linguist Noam Chomsky (1957) proposed that humans are biologically prewired to learn language at a certain time and in a certain way He said that children are born into the world with a language acquisition device (LAD), a biological endowment that enables the child to detect certain features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics Children are prepared by nature with the ability to detect the sounds of language, for example, and follow rules such as how to form plurals and ask questions Nativist approach to language The theory that a genetically determined, innate mechanism directs language development Innate capacity, maturation  Environmental Influences According to behaviorists, language is a complex learned skill, much like playing the piano or dancing Many language experts argue that a child’s experiences, the particular language to be learned, and the context in which learning takes place can strongly influence language acquisition The support and involvement of caregivers and teachers greatly facilitate a child’s language learning The interaction view of language emphasizes that children learn language in specific contexts The child’s vocabulary development is linked to the family’s socioeconomic status and the type of talk that parents direct to their children Learning theory approach to language The theory that language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning Through the process of shaping, language becomes more and more similar to adult speech Reinforcement is provided for both correct and incorrect language usage Novel phrases, nonsense words Interactionist approach to language The perspective that suggests that language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances that help teach language  One intriguing component of the young child’s linguistic environment is child-directed speech, language spoken in a higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences It is also characterized by short, simple sentences “Does baby like the applesauce?” Pitch becomes higher, the range of frequencies increases, and intonation is more varied Repetition, restriction, nonwords Gender differences To a girl, a bird is a birdie, a blanket a blankie, and a dog a doggy To a boy, a bird is a bird, a blanket a blanket, and a dog a dog Diminutives Boys tend to hear firmer, clearer language, while girls are exposed to warmer phrases, often referring to inner emotional state Adults often use strategies other than child-directed speech to enhance the child’s acquisition of language, including recasting, expanding, and labeling Recasting is rephrasing something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a question or restating the child’s immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical sentence Expanding is restating, in a linguistically sophisticated form, what a child has said (e.g. a child says, “Doggie eat,” and the parent replies, “Yes, the doggie is eating.”) Labeling is identifying the names of objects Young children are forever being asked to identify the names of objects Socioemotional development in infancy  EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT Emotions are feelings or affect, that occurs when a person is in a state or an interaction that is important to him or her, especially to his or her well-being In many instances emotions involve an individual’s communication with the world An emotion is either positive or negative Positive emotions include enthusiasm, joy, and love Negative emotions include anxiety, anger, guilt, and sadness  Biological and Environmental Influences Emotions are influenced both by biological foundations and by a person’s experience Biology’s importance to emotion is apparent in the changes in a baby’s emotional capacities Certain regions of the brain that develop early in life (such as the brain stem, hippocampus, and amygdala) play a role in distress, excitement, and rage, and even infants display these emotions Infants only gradually develop the ability to regulate their emotions This ability seems tied to the gradual maturation of the frontal regions of the cerebral cortex that can exert control over other areas of the brain Emotions serve important functions in our relationships They are the first language with which parents and infants communicate Emotion-linked interchanges Social relationships, in turn, provide the setting for the development of a rich variety of emotions E.g. When toddlers hear their parents quarreling, they often react with distress and inhibit their play  Early Emotions Primary emotions and self-conscious emotions Primary emotions are emotions that are present in humans and other animals These emotions appear in the first 6 months of the human infant’s development Primary emotions include surprise, interest, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust Self-conscious emotions require self-awareness that involves consciousness and a sense of “me” Self-conscious emotions include jealousy, empathy, embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt Most of these occur for the first time at some point in the second half of the first year through the second year Other-conscious emotions? They involve the emotional reactions of others when they are generated  Emotional Expression and Social Relationships Emotional expressions are involved in infants’ first relationships The ability of infants to communicate emotions permits coordinated interactions with their caregivers and the beginning of an emotional bond between them Parents change their emotional expressions in response to infants’ emotional expressions, but infants also modify their emotional expressions in response to their parents’ emotional expressions Because of this coordination, the interactions are described as reciprocal, or synchronous, when all is going well Cries and smiles are two emotional expressions that infants display when interacting with parents These are babies’ first forms of emotional communication  Crying Crying is the most important mechanism newborns have for communicating with their world Babies have at least three types of cries: Basic cry A rhythmic pattern that usually consists of a cry, followed by a briefer silence, then a shorter whistle that is somewhat higher in pitch than the main cry, then another brief rest before the next cry E.g. hunger is one of the conditions that incites the basic cry Anger cry A variation of the basic cry in which more excess air is forced through the vocal cords Pain cry A sudden long, initial loud cry followed by breath holding; no preliminary moaning is present The pain cry is stimulated by a high-intensity stimulus  Smiling Smiling is critical as a means of developing a new social skill and is a key social signal Two types of smiling can be distinguished in infants: Reflexive smile A smile that does not occur in response to external stimuli and appears during the first month after birth, usually during sleep Social smile A smile that occurs in response to an external stimulus, typically a face Social smiling occurs as early as 2 months of age From 2 to 6 months after birth, infants’ social smiling increases considerably, both in self-initiated smiles and smiles in response to others’ smiles At 6 to 12 months, smiles that couple with what is called the Duchenne marker (eye constriction) and mouth opening occur in the midst of highly enjoyable interactions and play with parents In the second year, smiling continues to occur in such positive circumstances with parents, and in many cases an increase in smiling occurs when interacting with peers Also in the second year, toddlers become increasingly aware of the social meaning of smiles, especially in their relationship with parents Infants also engage in anticipatory smiling, in which they communicate pre-existing positive emotion by smiling at an object and then turning their smile toward an adult  Fear One of a baby’s earliest emotions is fear, which typically first appears at about 6 months of age and peaks at about 18 months However, abused and neglected infants can show fear as early as 3 months Infant fear is linked to guilt, empathy, and low aggression at 6 to 7 years of age The most frequent expression of an infant’s fear involves stranger anxiety, in which an infant shows a fear and wariness of strangers Stranger anxiety usually emerges gradually It first appears at about 6 months of age in the form of wary reactions By age 9 months, the fear of strangers is often more intense, reaching a peak toward the end of the first year of life, then decreasing thereafter Not all infants show distress when they encounter a stranger Besides individual variations, whether an infant shows stranger anxiety also depends on the social context and the characteristics of the stranger Infants show less stranger anxiety when they are in familiar settings Who the stranger is and how the stranger behaves also influence stranger anxiety in infants E.g. passive, unsmiling strangers  In addition to stranger anxiety, infants experience fear of being separated from their caregivers The result is separation protest/separation anxiety—crying when the caregiver leaves It is initially displayed by infants at approximately 7 to 8 months and peaks at about 15 months The percentage of infants who engaged in it varies across cultures, but the infants reach a peak of it at about the same age—just before the middle of the second year of life  Emotional Regulation and Coping During the first year of life, the infant gradually develops an ability to inhibit, or minimize, the intensity and duration of emotional reactions At first, infants mainly depend on caregivers to help them soothe their emotions The caregivers’ actions influence the infant’s neurobiological regulation of emotions By soothing the infant, caregivers help infants to modulate their emotion and reduce the level of stress hormones Later in infancy, when they become aroused, infants sometimes redirect their attention or distract themselves in order to reduce their arousal By 2 years of age, toddlers can use language to define their feeling states and the context that is upsetting them Contexts can influence emotional regulation Infants are often affected by fatigue, hunger, time of day, which people are around them, and where they are Infants must learn to adapt to different contexts that require emotional regulation  To soothe or not to soothe—should a crying baby be given attention and soothed, or does this spoil the infant?  TEMPERAMENT Patterns of arousal and emotionality that are consistent and enduring characteristics of an individual Involves individual differences in behavioral styles, emotions, and characteristic ways of responding It refers to individual differences in how quickly an emotion is shown, how strong it is, how long it lasts, and how quickly it fades away Childrearing practices can modify temperament significantly Some children show little consistency in temperament from one age to another Reflected in several dimensions of behavior One central dimension is activity level, which reflects the degree of overall movement Another important dimension is the nature and quality of an infant’s mood, and in particular a child’s irritability  An easy child is generally in a positive mood, quickly establishes regular routines in infancy, and adapts easily to new experiences A difficult child reacts negatively and cries frequently, engages in irregular daily routines, and is slow to accept change A slow-to-warm-up child has a low activity level, is somewhat negative, and displays a low intensity of mood 40 percent of children could be classified as easy, 10 percent as difficult, and 15 percent as slow to warm up; 35 percent do not fit any of the three patterns  Kagan’s Behavioral Inhibition Another way of classifying temperament focuses on the differences between a shy, subdued, timid child and a sociable, extraverted, bold child Jerome Kagan regards shyness with strangers (peers or adults) as one feature of a broad temperament category called inhibition to the unfamiliar Inhibited children react to many aspects of unfamiliarity with initial avoidance, distress, or subdued affect, beginning about 7 to 9 months of age Inhibition shows considerable stability from infancy through early childhood Extremely inhibited, extremely uninhibited, and intermediate variations  Rothbart and Bates’ Classification Mary Rothbart and John Bates argue that three broad dimensions best represent what researchers have found to characterize the structure of temperament: extraversion/surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control (self-regulation) Extraversion/surgency includes “positive anticipation, impulsivity, activity level, and sensation seeking” Negative affectivity includes “fear, frustration, sadness, and discomfort” These children are easily distressed; they may fret and cry often Effortful control (self-regulation) includes “attentional focusing and shifting, inhibitory control, perceptual sensitivity, and low-intensity pleasure” Infants who are high on effortful control show an ability to keep their arousal from getting too high and have strategies for soothing themselves By contrast, children low on effortful control are often unable to control their arousal; they become easily agitated and emotional  Biological Influences Physiological characteristics have been linked with different temperaments Gender, Culture, and Temperament Gender may be an important factor shaping the context that influences the fate of temperament Parents might react differently to an infant’s temperament depending on whether the baby is a boy or a girl Many aspects of a child’s environment can encourage or discourage the persistence of temperament characteristics Goodness of Fit and Parenting Goodness of fit Refers to the match between a child’s temperament and the environmental demands the child must cope with  Gender The sense of being male or female Differences Male infants tend to be more active and fussier than female infants Boys’ sleep tends to be more disturbed than that of girls Boys grimace more No gender difference exists in the overall amount of crying Male newborns are more irritable than female newborns (inconsistent) Roles Toys, independence  PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT Emotions and temperament form key aspects of personality, the enduring personal characteristics of individuals Trust According to Erik Erikson, the first year of life is characterized by the trust-versus- mistrust stage of development From birth until 18 months of age Erikson proposed that infants learn trust when they are cared for in a consistent, warm manner If the infant is not well fed and kept warm on a consistent basis, a sense of mistrust is likely to develop Trust versus mistrust is not resolved once and for all in the first year of life-it arises again at each successive stage of development  Independence Erikson stressed that independence is an important issue in the second year of life He describes the second stage of development as the stage of autonomy versus shame and doubt From 18 months until the end of infancy Builds on the infant’s mental and motor abilities Infants feel pride in their new accomplishments It is only when parents consistently overprotect toddlers or criticize accidents (wetting, soiling, spilling, or breaking, for example) that children develop an excessive sense of shame and doubt about their ability to control themselves and their world  Locomotion The infant’s and toddler’s push for independence also is likely paced by the development of locomotion skills Once infants have the ability to move in goal-directed pursuits, the reward from these pursuits leads to further efforts to explore and develop skills Intention and Goal-Directed Behavior Perceiving people as engaging in intentional and goal-directed behavior is an important social cognitive accomplishment, and this initially occurs toward the end of the first year Emerging aspects of joint attention occur at about 7 to 8 months, but at about 10 to 11 months of age joint attention intensifies and infants begin to follow the caregiver’s gaze By their first birthday, infants have begun to direct the caregiver’s attention to objects that capture their interest  The Developing Sense of Self One strategy to test infants’ visual self-recognition is the use of a mirror technique Before 1 year of age, infants do not recognize themselves in the mirror Signs of self-recognition begin to appear among some infants when they are 15 to 18 months old By the time they are 2 years old, most children recognize themselves in the mirror They begin to develop a self-understanding called self-recognition at approximately 18 months of age Late in the second year and early in the third year, toddlers show other emerging forms of self- awareness E.g. They refer to themselves such as by saying “me big”; they label their internal experiences such as emotions; they monitor themselves as when a toddler says, “do it myself”; and say that things are theirs  SOCIAL ORIENTATION/UNDERSTANDING Social Orientation Face-to-face play often begins to characterize caregiver-infant interactions when the infant is about 2 to 3 months of age It may include vocalizations, touch, and gestures By 2 to 3 months of age, infants respond differently to people than objects They show more positive emotion to people than to inanimate objects, such as puppets Still-face paradigm-the caregiver alternates between engaging in face-to-face interaction with the infant and remaining still and unresponsive As early as 2 to 3 months of age, infants show more withdrawal, negative emotions, and self-directed behavior when their caregivers are still and unresponsive Infants also learn about the social world through contexts other than face-to- face play with a caregiver Even though infants as young as 6 months of age show an interest in each other, their interaction with peers increases considerably in the last half of the second year Increase their imitative and reciprocal play, such as imitating nonverbal actions like jumping and running Social Referencing Another important social cognitive accomplishment in infancy is developing the ability to “read” the emotions of other people Social referencing is the term used to describe “reading” emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situation By the end of the first year, a mother’s facial expression—either smiling or fearful—influences whether an infant will explore an unfamiliar environment Infants become better at social referencing in the second year of life At this age, they tend to “check” with their mother before they act Infants’ Social Sophistication and Insight  ATTACHMENT AND ITS DEVELOPMENT Attachment The close and positive emotional bond that develops between a child and a particular individual The nature of our attachment during infancy may affects how we relate to others throughout the rest of our lives Freud? Harlow`s attachment study Harlow`s study demonstrates that feeding is not the crucial element in the attachment process and that contact comfort is important Physical comfort also plays a role in Erikson’s view of the infant’s development  Bowlby`s attachment theory Infants and their primary caregivers are biologically predisposed to form attachments Attachment does not emerge suddenly but rather develops in a series of phases, moving from a baby’s general preference for human beings to a partnership with primary caregivers In Bowlby’s view, attachment is based primarily on infants’ needs for safety and security—their genetically determined motivation to avoid predators Four phrases based on Bowlby’s conceptualization of attachment: Phase 1: From birth to 2 months Infants instinctively direct their attachment to human figures Strangers, siblings, and parents are equally likely to elicit smiling or crying from the infant Phase 2: From 2 to 7 months Attachment becomes focused on one figure, usually the primary caregiver, as the baby gradually learns to distinguish familiar from unfamiliar people Phase 3: From 7 to 24 months Specific attachments develop With increased locomotor skills, babies actively seek contact with regular caregivers, such as the mother or father Phase 4: From 24 months on Children become aware of others’ feelings, goals, and plans and begin to take these into account in forming their own actions Bowlby argued that infants develop an internal working model of attachment, a simple mental model of the caregiver, their relationship, and the self as deserving of nurturant care  INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN ATTACHMENT Ainsworth created the Strange Situation, an observational measure of infant attachment in which the infant experiences a series of introductions, separations, and reunions with the caregiver and an adult stranger in a prescribed order Based on how babies respond in the Strange Situation, they are described as being securely attached or insecurely attached (in one of the three ways) to the caregiver: Securely attached babies Use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the environment When the caregiver departs, securely attached infants might mildly protest, and when the caregiver returns these infants reestablish positive interaction with her, perhaps by smiling or climbing on her lap Subsequently, they often resume playing with the toys in the room Insecure avoidant babies Show insecurity by avoiding the caregiver In the Strange Situation, these babies engage in little interaction with the caregiver, are not distressed when she leaves the room, usually do not reestablish contact with on her return, and may even turn their back on her If contact is established, the infant usually leans away or looks away  Insecure resistant/ambivalent babies Often cling to the caregiver and then resist her by fighting against the closeness, perhaps by kicking or pushing away In the Strange Situation, these babies often cling anxiously to the caregiver and don’t explore the playroom When the caregiver leaves, they often cry loudly and push away if she tries to comfort them on her return Insecure disorganized/disoriented babies Disorganized and disoriented In the Strange Situation, these babies might appear dazed, confused, and fearful Show strong patterns of avoidance and resistance or display certain specified behaviors, such as extreme fearfulness around the caregiver  Do individual differences in attachment matter? Early secure attachment (assessed by the Strange Situation at 12 and 18 months) was linked with positive emotional health, high self- esteem, self- confidence, and socially competent interaction with peers, teachers, camp counselors, and romantic partners through adolescence Being classified as insecure resistant in infancy was a negative predictor of cognitive development in elementary school For some children, though, there is little continuity Early secure attachment and subsequent experiences, especially maternal care and life stresses, are linked with children’s later behavior and adjustment CAREGIVING STYLES AND ATTACHMENT Is the style of caregiving linked with the quality of the infant’s attachment?  How do the caregivers of insecurely attached babies interact with them? Caregivers of avoidant babies tend to be unavailable or rejecting They often don’t respond to their babies’ signals and have little physical contact with them When they do interact with their babies, they may behave in an angry and irritable way Caregivers of resistant babies tend to be inconsistent; sometimes they respond to their babies’ needs, and sometimes they don’t In general, they tend not to be very affectionate with their babies and show little synchrony when interacting with them Caregivers of disorganized babies often neglect or physically abuse them In some cases, these caregivers are depressed  Social contexts THE FAMILY The family can be thought of as a constellation of subsystems—a complex whole made up of interrelated, interacting parts—defined in terms of generation, gender, and role These subsystems have reciprocal influences on each other Marital relations, parenting, and infant behavior and development can have both direct and indirect effects on each other  Reciprocal Socialization Parent-child interaction is reciprocal Reciprocal socialization is socialization that is bidirectional That is, children socialize parents just as parents socialize children Mutual gaze, or eye contact, plays an important role in early social interaction The behaviors of mothers and infants involve substantial interconnection, mutual regulation, and synchronization Parent-infant synchrony—the temporal coordination of social behavior—plays an important role in children’s development Parent-infant synchrony at 3 and 9 months of age were positively linked to children’s self- regulation from 2 to 6 years of age An important form of reciprocal socialization is scaffolding, in which parents time interactions in such a way that the infant experiences turn- taking with the parents Scaffolding involves parental behavior that supports children’s efforts, allowing them to be more skillful than they would be if they were to rely only on their own abilities  Infant-infant interaction Sociability generally rises with age 9-12 month-olds mutually present and accept toys, particularly if they know each other They also play social games, such as peek-a-boo or crawl-and-chase Social exchanges As infants age, they begin to imitate one another. „Expert” babies are able to teach skills and information to other infants Learning by exposure starts early in life Is this social skill innate? Mirror neurons are neurons that fire not only when an individual enacts a particular behavior but also when the individual simply observes another organism carrying out the same behavior Exposure Interactions between infants provide more than social benefits; they may have an impact on children’s future cognitive development as well Infants may benefit from participation in child-care centers  CHILD CARE Maternal and Paternal Caregiving An increasing number of U.S. fathers stay home full- time with their children Can fathers take care of infants as competently as mothers can? Observations of fathers and their infants suggest that fathers have the ability to act as sensitively and responsively as mothers with their infants Do fathers behave differently toward infants than mothers do? Maternal interactions usually center on child-care activities—feeding, changing diapers, bathing Paternal interactions are more likely to include play  Many children today experience multiple caregivers Most do not have a parent staying home to care for them; instead, the children have some type of care provided by others—“child care” Parental Leave Maternity leave In some countries the pre-birth leave is compulsory as is a 6- to 10-week leave following birth Paternity leave It may be especially important when a second child is born and the first child requires care Parental leave This gender-neutral leave usually follows a maternity leave and allows either women or men to share the leave policy or choose which of them will use it Child-rearing leave In some countries, this is a supplement to a maternity leave or a variation on a parental leave Family leave This covers reasons other than the birth of a new baby and can allow time off from employment to care for an ill child or other family members, time to accompany a child to school for the first time, or time to visit a child’s school