Early Childhood Development PDF

10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective CHAPTER FIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD Louise Stroud, Joanne Hardman and Giulietta Harrison...

10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective CHAPTER FIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD Louise Stroud, Joanne Hardman and Giulietta Harrison CASE STUDY Muriel, a thirty-one year old convicted shoplifter, lives in the Johannesburg jail with her eighteen-month- old daughter Eva. Muriel was caught shoplifting when she was seven months pregnant. Eva was born while Muriel was in prison and has never been outside the prison. Muriel says many of her family members think that she is lucky because at least here, in prison, Eva has three meals a day and a warm bed to sleep in. But Muriel does not think that she is lucky: Eva has never seen a dog or a cat; she has never driven in a car; all she knows is people in uniforms. Muriel is due for release when Eva is two and she is very worried about how Eva will adapt to the outside world. LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the end of this chapter you should be able to Understand the cognitive development of pre-operational and concrete operational children Understand play as the ‘leading’ activity in early childhood Describe the basic avenues of learning proposed by the Griffiths Mental Development Scales Understand the six stages of moral development proposed by Lawrence Kohlberg Begin to explore strategies to assist children in their moral reasoning development. Introduction Muriel’s story outlined in the case study above highlights the challenges that a child’s environment can have on his or her developmental trajectory. At least Eva is with her mother; children are routinely removed from their mother’s care in prisons when they reach the age of two. Chapter four discussed the importance of attachment in developing prosocial behaviour in children. Removing children from attachment figures is potentially fraught with long-term effects. This chapter looks particularly at early childhood, defined as from birth to eight years of age. Chapter three dealt with infancy, and this chapter does not cover that ground again; this chapter is concerned with a focus on children from one year old to eight years of age. The focus is on understanding how the developing child becomes socialised into his or her society. It is well known that children’s development involves an interaction between their maturation processes and the affects of the environment (Natanson, 1998). It is also true that everyone involved with the care and education of children will have observed their development in the practicalities of day-to-day situations. Those observations, combined with established common knowledge, form the basis for everyday understanding of where the child is in his or her development. While common sense assists an understanding of everyday interactions, this chapter will focus on core developmental theorists to enable an understanding of early childhood and the issues facing development in this developmental period. https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 1/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective The developing child Pregnancy and birth reveal a baby’s living architecture, which is stirring, beautiful, and wondrous. In every sense of the word – marvellous! The baby’s unavoidable advent into the world brings with it epic changes for newborns and parents alike. At birth, the major fetal organs – such as the lungs, stomach, intestines, and kidneys – which have remained untested because there was no oxygen to breathe, food to digest, or waste to eliminate, must all start functioning at once – in some cases within seconds of delivery. Other organs already in use – such as the heart and brain – must adapt without hesitation to a world for which they have been meticulously designed and prepared, but which differs utterly from the one in which they have functioned. Blood coming into the heart must suddenly be shunted to the lungs; this means that the opening between the two upper chambers of the heart (necessary for circulation when oxygen enters the blood stream through the placenta) needs to be sealed at once. The nervous system immediately begins to make use of information from eyes that are almost blinded by a blizzard of incoming data. It is as if the child was constructed under the ocean, then thrust up onto dry land in perfect working order, and immediately pressed into service (Tsiaras, 2002). A baby, unlike a fetus, must sustain itself against many shocks, changes in temperature, and disease. Later in its life, as it develops into a child and an adult, it will have to sustain itself against the rough and tumble of school, work, dating, loss, and, probably, having children of its own. Starting at birth, a person has to negotiate each new terrain for him- or herself (Jackson, 1999; Tsiaras, 2002). Unpacking developmental psychology Developmental psychology deals with the intricate nature of human activities and the processes that transform ‘substance’, or the visible, tangible realities of the world into an invisible experience in a person’s individual inner world. Individuals choose to make this private or invisible experience visible through various channels of expression. For example, language, which can be written or spoken, is often reflected in the use of metaphor and beliefs, but can also be identified through play, gesture, or body stances. People communicate their felt experiences as realities of the world they live in: this communication is received through the sensory channels and then individually understood through the mechanism of perception. As Preston (2005) indicates, it is in this way that learning and development take place. The development of the mental processes of growing children can be seen to follow a natural progression line, often observed in the outward displays of behaviour and language use and skills of these children (Preston, 2005). This mental progression can be observed in expressions of performance, behaviour and language. Significantly, the progressive nature of these thinking processes can be identified in hierarchical stages of development, and often they do not follow a precisely chronological order (Preston, 2005). Child development, particularly early childhood development, is a dynamic, moving target. Therefore, it is important always to take into account the particular situation of each child in a particular family and consider all his or her physical, social, intellectual, emotional and educational needs in that particular context, to understand fully the child and his or her development. In other words, understanding the child’s avenues of learning is important. The section that follows will describe the following: Trends that appear to be significant for mental growth The basic avenues of learning. Basic avenues of learning the basic means/channels through which children mentally develop and grow, such as using their eyes (sight) and hands (touch), as well as speech and hearing https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 2/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective This description does not fall easily and smoothly into sequence. Rather, it has been garnered from many sources and people. ACTIVITY What do you think? 1 Young children conduct experiments; analyse statistics; form intuitive theories of the physical, biological, and psychological realms; use language to tease out what they know and ask focused questions; and form relationships. In the light of this, give three activities that you might use in a child’s playtime to assist his or her growth and exploration. Specify the developmental areas of growth you would wish these activities to encourage. 2 Do you agree with Preston (2005) that children’s mental progression and development can often be seen in their outward displays of behaviour, language, and skill? Motivate your answer with practical examples from expressions of behaviour that you have observed in developing children. Piaget’s conception of cognitive development in early childhood Pre-operational thought Chapter two discussed Piaget’s theory of cognitive development in some depth. This chapter focuses very specifically on two stages of development: pre-operational and concrete operational thinking. For Piaget (1964), children learn through actively constructing knowledge by transacting with their world. That is, the child acts on his or her environment, the environment affords and constrains action, and the child actively constructs knowledge through the processes of assimilation and accommodation, passing through successive developmental stages as he or she does so. The first stage of development has already been covered in the chapter on infant development, namely the sensorimotor stage. In this developmental stage the infant develops object permanence and the foundations of symbolic functioning become evident, preparing the infant for the next developmental stage, where pre-operational thinking develops. The pre-operational stage (roughly between the ages of two to six) is characterised by a specific mode of thought where the developing child is able to focus on only one aspect of a task or situation to the exclusion of others. Piaget called this centration. This is manifested in egocentric thinking, where the child views the world or situation in terms of his or her own viewpoint, to the exclusion of others’ viewpoints. Chapter two showed how two children engaged in monologues when solving a problem, rather than opening a dialogue to assist each other to solve the problem. This is most obvious when children are asked to perform a conservation experiment (see Chapter two; page 41). In the conservation experiment pre-operational children are unable to conserve because they can focus on only one salient aspect of the situation (namely the height of the water in the container, rather than the breadth of the container). Children at this developmental stage also confuse appearance and reality. So, for example, a straw that is placed into water and therefore appears bent, is actually perceived as bent in reality. Piaget gives a nice example of how children at this stage confuse appearance and reality when he records the following interaction between two of his children: Assimilation understanding novel situations in terms of one’s existing cognitive structures Accommodation altering one’s existing cognitive structures because the novel situation is so unfamiliar it clashes https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 3/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective with one’s existing structures, forcing a change in the structure Object permanence the ability to recognise that something continues to exist even when it is not observed; an understanding that objects exist outside one’s perception of them Symbolic functioning the use of mental symbols, words, or pictures which one uses to represent something which is not physically present …at 2:7(12), seeing Lucienne in a new bathing suit, with a cap, Jacqueline asked: ‘What’s the baby’s name?’. Her mother explained that it was a bathing costume, but Jacqueline pointed to Lucienne herself and said: ‘What’s the name of that?’ (indicating Lucienne’s face) and repeated the question several times. But as soon as Lucienne had her dress on again, Jacqueline exclaimed very seriously: ‘It’s Lucienne again’, as if her sister had changed her identity in changing her clothes (1954, p. 224). Pre-operational thinking is also based on pre-causal reasoning. Children at this stage have difficulty grasping cause-and-effect relationships. A cemetery, for example, may be interpreted as causing death, rather than being one of the effects of death (Cole, Cole & Lightfoot, 2002). An achievement of this stage is the formation of mental symbols, an ability that lies initially in imitative behaviour. Initially entirely bodily based, imitation begins to become more symbolic during this stage. Concrete operational stage While the vast majority of early childhood development (ECD) work will fall outside this stage, it is worth noting this developmental stage as some children who fall within the ECD category will be in this developmental stage. This stage lasts from roughly the ages of six to twelve years. A major achievement of this stage is the ability to decentre. That is, a child in this stage is able to focus on more than one aspect of a situation. This is best illustrated in relation to conservation experiments where a child is able to spot that nothing has been added or removed from the container, the identity of the water remains unchanged across the transformation of containers. The ability to decentre leads to declining egocentrism and children in this stage are able to listen to other’s viewpoints, follow rules in games, and even begin to understand that a person may act in one way but feel another way; these are significant achievements and pave the way for hypothetical thinking that is required at a high-school level. Piaget’s body of work is still extremely useful today, but his theory paid insufficient attention to the impact of the socio-cultural milieu on the developing child. His work, however, provided a fertile ground for Vygotsky to develop a theory to account for the impact of history and the socio-cultural world on the developing child. Vygotsky’s socio-cultural or cultural–historical approach to development Vygotsky’s body of work is variously referred to as socio-cultural theory (Miller, 2011) or cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) (Vianna & Stetsenko, 2011). The different names accorded to this theory arise from the different sites of engagement with his theory: in the West, Vygotsky’s work has been referred to as socio-cultural theory, while in Russia, the vast body of Neo-Vygotskian work that builds on Vygotsky’s original opus is generally https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 4/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective referred to as cultural–historical activity theory. The differences in name are not of primary importance for this chapter: what is important is the emphasis on how the social, cultural, and historical milieu impact on a child’s developmental trajectory. Chapter two covered Vygotsky’s theory, but here you need to remind yourself that the difference between Piaget and Vygotsky’s work lies in the focus on the importance of social interactions in the development of thinking. For Vygotsky, a child develops uniquely human capacities to think in particular ways through interacting with others in the social world and internalising cultural tools, which have a history, rather than merely constructing thought through interacting with the world, as the Piagetian epistemic subject does. This chapter focuses specifically on two aspects of Vygotsky’s work that inform ECD: the development of self- regulation and the understanding that play is the leading activity of this developmental phase. Neo-Vygotskians, such as Karpov (2003), have done extensive research into self-regulation, illustrating that it is a necessary pre- condition for learning at school. Self-regulation, however, like all higher cognitive concepts, needs to be mediated to the developing child. The next section will discuss how play, the leading activity of early childhood, forms the basis for developing self-regulation in children as they move from pre-school to school. Self-regulation the ability to attend selectively to specific aspects of a situation; to start something that one might not want to, and to stop an activity that one is enjoying Self-regulation and ‘play’ as a leading activity As with all higher cognitive functions, self-regulation is initially external, occurring between the mother and the child, before being internalised (remember Vygotsky’s 1978 general genetic law – skip back to page 43 in Chapter two to refresh your memory). The (m)other will initially regulate the baby’s actions externally. So for example, when a baby cries because he or she is hungry, he or she may grasp for the bottle of milk the mother gives him or her. This grasping has no actual meaning to the child … yet. The mother, however, interprets the gesture for the child and gives the child the bottle of milk. The infant begins to realise that the grasping motion is being interpreted by the mother, who essentially regulates the child’s grasping actions until these actions develop into actual pointing. The mother initially regulates the infant’s behaviour before this regulation is internalised as self- regulation (Morris, 2012). What can be seen here is that an adult is essential to the development of self- regulation: The correct organisation of the child’s activity plays an important role in the development of voluntary attention. How clearly the task of action, its goals and conditions are specified and whether or not the situational elements, which are significant for the fulfilment of the activity, are adequately identified determines the level of the child’s attention. The cultivation of voluntary, premediated attention is one of the important problems of preschool pedagogy and one of the important conditions in the child’s preparation for training at school (Yendovitskaya et al., 1971, pp. 86–87). Moreover, Vygotsky indicated the central role that ‘play’ serves in developing self-regulation: ‘Play creates demands on the child to act against immediate impulse’, and ‘A child’s greatest self-control occurs in play’ (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 99). ‘Play’ is structured by rules that must be followed and peers regulate a child’s behaviour during play (Morris, 2012). A child’s ability to self-regulate is essentially linked to social activity, particularly at preschool level, which allows for profound developmental activity because it provides opportunities to ‘test’ new learning safely and establish appropriate dialogue. In this chapter self-regulation refers to: https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 5/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective … a deep internal mechanism that underlies mindful, intentional and thoughtful behaviours of children. It is the capacity to control one’s impulses, both to stop doing something (even if one wants to continue doing it) and to start doing something (even if one doesn’t want to do it). Self-regulated children can delay gratification and suppress their impulses long enough to think ahead to the possible consequences of their action, or to consider alternative actions that would be more appropriate (Bodrova & Leong, 2005, p. 55). Karpov (2005) discusses how children acquire self-regulation by means of conscious mediation by the educator within a fantasy corner and general classroom environment. He suggests that it is only when the educator actively provides the necessary dialogue to resolve conflict, provides tools for problem solving, unpacks tasks into manageable steps, and sets up fantasy corners that stimulate learners to explore the adult world, that self- regulation will be optimised by the mediator. Fantasy corner an area in a preschool classroom that is set aside for children to engage in imaginative play; the area is structured and has spaces for ‘make-believe’ activities, dress-up areas, and various toys and/or materials that can be used in imaginative play The work done by Vygotsky – and his colleagues Luria, Leontiev, Galperin, and Elkonin – has demonstrated that the dominant activity at preschool level is play. Play is significant at this level of development as it allows for imitation of adult behaviour; the development of language and meaning together with the opportunities to internalise generalisations which help to regulate behaviour within socially accepted norms (Elkonin, 1974). Vygotsky (1967) believed that meaning is constructed through a combination of language and its cultural context and that when children indulge in play they extend existing skills to new limits (Bruner, 1977). Karpov (2005) suggests that the adult plays a key role in the child’s ability to develop self-regulation because it is the adult who presents an attitude towards learning, provides stimulating objects, models situational language, and helps the child to develop their motivation to learn. This role is performed by the educator in the preschool classroom when he or she provides tools for learning. For example material that can be draped as a cape or used as a tent; when he or she gives the child the dialogue to resolve conflict, for instance, ‘Please may I have a turn with the princess crown’; when he or she sets up creative activities that stimulate new learning and provide discussion, like planting beans and making a giant beanstalk. The importance of language and social interaction between the adult and the child is highlighted by Vygotsky’s theory of how children learn. Karpov (2005) explains that self-regulation occurs through the child in the course of mediation when the child acquires and masters new psychological tools, which result in the development of new mental processes: ‘… the learning of specific abilities in one domain transforms the intellectual functioning in other areas’ (Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991). These mental processes outgrow the child’s current activity, which creates the basis for the child’s switching to a new activity (Rowe & Wertsch, 2004). Language is intimately tied to actions and this enables the child to internalise his or her new learning and develop levels of self-regulation (Karpov, 2005). Private speech together with reacting to peers and educators helps the child to learn to regulate behaviour and internalise new learning (Wertsch, 1979). As an infant the child is initially interested in manipulating objects presented to him or her by the adult or primary caregiver on whom the child is largely focused (Bruner, 1977). The child changes from simply exploring his or her environment to observing the links between the objects he or she is manipulating and their purpose. The focus changes to one of object-orientated actions whereby the adult draws the child’s attention to the context of the object. For example, a spoon is used for eating (Karpov, 2005, p. 86). At the preschool level, objects can be manipulated to represent all manner of things. For example, a wooden block could be a cellphone and a piece of netting a veil. Whilst indulging in fantasy play, the learners are continuously describing how the game will be https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 6/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective played out. In this way, according to Vygotsky, they are organising their thinking and regulating their behaviour (Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991). By engaging in play children are learning to regulate their behaviour because they are experiencing the need to regulate within their imagined roles (Bruner, 1997). The problem solving aspect of external dialogue frequently requires intervention on the part of the preschool educator (Karpov, 2005). It is here that he or she must help provide the language necessary to lead to the internalisation of regulation: that is, self-regulation (Zeidner, Matthews, Roberts & MacCann, 2003). Adult mediation guides the child and gives him or her the tools to plan and direct his or her thinking, thereby becoming more logical, less impulsive, and better able to regulate his or her behaviour (Elkonin, 1974). Much of the self-talk by the preschooler occurs during fantasy play, which traditionally is an area where preschoolers in South African kindergarten classrooms are given the freedom to play without structure or intervention. Self-regulation for Vygotsky (1978) is achieved through social interaction and begins with the child exploring his or her innate potential to imitate adult behaviour through ‘adult watching’ (Bruner, 1977, p. 179). The child’s developmental potential is evidenced by the degree to which he or she benefits from external intervention (Glick, 1997). Learning will lead to development if it occurs within the child’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) where skills and concepts can come to fruition with the appropriate guidance of the educator, peers, or significant others (Bodrova & Leong, 2001). At preschool level, the year preceeding Grade 1, this guidance could take the form of mediation within fantasy play which provides the opportunity for the preschooler to learn how to delay gratification, listen to instructions, and plan a task (Karpov, 2005). In so doing the child is developing self- regulation (Elkonin, 1974). Bodrova and Leong (2007) argue that educators should allocate more time to play in the preschool programme because it is through play that the child moves forward and develops. Zone of proximal development the social space, or gap, between what a child can do on his or her own and what he or she has the potential to accomplish with the assistance of a culturally more competent ‘other’ … play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form; in play it is as though the child were trying to jump above the level of his normal behaviour (Vygotsky, 1933, p. 16). This would suggest that play has the potential to help the preschooler to regulate their behaviour. Rubtsov and Yudina (2010) argue that current studies show a tendency to spend the preschool years cramming knowledge of numbers, letters, and phonics into the daily programme and that the reason for this is the natural desire to learn that is exhibited by most preschool students and consequently exploited by policy makers: ‘… the child’s development is artificially accelerated and the preschool education is made more “adult” ’ (Rubtsov & Yudin, 2010, p. 8). Rubtsov and Yudin consider this a grave error on the part of educators and support the concept that play should be encouraged. Recognising the importance of fantasy play as a site for developing self-regulation, some schools in New York have begun to turn their programmes more towards a focus on play, than a narrow academic focus (New York Times, 2009). In South Africa, Harrison’s (2011) work on self-regulation with a preschool class found that mediated fantasy play had a developmental impact on, amongst other things, children’s organisational skills. While there is still a dearth of such work in South Africa, Harrison’s work points to the importance of fantasy play in developing self-regulation. So what can be concluded about play? Much of Karpov’s work (2005) has illustrated that adult mediation, children’s prior knowledge, and language are key factors that shape socio-dramatic play and influence the development of abstraction (Morris, 2012, p. 150). In particular, ‘… studies of the neo-Vygotskians have demonstrated that the development of children’s ability to use object substitutes is crucially determined by adult mediation’ (Karpov, 2005, p. 126). It is the adult, then, who must create a space for fantasy play in the preschool classroom, providing the objects or materials that can be used in imaginative play – a stick that becomes a sword, a broom that becomes a broomstick to fly on, a dress-up corner where children can ‘become’ anyone they want to https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 7/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective be. It is the teacher (or engaged parent) who provides children with the vocabulary with which to manipulate objects into imaginative, fantastical things. Most importantly, however, we must not forget that without motivation, the desire to engage in the play, the child will not learn. Play, therefore, must provide an inviting space that children want to inhabit (Morris, 2012). Have you ever wondered why the big purple dinosaur called Barney on television is so appealing to children in this developmental phase? Well, next time you have an opportunity to do so, watch an episode of Barney and you will notice most of the fundamental features mentioned above: the focus on imaginative play (‘live from your imagination’); the structured engagement with imaginative play; the provision of a vocabulary with which to engage with the imaginative space; the elaboration of rules or engagement. All these things have made Barney, a purple dinosaur, one of the most influential characters in ECD. CHECK YOUR PROGRESS From the moment of birth, children are in constant interaction with adults who actively seek to incorporate them into their culture and its historically accumulated store of meanings and ways of doing things. In the beginning, children’s responses to the world are dominated by natural processes, namely those provided by their biological heritage. But through the constant intercession of adults, more complex, instrumental psychological processes begin to take shape. At first, these processes can operate only in the course of the children’s interactions with adults. As Vygotsky phrased it, the processes are interpsychic; that is, they are shared between people. Adults at this stage are external agents mediating the children’s contact with the world. But as children grow older, the processes that were initially shared with adults come to be performed within children themselves. That is, the mediated responding to the world becomes an intrapsychic process. It is through this interiorisation of historically determined and culturally organised ways of operating on information that the social nature of people comes to be their psychological nature as well (Luria, 1979, p. 45). What do you understand by the term ‘mediation’? How is mediation important in the development of self-regulation? State the general genetic law in your own words. Provide an example from your own childhood of how someone helped regulate your behaviour and how you internalised this. Case study: The ‘hurried’ child: are parental expectations stealing childhood? Jessica is five years old. She attends nursery school from 08h00 until 12h00. Her mother, Sarah, fetches her at 12h00 and then drives her to her ballet lesson, which begins at 12h30. After ballet, Jessica has her art lesson at 14h00. She eats her lunch in the car while her mother drives her to art. After art, Jessica has her ‘Mozart for youngsters’ class, where she is learning to play the violin. She gets home at 17h30. She eats dinner at 18h00 and is in bed by 19h45. Sarah’s mother worked throughout her childhood and Sarah regrets that she did not have access to various after-school activities because she attended an after-care class where all she did was her homework. Sarah gave up her job when Jessica was born because she wanted her daughter to have the opportunities that she had lost out on. Lately, Jessica has begun to exhibit features of exhaustion and this is why her mother has decided to consult a child psychologist to develop a schedule that meets Jessica’s needs, while still giving Jessica the benefit of all the activities Sarah missed out on while growing up. Given what you have just learnt about the importance of play in this developmental phase, what kind of schedule would you draw up for Jessica? How would you approach the revised schedule with Sarah’s mother, given her desire for her child to access activities she never had the opportunity to access? The next section will discuss the development of a scale used to measure mental development. The Griffiths Scales of Mental Development take seriously the notion of ‘play’ as a necessary part of early childhood development. The Griffiths Scales of Mental Development https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 8/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective Ruth Griffiths’s view of child development is reflected in a philosophy based on the basic avenues of learning, the concept of play, and the need to assess with more confidence the development of young children. The thinking of Griffiths is in line with modern systemic approaches, in which the basic avenues of learning for the early developing child are strongly depicted. This is aptly reflected in the following quotation: Play for young children is not recreation activity. It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity. Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met (http://www.enotes.com/famousquotes/play-for-young-children-is-not-recreation-activity, 2008). Studies suggest that when children play spontaneously (‘getting into everything’), they are also exploring cause and effect and doing experiments. This has also been described as being the most effective way to discover how the world works (Gopnik, 2010). It has been suggested that the provision of interesting activities, choice in activities, and choice in how to complete activities improves children’s persistence and thus attention to the task (Stewart, Rule & Giordano, 2007). Various methods are available for assessing and understanding early childhood development. The Griffiths Mental Development Scales are among those that are recognised worldwide, particularly by pediatricians and psychologists, as they enable a thorough, holistic diagnosis through analysis of the development profile. The 1954 Griffiths Mental Development Scales originally covered the first two years of life, and assessed development in five areas – locomotor, personal–social, hearing and speech, eye and hand co-ordination, and performance. The Griffiths Extended Scales of Mental Development were developed in the 1960s and tested children aged two to eight years. A sixth sub-scale, practical reasoning, was introduced with the Extended Scales. When the Griffiths Mental Development Scales were first introduced, the psychometric conceptions of intelligence were emerging and were to influence psychometric measurement for the next three generations. These narrow conceptions included verbal, visual–spatial, and mathematical abilities. The Griffiths Mental Development Scales brought with them an innovative system for developmental assessment, as Griffiths was keenly aware of the importance of interactions between the various avenues of learning. She advocated a broad- based approach to understanding mental development (that is, the processes and rates at which growth and maturation of a child’s attributes and abilities takes place). She was aware of the importance of social and emotional developmental factors and the interplay between these and mental development. Understanding early development in a child thus involves a comprehensive investigation of the child’s abilities, including motor abilities, social abilities, and cognitive abilities. The rapidly shifting nature of young children’s development poses problems when psychologists or other professionals assess them. Clinical skills and judgment are required to differentiate between what is intellectual and what may be primarily neurophysiological or socio- emotional. Through periodic re-examinations of young children, psychologists and researchers can bring to light developmental trends and establish developmental baselines. The basic avenues of learning According to Griffiths (1986), it would seem that the earliest beginnings of mental development rest primarily upon the physiological functions and a child’s developing awareness of his or her physiological needs. The physiological functions are rhythmical, occurring regularly in time – for example ingestion and digestion, waking and sleeping. From the moment of birth, with the onset of breathing and the beginning of a separate existence, a child has to begin to adjust to the physical environment. Even before birth, a child has experienced at some level, probably mainly physiological, the various rhythms of life, for these are already laid down in the nervous system (refer again to Chapter three for a detailed discussion on the prenatal period of development). In earliest infancy, a baby begins to adjust to the rhythms of experience, to come to expect certain happenings at certain times and in certain places (refer again to chapter four for a detailed discussion of infancy). This ability to adjust is fundamental to habit formation, and with a child’s growing awareness of his or her social https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis&… 9/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective environment, he or she learns to react in a twofold way, now positively and now negatively, the whole complex of activities and retreats from activity being in a sense an outgrowth of the child’s natural (inborn) rhythms. Thus conative drives become gradually superimposed upon the basic vegetative rhythms, such as food intake, elimination, waking, and sleeping. For example, a hungry child cries, grows angry if neglected, and learns to vary his or her means of demanding attention. But the human brain continues to develop and is constantly moving forward in its development. It is highly impressionable and has great latent potential for use. What a person can do cortically does not come fully ‘on line’ until the school years or adolescence (refer to Chapters six and seven for a full discussion of these periods of development); the brain fully reaches maturation only in the early thirties. In this regard, Griffiths’s thinking opened doors. Look at Figure 5.1, which illustrates Griffiths’s holistic model reflecting the basic avenues of learning. Figure 5.1 Griffiths’s holistic model reflecting the basic avenues of learning Source: Griffiths (1986, p. 29). © Association for research in Infant and Child Development (ARICD) In Figure 5.1, the large oval (numbered ‘1’) represents the social background in which a child is situated. The social background encircles the child from the beginning, modifying and influencing all his or her experiences. The circle numbered ‘2’ in Figure 5.1 represents the physiological functions and organic movements, awareness of which appears basic to experience. Superimposed on this physiological substrate, certain weak physical movements gradually become more gross and lead to differentiated attempts to move the body in various ways, of which the first in importance are those that lead on to locomotor development (see the circle numbered ‘3’ in Figure 5.1). These, too, are rhythmical, resting back upon the gradual acquisition of certain habits. It is instructive to watch the energetic kicking of an infant, and then young child, whose limbs go vigorously one, two, https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 10/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective one, two, alternately; these movements strengthen the muscles soon to be involved in more complicated movements such as rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, climbing, running, and, finally, riding a bicycle. Arm and hand movements, at first vague and poorly directed – clutching at near objects, holding on to grasped objects – which develop later into more complicated manipulative acts, accompany and overlay the locomotor series (see the circle numbered ‘4’ in Figure 5.1). For successful manipulative development, hand and eye must co-operate. These are the two basic avenues of learning. The eye, at first roving without fixating, gradually begins to follow moving objects and ‘look at’ still ones. The hand, coming into contact with near objects, soon supplements vision, and the two develop together in manipulative performances of growing complexity. Meanwhile, a child is not silent. Almost from birth, a normal baby makes vague sounds (see the circle numbered ‘5’ in Figure 5.1). These sounds are hardly voiced at first, but presently they become definite vocalisation and, later, babble and then speech. All this is in addition to the baby’s expressive crying. The baby listens intently to sounds and to the voices around. Hearing (active listening) and voice together result in vocalisation and babble, which finally develop into speech. Hearing and voice are two further basic avenues of learning. All this development takes place in time and space. The eye and hand co-operate in exploring the spatial surroundings, although even blind children build up their own conception of space and spatial relations out of their sense of touch and their concentration on manual exploration of the environment. Hearing, then listening to a sequence of sounds, such as involved in learning gradually to understand language, takes place in time rather than in space, and builds up in a child the expectation of meaningful sequences. Babies understand a great deal of the spoken language that flows around them long before their inexperienced vocal organs can frame a response. The two broad sets of activities representing different types of experience – performance (the circle numbered ‘4’) and speech (the circle numbered ‘5’) – are the two main aspects of intellectual development, and together ultimately form the basis of formal education, both practical and verbal. A more advanced stage in this developmental process is reached when an older child learns to read and write, for then all four main avenues of learning, eye and hand together with voice and hearing, co-operate in the acquisition of the complex ability to understand and reproduce written language. As they develop, all these abilities form a complex and unified whole. The whole child acts in everything he or she does, directing his or her attention in rapid exploring and learning in relation to environment. Stewart (2005) recognised that Griffiths’s thinking was considerably advanced for that time and, significantly, it is still acknowledged as being in line with contemporary developmental theories. Stewart described Griffiths’s contribution to child development in the following paragraph: Griffiths’ theoretical approach may appear somewhat dated, but it remains fundamentally sound. Most of its features are consistent with current theory of child development, as Griffiths acknowledged the child within his social systems; she recognised the physiological aspect of child development; and she attributed equal importance to the psychological aspects of the child. She identified six domains of development, which she stated provided a thorough view of development. She maintained that the domains measured separate abilities, but emphasized that there is also considerable overlap between them. All these aspects are consistent with current thinking on child development (Stewart, 2005, p. 97). Importantly, in the field of childhood development, the above-mentioned areas underpinning the Griffiths Mental Development Scales remain vital areas of child development, the culmination of which provides a holistic blueprint of mental development in infancy and early childhood. Child development is a dynamic, moving target. It is important to take a fresh look (from time to time) at the underpinning theories, philosophies, and principles of development to ensure that these stay relevant. When psychologists and other practitioners seek to understand the dynamics of the human mental process, they cannot ignore the evidence of its collective activities across time (Preston, 2005). https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 11/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective ACTIVITY Using symbols, pictures, magazine cutouts, or words design your own diagram that illustrates your understanding of children’s basic avenues of learning. CHECK YOUR PROGRESS How can psychologists and other practitioners best observe the development of mental processes in growing children? According to Griffiths, upon what would the earliest beginnings of childhood mental development primarily rest? Name the four basic avenues of learning, as illustrated and explained by Griffiths’s holistic model? Moral development in children The discussion that follows will consider moral development in children. Chapter six will also consider this topic in detail, and you should read the discussion here and in Chapter six as complementary sources of information on this topic. Griffiths asserted that mental progression can be observed in expressions of performance, behaviour, and language (Preston, 2005). This assertion is similar to the assertions of many theorists who continue to influence the field of developmental psychology and psychometric assessments of child development (such as Piaget, Erikson, and Vygotsky, whose work earlier chapters discussed). Griffiths acknowledged that the interplay between social, emotional, and moral developmental factors significantly impacted on a child’s mental development (Luiz et al., 2006). Children’s brains may be thought of as ‘wet cement’ in which formative relationships and experiential learning leave lasting impressions. When psychologists and other practitioners attempt to describe and plot children’s physical, social, and emotional maturation, it is therefore important that they take into consideration the many cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental factors that could shape and influence this development. The unfortunate reality is that many of the contexts in which children are raised today are less than ideal. Poverty, crime, disease, death, violence, human-rights violations, war, and conflict abound in many parts of the world. This means that as children explore and learn more about their environment – and in turn discover more about themselves – they are likely to face many external and internal challenges that could considerably stunt their emotional, social, and physical development. Of increasing concern to those in the helping professions is the far- reaching effect that such influencers could have on children’s overall moral development. Posada and Wainryb express this concern eloquently: More and more of the world’s children are being sucked into a bleak moral vacuum—a psychological space devoid of basic human rights and values. How might children’s development be altered by the violence, lawlessness, and deprivation to which they are exposed? (Posada & Wainryb, 2008, p. 882). Research conducted into the moral development of children in countries affected by political violence has revealed that their moral development is likely to be truncated (Posada & Wainryb, 2008). When children are inadequately exposed to social interactions that help facilitate the development of moral concepts, they are likely to experience conflict between proposed moral principles (for example ‘Don’t hurt others’ and ‘It is wrong to steal, lie, cheat, etc.’) and those considerations specific to their environments (such as the need to eat, or to be safe, or to see justice meted out for considerable wrongs against themselves and their families). However, research has also shown that young children are still capable of judging certain behaviour to be wrong, not merely based on how they or others might be punished for such behaviour, but according to their intrinsic concern with fairness and the overall welfare of others (Posada & Wainryb, 2008). This intrinsic ability to be able to label https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 12/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective actions as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘unfair’ or ‘fair’, even when submerged in environments that support conflicting norms and practices, shows that the development of moral concepts is not determined by merely cultural and societal conditions (Posada & Wainryb, 2008). Nevertheless, children still require that caregivers and others ‘properly guide and equip them for a successful journey’ (Wonderly, 2009, p. 3) as they explore and form opinions about life’s moral terrains. Read the box headed ‘Discussing moral development’, which will help you to tease out your own views on this topic. Discussing moral development Discuss the following questions: Do you feel that it is important for society to instil good morals in children, or is morality an outdated concept? Why do you feel this way? Have you noticed an increase or decrease in levels of morality among children in your community? Why do you think this is so? Theory of moral development Development theorists such as Piaget, whose work earlier chapters have discussed in some detail, and Lawrence Kohlberg (1927–1987) provide structured frameworks on which to hinge an understanding of the growth of moral reasoning in children. These frameworks in turn serve as springboards from which to form effective strategies for childhood moral development. Later chapters will return to discuss Piaget’s work in further detail, and will also expand on the discussion of Kohlberg’s work presented here. Moral reasoning a thinking process with the objective of determining whether an idea is right or wrong Kohlberg’s work on moral reasoning While completing his doctoral dissertation, Kohlberg undertook a cross-sectional study of moral reasoning in 75 boys distributed in age from early childhood to late adolescence. From this study emerged Kohlberg’s extended hypothesis of six stage-like positions in the development of moral reasoning. Piaget’s work strongly influenced Kohlberg’s thinking. Piaget’s focus on an active subject interacting with a dynamic environment shaped Kohlberg’s approach. In addition, Kohlberg used Piaget’s focus to harness an empirical psychological inquiry into some philosophical issues concerning ethics. However, where Piaget was content in his later work to restrict himself to how people construct and know the world mathematically and scientifically, Kohlberg studied how people structure their experiences of, and judgements about, the social world (Fowler, 1981). By taking justice as the norm for moral judgement, Kohlberg argued, both empirically and philosophically, that moral reasoning develops through a succession of stages. He contended that the sequence of these stages is invariant and universal, and that ‘higher’ stages are more adequate (or more true) than the ‘earlier’ ones. In developing his theory, Kohlberg gave attention to how people in different stages construct and take account of the social perspectives of other people and groups. A central thrust of Kohlberg’s work is the claim that moral judgement and action are a rational choice. Kohlberg stated that moral choice is not simply a matter of feelings or values, but involves interpreting a moral- https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 13/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective dilemma situation, constructing all the points of view of the various participants and affected parties, and weighing their respective claims, rights, duties, and commitment to the good (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Kohlberg saw these all as cognitive acts. Like Piaget, he saw a stage of moral judgement as characterised by a formally describable pattern of thought or reasoning employed by a person in the adjudication of moral claims. And just as Piaget saw formal operational thinking as the most developed stage of cognition, so Kohlberg saw the universalising exercise of the principles of justice as the most developed stage of moral reasoning. Kohlberg held that the process of development of this cognitive core of moral judgement occurred in the interaction of people with the social conditions of their lives. He added that Piaget’s succession of stage-like equilibrations are, in effect, more or less comprehensive ‘moral logics’ (Fowler, 1981). Kohlberg’s stages of moral development Kohlberg’s stages are hierarchical (that is, each builds on and integrates the operations of the previous stages) and sequential (that is, one comes after the other in logical fashion). Furthermore, the sequence is both invariant (that is, a person cannot skip over a stage) and universal (that is, common to the moral development of people worldwide). Kohlberg noted that there is variation in the rate at which people in different societies move from one stage to another, and in the point of arrest or final equilibration that is average for adults in given cultures. However, Kohlberg emphasised that the same series of stages (if formally described) seem to characterise the path of development in moral judgement in each society (Fowler, 1981). Kohlberg proposed that there are three levels of moral reasoning: preconventional morality, conventional morality, and postconventional morality. He further proposed two stages within each level, as described below. (The section of chapter six headed ‘Moral development’ also sets out and discusses Kohlberg’s stages in some detail, and chapter seven returns to consider the theory. You will probably find it useful to read the information in Chapters six and seven in conjunction with the explanation that follows here.) Level one: preconventional morality At the level of preconventional morality, rules are really external to the self, rather than internalised. A child conforms to rules imposed by authority figures in order to avoid punishment, or to obtain personal rewards. The perspective of the self dominates (that is, what is right is what a person can get away with, or what is personally satisfying) (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Stage one (punishment-and-obedience orientation) is part of level one. In stage one, the goodness or badness of an act depends on its consequences. A child will obey authorities to avoid punishment and may not consider an act wrong if it is not punished. The greater the harm done or more severe the punishment, the more ‘bad’ the act is (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Stage two (instrumental hedonism) is also part of level one. A person at the second stage of moral development conforms to rules in order to gain rewards or satisfy personal needs. There is some concern for the perspectives of others, but this stage is ultimately motivated by the hope of benefit in return. ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ is the guiding philosophy (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Level two: conventional morality At the level of conventional morality, the individual has internalised many moral values. He or she strives to obey the rules set forth by others (such as parents, peers, and the government) in order to win their approval and recognition for good behaviour, or to maintain social order. The perspectives of other people besides the self are clearly recognised and given serious consideration (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Stage three (‘good boy’ or ‘good girl’ morality) is part of level two. In stage three, what is right is now that which pleases, helps, or is approved by others. People are often judged by their intentions, ‘meaning well’ is valued, and it is important to be ‘nice’ (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Stage four (authority and social-order-maintaining morality) is also part of level two. In stage four, what is right is what conforms to the rules of legitimate authorities. The reason for conforming is not so much a fear of https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 14/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective punishment as a belief that rules and laws maintain a social order that is worth preserving. Being dutiful and respecting law and order are valued (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Level three: postconventional morality At the third and final level of moral reasoning, postconventional morality, the individual attempts to define what is right in terms of broad principles of justice that have validity apart from the views of particular authority figures. The individual may distinguish between what is morally right and what is legal, recognising that some laws violate basic moral principles. Thus, the person transcends the perspectives of particular social groups or authorities and begins to take the perspective of all individuals (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Stage five (morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted law) is part of level three. In stage five, there is an increased understanding of the underlying purposes served by laws. There is also a concern that rules should be arrived at through democratic consensus so that they express the will of the majority, or maximise social welfare. Whereas the person at stage four is unlikely to challenge an established law, the stage-five moral reasoner might call for democratic change in a law that comprises basic rights (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Stage six (morality of individual principles of conscience) is part of level four. In stage six, the ‘highest’ stage of moral reasoning, the individual defines right and wrong on the basis of self-chosen principles that are broad and universal in application. The stage-six thinker does not simply ‘make up’ whatever principles he or she happens to favour, but instead arrives at abstract principles of respect for all individuals and their rights that all religions or moral authorities might view as moral. Kohlberg (1981) described stage six as a kind of ‘moral musical chairs’ in which the person facing a moral dilemma is able to take the perspective, or ‘chair’, of each person or group that could potentially be affected by a decision and arrive at a solution that would be regarded as just from every ‘chair’. Stage six is Kohlberg’s vision of ideal moral reasoning, but it is so rarely observed that Kohlberg stopped attempting to measure its existence (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). The prominence of Kohlberg’s theory In sum, Kohlberg’s theory of moral development has become prominent for a good reason. It describes a universal sequence of changes in moral reasoning extending from childhood through adulthood. Moreover, the evidence supports Kohlberg’s view that both cognitive growth and social experiences contribute to moral growth. However, there is also some merit to criticisms of the theory. The theory may indeed be somewhat biased against people who live in non-Western societies, who hold values other than individualistic and democratic ones, or who emphasise a ‘morality of care’ rather than a ‘morality of abstract rights’. Moreover, because Kohlberg’s theory focuses entirely on moral reasoning, it is necessary to rely on other perspectives, such as social learning, to understand how moral affect and moral behaviour interact to make people the moral beings they ultimately become (Sigelman & Shaffer, 1991). Kohlberg: concluding remarks Piaget and Kohlberg focus their stage analyses on the structures and reasoning in their respective domains, and their approaches have been designated as belonging to the structural–developmental school (Fowler, 1981). The structural–developmentalists point out that the structures of thought are themselves a kind of unconscious, different from the dynamic unconscious of Freud and Jung, to be sure, but to be seen in relation to it. According to Fowler (1981), Erikson’s eight stages of the life cycle (recall that Chapters two and four discussed Erikson in some detail), closely correlate with biological maturation and chronological age – particularly in the first five stages. In contrast, the structural– developmentalist stages, while dependent on maturation and time, are not tied to them. Movement from one structural–developmental stage to another is not automatic or inevitable. A person can ‘arrest’ or equilibrate in one of Piaget’s or Kohlberg’s intermediate stages. Yet the person who so arrests in cognitive or moral developmental terms must still meet the life challenges or crises described in Erikson’s stages (that is, it can be said that psychosocial crises come, ‘ready or not’). When these perspectives on successive developmental eras are considered in this way, an assumption is made of parallelism in cognitive, moral, and psychosocial development that, if optimal, may be the exception rather than https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 15/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective the rule. In other words, people’s ways of meeting and dealing with the developmental crises Erikson delineates may differ significantly, depending upon their operative stages of cognitive and moral-judgement development. In this regard, Sheehy has descriptively said, ‘If you are aware that the fight of life is taking you somewhere, you can not only make the journey better, but also be more determined and resilient during the many battles’ (Sheehy, 1997, p. 239). Read the box headed ‘Application of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development’, which discusses the Just Community Approach, which applies Kohlberg’s theory in practice. ACTIVITY Personal reflection 1 In which stage of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development would you place yourself currently? Why? 2 Think of an event in your childhood when you were clearly operating out of one of Kohlberg’s proposed stages of moral development. This could have been when you were caught doing something disobedient, or when you observed an injustice towards another child. Record your feelings, thoughts, and actions from these events. Do these support one of Kohlberg’s proposed developmental stages? Application of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development The Just Community Approach Kohlberg progressed from his early ventures into moral education, where he placed strong focus on developing a cognitive model of individual moral development (the six-stage theory), to the exploration of approaches that emphasised the development of community norms that could foster the growth of moral reasoning and behaviour in children. The outcome was the development of a strong educational intervention called the Just Community Approach (Rest, Narvaez, Thoma & Bebeau, 2000). Kohlberg came to believe that in order for children truly to learn concepts of justice, fairness, and morality, schools needed to become just environments in which students could be active participants in creating justice. Core to this approach of social and moral learning was the concept of student participation. Oser, Althof & Higgins-D’Alessandro explain that in schools adopting the Just Community Approach [s]tudents are invited to engage in ongoing reflections about the fairness of certain behaviour and of rules and policies and why their community needs a set of rules, thus developing their social-emotional and moral reasoning competence and their sense of responsibility and care for one another and for upholding the rules (Oser, Althof, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2008, p. 2). Kohlberg realised that there was a limitation to moral-dilemma discussions that were grounded in literature and history alone. Therefore he developed a model in which moral development and progress could be assessed and measured in real-life school environments where young students’ decisions had an impact (Oser, Althof & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2008). Students’ participation within these school environments includes helping to detect unsolved latent problems within the school, which concerns the rights and duties of each student and the whole community. They are encouraged to come up with joint solutions to these problems and are required to defend publicly their solutions and stances. Students and teachers are elected to special committees (the fairness committee, for example) that assist with the democratic running of the school. Students also vote for or against solutions raised, and they jointly develop and enforce norms, rules, and policies at their school (Oser, Althof & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2008). In encouraging children’s active participation in the just and fair running of their school environments, Kohlberg aimed to strengthen their moral-reasoning capacities to the point that their future decisions and behaviour would reflect a well-navigated understanding of the value of creating and sustaining morality and justice in their immediate environments. Through their exposure to the practices of the Just Community Approach, these children would ideally adopt and develop moral-reasoning capacities that would go beyond a mere adherence to (or rejection of) indoctrinated theory and societal expectations. ACTIVITY https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 16/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective 1 Identify examples from your own community where there is a lack of positive role-modelling and community norms for adequate moral development in children. 2 How might you adapt and apply the principles of the Just Community Approach to work with young children in this context? (Describe the environment that you would establish to incorporate these principles. Which individual or community activities could you implement to encourage moral reasoning development in children?) Developing empathy in children Read the box headed ‘Case study: Alice and Jonathan’, which relates to the issue of developing empathy in children. Empathy the feeling of emotionally putting oneself in the place and experience of another Case study: Alice and Jonathan Alice refuses to share her toys with her friend, Jonathan, during a play date at his home. A clearly distressed Jonathan approaches his mother for assistance. Instead of trying to compel Alice towards less selfish behaviour by resorting to offers of reward or threats of punishment, Jonathan’s mother decides to harness the power of Alice’s vivid imagination by helping her empathise with Jonathan’s feelings on the matter. ‘Imagine if Jonathan refused to share his toys with you,’ she says. ‘How would that make you feel, Alice?’ Parents, guardians, and teachers have historically practised systems of punishment, reward, and role-modelling to encourage favourable behaviour and discourage unfavourable behaviour in children. To help move children beyond value indoctrination to true moral reasoning, alternative approaches to moral instruction now lean towards practices that, instead, help children develop a sense of empathy towards others, and identification with others. In appealing to children’s sense of empathy (that is, their understanding of morality and justice on a personal and felt level), it is believed that children can better develop judgements that will uphold favourable responses, norms, and values as important when they are faced with moral and ethical issues (Wonderly, 2009). The facilitation of Alice’s identification with Jonathan’s pain in the short case study above could potentially assist Alice in arriving at the conclusion that causing such pain is wrong and that she should, instead, share her toys with Jonathan (Wonderly, 2009). Developing and strengthening children’s sense of empathy is believed to be important for the development of their moral reasoning skills. Problems in the development of empathy and moral reasoning can contribute to conduct problems in childhood. Read the box headed ‘Case Study: Conduct Disorder’ for more information about this psychiatric diagnosis. Case study: Conduct disorder by Lea-Ann Pileggi Zinhle is nine years old and lives with her parents and her two year old brother. From a very young age Zinhle’s parents noticed that she is quite aggressive. She has become increasingly aggressive at home, particularly towards her brother, and is constantly disrupting her class at school, and picking fights. Her parents are at their wits’ end with Zinhle’s behaviour. Zinhle’s parents describe her behaviour as aggressive, disrespectful, deceitful and intentional. She is quick to get angry and aggressive when she wants something she is being denied, and often throws temper tantrums until she gets what she wants. When she does something wrong she always blames others, and very easily lies. Zinhle’s parents are particularly concerned about her aggressive behaviour towards her younger brother. She has recently started pushing him off the bed and pushing https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 17/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective him to the ground for no apparent reason. At school, Zinhle does not have any friends. Her teacher also reports that she does not follow rules, lies, breaks other children’s stationery in class, and is picking fights with other children and bullying them. She recently threatened to stab another girl with a pencil. Her teacher also noted that Zinhle is quite intelligent, despite her marks not reflecting this. Zinhle’s parents sought help from a specialist, who diagnosed Zinhle with conduct disorder. Conduct disorder is diagnosed when we see a child or adolescent behaving in a way which violates the basic rights of others or social norms and rules. Although conduct disorder is more often diagnosed in boys, it is clear that there are several such instances in Zinhle’s case. Zinhle’s behaviour significantly impairs her social and academic functioning. If left untreated, this kind of behavioural problem can progress to more serious problematic behaviour, including substance abuse and severe delinquency. Zinhle’s moral and empathy development has gone awry, as evidenced in examples of her behaviour. Children diagnosed with conduct disorder have trouble feeling empathy, although the capacity for empathy may well still exist. They also tend to misinterpret others’ behaviour as hostile, leading to increased aggressive behaviour.. Several genetic and environmental factors (i.e., social and familial) have been associated with the development of conduct disorder. One genetic factor is impairment in frontal lobe functioning, which is responsible for poor impulse control and the inability to learn from past experiences, for example (e.g., Finger et al., 2011). Impairment in frontal lobe functioning may be genetic or acquired (e.g., via brain injury). Additionally, a certain type of personality is associated with conduct disorder, and this may be inherited. Environmental factors include child abuse and neglect, a dysfunctional home environment (e.g., marital conflict, parental psychiatric illness, parental antisocial behaviour, inconsistent parenting), having a parent who abuses drugs and alcohol, and living in poverty (e.g., Murray & Farrington, 2010). Neglect failure to provide basic needs In terms of treatment, parental intervention is very important (Scott, 2008). The child’s prognosis is very poor if environmental factors are not addressed. Initial intervention involves improving parenting strategies. For example, parents are counselled about clear communication with their child, rewarding their child for positive behaviour, and stipulating clear consequences for non-compliance, and the importance of consistent parenting is stressed. Pharmacotherapy is sometimes considered for comorbid conditions (e.g., mood disorders, attentional disorders) or in instances where the child is highly aggressive. Family therapy is also recommended. REFERENCES Finger, E., Marsh, A., Blair, K., Reid, M., Sims, C., Ng, P., Pine, D., & Blair, R. (2011). Disrupted reinforcement signalling in the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate in youths with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder and high level of psychopathic traits. American Journal of Psychiatry, 168(2), 152-162. Doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.201.10010129. Murray, J., & Farrington, D. P. (2010). Risk factors for conduct disorder and delinquency: Key findings from longitudinal studies. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 55(10), 633-642. Scott, S. (2008). An update on interventions for conduct disorder. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 14, 61-70. Doi: 10.1192/apt.bp.106.002626. Film as an instrument of moral development Children’s film is one tool that researchers have identified as an effective instrument in eliciting empathetic responses from children (Wonderly, 2009). While didactic narratives have been used for many years to teach children lessons in morality, helping children to identify the moral messages in stories is of little consequence if they do not feel a level of respect towards those imperatives being taught (Wonderly, 2009). As the human condition is vividly and realistically portrayed to children through the medium of film, their identification with https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 18/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective the main characters can evoke feelings of empathy that can be easily accessed for future discussion and application in home environments and learning environments (Wonderly, 2009). Film is also a beneficial tool to stimulate moral imagination in children who experience learning barriers. Unlike literary figures, cinematic characters are often easily accessible, which makes them highly instructive (Wonderly, 2009). Children with limited reading-comprehension skills can readily access the dominant themes and emotions present in films. Also, depending on the simplicity of the film, language barriers can also be transcended as children relate instead to the visual cues and auditory stimulation present in the film’s narrative. While many parents lack the time to work adequately through moral themes found in their children’s stories or novels, they can generally spare a few hours to view and create discussion around the ethical dilemmas present in a film. For educators, film can also serve as a convenient alternative to sourcing texts and literature that adequately portray themes of moral significance (Wonderly, 2009). Such films can then be used as points of departure for discussion and application in the classroom setting. ACTIVITY 1 Do you agree that children’s film can be used as an effective tool to evoke empathetic responses in children towards others? 2 Can you identify a film from your own childhood that had significant impact on your own ability to empathise with your peers or a particular social group? 3 List three contemporary examples of children’s film that could be easily used by parents to create discussion with their children about issues of morality. CHECK YOUR PROGRESS List and describe the three levels of moral reasoning, as proposed by Kohlberg. Draw a diagram that best illustrates/summarises the sequence of Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. Describe, in your own words, three benefits of using film as a tool to stimulate moral imagination in children. Conclusion Early childhood development is now acknowledged as ‘a bidirectional transactional process in which genetic and environmental influences continuously alter each other in a dynamic manner’ (Sharma, 2011, p. 163). Furthermore, theorists explain that multiple contexts such as parenting, socioeconomic status, and social relations interact with one another and with genetic expression, resulting in long-lasting consequences for development (Sharma, 2011; Shonokoff & Phillips, 2000). Environmental factors are considered important determinants of a child’s future. Family and social environment most strongly, but not exclusively, influence emotional regulation, cognitive, and language outcomes, with most negative influences occurring in infancy. Griffiths acknowledged the impact of such factors by incorporating them into her diagram (see Figure 5.1). These multiple domains of child development have also been found to be interlocked, recursively interacting and influencing each other over time (Bornstein et al., 2012; Elder & Shanahan, 2006; Lerner, Lewin-Bizan & Warren, 2011). For example, proper nutrition during early childhood is vital not only for healthy physical development, but also for the enhancing of socio-emotional development and cognitive growth (Bornstein et al., 2012). Further, responsiveness in the parent–child relationship encourages healthy socio-emotional development, leading to significant gains in physical and cognitive outcomes (Bornstein et al., 2012). Magnusson and Stattin support the importance of the context and the recursiveness of multiple interacting systems in children’s development by proposing the following: https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 19/20 10/28/24, 12:41 PM Child and Adolescent Development Second Edition : A South African Socio-cultural Perspective The individual is an active, purposeful part of an integrated, complex, and dynamic person–environment system … Consequently, it is not possible to understand how social systems function without knowledge of individual functioning, just as individual functioning and development cannot be understood without knowledge of the environment (Magnusson & Stattin, 2006, p. 401). Thus it is individuals, rather than variables, that develop (Magnusson & Stattin, 1998), and such development is constantly being shaped, both consciously and unconsciously, by children’s abilities to adapt and respond. CASE STUDY Thabo is seven years old. He lives with his teenage sister and his younger sister, who is two years old. His older sister, Nandipha, is eighteen years old and works at the parcel counter in a large supermarket. Their mother, who had been their sole parent, passed away from an Aids-related illness when Kanyiso, the baby, was three months old. Nandipha dropped out of school at that time to seek employment so that she could care for her siblings. Thabo did not attend preschool. He has just started school this year and his teacher reports that he is having difficulty attending to lessons. He appears unable to focus his attention for any length of time and it is difficult to get him to start new tasks when he is engaged with a task, such as drawing, which he likes. The teacher is concerned that he has ADHD and she wants him to see a psychologist. 1 Given what you have learnt about self-regulation in this chapter, critically discuss Thabo’s presenting problem. 2 Given the importance in early childhood of significant others, discuss a possible treatment plan for Thabo. Questions 1 Now that you have read about Early Childhood Development, think back to the case study at the beginning of this chapter. Do you think Muriel’s fears about Eva adjusting to life outside prison are justified? What suggestions can you make to assist Muriel in the transition from prison to life outside prison? Draw on Vygotsky’s theory to answer this question. https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0Nzc2NzFfX0FO0?sid=aa415877-f42d-449a-96df-0b346e56468d@redis… 20/20