Developmental Psychology

The First Two Years : WEEK 4

Biosocial Development
 Sleep
• Newborns sleep about 17 hours per day
– needed for rapid growth
– REM sleep—rapid eye movement sleep—
declines
– quiet sleep increases at about 3 months
– too immature to sleep through the night
• Infant’s sleep patterns influenced by
brain waves and parents’ caregiving
practices
Experience Enhances the Brain

• Specifics of brain structure and

growth depend partly on experience
– exuberance is transient—transitional
stage between newborn brain’s
immaturity and the maturity of older
child’s or adult’s brain
– underused neurons are inactivated, or
pruned
 Experience Enhances the Brain, cont.

• Reactions to Stress
– experiencing stress may cause
overproduction of stress hormone
• developing brain can lose capacity to react
normally to stress
• normal neuron connections may have been pruned
for rapid response to repeated stress
 Experience Enhances the Brain, cont.

• William Greenough identified 2

experience-related parts of brain growth
– experience-expectant brain functions
• require basic common experiences to develop
normally
– experience-dependent brain functions
• depend on particular and variable experiences to
develop
 Experience Enhances the Brain, cont.
• Human brains are designed for expected
experiences
– how the brain is structured and connected
will depend on those experiences
– the brain expects certain experiences at
certain ages
• these experiences critical if connections are to
form; if connections not formed, plasticity may
allow new connections and pathways as
experiences continue
 Sensation and Perception

• All senses function at birth

– sensation—the response of sensory system
when it detects stimulus
• begins with outer organ—nose, eyes, etc.
– perception—mental procession of sensory
information when brain interprets sensation
• begins in the brain and requires experience
– cognition—thinking about what was
perceived
 Reflexes
• Reflexes for survival are categorized
- maintain oxygen supply (breathing)
- maintain body temperature (crying, kicking)
- manage feeding (rooting and sucking)
- swallowing aids feeding
- spitting up if too much has been swallowed
- crying when stomach empty
 Gross Motor Skills
• Involve large muscles and body
movements
– crawling, creeping, walking
 Fine Motor Skills
• Small, finely tuned movements,
especially of hands and fingers, including
– successful grabbing
– fingering, pointing, and holding
– grasping a moving object
– transferring objects from hand to hand
– adjusting reach
Cognitive Development
 Stages 1 and 2: Primary
Circular Reactions

• The feedback loop involving the

infants own body; infant senses
motion and tries to make sense of it
• Stage 1 = Reflexes
• Stage 2 = First Acquired Adaptations
- adaptations of reflexes, i.e., sucking—
new information taken in by senses and
responded to
 Stages 1 and 2: Primary Circular
Reactions, cont.

• Assimilation and Accommodation

– assimilation—taking in new information by
incorporating it into previous knowledge
– accommodation— intake of new data to re-
adjust, refine, expand prior schema or actions
– babies eagerly adapt their reflexes
and senses to whatever experiences they have
 Stages 1 and 2: Primary Circular
Reactions, cont.

• Sucking as a Stage-Two Adaptation

– begin adapting at about one month
– reflexive assimilation
 Stages 3 and 4: Secondary
Circular Reactions
• feedback loop involving people and
objects
• Stage 3 = Making Interesting Events Last
- repetition
- awareness
• Stage 4 = New Adaptation and
Anticipation
- goal-directed behavior
- object permanence
 Stages 5 and 6: Tertiary
Circular Reactions
• Feedback loop that involves active
experimentation and exploration
- involves creativity, action, and ideas
• Stage 5 = New Means Through Active
Experimentation
– little scientist
 Movement and People
• Dynamic perception—1 of the 2 principles
explaining infant perception; namely, that
from birth perception is primed to focus on
movement and change
• 2nd principle explaining infant perception
is that babies are fascinated by people
• Infants most interested in emotional
affordances of their caregivers
Piaget and Modern Research
• Habituation—process of getting used to
an object or event through repeated
exposure to it
• fMRI—functional magnetic resonance
imaging measuring technique for brain
activity and neurological responses
• First three years are prime time for
cognitive development
 Sudden Drops
• Visual cliff measures depth perception,
which is based not on maturity level but
affordance
- depends on prior experience
• Object Constancy
- things remain what they are, despite
changes in perception or appearance
- boundaries of three-dimensional objects
 Movement and People
• Dynamic perception—1 of the 2 principles
explaining infant perception; namely, that
from birth perception is primed to focus on
movement and change
• 2nd principle explaining infant perception
is that babies are fascinated by people
• Infants most interested in emotional
affordances of their caregivers
 Memory
• Certain amount of experience and
maturation in order to process and
remember experiences
• In first year infants have great difficulty
storing new memories
• Older children often unable to describe
events that occurred when they were
younger
 A Little Older, A Little
More Memory
• After 6 months infants capable of
retaining information for longer periods
of time with less reminding
• Deferred imitation apparent after end
of first year
• By middle of the 2nd year, children
capable of remembering and reenacting
complex sequences
 A Little Older, A Little More
Memory, cont.

• Memory is not just single entity; distinct

brain regions for particular aspects of
memory; humans have a memory for
– words
– images
– actions
– smells
– experiences
– “memorized” facts
The Universal Sequence of
Language Development

• Children around the world have the

same sequence of early language
development but
– timing and depth of linguistic ability
vary
 First Noises and Gestures
• Baby talk—high-pitched, simplified, and
repetitive ways adults talk to babies
• Vocalization
– crying
– cooing
• Babbling
– deaf babies do it later and less frequently,
but are more advanced in
use of gestures
 The Language Explosion and
Early Grammar

• Naming explosion—sudden increase in

infant vocabulary, especially nouns,
beginning at 18 months
• Holophrase—single word that expresses
a complete, meaningful thought
• Grammar—all the methods that
languages use to communicate meaning
Theory 1: Infants are Taught
• Skinner’s reinforcement theory: quantity
and quality of talking to child affects
rate of language development (learned)
– parents are good instructors
– baby talk characterized by
• high pitch
• simpler vocabulary
• shorter sentence length
• more questions and commands
• repetition
 Theory 2: Infants Teach
Themselves
• Chomsky and LAD (Language Acquisition
Device)—hypothesized neurological
(inborn) structure that prewires all
children for language, including basic
aspects of intonation, grammar, and
vocabulary
– infants innately ready to use their minds to
understand and speak whatever language
offered to them
– they are experience expectant
Theory Three: Social Impulses
Foster Language
• Social-pragmatic—social reason for
language: to communicate
• Infants seek to respond, which shows their
being social in nature— and thus mutually
dependent—by
- vocalizing
- babbling
- gesturing
- listening
- pointing
Psychosocial Development
 Psychoanalytic Theory

• Connects biosocial and

psychosocial development
Freud: Oral and Anal Stages

• Oral Stage—1st stage, where infant

obtains pleasure through sucking and
biting
• Anal Stage—2nd stage, where anus
becomes main source of gratification,
i.e., bowel movements and the control
of them
Erikson: Trust and Autonomy
• 1st Stage—Trust vs. Mistrust
– basic needs need to be met with
consistency, continuity, and sameness
• 2nd Stage—Autonomy vs. Shame and
Doubt
– basic desire to gain self-rule over their own
actions and bodies and to feel ashamed if it
doesn’t happen
 Behaviorism
• Infant’s emotions and personality are
molded as parents reinforce or
punish child’s spontaneous behavior
– social learning adds to personality
formation
– social referencing strengthens learning by
observation
 Cognitive Theory

• Individual’s thoughts and values

determine perspective on the world
• Working model—set of assumptions
used to organize perceptions and
experiences
 Epigenetic Theory
• Each child is born with a genetic
predisposition to develop certain traits
that affect emotional development
• Temperament—“constitutionally based
individual differences in emotion, motor,
and attentional reactivity and self-
regulation.”
– inhibited
– uninhibited
– epigenetic—though personality traits not
learned, environment affects their expression
Research on Temperament:
Nine Characteristics
– activity level
– rhythmicity
– approach-withdrawal
– adaptability
– intensity of reaction
– threshold of responsiveness
– quality of mood
– distractibility
– attention span
Temperament and Caregiving

• Inhibited vs. Uninhibited

– responsive care and encouragement can help
inhibited children become less so
• Match between parent and child
– goodness of fit
 Self-Awareness

• Foundation for emotional growth

– realization of individual distinctions
• At about 5 months begin
developing a sense of self apart
from mother
• 15-18 months the “Me-self”
– rouge experiment
 Synchrony
• Synchrony—coordinated interaction;
attunement
• Helps infants learn to express own
feelings
• Imitation is pivotal
• Becomes more elaborate and more
frequent with time
• Learning through play
– playful interactions by both partners
– important for both to be responsive
 Attachment

• Enduring emotional connection

– Proximity-seeking behaviors
– Contact-maintaining behaviors
 Secure and Insecure
Attachment
• Bowlby and Ainsworth
• Secure—relationship of trust and
confidence that provides comfort,
assurance, and secure base
Secure and Insecure Attachment, cont.

• Insecure—relationship that is
unpredictable or unstable
– avoidant: one person tries to avoid any
connection with another
– resistant/ambivalent: anxiety and
uncertainly keep one person clinging to
another
 Measuring Attachment
• Strange Situation—lab procedure to
measure attachment; observed are
– exploration of the toys (caregiver present)
– reaction to caregiver’s departure
– reaction to caregiver’s return
– disorganized behavior—neither secure nor
insecure attachment—marked by
inconsistent behavior of caregiver and
infant toward each other
 Insecure Attachment as a
Warning Sign
• Stressed mother (although not always
an indicator)
• Mother too withdrawn
• Inconsistent behavior of mother
(conflicting messages sent by her)
• Insecure attachments repairable
 Insecure Attachment as a
Warning Sign
• Stressed mother (although not always
an indicator)
• Mother too withdrawn
• Inconsistent behavior of mother
(conflicting messages sent by her)
• Insecure attachments repairable
 Referencing Mom
• Look to mother for comfort
• Mother’s tone and expression can
become guide to how to react to
unfamiliar or ambiguous event
 Referencing Dad
• Fathers play more than mothers
• Infants look to fathers for fun and
physical play
• Physically active play with fathers may
contribute to development of social
skills and emotional expression
• Physically active play with fathers
helps children master motor skills and
develop muscle control
 Infant Day-Care
• Family day care
• Center care
• Day care generally beneficial
• High-quality programs include
– adequate attention to each infant
– encouragement of sensorimotor exploration and
language development
– attention to health and safety
– well-trained professional caregivers
 Infant Day Care, cont.

• Cognitive and biosocial development

are more advanced by day care than
at home
• Poor day care has detrimental
effects
 Further Reading

Chapters 5, 6 & 7 Berger