Theories of Infant Development

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Theories of InfantDevelopment

• Fogel
• Chapter 2

Created by Ilse DeKoeyer-Laros
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Overview Chapter 2

• Biological Approaches
• Learning Theories
• Cognitive Theories
• Systems Theories
• Clinical Theories

Experiential Exercises
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What is a Scientific Theory?

• a set of concepts that explains the observable
  world with structures, processes, or mechanisms
  that are presumed to exist but that cannot be
  observed directly (p. 44)

1. Helps to organize systematic observations, using
   accepted methods of observation and assessment
2. Phrased in terms of general principles that can
   be applied to specific research findings and
   applications.
3. Should accurately predict future observations in
   a majority of cases.

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Theories of Human Development

• Focus on describing and predicting the ways in
  which children change over time the origin of
  individual differences

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Biological Approaches

• Charles Darwin
• natural selection those who can successfully
  adapt to the environment will live long enough to
  reproduce pass down their characteristics to
  the next generation
• the environment influences which types of
  characteristics will survive and continue to
  evolve

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Biological Approaches

• Genotype raw genetic code, made up of DNA
  molecules
• the actions of the genotype are affected
  by the environment
  surrounding the genes
• this happens via the epigenome biochemical
  markers that turn on or off the actions of
  particular genes within each cell
• Phenotypes the products of the
  genotype-environment interactions
• include tissues but also behaviors, intelligence,
  temperament

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Biological Approaches

• the genotype
• determines the opportunities
• by which the environment
• may have an influence on the phenotype

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Biological ApproachesBehavior Ecology Theory

• The study of behavior from an evolutionary
  perspective all animals have species-specific
  behaviors that evolved through the process of
  natural selection

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Biological ApproachesBehavior Ecology Theory

• Critical period limited period of time during
  which learning can occur that has a permanent and
  irreversible effect

• the first 6 prenatal months (brain body)
• the early years (attachment, language)

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Biological ApproachesBehavior Genetic Theory

• the study of possible environmental and genetic
  explanations for individual differences in
  behavior and personality characteristics
• Research compares individuals that vary in their
  genetics and environments
• Genetics twins (identical vs. fraternal),
  regular siblings, adopted siblings
• Environment shared or nonshared

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Biological ApproachesBehavior Genetic Theory

• Heritability the extent to which individual
  differences are due to genetic factors
• the percentage of variability between individuals
  explained by genetic variability
• appr. 30 of the differences between people can
  be explained by genetic variability
• A certain set of genes increases the probability
  of developing a particular characteristic but
  doesnt determine it

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Biological ApproachesBehavior Genetic Theory

• Often, environmental variability has a larger
  probability of predicting individual phenotypes
  than does genetic variability
• many genes, each with a small influence
• Sometimes, genetic variability between
  individuals has a larger probability of
  predicting phenotypes than does environmental
  variability
• e.g., inheriting or not inheriting color
  blindness genes

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Problems withBiological Approaches

• Harder to apply to phenomena that did not occur
  in the original species-typical environment
• Difficult to sort out the relative effects of
  genetic and environmental variability
• Behavior genetics does not tell us anything
• about the probability that a particular
  individual will inherit a genetic potential or
  show a characteristic
• about the ways in which genes and environment act
  to produce a phenotype no guidelines for
  intervention or for enhancing development

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Learning Theories

• Major contributions
• discovered simple yet powerful ways to enhance
  learning
• have shown that any species can be trained to
  achieve more than expected by evolutionary models
  of species-typical behavior
• Major types
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
• Social Learning Theory

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Learning TheoriesClassical Conditioning

• An unconditioned response will occur at a new,
  conditioned stimulus after repeated exposure to
  pairing of conditioned unconditioned stimuli

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Learning TheoriesOperant Conditioning
B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

• Operant conditioning the process by which the
  frequency of an operant (spontaneous behavior) is
  controlled by its consequences

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Learning TheoriesOperant Conditioning

• Reinforcers consequences that increase the
  frequency of the preceding behavior
• Positive reinforcer an action or reward that
  follows the operant and increases its frequency
• Negative reinforcer the removal of an aversive
  stimulus increases the frequency of an operant
• Punishment unrewarding consequence that
  decreases the frequency of an operant
• Extinction the frequency of an operant
  decreases when a reinforcing consequence is
  removed

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Learning TheoriesSocial Learning Theory

• Social Learning Theory proposes that
• infants come to control not only their behavior
  but also the behavior of other people around them
• entirely new behaviors could be acquired almost
  immediately through observational learning
• the self (including cognitions and motivations)
  is an intelligent actor and organizer of
  information

Albert Bandura (1925 - )
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Problems withLearning Theory

• Real life is more complex than laboratory!
• Many other processes (e.g., genetics) may
  influence the way behavior is acquired
• Cannot explain the sequence and timing of
  developmental stages
• Cannot explain the spontaneous emergence of new
  behaviors
• E.g., stranger anxiety even when children have no
  experience with strangers, or smiling in blind
  infants

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Cognitive Theories

• Focus on the mental experience of the person and
  aim to understand intelligence how people of
  different ages know about, perceive, plan, and
  remember their experiences
• Behavior is considered a form of intelligence
• most of what people do is goal directed and
  depends on knowing what to do in certain
  circumstances
• Types
• Constructivist Theory
• Information Processing Theories

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Cognitive TheoriesConstructivist Theory

• Intelligence is a form of adaptation to the
  environment
• Knowledge is an active process of co-construction
  between the knower and what is to be known

Jean Piaget (18961980)
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Cognitive TheoriesConstructivist Theory

• Two principles of biological adaptation
• Assimilation individuals use their existing
  abilities in response to challenges from the
  environment the application of what one already
  knows or does to the current situation
• Accommodation the alteration of existing
  abilities to better fit the requirements of the
  task or situation
• Most actions involve
• both assimilation and accommodation

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Cognitive TheoriesConstructivist Theory

• Piagets main goal was to apply his theory to the
  development of human intelligence he looked for
  the origins of intelligence in infancy
• First two years of life sensorimotor substage
• explore learn through movements and senses
• main feature the growth of infants
  understanding of their bodies and how these
  relate to other things
• six substages (see Chapters 510)

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Cognitive TheoriesConstructivist Theory
Appr. age (in months) Piagets Substage
1 0 2 Reflex schemes
2 2 4 Primary circular reactions
3 4 8 Secondary circular reactions
4 8 -12 Coordination of secondary circular reactions
5 12 18 Tertiary circular reactions
6 18 - 24 Invention of new means through mental combinations
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Cognitive TheoriesConstructivist Theory

• Individuals play an active role in their own
  development motivation for developmental change
  comes from the experience of disequilibrium
• Infants develop knowledge by means of their own
  actions on the environment it is constructed
• Infants will learn better from experiences that
  can be assimilated to their current level
• schemes available set of skills and knowledge
  sensorimotor or conceptual

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Problems withConstructivist Theory

• Development does not always occur in the stages
  defined by Piaget
• research has shown that certain behaviors may
  appear earlier than Piagets stages suggest that
  they should (e.g., imitation in newborns)
• Piaget did not take into account the effects of
  adults on infants

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Cognitive TheoriesInformation-Processing Theories

• Goal to specify the way in which the mind
  handles the information presented by the
  environment
• Research usually with sophisticated technology
• e.g., to measure such things as visual fixation
  time, eye movement patterns, auditory
  sensitivities

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Problems withInformation-Processing Theory

• Few clues about how each component develops
  more a theory of how infants act and think than a
  theory of how action and thought develop
• Many different approaches and thousands of
  research studies difficult to interpret,
  especially since there is no broad theoretical
  framework

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Systems Theories

• Goal to understand developmental change in the
  whole child in the whole environment
• System a set of interdependent components, each
  of which affects the others in reciprocal fashion
• Theories include
• Ecological Systems Theory
• Interactive Systems Theory
• Dynamic Systems Theory

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Systems Theories

• Transaction the process by which systems
  components affect each other in a bidirectional
  and reciprocal way
• Example

Parent relaxed, attentive, smiles
Infant smiles
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Systems Theories

• Systems have the property of self-organization
  organized patterns emerge out of the mutual
  influences of each component of the system on the
  others

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Systems Theories

• Feedback components of a system have an effect
  on their own behavior during their transactions
  with other components
• deviation-correcting feedback (or negative
  feedback)
• deviation-amplifying feedback (or positive
  feedback)

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Systems Theories

• deviation-correcting feedback maintains a
  systems characteristics over time in spite of
  small deviations

Infant smiles
Parent relaxed
Parent stressed

• deviation-amplifying feedback changes a system as
  a result of a small deviation

Parent more stressed
Infant cries more
Infant fussy
Parent stressed
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Systems TheoriesEcological Systems Theory

• The ecology of human development
• the study of the progressive, mutual
  accommodation, throughout the life span, between
  a growing human organism and the changing
  immediate environments in which it lives, as the
  process is affected by relations obtaining within
  and between those immediate settings, as well as
  the larger social contexts in which the
  settings are embedded (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

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Systems TheoriesEcological Systems Theory
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Systems TheoriesEcological Systems Theory

• 4 levels of system functioning
• Microsystem all direct relationships between
  child environment
• Examples the family, play groups, church groups
• Mesosystem relationships between the
  microsystems
• Example interaction between family day care
  center
• Exosystem social systems that affect (but dont
  include) the child
• Examples parents work, media, school board
• Macrosystem written unwritten principles
  (e.g., beliefs, values, rules) that regulate
  everyones behavior

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Problems withEcological Systems Theory

• Does not specify how these systems affect the
  child
• No guidance concerning which of the ecological
  factors are most likely to affect a family
  under what circumstances
• Is not developmental does not explain how how
  infants develop from one age to the next

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Systems TheoriesInteractive Systems Theory

• Louis Sander recognized that parent and infant
  develop together as a system in relationship to
  each other over time

Picture http//www.ama.ab.ca/cps/rde/xchg/ama/web
/insurance_Having-a-Baby-6351.htm
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Systems TheoriesInteractive Systems Theory

• Vygotsky
• all individuals are defined by the
  social group and that
  knowledge is an
  active social construction
• adults do not directly socialize the child but
  follow the childs own motivations to learn
• mutual, cooperative transaction is at the heart
  of Vygotskys theory, which is why it is
  sometimes called sociocultural theory

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
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Systems TheoriesInteractive Systems Theory

• Zone of proximal development the time during
  which the next achievement in skill is about to
  occur but has not occurred yet

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Systems TheoriesInteractive Systems Theory
The concept of the zone of proximal development
suggests that children will acquire culturally
acceptable practices only if parents can adjust
the timing and level of their actions to the
ongoing motivational state of the children
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Systems TheoriesInteractive Systems Theory

• Guided participation the active role that
  children play while observing and participating
  in the organized activities of the family/society
  in the company of adults
• Cultural differences
• In one study, Mayan mothers
  maintained adult status level, while
  U.S. mothers
  acted more like peers

Pictures http//www.free-toddlers-activity-and-di
scipline-guide.com/toddlers-activity-free-kids-gam
e.html http//www.wycliffe.org/FeatureStories/Dent
alRestorationSmilesandSouls.aspx
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Problems withInteractive Systems Theory

• Focuses on short-term developmental changes and
  does not provide a framework for understanding
  developmental change
• Focuses on parent-infant relationships, or small
  groups of co-participants, and not on broader
  issues (e.g., family systems)
• research inspired by Vygotskys work, however,
  explicitly focuses on cultural factors and
  differences

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Dynamic Systems Theory

• How does novelty emerge? Dynamic systems theory
  gives conceptual methodological tools to
  understand this

• Ilya Prigogine interested in phenomena that make
  their own energy become increasingly complex by
  generating novel forms
• Self-organization the ability of
  systems to maintain themselves
  and to develop new forms

Ilya Prigogine (1917 - 2003)
Picture from Wikipedia.com
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Dynamic Systems Theory

• Many dynamic systems display two properties
• They form predictable and stable patterns in
  their macroscopic behavior
• They are relatively unpredictable in their
  microscopic behavior
• Examples
• Seasons are generally expected to occur around
  the same time each year, but day-to-day weather
  patterns are hard to predict precisely
• Infant development can be described in general
  stages, an individual infants behavior on a
  given day and pattern of development cannot be
  predicted

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Dynamic Systems Theory

• Chaos microscopic unpredictability in the
  context of macroscopic stability

Figure 2.7 trajectory of a mathematical
equation that traces a path in 3-dimensional
space that is similar on each cycle but never
exactly the same
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Dynamic Systems Theory

• Dynamic systems theory is unique in that it
  allows for the possibility of indeterminism
• Determinism all events have a cause, which can
  be found with enough scientific work
• we are unable to predict events in a persons
  life because we simply do not have sufficient
  data
• Indeterminism even if we could measure all the
  relevant variables, we still could not completely
  predict future behavior development
• Butterfly effect a very small perturbation
  creates unpredictable novelty in a system, which
  results in macroscopic developmental change in
  the system

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Dynamic Systems Theory

• Self-organization
• spontaneously creates novelty

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Dynamic Systems Theory

• Esther Thelen and Alan Fogel applied dynamic
  systems theory to explain infant development
• Infant development is not entirely predictable
  from biological, social, or cognitive factors

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Dynamic Systems Theory

• New abilities emerge through the dynamic
  indeterminacy of self-organization
• Thelen 6-month-olds have all the skills for
  walking, except for the ability to balance. When
  this ability develops by about 10 months
  infants walk spontaneously (self-organization)
• Fogel many forms of interpersonal communication
  are transactional (there is feedback between the
  participants) and this transaction is
  characterized by continuous mutual adjustment of
  action and creativity

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Dynamic Systems Theory

• Co-regulation the continuous mutual adjustment
  and co-creativity that appears in spontaneous
  communication
• synonym for self-organization as applied to
  interpersonal communication
• explains both stability and change
• frames repeating patterns of co-activity such as
  greetings, games, conversation topics
• creativity is inherent in communication and
  provides the seeds for spontaneous change

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Problems withDynamic Systems Theory

• Relatively new theory description of infant
  development is still rather general and it could
  take years of research to further develop the
  theory
• Due to origins in physics, sometimes uses
  complicated mathematical models, but human
  development is not easily reduced to measurable
  quantities

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Clinical Theories

• Observed infant
• based upon direct observations of infants,
  constructed from quantitative research methods
• Clinical infant
• constructed from clinical work with older
  children and adults and based primarily on
  qualitative research methods and participant
  observations

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Clinical Theories

• Clinical infant
• Participatory memories nonconceptual
• composed of emotions, desires, and a sense of
  familiarity, without any specific time or place,
  felt as a being with or a reliving of past
  experiences (e.g., the feeling of what it was
  like to be cuddled)
• Conceptual memories recall about an event
• communicated in the form of a verbal narrative,
  composed of specific categories for type of
  event, time, and place

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Clinical Theories

• No matter what research method is used, infants
  psychological experience will always be
  unobservable by adults

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Clinical Theories

• Infantile amnesia the inability to have
  conceptual memories of infant experiences
• Participatory memories
• likely to be unconscious, because they occurred
  when we did not have language or because they
  were traumatic
• nonverbal and often involve the whole body
• often transformed over time
• for example, the memory of being ignored in
  infancy may be changed into feelings of
  depression in the adult

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Clinical TheoriesPsychotherapeutic Approaches

• Freud wanted to explore whether patients with
  psychosomatic complaints had any memory of a
  trauma that might have occurred early in life
• free association asking clients to lie down and
  encouraging them to relax and say anything
  without fear
• psychoanalysis the use of free association along
  with interpretation in psychotherapy
• Infants
• are dominated by the id (irrational needs and
  desires)
• gradually learn to control their impulses through
  the ego the ability to tolerate discomfort
  frustration and to moderate the pursuit of
  pleasure

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Clinical TheoriesPsychotherapeutic Approaches

• Erik Erikson viewed each stage of development as
  a potential crisis of the personality leading to
  a new sense of individual identity
• development might progress or get sidetracked
• More social emphasis focused on the way in
  which the infants body related to the family and
  to society

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Clinical TheoriesPsychotherapeutic Approaches
Freud Erikson
0 - 1½ Oral Focus on experiences of the mouth (e.g., sucking, eating, crying, biting) Trust vs. mistrust Development of expectancy for either gratification or frustration
1½ - 3 Anal Focus on experience in anal region such as elimination and retention Autonomy vs. shame/doubt Self-assertiveness and self-control or uncertainty and shame
Table 2.5 Psychoanalytic Stages of Development
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Clinical TheoriesPsychotherapeutic Approaches

• Margaret Mahler (1975) psychoanalyst who
  believed that many psychopathologies could be
  prevented by early intervention worked with
  infants and young children
• Infant psychiatry the application of clinical
  psychology to work with infants their families
• most clinical interventions in infancy focus on
  the parent-infant relationship and on parent
  education

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Clinical TheoriesPsychotherapeutic Approaches

• Daniel Stern (1985) infants have early senses of
  self that remain with the person throughout life
• Emergent self (0-2 months) awareness of how the
  different movements, sensations, and feelings
  cohere into recognizable states
• Core self (2-8 months, also called the ecological
  self ) the experience of being an active agent
  that does things in the world, has feelings, and
  has a history of prior experiences
• Subjective self (8-15 months) infants discover
  that they have inner experiences that are
  different from others around them, and they can
  choose to share feelings and experiences with
  others
• Verbal self (after 15 months) use language to
  talk about inner states and to construct a
  coherent identity in the company of other people

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Clinical TheoriesSomatic Awareness Approaches

• May use talk, but typically use body movement
  touch as a way to access the participatory
  memories of early childhood
• since infants experience their world via movement
  and touch, this seems to be a more direct route
  to an adults infant experience than merely
  talking

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Clinical TheoriesSomatic Awareness Approaches

• Watsu clients are moved freely in the water,
  stretched gently, and cradled in the
  practitioners arms

By being moved so freely through the water, by
being stretched and repeatedly returned to a
fetal position, the adult has the opportunity to
heal in himself whatever pain or loss he may
still carry from that time (Dull, 1995, p. 65).
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Clinical TheoriesSomatic Awareness Approaches

• Rosen method by listening to the clients body
  with gentle touch and to the words they use to
  describe their experience, the practitioner can
  help the client to relax, relieve pain, and
  breathe easier

the body tells its own story
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Clinical TheoriesSomatic Awareness Approaches

• Moshe Feldenkrais (19041984), originally a
  physicist and judo instructor, invented The
  Feldenkrais Method
• organic learning very young children use all
  their senses and every part of their bodies,
  while adults appear to involve less of themselves
• Feldenkrais believed that alienation from the
  body contributes to habitual, usually
  unconscious, patterns of muscular tension and
  psychosomatic illnesses

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Clinical TheoriesSomatic Awareness Approaches

• Two Feldenkrais methods
• Awareness through Movement
• students are asked to make small, slow movements
  )often based on the movements observed in
  babies), reduce their efforts, and sense how even
  simple movements are connected with every part of
  the body

• Functional Integration
• students lie on a padded table as a practitioner
  gently touches and moves them, promoting deep
  relaxation, kinesthetic awareness, and new ways
  to move

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Clinical TheoriesSomatic Awareness Approaches

• Bodymind centering (BMC)
• adults do exercises based on normal infant
  sensorimotor development
• has been used in the treatment of parent-infant
  relationships at risk and with infants who
  experience sensorimotor difficulties

• Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
• dance teacher physical therapist
• could help many clients by taking them through
  the sensorimotor stages of prenatal and infant
  development, step by step

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Clinical TheoriesSomatic Awareness Approaches

• Dance Movement Psychotherapy expressive
  dance-like movements to foster a more integrated
  sense of self in relation to others
• successful for infants and children with autism,
  communication delays, sensory integration
  difficulties, hyperactivity, and trauma (Tortora,
  2006)
• kinesthetic empathy the ability to feel another
  persons feelings by moving like that other
  person
• Somatic psychotherapy focuses on felt bodily
  sensations, breathing, and movement on the
  pathway to psychological well-being

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Problems withClinical Theories

• More could be learned by combining systematic
  qualitative with quantitative methods
• Hard to prove whether participatory memories of
  infancy are what that adult actually experienced
  as a baby
• memories of early infancy are typically about
  feelings and body states, not about particular
  incidents
• the adults parents would find it difficult to
  remember whether a particular event happened, and
  even if they did, their experience of it as a
  parent would not be the same as the infants
  experience
• Psychoanalytical theories tend to focus reward or
  blame on the parents, but the child contributes
  as well
• No one approach can treat all behavioral and
  psychological issues of children and adults

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Experiential ExercisesExploring the Clinical
Infant

• The infants psychological experience is
  unobservable so how can we understand the
  clinical infant?
• by re-experiencing infant-like movements,
  sensations, and states of being
• by interacting with infants as a participant
  observer
• by talking to your parents or caregivers about
  your own infancy

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Experiential ExercisesExploring the Clinical
Infant

• This book includes Experiential Exercises
  simple exercises that allow an opportunity to
  experience the clinical infant for yourself
• Do these in a quiet room where you can feel what
  is happening in your body.
• Many students feel self-conscious when first
  doing this. It is, after all, unusual for adults
  to act like babies!
• Almost all students, however, change their minds
  after actually doing the exercises for a while.

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Experiential Exercises Finger painting

• Done individually or in groups
• Need materials, space and time
• Just start painting!
• Notice the concrete feelings in yourself such as
  emotions or sensations of color, temperature,
  texture.
• Notice if any memories come back to you. Are they
  pleasant or unpleasant?
• What does this experience tell you about yourself
  today? About yourself as a child?