Infancy - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 14
About This Presentation
Title:

Infancy

Description:

Infancy & Childhood Memorize Fig. 14.1 In humans, the brain is immature at birth. As the child matures, the neural networks grow increasingly more complex (m 177) c 172 . – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:196
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 15
Provided by: brk4
Category:
Tags: infancy | ponder | words

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Infancy


1
Infancy Childhood
  • Memorize Fig. 14.1 In humans, the brain is
    immature at birth. As the child matures, the
    neural networks grow increasingly more complex (m
    177) c 172 .
  • The developing brain overproduces neurons,
    peaking at 28 weeks then subsiding to a stable 23
    billion at birth. (de Courten-Myers, 2002.) This
    process is called pruning, and can be affected by
    the intrauterine environment (m 177 c 172).
  • The association areas (cerebrum) are the last
    critical areas to develop. Neural pathways
    supporting language and agility proliferate into
    puberty.
  • The sequence of physical development is
    universal.
  • For example, the recommended infant back-to-sleep
    position to reduce the risk of crib death is
    associated with later crawling but not later
    walking. (Lipsitt, 2003 m178 c 173).

2
Brain Maturation Infant Memory
  • What causes infantile amnesia? The brain area
    underlying memory, such as the hippocampus the
    frontal lobes, are the last to mature, continuing
    to adolescence.
  • The average age of the earliest conscious
    memories is 3.5 years. (Bauer, 2007m 178 c 173).
  • We consciously recall little (declarative memory)
    but other parts of the brain learn and remember.
    Fig. 14.3 Babies only 3 months old can learn
    that kicking moves a mobile, and they can retain
    that learning for a month. Rovee-Collier, 1997 (m
    178 c f5,7 173).
  • British adults who learned Hindi or Zulu when
    small could relearn the subtle sound contrasts in
    these languages that pure British speakers could
    not. (Bower et al., 2009 m178 c 173).

3
Cognitive Development
  • When administering children's intelligence tests
    in Paris 1920, Jean Piaget became intrigued by
    how consistent their wrong answers were.
  • His conclusion Children reason differently than
    adults, often in wildly illogical ways.
  • A maturing brain builds schemas, mental models of
    reality. We assimilate new experiences that fit
    our schemas, and accomodate those that do not.
  • Memorize Table 14.1 Piaget's Stages of Cognitive
    Development(m 180 c f5.1 175).
  • The sensorimoter stage is marked by the arrival
    of object permanence and stranger anxiety. But
    babies can do physics (Baillargeon, 2008) math
    (Fig. 14.8, Wynn, 1992 m 181 c f 5.12 176).

4
Piaget Preoperational
  • Fig. 14.9 Piaget's test of conservation. A
    preoperational child does not understand the
    principle of conservation of substance. This is
    because she can hold only one abstract concept in
    her mind at a time, such as height. How many
    adults can hold height, width, mass, velocity,
    and acceleration in their minds in order to
    understand the mechanics of a curve ball m 182 c
    f.51 177)?
  • Piaget contended that preschool children are
    egocentric. They have difficulty perceiving
    objects and events from another's point of view.
    Adults struggle with the curse of knowledge.
    (Kruger et al., 2005 m 182 m 177)
  • This leads to theory of mind. (Fig. 14.10).
    Between 3.5 and 4.5 years, children come to
    realize that others may hold false beliefs.
    (Sabbagh et al., 2006 m 183 cf 5.14 178)

5
Piaget Concrete Operational
  • By age 6 or 7, children enter the concrete
    operational stage, given physical materials to
    work with.
  • By age 12, our reasoning expands from the purely
    concrete (involving actual experience) to
    abstract thinking (Latin ab trahere 'to draw
    out' of experience).
  • They can ponder hypothetical situations and
    deduce conclusions. 'If then or else '.
  • Vygotsky had a differene approach to child
    learning. Whether out loud or inaudibly, talking
    to themselves helps children control their
    behaviour and emotions and learn new skills, by
    modelling their world internally through their
    birth language.
  • He emphasized how a child's mind grew by
    interacting with the social environment. New
    words create a scaffold by which children reach
    higher levels of thinking.

6
Autism Mind Blindness
  • Autism is a disorder marked by social
    deficiencies and repetitive behaviours. Autistic
    Spectrum Disorders affect 1 in 110 in America 1
    in 100 in Britain.
  • The underlying source of autism's symptoms seems
    to be poor communication among brain regions that
    normally work together to let is take another's
    viewpoint.
  • Most children learn that a pouting mouth signals
    sadness, and the twinkling eyes mean happiness or
    mischief. A child with autism fails to understand
    such signals. (Frith Frith, 2001 m p 184 c
    180).
  • Assume that any reference in the Autism inset is
    fair game for the next exam you can use them in
    your long essay.

7
Autism Mind Blindness
  • Asperger's syndrome is part of ASD, marked by
    exceptional skill or talent in a specific area,
    normal verbal/analytical intelligence, but
    deficient social communication skills a
    tendency to become distracted by irrelevant
    stimuli.
  • Autism afflicts four boys to every one girl.
    Children for whom amniotic fluid analyses
    indicate high prenatal testosterone develop more
    masculine and autistic traits. (Auyeung et al.,
    2009)
  • Girls are better at reading facial expressions
    of emotion, though less so if given testosterone.
    (van Honk et al., 2011)
  • Why the increase in ASD? Simon Baron-Cohen
    theorizes assortative mating (like attracts like).

8
Autism Mind Blindness
  • If one identical twin is diagnosed with autism,
    chances are 50-70 that the other twin will
    also.(Lichtenstein et al., 2010)
  • A younger sibling of a child with autism is also
    at risk.
  • An over-40 man who fathers a child has a much
    higher risk of ASD than an under-30 man.
    ((Richenberg et al., 2007)
  • People without autism often yawn if they see
    another yawn. Not so among those with ASD who are
    less imitative and show much less activity in
    brain areas mirroring others' actions. (Perra et
    al., 2008).
  • ASD people, watching another's hand movements,
    their brain displays less than normal mirroring
    activity. (Oberman Ramachandran, 2007).
  • Study Fig. 14.11 the graph indicates the value
    of the intervention therapy.

9
Social Development
  • At about age 8 months, soon after object
    permanence emerges and children become mobile,
    they develop stranger anxiety. According to
    Piaget, children this age have schemas for
    familiar faces when they cannot assimilate a new
    face into their schema, they become distressed.
  • Attachment is a powerful survival impulse that
    keeps infants close to their caregivers.
  • Fig 1412 The Harlow monkey experiments proved
    that infants need physical contact as much as
    physical nourishment. Much parental-infant
    emotional communication occurs via touch.
    (Hertenstein et al., 2006 m 188 c 183)
  • As we mature, our secure base and safe haven
    shift from parents to peers and partners.
    (Cassidy Shaver, 1999 m 188 c 183 ).

10
Social Development
  • In many animals, attachments base on familiarity
    form during a critical period (of brain growth),
    an optimal period when certain events must take
    place. (Bornstein, 1989 m 188 c 183)
  • For birds (and probably most dinosaurs) this
    rigid attachment process is called imprinting.
    Children do not imprint, but mere exposure to
    people can create fondness.
  • For therapists and counsellors, the most
    important symptoms to watch for are signs of
    insecure attachment. In the therapist's office,
    suspected insensitive, unresponsive mothers are
    separated from their children for a short time.
    When she leaves, they either cry loudly and
    remain upset or seem indifferent to her departure
    and return. (Kagan, 1995 m 189 c 184).
  • Fig. 14. 13 In the Harlows' experiments,
    monkeys raised only with wire mothers were terror
    stricken when place with other young monkeys
    they are cowered or attacked (m 189 c f 5.17 184).

11
Attachment Differences
  • What is the relationship of attachment to
    temperament?
  • Dutch researcher Dympha van den Boom randomly
    selected 100 temperamentally difficult 6 to 9
    month-olds to an experimental group, in which the
    mothers received personal training in sensitive
    responding, or to a control group. (m 190 c 185)
  • At 12 months of age, 68 of the infants in the
    experimental group were rated securely attached,
    while only 28 were rated so in the control
    group.
  • Father care Across nearly 100 studies worldwide,
    a father's love and acceptance have comparable to
    a mother's in predicting their off-springs'
    health and well-being. (Flouri Buchanan, 2004).
  • Children's separation anxiety peaks at 13 months,
    then levels off. See Fig. 14.14 (m 190 c f 5.18
    185).

12
Deprivation of Attachment
  • In 1980's Romania, unwanted children filled
    orphanages. Child-to-caregiver ratios were often
    15 to 1. When tested after 1989, these children
    had below-average intelligence scores and double
    the 20 rate of anxiety symptoms found in
    children assigned to quality foster care
    settings. (Nelson et al., 2009 (m 191 c 186).
  • Most victims of child sexual abuse are resilient,
    becoming normal adults. (Clancy, 2010m 191 c
    186).
  • In a primate experiment, 9 of 16 females who had
    been abused by their mothers became abusive
    parents, but no female raised by a non-abusive
    mother did.
  • Abused children are hyper-sensitive to angry
    faces, and exhibit stronger startle responses.
    (Jovanovic et al., 2009 m 192 c 187).
  • Abused hamsters show a slow serotonin response.
    (Ferris, 1996).

13
Self-Concept
  • According to Eric Ericsson, childhood's major
    acheivement is a positive sense of self.
  • Mirror images fascinate infants from the age of
    about six months. Only at 18 months, however,
    does the child recognize that the image in the
    mirror is 'me'.
  • By 15 to 18 months, children begin to touch their
    own noses when they see a colored spot on the
    mirror. (Butterworth, 1992).
  • By school age, children's self-concept has
    blossomed into more detailed descriptions that
    include their gender, group memberships,
    psychological traits, similarities and
    differences with other children. (Stipek, 1992 m
    194 c 188).
  • By 8 or 10, a healthy child's self-image is quite
    stable.

14
Parenting Style
  • Authoritarian parents impose rules and expect
    obedience. Predictably, child rebellion occurs in
    North America, and this causes authoritarian
    parents to live in a constant state of crisis.
  • Permissive parents submit to their childrens'
    desires, making few demands, and using little
    punishment. The main problem the child will have
    is boundary issues.
  • Authoritative parents are both demanding and
    responsive. They set rules and enforce them, but
    always take the time to explain the reason for
    the rules.
  • Children with the highest self-esteem,
    self-reliance and social competence usually come
    from authoritative parents. (Sorkhabi, 2005 m 195
    c 189).
  • Both parent and child may have genes that
    promote social competence. (South et al., 2008 m
    195 c 190).
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com