Basic Concepts of Infant Behavior and Development

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Basic Concepts of Infant Behavior and Development

• Fogel
• Chapter 1

Created by Ilse DeKoeyer-Laros
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Overview Chapter 1

• The Importance of Infancy
• A Brief History of Babies
• The Scientific Perspective
• Research Methods in Developmental Science
• Experimental Research Methods
• Observational Research Methods
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Policies and Practices

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The Importance of Infancy

• Education for parents, caregivers, clinicians
• Infancy Is a unique period in life
• Preverbal experience of the body is uniquely
  human
• Reexperiencing infant-like states can be healing
  rejuvenating
• Improving health by early prevention
• Informed public policy
• Origins of individual differences

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A Brief History of Babies

• Early Civilizations
• Greeks Romans advocated harsh practices to
  shape infants bodies (to build moral character)
  and practiced infanticide
• Middle Ages Renaissance

• urbanization the spread of Christianity brought
  changes
• Renaissance (14501650) first written
  child-rearing philosophies

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A Brief History of Babies

• The Enlightenment (18th century)
• Romanticism (Rousseau) Empiricism (Locke)
• both emphasized the value of children revived
  the importance of the body
• 19th century
• the nuclear family emerged (mainly in white
  ethnic groups)
• social changes related to medical advances in
  infant care

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Infants Enter the World of Science

• Nature-nurture debate sparked scientific study
• Arnold Gesell (1880-1961)
• believed in genetic maturation (nature)
• focused on the average child
• John B. Watson (18781958)
• children can be trained to do almost anything
  (nurture)
• lasting imprint on North American society
• Sigmund Freud (18561939)
• focused on psychological experience
• recognized that infants experience emotions, feel
  the need for love, possess powerful desires

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Today

• Theories of infant care development spread
  rapidly through Western culture demand for
  expert behavioral scientists rose

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Today

• 1970s research was in the empiricist tradition,
  but focused on learning cognitive development
  not the whole child
• The Competent Infant (1973) reflected desire to
  discover the earliest signs of intelligence
  belief that education is the best guarantee of
  child success
• The individual child became lost
• Emphasis on mental development led to a less
  balanced view of the whole child (body, emotions
  social connections)

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Today

• Since 1990s, shift back to the whole child
• parent-child relationships
• emotional development
• the role of the body touch
• communication language
• also, focus on neuroscience, behavior genetics

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The Scientific Perspectiveon Infancy

• Scientists strive to understand infants in their
  own right, detached from social cultural
  conceptions about infancy
• but this is not completely possible

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Topics in infancy research

• perceptual/sensorial
• sensorimotor/tool using
• conceptual/thinking
• representational/symbolic
• communicative/linguistic
• social/interactive
• expressive/emotive
• self-regulatory/coping

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Stages Changes

• Developmental changes
• are not reversible earlier patterns of
  behavior, thought, feeling cannot be easily
  recognized
• are stable new organized patterns that persist
  over relatively long periods of months or years
• occur in a sequence that is similar across
  infants
• The division of infancy into stages of
  development is somewhat arbitrary depends on
  the purposes of the culture or group

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Research Methods in Developmental Science

• Scientists
• rely on many sources of evidence
• try to separate what is repeatable stable from
  what is coincidental
• attempt to rid observations of bias
• Research methods
• Quantitative representing complex behavioral
  processes with a numerical index (a variable)
• Qualitative attempting to capture the meaning
  or quality of the behavior while maintaining a
  scientific stance

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Experimental Research Methods

• Experiment a study in which one aspect of the
  situation is manipulated while all other aspects
  are held constant or controlled
• independent variable that which is controlled or
  manipulated the presumed cause of the
  phenomenon
• dependent variable the outcome behavior that is
  observed in response to the changes in the
  independent variable

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Experimental Research Methods

• Standard experimental procedures
• control groups that do not receive any
  manipulation are compared to groups that receive
  the experimental manipulation
• contrast groups different groups that each
  receive a different type of manipulation are
  compared
• random assignment a random process, like a flip
  of a coin, used to assign subjects to groups

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Experimental Research Methods

• Testing perception cognition in infants
• paired-preference tests researchers determine
  which of two stimuli is preferred by the infants
• habituation procedures decline in looking time
  over repeated trials of the same stimulus
• recovery is the abrupt increase in looking time
  after a change in the stimulus
• response-contingent procedures infants are
  trained to change their behavior if they can
  detect certain features of stimuli will alter
  their behavior in order to receive their favorite
  stimulus (e.g., a certain taste)

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Physiological Recording

• One method of discovering more about babies,
  since they cannot report on their internal states

can be used for experimental observational
research
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Physiological Recording

• Automatic recording of behavior includes
• measurements of heart rate, respiration, brain
  activity, hormonal activity, aspects of
  behavior (movement, gaze direction)
• Limitations
• hard to know the precise meaning of a change in a
  physiological measure
• physiological activity is itself a response it
  is impossible to say when where a response
  originates or is encoded in the body

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Observational Research Methods

• Rely on natural variations create contrast
  groups

Types of studies Longitudinal studies the same children at different ages
Types of studies Cross-sectional studies different children at different ages
Types of variables Predictor variable the presumed cause
Types of variables Outcome variable the presumed effect
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Bias Research Ethics

• Bias is reduced by attention to reliability,
  validity, observer bias, representative samples
• Researchers need to observe ethical guidelines
  when using human subjects in research
• since infants cannot provide informed consent to
  participate in research, their parents must do so
• researchers must pledge to keep the subjects
  identity confidential to limit access to their
  data only to those persons directly involved with
  the research

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Observational Research Methods

• Microanalysis focuses on minute changes in
  behavior
• For example, coding emotional expressions of an
  infant second by second
• Macroanalysis focuses on the overall or summary
  features of behavior, usually with the use of
  rating scales
• For example, rating the main emotional quality of
  an infants expression over a 10-minute period

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Characterized by one or both of the following
• the observers focus on the meaning of the
  situation for the participants
• the role of the researcher is taken explicitly
  into account
• Examines the situation in its broader context
• Credibility depends upon researchers skill,
  experience, rigor

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Qualitative Research Methods

• Constant comparative method the same observers
  go over the data many times to check revise
  their interpretation
• Case study the same child is observed over a
  long period of time
• more information about individual children, but
  not generalizable to larger groups

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To conclude

• Research on infants is above all a human
  enterprise, a relationship between
  scientist-persons and subject-persons. Every
  research study is, therefore, a particular point
  of view on nature (p. 37)

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Policies and PracticesResearch for the Real World

• Parens patriae (legal concept) children are
  viewed as their parents possessions the
  government may only interfere in extreme
  circumstances of abuse neglect
• public funds are typically allocated for only the
  most needy cases
• there are very few government programs to
  guarantee basic health care education for the
  majority of children under 3 years

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Table 1.2 Federal Programs in the United States
to Assist Infants and their Families
Program Purpose
Medicaid Covers pre-natal care for mothers postnatal for infants
Supplemental Nutrition for Women, Infants, Children (WIC) Provides food vouchers up to 5 years old
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Provides some financial support to families of children under 3 years
Earned Income Tax Credit (EIC) Provides tax refunds for working poor families
State programs of child welfare Prevents or protects children from abuse neglect
Early Head Start Promotes early child development for poor children under 3 years-old
Parental Leave Parents can take up to 12 weeks off work without penalty but usually without pay.
Sources Barrett (2001), Phillips McCartney
(2005)
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Policies and PracticesResearch for the Real World

• Societies differ in how much of their public
  funds go to the welfare of children their
  families.
• many countries use tax funds to support infant
  health care nutrition, child care, and parental
  leave
• the U.S. is unique in its reluctance to support
  infant development as a national policy its
  reliance on volunteer child and family advocacy
• for the benefit of children their families,
  advocates must help change policies and
  researchers policy makers need to work together

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Table 1.3 Differences between policy makers and
scientists
Policy Makers Scientists
Serve their constituencies Seek the truth
Act decide Understand explain
Based on relationships between key players Non-personal, unbiased
Based on power influence Based on knowledge
Immediate actions Long-term work
Mistakes are punished Rewarded for experimenting
Communication is oral Communication is written reviewed
Sources Maton Bishop-Josef (2006), Solarz
(2001)