Emotional and Social Development of Infants

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Emotional and Social Development of Infants
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Comparing Emotional and Social Development

• Emotional Development is the process of learning
  to recognize and express ones feelings and to
  establish ones identity as a unique person
• Healthy emotional development leads to a person
  that can handle stress, shows empathy towards
  others, and has self-confidence 
• Social Development is the process of learning to
  interact with others and to express oneself to
  others
• Healthy social development leads to a person who
  shows tolerance for others, can communicate well
  with others, and listen to different points of
  view before acting
• Both social and emotional development are
  connected
• Influences include bond between parent and child,
  atmosphere of home, and temperament of child

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Attachment

• Babies have a need for physical contact 
• Attachment- bond between parent and child
• Requires more than physical contact, there should
  be interaction as well
• A gentle massage can soothe a baby and promote
  bonding
• A baby who is left alone most of the time except
  for physical care may fail to respond to people
  and objects
• Research from Baylor University abused and
  neglected children had brains 20-30 smaller than
  average
• Infants smiles can fade, cries weaken, and can
  become withdrawn when no attention or
  encouragement is offered 
• Failure to Thrive- baby does not grow and develop
  properly 
• How you care for a baby helps build trust
• Keep fed, dry, warm vs. rigid schedule of feeding
  and no comforting when crying

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Emotional Climate of the Home

• Babys catch on to an adults feelings and mood
• Can become irritable and fussy if adult is
• Bitterness and mistrust can hinder a babys
  healthy development
• Keep calm language between caregivers

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• Write a paragraph describing the ideal emotional
  climate for an infant.
• What might keep homes from having an ideal
  climate? What effects will those factors have on
  an infant. What can a family do to help an
  infant in that situation.
• How does the emotional climate of the home affect
  older children? Is this only an issue for
  babies, or is it relevant for children of all
  ages?

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The Babys Own Temperament

• Babys bring their own individuality to each
  situation
• Different temperaments are revealed based in how
  they react to a situation
• Do you think people have the same temperament as
  adults that they had as children?
•  

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9 Different Ways to Look at Temperaments 

• Intensity- how strong or weak the childs
  emotional responses are
• Persistence- determined to complete an action vs.
  being persuaded 
• Sensitivity- strong reactions to feelings vs.
  accepting what comes
• Perceptiveness- easily distracted vs. handling
  several tasks at once
• Adaptability- easy to adjust vs. bothered by
  surprises
• Regularity- follow strong patterns vs. each day
  is different
• Energy- physically active vs. move much less
• First Reaction- dive right in vs. hold back
• Mood- cheerful vs. cranky

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How Behavior is Learned

• Infants learn how to behave with others based on
  their relationship with others, and depends on
  the caregivers
• Babies learn physical and social behavior the
  same way
• Water signals bath time, rocking signals sleep
  seeing the same action brings about the same
  response repeated times
• Babies learn that certain behaviors are rewarded
  with positive and negative responses
• Receiving more negative attention can cause
  problems
• Children will do negative things to get attention
  
• Avoid mixed messages
• Use consistency, act the same way in each
  situation

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Emotions in Infancy

• Only 2 emotions when the babies are born
• Pleasure or satisfaction- baby is quiet
• Pain or discomfort- when the baby cries 
• End of 1st or 2nd month- show delight by smiling
• Pg 308-309 in text shows when emotions develop
  during the first year

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Crying and Comforting

• easy baby- one who does not cry often and easy
  to comfort
• difficult baby- cry often and loudly and hard
  to comfort

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A Baby Who Cries Needs Attention and Care

• Is there a physical problem?
• Diaper change or hungry?
• Too cold or too hot?
• If the baby does not need any of these, the baby
  needs comfort

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Comfort Measures to Try

• Cuddle with baby in a rocking chair
• Move the baby to a new position
• Talk softly to the baby or sing
• Offer a toy to interest and distract the baby
• Stroke the babys back to give comfort

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Self-Comforting Techniques

• Suck on a pacifier, thumb, or fist
• pacifier safety
• never tie pacifier to a string and hang around
  babys neck
• check for cuts and tears
• clean often
• Blanket or stuffed toy

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Colic

• Where baby is extremely fussy every day
• Can cry anywhere between 6pm to midnight
• Reflux-partially digested food comes back up
• Gas can gather in stomach and make baby fussy
• Breastfed mothers should avoid milk products,
  cabbage, caffeine, and onions
• Formula fed babies should use a soy-based
  formula, or specialty formulas for colic

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Signs of Social Development in Infancy

• The first days of life- babies respond to human
  voices 
• One month- usually stop crying when lifted or
  touched, face brightens when sees a familiar face
• Two months- smile at people, enjoy watching
  people
• Three months- turn head in response to a voice,
  want companionship and physical care
• Four months-laugh out loud, look to others for
  entertainment
• Five months- show interest in other family
  members, cry when left alone in room, start to
  babble
• Six months- love company and attention
• Seven months- prefer parents over other family
  members or strangers
• Eight months- prefer to be in a room with other
  people, can usually crawl
• Nine to ten months- active socially, love
  attention
• Eleven and twelve months- friendly and happy,
  sensitive to emotions around them, like to be the
  center of attention

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Stranger Anxiety

• A fear of unfamiliar people usually expressed by
  crying
• Shows that the babys memory is improving
• Not a good time to introduce sudden changes in
  activities or caregivers

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Intellectual Development of Infants
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Learning in the First Year

• Hear, see, taste, smell, and feel are the
  building blocks of learning for infants
• A babys ability to learn from the senses is
  called perception
• Ex newborn sees object, 3 month old realizes
  that its three dimensional, then develops
  hand-eye coordination to grasp and handle object

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4 abilities that show a babys growing and
thinking power in the first year of life

• 1. Remembering- information from the senses is
  interpreted
• ex baby stops crying when someone comes in the
  room because he knows that he is likely to be
  picked up
• 2. Making associations- linking two things
  together 
• ex baby associates parent with receiving comfort
• 3. Understanding cause and effect- the idea that
  one action results in another action or condition
• ex baby shuts his eyes, it gets dark baby opens
  his eyes, it get light again
• As motor skills develop, cause and effect
  learning changes
• can pull string on a toy to make it move
• they have an understanding of their own power to
  make things happen
• Babies learn by repetition
• baby drops a bowl on the floor from the high
  chair to be sure that every time it hits the
  ground
• parents can become frustrated

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• 4. Paying attention- a babys attention span
  grows longer
• attention span- the length of time a person can
  concentrate on a task without getting bored
• if an object is presented over and over again,
  the babys response will become less enthusiastic
  
• bright babies have a short attention span- they
  tend to lose interest sooner than babies of
  average or below average intelligence
• beyond infancy, children with above average
  intelligence have a longer attention span

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Piagets Theories

• Piaget- swiss psychologist who studied how
  children learn
• Piaget found that intellectual development
  followed a pattern
• Children learn to master one thinking skill
  before they master another
• Children cannot be forced by parents or teachers
  to develop understanding any more faster than
  their abilities mature
• Children who do not get a chance to apply their
  developing skills may never reach their full
  potential
• Children need a constant opportunity for learning
• Learning stages appear in the same order, but
  ages of stages differ

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Piaget Identified 4 Major Periods of Development

• 1. The sensorimotor period
• birth to age two
• babies learn primarily through their senses and
  own actions
• object permanence- at 10 months, learn that
  objects continue to exist even when they are out
  of sight
• 2. The preoperational period
• age two to seven
• children think about everything in terms of their
  own activities and that they perceive at the
  moment
• concentration is limited to one thing at a time
• solve problems by pretending or imitating ,
  rather than thinking it through
• may not be aware of what is real and make believe

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• 3. The concrete operations period
• age seven to eleven
• children can think logically but still learn best
  from direct experience
• for problem solving, they still rely on actually
  being able to see or experience the problem
• logical thinking is possible
• can comprehend that operations can be reversed
• 4. The formal operations period
• age eleven through adulthood
• capable of abstract thinking
• what might have been the cause of an event
  without really experiencing that cause
• allows problem solving just by thinking
• can understand deeper, and less obvious feelings

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Using Piagets Ideas

• Are the boundaries of his stages set to rigidly?
• In different experiments, children have been
  shown to understand concepts before the stage
  that Piaget said they should
• Young children learn in their own ways
• Older children learn through symbolic thinking-
  the use of words and numbers to stand for ideas
• Younger children rely on concrete experience

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Helping Babies Learn
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Encouraging Learning

• Encouraging learning depends on the attention,
  knowledge, and time of parents and caregivers
• Ways to encourage learning
• Learn about child development- provide learning
  experiences that are age appropriate
• Give your time and attention- dont need
  attention every waking moment
• Provide positive feedback- when a new skill is
  demonstrated, respond with praise
• Express your love- this will help the baby grow
  self-confident and provide encouragement
• Talk- builds feelings of security, helps the
  brain grow
• Have a safe learning environment
• Allow as much freedom as possible
• Limit time restricted in a playpen or in one room
• Childproof the home
• place gates at the top and bottom on stairs
• safety latched on cabinets
• plastic plugs in light sockets

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The Importance of Play

• Play is work and pleasure
• Playtime is essential to intellectual development
  and toys are tools for learning
• Play is a physical necessity- it strengthens
  muscles and refines motor skills

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Appropriate Toys for Different Ages

• Birth to three months
• bright colors and interesting sounds
• mobiles
• Four to six months
• things to touch, handle, bang, shake, etc
• small to handle, but too large to swallow
• objects with different textures
• simple picture books
• Seven to nine months
• things to handle, throw, shake, etc
• anything that makes a noise blocks, balls,
  things to stack,
• Ten to twelve months
• things to crawl after
• things to push or pull if walking
• things to manipulate such as baskets or
  containers that they can put things in to and
  then dump them out
• picture books

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Choosing Toys

• Look for toys that encourage participation and
  use
• Simple to complex with age
• educational toys can be expensive
• Household items such as plastic measuring cups
  and spoons, cardboard box as a house, pots and
  pans, etc
• Look for toys that will remain interesting and
  appropriate
• Ex blocks, used as many different ages

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Developing Communication Skills

• Babies should show a steady improvement in
  communication skills
• By the end of the first year, babies can make
  most of their needs and wants known without words
• Crying develops different patterns for different
  problems
• Babies send messages through movements and
  gestures
• Babies communicate by using special sounds such
  as giggling, shrieking, and grunting

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Learning to Speak

• First, baby must be able to associate meanings
  with words
• Listening to other people talk, especially to the
  baby, is essential for an infants language
  development
• Babies get ready for speech by babbling
• Babbling- preparation for saying recognizable
  words
• Encourage by responding and imitating the babys
  babbling
• First words are understandable between 8-15
  months
• Dont have large vocabulary or combine words into
  simple sentences until after first birthday

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Milestones of Language Development

• 1-6 months coos, gurgles, and squeals
  experiments different sounds by changing the
  shape of the mouth
• 7-12 months respond to their name, add actions
  to words such as bye-bye connect words to
  meanings
• 13-18 months vocabulary grows and can use words
  in combinations such as no nap
• 18 months-2 years can learn 12 words a day, use
  words to express feelings
• 2-2 ½ years construct 3 and 4 word sentences,
  use pronouns
• 2 ½ -3 years speak in longer sentences, use past
  and present tenses, use plurals, understand that
  order of words can affect the meaning in a
  sentence