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).