I Learned That Changed The Way I Think About Development

In David Eagleman’s documentary, “Why Do I Need You?” he describes the importance of social interaction in the development of our brain. It is fundamental to interact with others and work holistically because it helps our brain to grow ultimately benefiting both the individual and society. Understanding people’s facial expressions, something so quick it is almost done unconsciously, is a vital aspect in communication. Eagle man demonstrates how individual from a young age, as early as twelve months, can understand the importance of socialization from their “inborn instincts” and through the observation of others to decide who to play and not play with. We thrive from understanding people’s social signal and without it it can become very hard

The physical development of a baby in its first six months of life shows limited range of movement but the beginnings of an ability to respond to stimulus around them. They show their reaction to people, sounds and movement by turning their head toward whatever attracts their attention. They will watch an adult’s face whilst feeding, but have already begun to shows signs of recognition as they will smile when familiar people are around them either because they can see them

Social Development: Child recognises mothers voice and face. They consider others if their needs are met by them.

At 6 weeks infants develop a social smile, at 3 month laughter and curiosity develop, at 4 months full responsive smiles emerge, from 4-8 months they develop anger, from 9014 months they develop a fear of social events, at 12 months the are fearful of unexpected sights and sounds, and at 18 months they are self-aware, feel pride, shame, and embarrassment. In the first two years, infants develop from reactive pain and pleasure to complex patterns of social awareness. Emotions in infants are produced from their body as opposed to their thoughts. Therefore fast and uncensored reactions are common in infants. During their toddler years, the strength of their emotions will increase.

The cognitive development is where the child figures out how everything is organized. The children are learning how to learn and involves activities that include thought process, problem solving, decision making, and memory. When the child is about two and four months old they should begin to follow things with their eyes, pay attention to face expression, respond to affection, recognize familiar people from a distance, reach for things and let the parent or care giver if they are happy, sad, by crying or showing fuzziness. As a parent it is important to pay attention to the way the baby cries. This way the parent can figure out what the baby needs or what they like or dislike. Playing peek a boo is also a fun way to teach the baby that something still

seen and provide a way that afterwards the child can then understand and be able to communicate what they have seen effectively. These skills are all very crucial in helping children and young people to learn and manage how to listen and understand different concepts. They can then have a chance to develop their own opinions and ideas to then be able to participate in different decision making and problem solving in appropriate ways. Babies are nonverbal so to begin with they use sounds and facial expressions to communicate to adults expressing themselves and their needs (e.g. smiling, cooing and gurgling). Toddlers then start to have a small understanding and can use words and gestures to make connections to people and be able to develop their knowledge and understanding

Saxe identifies this group as preverbal babies. By studying the behaviors of these infants, psychologists are able determine that basic instinct that humans share. These babies, aged between four and twelve months, are much too young to be influenced by the institution around them. The infants are also too young to communicate their thought processes, so psychologists analyze the only responses these infants can communicate, looking and crawling. In the experiment involving these preverbal infants, babies were shown videos of one man being “nice” to a girl while another was “mean” to the girl.

The authors begins the chapter by emphasizing that “ Looking is a social practice” ( Sturken, Cartwright P.9) It begins when we engage ourselves in a practice by several factors. Looking is powerful and the evidence is that when we make an eye contact with someone, we catch their attention more than without having eye contact. Even the act of choosing to look or not to look is an act of power. We practice looking every day and by looking we base our decisions and develop an idea of a specific matter.

On October 13, 2017, our Life-Span Development class had the opportunity to observe the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development of Levi, a seventeen-month-old male toddler. When he came to the observation with his mother, father, and sister. With the whole family coming to the observation, we were able to observe more interactions, and learn more from the parents. The observation was conducted at Dordt College in room 1309, and the infant’s parent consented to participate in the live observation.

In Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s talk, she discusses infants and the presence of alloparents in combination with their parents. Hrdy states that human infants fall behind other apes in physical development, but are able to monitor others and assess their intentions from a very young age. I find this interesting because often human infants are only compared to other human infants in regards to if they can hold eye contact and if they understand facial expression. When human infants are compared to other nonhuman infant primates, there is a vast difference of what human infants can be successful at. It is also interesting to note that human infants get significantly better at recognizing their mother’s face as they get older, where chimpanzees get worse at recognizing their mothers face as they get older.

Gazing plays a central role in the social and cognitive development of a child. It is documented that from the age of 3 months, a child will begin to develop perceptual learning. An example of this hypothesis was tested with an actor holding a stuffed kitten in front a 1 year old. The 1 year old stared at the kitten longer, therefore the infant’s desire for what the actor was holding caused the infant to interpret the actor’s behavior as

These studies started to examine children’s everyday lives and propose that children are active agent in her or his own development (Corsaro 1985, 2005b, Cook-Gemperz and Kyrazis 2001, Kyratzis 2004) The new social studies of childhood are characterized most prominently by ethnographic methods, including interviews and participant observation, which tend to offer information about children’s everyday lives, rather than reveal the practices by which children themselves build and understand everyday life in the course of interacting with others (Cromdal 20015; Goodwin 2006) Hutchby argues that other and looks at how children’s talk, gaze and gesture reveals their competent use of the methods and procedures that are implicated in the “organization

Infants begin experimenting different sounds and actions through a trial-and-error pattern in order to be exhibited to the parent’s attention often. During this stage, infants show goal-directed behavior displaying purposeful responses to other people. For instance, a crawling baby will show goal-directed behavior by crawling to a covert in the kitchen, where his sippy cups are stored, taking one out holding it up and grunt to his father as if to say, “I’m thirsty!” Their actions are purposeful. Another important thing happening in the secondary circular reactions sub stage four is that infants achieve object permanence. Object permanence is when an infant is watching an object which then disappears, the infant is still thinking about it or can try to look for object. Even if it is out of sight, it is still on

Secondly, it is important to consider the strengths of naturalistic observation as a method. This was identified when the child was consistently moving and doing different activities that allowed me to understand how he communicates with other children, how he behaves and what he learns from others. In the play setting the child was able to develop his thinking and according to the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (DOH, 2000) through social relationships, the child was encouraged to express his feelings, emotions, which was achieved by the setting creating an enjoyment environment.

Observation of an infant in the family setting 'provides the observer with an opportunity to encounter primitive emotional states in the infant and his family...' (Rustin in Miller, 1989, 7). According to Rustin infant observation allows to 'explore the emotional events between infant and mother' and 'the aim is to describe the development of the relationship between infant and others (...) and try to understand the unconscious aspects of behaviour and patterns of communication' (Rustin in Miller, 1989, 7). Early infant observation plays a vital role in the psychodynamic training and it gives a thesis of how early emotional development is being influenced by subconscious family dynamics.