Infant Social & Emotional Development Flashcards
Main 3 points of why infants develop socially and emotionally from birth to 18/24 months
- Experience, regulate and express emotions in socially and culturally appropriate ways.
- Explore the environment and learn
- Form close and secure adult and peer relationships - in contexts of family, community and culture.
Things that influence and define an infants social/emotional development (5)
- nature and nurture (combined)
- nature provides infants with competencies and motivations
- family’s culture
- factors such as developmental delays and serious health issues
- environmental factors - poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence.
9 quick facts we know about infant’s social emotional development (easy facts)
- born to connect to other humans
- master their environment and take control of their learning
- discriminate sounds of language very quickly
- recognise their parents voices
- match emotional tone to facial expressions
- prefer looking at faces
- seek physical and emotional equilibrium
- predisposed to signal their needs to someone who will help
- are an emotional trigger for adults
How a baby’s brain grows through social and emotional development (2 points)
Brain grows through experiences an infant has with the world. Parents and other important adults are that world.
Communication of emotion and needs establishes learning pathways in the brain that leads to other physical, cognitive and emotional learning.
Epigenetic theory of infant psychosocial development
Human characteristics are influenced by a person’s unique genotype (inborn predispositions)
Maternal experience theory of infant psychosocial development
+ stress example
Things During pregnancy can affect genotype (stress, diet)
Stress during pregnancy:
Affects stress reactivity in the child = influences temperament, learned helplessness, self efficacy, attachment
4 points of baby brain development
- each part of the brain has a sequence of growing, connecting and pruning
- stimulation (meaningless before brain is ready)
- self righting inborn drive to remedy developmental deficit
- early brain growth is rapid and reflects experience
Brain growth reflects experience
- 3 important things that help influence brain growth in newborns
- caressing a newborn
- talking to a pre verbal infant
- showing affection towards infant
All 3 points are SOCIAL INTERACTION and essential to develop a person’s full potential
Importance of family to baby’s development (2)
DAY and PARLAKIAN:
They learn:
- what people expect of them
- what they can expect from others through experience with parents and caregivers
Socio Cultural theory of infant psycho social development
Proposes that human development occurs in a cultural context
Cultural influences: infant development, infant-caregiver relationship, and therefore: development of the infant
Import influences to a baby’s social emotional development (2 categories with 2 points on why for each)
Family and community:
• infants learn to share and communicate their feelings and experiences with significant caregivers and other children.
• develop a sense of themselves as a competent, effective and valued individual.
Culture:
• how mental health is understood
• adults goals and expectations for child’s development
Points important to motor skills in infant development (2)
- genes and culture influence sensation, perception and motor skill.
- cultural similarities and differences = healthy infants develop motor skills in the same sequence but vary in age.
(Fun fact - earliest walkers are Uganda, latest walkers are France)
Senses and social development
5 points of senses/feelings that baby’s feel and recognise
- newborns can distinguish human voices from other sounds
- by 6 months - can discriminate sounds in high pitched human voice (difficulty with low pitch)
- by 7 months - can discriminate happy and sad faces
- early sensation facilitates social interaction: to respond to familiar caregivers
- recognise comfort - to be soothed amid disturbances of infant life
Psychoanalytic theory of infant psychosocial development
Connects bio social and psychosocial development
Emphasises the need for responsive maternal care
Trust vs Mistrust
First psychological crisis
Resolved if infants learn basic trust if the world is a secure world where their basic needs (food, comfort, attention) are met consistently.
Autonomy vs Shame and doubt (3 points)
Second psychological crisis
Infants and toddlers either succeed or fail in gaining a sense of self rule over their own actions and bodies
Resolved positively if parents provide suitable (culturally appropriate) guidance and choices.
Infants responsiveness and capacity to interact = influence by changes in motor skills and senses.
Emotional development in infancy
- separation anxiety
- social smile
- laughter
- anger
Separation anxiety: normal at age 1, intensifies by 2 and usually subsides thereafter.
Social smile: evoked by seeing the human face. (Appears around 6-10 weeks old)
Laughter: appears around 3-4 months in response to active stimuli.
Anger: expressed during first months through crying in response to unpleasant stimulus (evident at 6 months)
by 6 months - faces, voice and posture patterns are clearly related to social events
Understanding and responding to emotions of others (3 points)
Between 7-10 months infants perceive facial expressions as organised patterns
Can match emotional tone of voice with appropriate face of speaking person
Maternal depression can disrupt emotional and social development in child
The development of social bonds
SOCIAL REFERENCES (4 points about it)
Seek information about how to react to unfamiliar events by observing someone else’s expression/reactions
Infant relies on a trusted person’s emotional reaction to decide how to respond (around 10 months)
Method of indirectly learning about the environment
That other (trusted) person becomes a social reference
Development of social bonds:
REFERENCING MOTHERS (2)
REFERENCING FATHERS (2)
Most social referencing occurs with mothers
Infants heed their mothers wishes, expressed in tone and expression.
Increases in maternal employment have expanded the social references available to infants
Fathers now spend considerable time with their children
interaction influences development in sense of self
Self conscious emotions
4 points including higher order emotions
Appear at end of second year
Higher order emotions: shame, pride, embarrassment, guilt, envy.
Involve loss or enhancement of our sense of self.
Assist children in acquiring socially valued behaviours and goals and self regulation.
Self awareness
emotional growth results in infants realising that their body and actions are separate to those of other people.
Around age 1 = emerging sense of me and mine
Self Recognition
Emerges at about 18 months
Sense of identity
Pretending and using first person (I, me, myself, mine)
Temperament
General Definition points - 5
- innate differences between one person and another in emotion/activity/self control
- temperament is EPIGENETIC - genes interact with child rearing practices
- stable individual differences in quality/intensity of emotional reactions
- biologically based, constant over time
- affects child’s reactions to other people and their environment
