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Key Features & Theories of Child Development
By James Keightley of giggleberries
First relationships are an essential part of development, providing basic physiological and important psychological needs that define our individual characteristics, provide recognition, acceptance and a sense of closeness. They are amongst the most important relationships and involve complex psychological processes within a social system where relationships can take many forms. The inherent difficulties of studying infants make investigating key features of how relationships are established and maintained challenging. Early investigations adopted a Freudian psychoanalytical approach and whilst they still inform current research they gave way, due to their subjective nature, to contemporary research that is considered a more testable and robust investigations of infant behaviour. This report will illustrate the meaning of early relationships and look at current ideas surrounding of these attachments and examine how they relate to contemporary theories of child development. Winnicott (1964) claimed that ‘a baby cannot exist alone, but is essentially part of a relationship’, highlighting the importance of a dyadic relationship in development. However, there is a general ‘monotropic’ image that the primary caregiver during these first dyadic relationships is the biological mother. This is not always the case or relative across cultures, as the degree to which the biological mother plays a role as primary caregiver is variable. What is culturally relative is the need for a consistent dyadic relationship, a view supported by Rutter (1981) who investigates the adverse effects of a succession of relationships experienced by orphans. Winnicott claimed that it is only necessary to provide sufficient care by being a ‘good enough mother’ and not necessary to strive to be the perfect mother. The extent to which the child contributes and controls these first relationships and the degree of involvement given by the adult carer has attracted much attention. A particular nativist perspective is that children are born with innate capacities to form relationships, and are already tuned in to a ‘readiness to relate’ (Hobhouse 1993). Morton & Johnson (1991) also argued that babies are born with basic neural mechanisms that enable them to relate to others and is the basic starting point for development. This perspective concurs with the nativists view and also genetic determination that we are born with existing concepts and abstract forms of knowledge to make sense of what we perceive. That infants are ‘preordained’ and what is there is there from the start in a sense of ‘preformization’ that allows the unfolding maturation of innate capacities. Whilst evidence exists to illustrate an innate ‘readiness to relate’, it does not account sufficiently for how relationships are established and maintained; this involves many complex psychological processes. A particular psychoanalytical view is that ‘Mental Models’ are a central feature to this process. These consist of mental representations that we construct of others and include personal thoughts, feelings and motives, which can be projected on to, and influence relationships. Carers make interpretations of the significance of an infant’s behaviour based on a personal subjective interpretation of the world in an ‘adultmorphic’ process’ Brunner (1983). This is where the infant is conceptualised with in the symbolic world of adults to shape our own mental representations we have of the child and influence our relationship with them. Like wise infants create mental representation based on interpretations of adult reaction to it and consequently ‘learns how to intend’ Dunn (1982). In this sense it suggests that ‘what we think about a relationship is more important than the actual interaction’ (Hinde 1976). The significance of personal interpretations and extent to which these are projected on to relationships, is extended by Whiting and Whiting’s (1975) ‘Six Cultures Project’. This illustrated how the adult perception of children effects developmental expectations and also cultural variations on how children are perceived. These attempts to explain the complex processes between infant and carer during early relationships, lack empirical evidence and are difficult to understand, or explain what infants interpret and how their experiences give rise to any mental representations of its carer. Consequently, recent research has focused more on the observable behaviour of infants to understand key features responsible for establishing and maintaining these early relationships.
Meshing is one feature believed to be important in establishing and maintaining early relationships. It involves an interactive synchronisation of turn taking between infant and caregiver that enable a co-regulated relationship to take place, which appears conversation like. This provides the infant with what is considered to be the first experience of relatedness, of taking part and sense of being engaged with significant others that provides an opportunity for the infant to experience other rich meanings in its’ social world. The basis of this interactive meshing is founded in pseudo dialogues generated by the mother and relies very little on the adaptive skills of the infant. In this process the mother observes the infants behaviour and fits her behaviour around this, forming an interaction that the infant feels part of. Evidence of this type of interaction has been observed in both face to face turn taking, (Kaye and Fogel 1980) and in turn taking during breast or bottle feeding (Kaye and Brazleton 1971). Both illustrate mothers using a pseudo dialogue to encourage a behavioural response from the child. It also illustrates that infants develop a more proactive responses, that metamorphoses in to a proto dialogue between mother and infant, where the infant becomes a more active agent in regulating the pace of interaction. The mother’s behavioural response during feeding in particularly is framed around the babies ‘burst and pause’ behaviour. To some extent the baby’s behaviour could be seen as an adaptive quality where through a process of ‘epigenisis’ and developmental plasticity the baby is able to use feedback from the mother to influence its’ environmental interaction in order to attain further nutrients necessary for survival, a genetic determinant and innate capacity. However, these dialogues are dependent on pre speech movement and most notably; imitation is considered the building blocks for much of the initial pseudo dialogue. Babies produce packages of behaviour, which mothers use to frame their own behaviour around as part of the pseudo dialogue. Mothers seem to take the lead in the process of imitation, and in a sense, provide the infant with an experience on which they can develop by learning the effectiveness of their own behaviour, as well as establishing establish relatedness and attain a level of ‘primary intersubjectivity’ (Traverthern) that leads to a proto dialogue. This aspect of qualitative development is also seen during meshing and is evidenced by Pawlby (1977) who identified that mothers dominated the amount of imitation during the first 6 months, through using personal ‘priori imitation’ to fit around the infants behaviour, until the infants begins to bring other forms of behaviour in to the dialogue. Kaye and Marcus (1981) also identified that as the frequency of imitation by the mother increased, the infant would take over more of the imitation itself. From these two key features it seems evident that the mother takes a principle role in establishing and maintaining the relationship and is a necessary part of the infant’s development. This is further illustrated by a process of ‘scaffolding’ (Brunner 1975) where the mother acts as tutor for the child. This process consists of joint action formats where the mother uses cueing, modelling and her ability to raise the ante in order to tutor the infant through a simplified sequence of stereotyped actions. This provides the support needed for the child to learn that its’ behaviour carries meaning, that actions are ‘do able’, have potency and that they can be active agents. Brunner sees this as the basis and first steps towards language development and achievement of more complex actions. These features relate to theories of development in several ways. Noam Chomsky offers a nativist perspective of babies being born with innate mental structures that facilitate the quantitative maturation of language. He claims these provide humans with the capacity to develop, and supports the claims that we are born with a ‘readiness to relate’. However, Chomsky also advocates that these do not predispose us to develop in a particular way and views the child as being passive, requiring direct input. In this respect his theory does not extend far enough to account for the apparent degree of agency that evolves through out the early weeks of infancy, highlighted from face to face studies by Fogel & Kaye (1980) during meshing and imitations (Kaye & Marcus 1981). If the infants contribution were ignored and it was considered that they were in deed passive, and requiring direct input, the theory advocated by Burrhus Skinner would again support this as he also saw the child as passive, a ‘black box’ requiring direct input and learning by means of ‘operant conditioning’. However, Skinner’s theory lacks any emphasis on there being any mental process or agency and does not account for why there are instances of unpredictable behaviour where he postulates such predictability. Skinner’s theory ignores the possibility of there being any theory of mind, as highlighted during imitation, which allows infants to establish a sense of effective behaviour and develop an embryonic theory of mind that facilitates a ‘primary intersubjectivity’ in order to control the pace and intensity of communication (Traverthern) Whilst these theories offer some understanding of both innate capacities to relate and direct environmental input, they do not explain the degree to which infant and carer are seemingly engaged in a social relationship where the infant develops greater control and ability to construct and maintain relationships. Jean Piaget’s theory offers a more balanced perspective. He acknowledges the existence and role of primitive innate capacities in development, but also recognises the highly influential social environment that serves more than to simply trigger these innate capacities within infants. He claims that children interact with their social environment in order to seek, select and interpret information so that they can construct a higher level of knowledge that causes qualitative development. In particularly he claims infants go through a series of orderly stages of organising knowledge. The Sensori Motor period is the initial stage where objects are explored and recognise by the senses and assimilate through existing schemas, or adapt these existing schemas to accommodate new knowledge. This process of interaction with our social environment is necessary to internalise knowledge for development. This theory perhaps provides a better understanding of the kind of development seen during both meshing and imitation, where as the infant assimilates the knowledge that his behaviour is effective and is internalised so his own imitation becomes more active. Likewise the same can be seen during scaffolding as the infant becomes more proactive in its’ interaction with the mother, having internalised the knowledge that actions are ‘do able’ and that his behaviour carries meaning and has potency. However, Piaget theory only goes so far to explaining these features and the wider influence of our social environment. Scaffolding can be further understood from the perspective of social constructivism. Lev Vygotsky’s suggests that mothers essentially act as teachers, and advocates the importance of cultural signs such as speech or even pre speech movement. These are part of the psychological tools used to interact with our environment to develop language, concepts, attention and cognitive abilities. This is very reminiscent of ‘joint action formations’ proposed by Brunner (1975) who saw these simplified sequences of stereotyped behaviour (signs) as essential for the development of language. As with Vygotsky’s theory the mother also acts as a teacher in order to allow the infant to learn that its’ behaviour has meaning and that actions are ‘do able’. This is supported also by Vygotsky’s claims that teachers (mothers) are necessary to allow children to qualitatively surpass our ‘zones of proximal development’. On the whole it is clear that our first consistent dyadic relationships form a significant basis for our continual development, both physiologically and psychologically. Whilst there is telling evidence that babies are born with innate capacities to form relationships by being ‘tuned in’ or a ‘readiness to relate’, this does not account for the ability to maintain relationships of a dynamic nature. It seems more likely that innate capacities provide a primitive basis for us to relate, in addition to which the adaptive ability to learn to interact with the social environment enables us to develop the necessary physiological structures needed for an important dyadic relationship and continued development. This is emphasised by some of the key features known as meshing, imitation and scaffolding, which are themselves best understood from a constructivist and social constructivist perspective. |
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Your article is rich. Thanks for sharing.
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This intel was contributed by Jimbob
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May, 2012
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