2. And the beginning, as you know, is always
the most important part, especially in dealing
with anything young and tender. That is the
time when the character is being molded and
easily takes any impress one may wish to
stamp on it.
~~~Plato, 1945
3. The Primacy of Infancy
• Primacy: early experiences can significantly
shape later development
• As the twig is bent, so grows the tree
• Children’s experiences during infancy
determine their future development
• 2y: too late about social skills & attitudes
educational development
• First attachments influence subsequent
relationships
• Infant’s experience have effects on later life:
reinforce? Counteract?
4. Modify Impact of Early
Experience
(1) Changes in E
Create discontinuities in children’s experiences
Set new path into future
Positive (supportive school E/ community-based
network)
Negative (outbreak of war/ death of a parent)
(2) Bio-social-behavioural shifts
Reorganize children’s physical & psychological
functions into qualitatively new patterns
Change the way children experience E
5. Developmental
Discontinuity
• Each life phase makes special demands,
and so each phase is accompanied by a
special set of qualities
• Developmental discontinuities == problems
in infancy do not inevitably lead to later
developmental problems
• Each new stage presents its own
opportunities
6. Transactional Models
• Trace the ways in which characteristics of the
child & characteristics of the child’s E interact
across time to determine developmental
outcomes
• Help understand how experience at one point
in time may have a dramatically different
effect than the same experience at another
point in time
• Time-sensitive development
7. Developing Attachment
• Securely attached at 12m
• More curious/ play more
effectively with agemates/
have better relationships
with their teachers at 3.5y
• Socially skillful/ form more
relationships/ display
more self-confidence/
more open in expressing
feelings at 10y or 15y
8. Continuity
• 20y-longitudinal study shows that adults’ &
infants’ attachment classifications (secure &
insecure) are the same
• Attachment with children & primary caregiver
== key factor
== model for all later relationships
== internal working model to behave toward
other people
== model to deal with new situation
• Cumulative outcomes of everyday transactions
bet children & E
9. Discontinuity
• Attachment patterns can change based on
children’s experiences
• Contribution of negative life events
loss of a parent
parental divorce
life-threatening illness of parent or child
parental psychiatric disorder
physical or social abuse by a family member
isolation
deprivation
10. Dynamic Interaction
•
•
•
•
100 children’s study
Correlation bet 1y & 18y
No relationship at all
Self-report/ teachers’
report didn’t show any
relationships with 1y
• Early infancy attachment
≠ template in adulthood
• Infants are highly
sensitive to Es/ change
all the time!
11. Out of Home Care:
A Threat to Attachment?
• Increasing # of 1y
nonparental child care in
US
(1) growing # of singleparent households
(2) increasing economic
need for both parents
to work full-time
• ≒20 hours/week
nonmaternal care in 1y
aggressive interaction with
peers/ insecure patterns
12. Side Effects of Child Care
• Infancy child care on later development effect
• Children’s emotional attachment/ self-control/ mental
development/ language development/ compliance with
adult demands
Of Child Care
14. Children Reared in
Orphanages
• Children in orphanages = serious deprivation
• Under what circumstances = permanent damage?
• Under what conditions = a hope for recovery?
• Psychological trait plasticity?
• Living in institutions may vary in
(1) Nature of depriving conditions (physical, social,
cognitive)
(2) Intensity or severity of conditions
(3) Length of time for children staying in orphanages
(4) Quality of E after leaving orphanages
15. Orphanage Life
• Little attention paid
• 1 caregiver: 10 children
• Caregivers showed little
regard for children’s need
• Rarely talked to children
• Not responded to
infrequent vocalizations
• Seldom played with them
in bathing, dressing,
feeding
• Left babies lie on their
back in cribs & toddlers sit
in playpens with only a ball
16. Intelligence Development
• 2y: physically normal & half the normal rate
intellectually at the end of 1y
• Adopted before 2y: normal function at 4-5y
• Adopted bet 2-6y: slightly intellectual retardation
• Girls at 6y to institution: intellectual retardation
found at 12-16y & unable function in society &
barely read & inability to dial 7-digit telephone
number
• Boys at 6y to institution: more intellectual
stimulation & varied experiences & intellectual
recovery at 10-14y & able to function in society
17. Love Cures
• Romanian children adopted into
British families before 3.5y
• Functioning normally by 6y
• Romanian children adopted into
Canadian homes before 4m
• Indistinguishable from native-born
children there
• Orphans stayed in orphanages >
8m = emotional attachments to
adopted parents
insecure in strange environments
overly friendly to strangers
hungry for attention
18. Developing Brain & Orphans
• Whether early deprivation = damage to child’s
developing brain???
• Accompanied factors: increased illness,
malnourishment, maltreatment, ongoing
changes in caregivers & length of time in
orphanages
• Longer stay > earlier adoption = poorer
outcome
• High levels of hyperactivity & attention deficits
• Early deprivation = neurological damage = brain
damage (limbic system: stress-related)
19. Influential Environment
• 65 English children with working-class background
• High quality care > 2y
(1) Children returned to biological families after 2y:
raising attitudes matter (younger child needed
attention/uninterested stepfather,
(2) Children adopted bet 2-8y: higher intellectual
scores in development, advanced reading, mutual
attachment to adoptive parents, good attention on
them, better finance
(3) Children remained in institutions: develop well
Emotional attachment has no critical period
20. New World Challenge
• 12 million children orphaned for
AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa
• Parents died from AIDS
• Extended families
overburdened
• Children developed as in
orphanage situations
21. Isolated Children
• Czechoslovakia in 1960
• Twin boys found at 6y
• Abnormally small, suffered
from vitamin-lack disease,
barely talked, cannot
recognize objects, terrified
of new sights & sounds
• Genie found in 13y
• Isolation: physical,
• Couldn’t walk, amazing
emotional, intellectual
ability in perceiving spatial
influence
relationships
How do E conditions during • Developed language &
& following isolation
attachment
interact with each other?
22. Recovery from Deprivation
• Institutionalization during infancy & early childhood =
long-term effect
• 42% pregnancy rate before age 19 (39% were not
living with children’s fathers) vs. 5% in control group
(all were living with fathers)
• 14% serious breakdown in caring children vs. none
experienced serious breakdown in caring children
23. Child-Care Behaviours of
Institutionalized Mothers
• Institutional care
= lack of strong attachments during infancy &
childhood
= difficulties in forming good relationships with peers
= teenage pregnancy increase
= reduce likelihood of further education or job
training
= disadvantaged economic environment
= create stresses
= lead to poor parenting
24. Questions Remained
• Supportive husbands make parenting effective
• Men > women find supportive spouse & raise
children in a intact family
• Removal damaging E = key to repair
developmental damage
• What conditions are necessary to foster more
complete recovery from early deprivation?
• Is it possible that there are some undiscovered
environmental conditions to regain normal
functioning?
• Did their deprivation start too early & last too long to
permit them to recover completely?
25. Harlow’s Monkeys Revisited
• The first 3m isolation =
overwhelmed at first &
accepted within 1m
• The first 6m isolation = rocked,
bit, scratched themselves
compulsively when placed in
cage with other monkeys,
unable to mate at 3y
• The second 6m isolation =
aggressive, fearful with other
monkeys, able to mate in right
age
• The entire 1y isolation = target
of peers’ aggression
26. Recovery from Isolation
• The first 6m == critical
period for social
development?
• Painful shock punishment
• Abrupt introduce from
isolation to busy activity
• Therapy #1: maternal
behaviours---if the baby did
live, the mother changes
• Therapy #2: mother-infant
type of relationship
27. Human Recovery
• Interactions with younger children benefit isolated
children to initiate & direct social activity
• Therapeutic intervention comes from E
• 24 (2.5-5y) socially isolated children
• (1) play with 1-1.5y doubled peer interaction rate
• (2) play with agemates Some improvement, no
difference with control group
• (3) control group
• 20 minutes x 10 sessions / 6 weeks
• Blocks, puppets, clothes, toys one-on-one play
• Practitioners should make concerted effort as
therapeutic E