Overview of Historical Theorists Part 5

Magda Gerber - Interactive Theory

• Infants need consistency and a sense of permanence
• Babies and young children need to be in the smallest groups possible
• Infants must be handled with respect and appreciation for who they are and what they want and need
• Observe babies during uninterrupted play and exploration
• Interact during care giving routines (diapering and feeding) Talk! Talk! Talk!
• Basic attitudes and patterns of living, loving, and learning are set in the first two years

Dr. T. Berry Brazelton

• Touchpoints
• A training model for professionals around key points in a young child's development.
• Originally designed for medical professionals based on  years of his professional practice
• The model has since been adopted by a broad variety of people who work with families including early  interventionists, social service 
• The decision to adapt this model for child care was made because Dr. Brazelton recognized that the degree to which child care professionals work with families is different than that of other professionals
• Child care professionals have a more detailed and intimate knowledge of the child.
• They share with the parent many of the child's behaviors and observe the child's development on a day to day basis.
• Touchpoints emphasizes
• prevention through anticipatory guidance
• good relationships between parents and providers.
• In order for a child to obtain optimal development, there has to be a collaboration between the caregiver and the parent(s)
• Touchpoints are predictable periods of disorganization in a child's development that interrupt family relations but can also provide an opportunity for connections
• Developmental Framework
• Development is characterized by regressions, bursts and pauses
• Development is multidimensional
• Bursts in one domain of development cause regression in other domains. These regressions are healthy and necessary for the development of the new skill
• Regressions in a child's behavior creates disorganization for parents

Historical Overview of Child Development Theories Part 4

Urie Bronfenbrenner - Ecological Systems Theory

Five nested structures influencing child development. This theory has wide implications for understanding and categorizing the factors that affect the care of a child.

1. Microsystem The closest system to the child. Encompasses the affects adults and children have on each other. This system contains the child, the immediate nuclear family, and specialists relating to the child (caregivers).
2. Mesosystem Entities fostering children's development. Encompasses the connections between home, school, child care centers, nature, local culture, and community
3. Exosystem Social settings that do not contain the child, but still directly affect their development, such as community health and social services and other public agencies. Includes grass roots groups who lobby and advocate for schools and child care services. Also included in this system are parent education and the parents' workplace.
4.  Macrosystem Consists of laws, customs, and the general policies of the social system (government). The child is ultimately affected  by decisions made at this level. This is where the availability of resources (money) are determined.
5. Chronosystem World events such as wars, terrorist attacks, global economic crises that affect the child directly or indirectly through the individuals involved or the ensuing emotional impact on the people and systems that interact with the child.

Michael Watson - Developmental Learning Skills Model

Three major sensory modalities are used to input information:

• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinesthetic

There are two responses to these modalities

• Verbal
• Motor

Children must possess the visual, auditory, and motor acuity and coordination necessary to input stimuli and they must develop fine motor coordination and verbal skills to output or respond accurately

There are six levels of information processing.

1. Sensory Coordination: Coordinating sensory systems
2. Focal Attention: Perceptual screening
3. Memory: Stimuli recorded because it is meaningful
4. Discrimination: Separating important elements of stimuli
5. Association: Connecting stimuli on the basis of repeated presentation or similarities
6. Conceptualization: Abstract concept formation

Historical Overview of Child Development Theories Part 3

Jean Piaget - Cognitive Development Theory
Predicts that children construct knowledge and awareness through manipulation and exploration of the environment. Cognitive development occurs through observable stages.

• Sensorimotor birth to two years
• Begins to make use of imitation, memory, and thought
• Begins to recognize that objects do not cease to exist when they are hidden
• Moves from reflex action to goal-directed action
• Preoperational two to seven years
• Gradually develops use of language and ability to think in symbolic form
• Able to think operations through logically in one direction
• Has difficulty seeing another person's points of view

Lev Vygotsky - Sociocultural Theory

Culture (values, beliefs, and customs) of a social group are passed on through social interactions between children and elders

Cognition takes place when children interact with their environment, their elders, and their peers.

Key words:

• Private speech (by talking to one's self a child develops cognition)
• Zone of proximal development (the distance between what a child can do independently and what they can do with support)
• Learning takes place through
• Intersubjectivity
• Scaffolding
• Make Believe Play

Abraham Maslow - Hierarchy of Human Needs

Level 1: Physical needs (food, air, water, shelter)

Level 2: Safety needs (protection from harm, security, consistency)

Level 3: Social needs (friendship, companionship, bonding)

Level 4: Ego needs (importance, being considered special)

Level 5: Self-Actualization needs (helping others, being creative, growing spiritually)

J. Bowlby - Ethological Theory of Attachment

The infant's relationship to the parent starts as a set of innate signals keeping the caregiver close to the baby.

The baby internalizes the bond with the caregiver, the bond becomes the basis for and a vital part of the personality.

This relationship becomes the model for all future close relationships.

Four Stages of Attachment

1. Pre-attachment (birth to six weeks) baby grasps, cries, smiles, and gazes to keep the caregiver engaged
2. Attachment-in-the-making (six weeks to eight months) baby responds differently to strangers than to familiar caregivers. Face-to-face interactions relieve stress. The baby expects the caregiver to respond when signaled.
3. Clear-cut attachment (eight months to two years) separation anxiety is exhibited. Baby protests caregiver departure. Baby acts deliberately to maintain caregiver attention.
4. Formation of reciprocal relationship (eighteen months onward) Children negotiate with caregiver. Children are willing to give and take in relationships.

Historical Overview of Child Development Theories Part 2

William James - Theory of Self

Social Development

• The I or Existential Self 
• Separate from the environment and other people
• Maintains continuous existence over time
• Self-recognition emerges between 9-15 month

• The Me-Not-Me or Reflective Self
• Perceives the physical, material, and relationship qualities of experience 
• Sense of agency – awareness that our actions cause other people and objects to react in predictable ways
• The development of self

John Watson - Behaviorism

Environment is the primary factor determining the growth and development on children

Classical conditioning (Pavlov's dogs)

B. F. Skinner - Operant Conditioning

The environment is the primary factor determining child growth and development

Expanded on Watson

Children’s behaviors can be increased or decreased by applying 

• positive reinforcers (rewards) such as food and praise
• negative reinforcers (punishment) such as criticism and withdrawal of attention

Albert Bandura - Social Learning

Behaviorist who included social influences on child growth and development

Modeling and observational learning

Eric Erikson - Psychosocial Theory

Predicts several stages of development including trust, autonomy, identity, and intimacy

How these stages are dealt with by child development specialists determines individual capacity to contribute to society and experience a happy, successful life

Basic trust vs. Mistrust: Birth to 12-18 months (important event: feeding) The infant must form a first loving trusting relationship with the caregiver or develop a sense of mistrust

Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt: 18 months to three years (important event: potty training) The child’s energies are directed toward the development of physical skills, including walking, grasping, controlling the sphincter. The child learns to control, but may develop shame and doubt if not handled well.

Initiative vs. Guilt: three to six years (important event: independence) The child continues to  become more assertive and to take more initiative but may be too forceful, which can lead to guilt feelings.

Historical Overview of Child Development Theories Part 1

Before the Reformation, children were considered to be little adults.

With the Reformation, the idea of original sin made children depraved heathens who needed to be tamed.

Over the years, we have combined all the succeeding theories, taking the best of each.

John Locke - Tabula Rasa Theory

Infants are a blank slate

Children are completely molded and formed by their early experiences with the adults around them

Children are not basically evil, but good

Jean-Jacque Rousseau - Maturation Theory

Children are noble savages who are naturally born with a moral sense of right and wrong and an innate ability for orderly, healthy growth

First child-centered approach

There are stages of development all children go through

Development is a process of maturation which is a naturally unfolding course of growth and development

Charles Darwin - Theory of Natural Selection

All animals are the descendants of a few common ancestors

Survival of the fittest is the determining factor in evolution

The development of children follows the same general plan as the evolution of the species

His careful observations resulted in the birth of the science of child study

Stanley Hall and Arnold Gesell - Evolutionary Theory

Child development is genetically determined and happens automatically

Founders of the normative approach of observing large groups of children to establish average or normal expectations

Hall was a student of Darwin’s

At the same time in France Binet developed the first IQ test giving the first operational definition of intelligence.  Hall & Gesell worked at Stanford.  Result: the Stanford-Binet IQ test which is still used today.

Sigmund Freud - Psychoanalytic Theory

Theory of personality development and care explaining why we experience life as adults the way we do

Explained how infants and toddlers are unique individuals whose earliest experiences and relationships form the foundation for self-concept, self-esteem, and personality

With Freud, child development and care became a legitimate discipline

Symbiosis: there is no awareness that the baby is separate from the mother at birth (Id)

Gradually replaced by separation (ego) and individuation (superego)

• Id - present at birth - source of our wants need and desires
• Ego - develops in early infancy - self-concept, self-esteem
• Superego - begins to develop in infancy - conscience or value system of right and wrong