Child Development: Temperament, Attachment, and Language

Activity

General degree of mobility and tempo of movement.

Rhythmicity

Extent to which sleeping, resting, eating, elimination, and other body functions are regular and predictable.

Approach-withdrawal

The type of first reaction a child has when encountering a new situation, such as an unfamiliar person, place, or toy.

Adaptability

The extent to which the initial withdrawal response to a new situation can change.

Intensity

Typical intensity of the child's reaction to internal states or environmental situations.

Threshold (sensitivity)

Strength of stimulus needed to cause child to respond; includes high threshold and low threshold.

Mood

Typical behavior patterns related to general quality of mood; can be pleasant or unpleasant.

Distractability

Difficulty or ease with which a child's ongoing activities can be interrupted; ranges from high to low.

Persistence of Attention

Extent to which the child remains engaged in an activity or returns to the activity after interruption; ranges from high to low.

Easy temperament

Babies showed highly biological regularity, readily approached new objects and people, and were highly adaptable and mostly positive in mood.

Difficult temperament

Babies were biologically irregular, tended to withdraw from new experiences, were low in adaptability, and had intense, mostly negative moods.

Slow to Warm Child

Babies were somewhere in the middle in regularity and showed mild negative reactions to new experiences, but tended to adapt after repeated exposure.

Positive temperament

Characterized by smiling and neutral or positive vocalization.

Negative temperament

Characterized by higher negative affect: fussing, fretting, and crying.

Inhibited temperament

Characterized by fearful responses.

Goodness of Fit

Similarity of temperament and values that produces a smooth interaction between an individual and his or her social context.

Cultural Variability in Temperament

Evidence that infant temperament can vary across cultures and that cultural practices and caregiving styles can influence how these traits are expressed.

Kegan et al., 1994 Study

Researchers administered a battery of tests to three groups of infants and coded their reactions.

Caucasian infants' reactivity

Showed a higher degree of reactivity and more intense physical reactions, including increased heart rate and facial expressions of distress.

Chinese infants' reactivity

Exhibited significantly lower physiological reactivity to unfamiliar stimuli.

John Bowlby

An influential figure in attachment theory who worked at a British psychoanalytic institute and linked symptoms to histories of maternal deprivation.

Internal Working Models

Unconscious models formed by infants from interpersonal involvement that influence their self-perception and future relationships.

Mary Salter Ainsworth

A psychologist who reinforced attachment theory and devised the 'strange situation' to study infant-mother attachment.

The Strange Situation

A laboratory procedure developed by Ainsworth to identify patterns of infant-mother attachment based on responses to separations and reunions.

Secure Attachment Style

Characterized by the ability to explore the environment when the mother is present and showing distress when she leaves but pleasure upon her return.

Insecure Attachment Style: anxious-ambivalent (resistant)

Characterized by inability to explore, clinging to the mother, distress at separation, and seeking comfort when upset.

Insecurely Attached: avoidant

Characterized by indifference to the mother's presence and absence, showing no pleasure upon her return.

Sensitivity

The quality of sensitive caregiving that acts as an antecedent of secure attachment.

Secure base

The concept that infants are likely to explore their environment when they feel protected and comforted by their caregiver.

Competence

The idea that more secure children become more socially and emotionally competent.

Universality

Ainsworth's perspective that downplays cultural variation in attachment styles.

Maternal deprivation

A condition linked to negative outcomes in children due to lack of maternal care.

Caregiver responsiveness

The quality of a caregiver's attentiveness that influences the security of attachment in infants.

Emotional development

The process influenced by early attachment patterns that affects later emotional and social functioning.

Social development

The growth in social skills and relationships influenced by attachment styles in infancy.

Psychological development

The mental and emotional growth that is affected by early attachment experiences.

Anxiety in attachment

A feeling experienced by infants with insecure attachment styles, particularly anxious-ambivalent.

Aloof mothers

Mothers who appear cold and unconcerned, leading to avoidant attachment in infants.

Distress upon separation

The emotional upset experienced by infants when their caregiver leaves.

Pleasure upon reunion

The joy expressed by infants when their caregiver returns after separation.

Infant-mother attachment

The emotional bond between an infant and their mother, which can vary in security.

Child Guidance Clinic

The location where Bowlby examined cases linking symptoms to maternal deprivation.

Disorganized-Disoriented Attachment

The infant shows contradictory features of several patterns of anxious attachment or appears dazed and disoriented.

Contradictory Features

Approaching the caregiver but looking away at the same time.

Bohlin, Hagekull & Rydell (2000)

The researchers examined whether secure attachment promotes later social competence.

Secure Attachment Effects

Children who had been secure as infants were more socially active, positive and popular at school age, and tended to report less social anxiety than children who had been insecure.

Kochanska & Kim (2013)

Infants who were insecurely attached to both mother and father at 15 months of age had more externalizing problems (aggression, out-of-control behaviors) in elementary school years.

Insecure Attachment Consequences

Infants who experience insecure attachment to both their mother and father at 15 months are more likely to exhibit externalizing problems, such as aggression and out-of-control behaviors, during elementary school.

Cross-Cultural Research on Attachment

Secure attachment was the dominant attachment pattern in all three countries (the United States, Germany, and Japan).

German Infants Attachment

German infants were more avoidant.

Japanese Infants Attachment

Japanese infants were less avoidant and more resistant than U.S. infants.

Self Recognition: Mirror Recognition

Tested infants' visual self-recognition.

Infants' Reaction to Mirrors

Babies aged 9 - 24 months looked into a mirror after a dot of rouge had been put on their noses; none of the babies younger than 12 months old reacted as if they knew the mark was on them.

Emerging Self-Recognition

Self-recognition has gradually emerged in the form of mirror recognition, use of the personal pronoun 'me', recognize photos of themselves, and conscious awareness of their bodies.

Language Development

Major subsystems include phonology, semantics, grammar, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics.

Phonology

How children master the sound system of their native language.

English Phonemes

Speech sounds that can change the meaning of a word, e.g., bat, pat.

Semantics

How children learn the meanings of individual words.

First Words

First words usually refer to objects, familiar people, body parts, animals, and may also express feelings and movement.

Grammar

How children develop sets of rules about the structure of language.

Morphemes

The smallest meaningful units in a language, e.g., 'boys aren't playing.'

Syntax

Rules for organizing words into sentences.

Pragmatics

How children learn to use language in socially appropriate ways.

Prelinguistic Vocalization

Sounds produced by infants during the first year of life, which includes 5 stages.

Stages of Prelinguistic Vocalization

Crying, cooing (around 2 months), vocal play (around 4 months), canonical babbling (around 6 months), and conversational babbling (by 10 months).

Canonical Babbling

Begins around 6 months, where infants produce strings of syllables, e.g., 'ma-ma-ma-ma' and 'ah-ka-ba-ba.'

Two Kinds of Canonical Babbling

Re-duplicated (ba ba ba) and non-duplicated (ma ba ga la).

Gestures

Start using gestures (between 8 to 12 months)

Transition to Speech

10 - 12 months: most children start to make the transition from babbling to true speech

Biological Maturation

They gain control over their speech apparatus to produce speech sounds intentionally

Opportunity to Learn

They must learn the phonemes of their particular language by paying close attention to the speech sounds they hear and begin imitating them

Cognitive Development

Increase understanding of symbolic system (cause-effect, mean-end, past - present - future)

Receptive Vocabulary

Words that children understand

Spoken Vocabulary

Words that children use

Vocabulary Growth/Spurt

From 13 to 25 months, children experience a gap between receptive vocabulary and spoken vocabulary.

Word Understanding at 13 Months

Children understand 50 words, but only say about 10 words at 13 months.

Word Usage at 17-18 Months

Children can't use many words until about 17 - 18 months.

Vocab Spurt

A sudden increase in word acquisition at about 18 months of age.

Average Spoken Vocabulary at 18 Months

The average spoken vocabulary for 18-month-olds is 50 words, but there is a dramatic increase at 2 years old: 200 words.

Word Learning Rate

Between 1 and 6, the average child is learning an average of 5.5 new words per day.

Fast Mapping

About 15 months of age, children use context clues to make a quick and reasonably accurate guess about the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

Underextensions

Language errors in which the meaning a child attaches to a word is too restricted.

Overextensions

Language errors in which the meaning a child attaches to a word is too broad.

Holophrase

A single word that conveys the meaning of a phrase or sentence.

Telegraphic Speech

Use of short and precise words without grammatical markers.

Syntax Knowledge After Two-Word Stage

After the two-word stage, children's knowledge of syntax increases rapidly.

Linguistic Complexity

Assessed by counting morphemes rather than words.

Linguistic Competence

Involves syntactically and semantically correct use of a language.

Communicative Competence

Involves being able to carry on conversations, repair breakdowns in communications, and to use language in socially appropriate ways.

Broca's Area

In the brain's left frontal lobe which is involved in speech production.

Wernicke's Area

In the brain's left hemisphere, which is involved in language comprehension.

Child Directed Speech

Type of speech that uses repetition, short words and sentences, a higher pitch than normal, and long pauses.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Chomsky's term that describes a biological endowment enabling the child to detect the features and rules of language.

Interactionist View

Biology and experience contribute to language development.

Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)

Biology and environment interact in children's semantic and syntactic development, just as in their acquisition of the sound system of their language.

Jean Piaget's Preoperational Stage

Ages 2 - 7, characterized by an inability to use logical operations (mental symbols).

Preoperational Limitations

Not yet able to use logical operations in their reasoning; can use mental representation, but their reasoning is not yet logically consistent or systematic.

Centration

Focusing on one aspect of a situation while ignoring others.

Egocentrism

Inability to understand others' perspectives.

Appearance-reality

Difficulty in distinguishing between how things appear and what they really are.