Twelve to Eighteen Months Fogel Chapter 9 Created by Ilse DeKoeyer-Laros, Ph.D.

Twelve to Eighteen Months

FogelChapter 9 Created by Ilse DeKoeyer-Laros, Ph.D.

Overview Chapter 9

• Physical and Motor Development

• Cognitive Development

• Emotional Development

• Social and Language Development

• Family and Society

• Applications: Poverty & Risk

Experiential Exercises

Co-regulating with Baby

Physical and Motor Development Walking

• walk more smoothly

• begin to stand on one foot with help

• begin to walk up and down stairs with help

• take steps that are longer, narrower, straighter, and more consistent

Picture from: www.juniormagazine.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=5

Around 16 months of age on average, infants

See a 15-month-old go down the stairs:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0CaFQPBako

http://www.juniormagazine.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=5


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0CaFQPBako

Physical and Motor Development Walking

Infants perceive how different types of surface affect their locomotor actions

• They prefer to walk on surfaces that are matte (rather than shiny) and rigid — if the matte surface looked like it was moving in waves (on a

water bed), infants shifted to crawling

• 14-month-olds regulated their locomotor behavior depending upon the steepness of a slope (research by Karen Adolph and colleagues)

Picture from: www.psych.nyu.edu/adolph

http://www.psych.nyu.edu/adolph

Physical and Motor DevelopmentHand Movements

1-year-olds begin to discover what properties of the environment are best suited to support their motor actions

– matching of motor action with the type of surface is essential for operating safely and successfully

• in one study, infants did more mouthing and held objects with both hands at a foam table, but used each hand differently and used the table to explore the objects at a hard table

– adapting their skills to the properties of objects and surfaces, infants become more able to use objects as means toward goals

Physical and Motor DevelopmentHand Movements

Deliberate tool usage begins around 12 months – for instance, spoon usage

– Stage1 – infants take the spoon in and out of their mouths or in and out of their dishes, but these two repetitive cycles are not connected

– Stage 2 – the outlines of the complete action sequence emerge but babies don’t pay attention to how much food gets onto the spoon

Picture from: www.pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2007/05.html

– Stage 3 – the action sequence of moving the spoon from the dish to the mouth incorporates the function of moving the food YouTube clip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEsII2ZX6N4

http://www.pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2007/05.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEsII2ZX6N4

Cognitive Development

• Piaget’s Stage V (12 - 18 months) is called tertiary circular reactions

— the beginnings of active experimentation & the search for novelty

• Infants become able to adapt to new situations

– by using tried and true methods

– by trial-and-error, attempting new combinations of action schemes until they find the one that will solve the problem

Cognitive Development

Infants of this age seem to have multiple goals• they examine the techniques available to determine

which are best suited to the particular goal at hand

For example,

• a distant object can be retrieved by pulling the blanket on which the object sits

• trying to figure out which objects best fit into particular containers

• following the path of an object and find its hiding place, even after a long series of moves or after a 24-hour delay

Picture from: www.ape2zebra.ca/toddler-toys-canada.asp

http://www.ape2zebra.ca/toddler-toys-canada.asp

Cognitive DevelopmentImitation

12- to 18-month-olds are able to model acts that are completely different from those seen before• they will try to imitate complicated actions just for fun

– without understanding the reason for those actions

Picture from: http://s123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/momtohanna/?action=view&current=babyclothdiaper.jpg

• these are the origins of role play and dramatic play

• infants can also infer intentions from modeled actions & display the same intentions in their imitations

Cognitive DevelopmentImitation

In one study, 14-to-18-month-olds watched adults operate simple tools

— sometimes the adult said “There!” (intentional action) after pressing the level and other times “Whoops!” (accidental action)

— infants were twice as likely to imitate if the action was intentional: they are not simply reproducing a mechanical action but acting for a purpose

Picture from: pediatrics.about.com/.../Pretend-Play.htm

Baby “talking” on the phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i_su9rNKrA

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/growthanddevelopment/ig/Developmental-Milestones/Pretend-Play.htm



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i_su9rNKrA

Cognitive DevelopmentMemory

• Infants can recall events for long periods of time

– when they are tested using familiar objects & events

– when they are allowed multiple exposures

– when they can enact the sequence in action rather than in words

– when there are reminders

• This period is a transitional period for memory

– in the next period, infants develop verbal-conceptual memories

Cognitive DevelopmentCategorization

Infants develop more advanced categorization skills during this period

• by 15 months, infants can correctly form higher-order categories for familiar objects

• e.g., they can classify animals together, but they will not include cars with the animals

Picture from: www.juniormagazine.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=5



Emotional Development

• After 12 months, they still seek help from adults in regulating their emotions, but also will attempt to control their own emotions

• Infants gain a new sense of self-awareness & control over emotional expressions

Emotional DevelopmentPositive Emotions

Between 12 – 18 months, infants

• show elation – remaining happy over a long period without the continuation of the stimulating event

• are active in producing & maintaining happy situations— e.g., making funny faces

• show delight in their own achievements, and become aware of their own abilities to act on the environment, to create new means, and to experiment— an indication of an expanding sense of a subjective self

Picture from: www.wholisticresearch.com/shop/home/m/Shop/c/61/

http://www.wholisticresearch.com/shop/home/m/Shop/c/61/

Emotional DevelopmentPositive Emotions

• Babies continue to show affection

– more from a distance, such as a smile and a wave

• In one study, after a brief separation

– 11-month-olds sought physical contact with their mothers immediately

– 14-month-olds were more likely to use some form of signaling from a distance: crying, whining, or raising their arms as if to ask to be picked up

– by 19 months, the babies were content merely to look at their mothers before resuming their play

Emotional DevelopmentNegative Emotions

• After 12 months, infants fight back tears and use other self-comforting behaviors (e.g., lip biting)— babies who successfully fight back tears

during separation almost certainly will burst into tears upon the mother’s return

• Parents are more willing to expose infants to potentially stressful events — they are less likely to intervene when the infant has an

everyday problem (e.g., a nonserious fall)

— they are more likely to leave the infant with a babysitter or in child care and they are more likely to take trips without the infant

Picture from: flickr.com/photos/tmedina/2222862398

Emotional DevelopmentNegative Emotions

• Separations

– 2- or 3-day separation: relatively few problems

– longer separations: more severe disturbances in routines and less positive engagement (while the mother is away and several weeks after)

• Individual differences in coping ability

– infants who are temperamentally inhibited & have insecure attachments are more likely to show distress at even minor stresses

– infants with more difficult and withdrawn temperaments take these separations harder than others

Social & Language Development The Basic Properties of Language

All human languages – no matter where or how they are used (spoken, signed, or

written) – share important properties that distinguish them from other kinds of

communication systems


Human language has three basic properties

1. Semanticity – the capacity of a language to carry meaning

2. Productivity – the ability of a speaker to express many different meanings with a relatively small number of words (using grammar rules)

• language becomes productive after 18 months, when toddlers begin to combine words

3. Displacement – enables speakers to describe distant or absent objects & communicate abstract notions; allows speakers to discuss past, present, and future


Language has a characteristic structure & function

– syntax (grammar) is the structure of language: out of all possible combinations of word order, only a small number are meaningful

– the study of a language’s social and communicative function is called pragmatics

Social & Language Development Theories of Language Acquisition

Learning theory

• Learning theorists explain language acquisition & productivity with concepts like “delayed imitation” and “generalization” of learned responses

However,

• Can’t explain linguistic universals of syntax (e.g., sentence structure: subject, verb, and object)

• Can’t explain why language is acquired at the particular time in the infant’s life that it is


Behavior ecology theory

• Noam Chomsky: infants are born with a rudimentary notion of syntactic structure – an innate universal grammar

• This approach led to an attempt to write down grammatical rules for infant speech

– the problem is that infant speech could not be easily fitted into these simple rules: there were too many exceptions


Functional theory

• Studies language development in relation to the social system in which it naturally occurs – a type of interactive systems theory

• Key milestones are not individual, but achievements of the parent-infant dyad

• taking turns; paying joint attention to an external object; sharing meaning of particular gestures, words, and phrases

• Frames for coordinated joint attention are essential prerequisites for the emergence of language— a joint focus of attention makes it easier for infants to associate

objects & events with words

Social & Language Development Coordinated Joint Attention

Research that supports the Functional Theory

• Infants are more likely to acquire the correct object word if they are looking at the object

– infants who are more skilled in establishing joint attention to an object acquire language at an earlier age than children who are less able to jointly attend

• Infants use more words & gestures with mother than with peers or alone

– adults can use a combination of pointing, showing, and words to highlight specific features of the object

– the more mothers do this, the more advanced the child’s language skills


Research that supports the Functional Theory

• Mothers who emphasized single words in their speech had children who were more likely to speak clearly and not run their words together

– e.g., “That’s a dog; look at the dog”

• 14-month-olds’ participation in shared book reading predicted language skills at 18 months

• 15-month-olds who were better at joining in frames for joint attention were more socially competent at 30 months

Early language example from YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTwzvR-GMgc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTwzvR-GMgc


• At the beginning of the 2nd year, infants begin to take the initiative in creating joint attention• They follow their mothers’ line of vision

• They use pointing to direct their mothers’ interest to something they want

• They imitate parent’s words more consistently

• Research: • If the mother is asked not to respond to the infant’s

requests, the infant will repeat the request using more exaggerated movements or will change the form of the request (e.g., by replacing a gesture with a word)


• After 12 months

• infants begin to use gestures in combinations to communicate more complex meanings

• intersubjectivity expands: infants become more aware of the relationship between self and other

• Metacommunication

• communicative acts that refer to the communication in the relationship itself

Picture from: www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/Dads.html

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby/Dads.html

Social & Language Development Conventional Gestures & Words

After 12 months, gestures and words become more conventional – they represent an action or object using a

ritualized manner of expression


• Between 10-16 months, infants begin to use words to communicate intention– one manifestation of this is the onset of naming – the

intentional use of a gesture or word to refer to a specific object or event

• Infants learn about 1-3 words per month, first for – objects (car, shoes, teddy, cup)

– social interaction (hello, no, yes, bye-bye)

– simple concepts (gone, more, there)

• They seem to prefer objects and events for which they already have a word


• Babies can be taught conventional gestures (“sign language”) prior to having acquired the words

– parents report that infants can learn the signs easily and appear to enjoy using them

• Early words are used like conventional gestures

• they are like the conventionally used adult word

• they are used consistently in similar situations

• they are not yet used as symbols

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKAquX8s30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKAquX8s30


• Overextension – using a word for instances not included in the adult’s definition

– e.g., all vehicles are “cars”

– reflects an active attempt to try to categorize objects

• When adults use only the adult word consistently, the child soon picks up the correct name

Social & Language Development Production & Comprehension

• Comprehension comes before production

• 13-month-olds can understand about 50 words, but infants cannot speak 50 words until about 19 months

• the earliest instances of word comprehension have been found at 10 months, for objects that are salient & very familiar

• By 17 months, infants acquire word meanings easily – sometimes after a single exposure

• it may be from overheard conversation and not necessarily speech directed to the infant


• Individual differences

• Some children do not have noticeable lags between comprehension & production; but others do

• A small percentage may suffer from a speech or hearing disorder

• Some children may be overly cautious about speaking out

• Lags in production may be related to the amount of explicit naming done by caregivers

• Currently, there is no complete explanation of what accounts for these individual differences


• Children with high linguistic comprehension show high levels of gestural production

• Even though they hesitate to communicate with words, they have articulated a rich array of symbolic gestures

– deaf children develop a large number of gestural signs that signify objects and actions at ages similar to when hearing children develop linguistic names


• The young child’s speech may be an important part of the process of concept formation

• One study showed that infants pay closer attention to objects after adults label novel objects for infants

• In complex ways, the acquisition of language may place the infant on a fast track toward conceptual and cognitive development

Social & Language Development Communication with Peers

• About 77% of peer play is parallel play, but peers increasingly respond contingently– a peer will show or give an object after a verbal

request or visual regard from another infant

• Interacting with adults vs. peers – joint attention occurs much less during peer play

– with adults, toys can be objects of a request or an offer, or the subject of naming and labeling routines

– with peers, toys are the major focus of attention & serve as vehicles for the initiation and maintenance of social interactions


• In one study, a novel toy was introduced into play between adults and infants & between peers

– in the infant-adult interaction, the infant pointed to the toy and looked at the mother, requesting the toy’s name & wanting to use it

Picture from: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_DTkDZzT0UTo/Rynv7amW_BI/AAAAAAAAAHg/7aOH0rywIVE/2007-10-31-Halloween+044.jpg

— when the same toy was introduced between two peers, they just looked at each other and laughed

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_DTkDZzT0UTo/Rynv7amW_BI/AAAAAAAAAHg/7aOH0rywIVE/2007-10-31-Halloween+044.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_DTkDZzT0UTo/Rynv7amW_BI/AAAAAAAAAHg/7aOH0rywIVE/2007-10-31-Halloween+044.jpg


• When mother and a peer are both present

• infants are more likely to initiate play with a peer

• they are more likely to seek physical contact and show negative emotions like distress and anger with their mothers

• In one study, 10- and 14-month-olds were more social and less negative to peers when their mothers were out of the room (in their co-op nursery school)


• Friendship can be shown to exist as early as 12 months of age

• Friends are more likely than nonfriends to

– touch and lean on each other

– initiate interactions with each other

– show positive affect with each other

Picture from: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_t2MXVO32jMQ/SCkO37PSc4I/AAAAAAAABZ0/CTn01TRJtrI/DSC_5419.jpg

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_t2MXVO32jMQ/SCkO37PSc4I/AAAAAAAABZ0/CTn01TRJtrI/DSC_5419.jpg

Social & Language Development Self-Awareness

• Sense of a Subjective Self – between 9-12 months, infants develop a sense of being a subject who can feel and experience and who is different from other subjects.

• Between 12-18 months, this sense of self is elaborated

– infants exaggerate facial expressions & other social actions as if to explore their own subjectivity in relation to another person

– they communicate more intentionally: they will persist when their gestures or words are not understood

– they discover that they have some emotion regulation skills of their own (e.g., lip biting to control their distress)

– they will look toward someone for confirmation of an achievement, but they will also smile, jump, or wave their arms to recognize the achievement for themselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsHG8EMtID8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsHG8EMtID8

Family & Society Infants with Special Needs

When an infant has a long-term or permanent challenge, a systems approach predicts that this

infant will affect the entire family and that the family’s response to the infant will affect the

infant’s own development (p. 448)


• Parents, siblings, and other relatives of infants with special needs– almost always experience a chronic sorrow or

depression—a feeling that the child will never fit into their lives or dreams

– may feel an emotional rejection of the infant that may result, in part, from a lack of knowledge about the infant’s condition

– experience difficulty adapting & find most of their interpersonal relationships strained


• Parents may be in a state of high emotional arousal much of the time

– the shame and guilt they feel at being the “cause” of the problem are coupled with the extra difficulties of caring for the child

• these may include extra doctors’ visits, financial difficulties, and special difficulties, housing or equipment needs, care arrangements, clothing, and transportation

– a parent may swing between the extreme attitudes of either wanting to abandon the child or trying to overprotect the child


• Siblings

– may have trouble with peer relationships, become restless & disobedient, display temper tantrums, or live in a state of emotional misery

– part of the difficulty is that the added stress on the parents reduces the amount of parental time and emotional energy available to them

– parents also worry about these potential effects on the siblings


• Grandparents

– the feedback a mother receives from her own mother may make her feel less supported and affect her ability to care for the baby

– in one study, maternal grandmothers were less supportive of their daughters if the daughters had infants with special needs rather than typically developing infants


• Effects on the parents’ marriage

– Most of the research on the effect of a child with special needs on marital discord has shown that there is little or no effect

• marital discord that could be directly traced to the child amounted to only 4% of the cases studied in a sample of 243 children with a rubella-related birth defect

– for almost 2/3 of families, having a child with special needs brings the couple closer together

• the parents collaborate more on child-rearing issues than do parents in families without an infant with special needs


• Effects on family interaction patterns

– changes in family routines, lack of vacations and other out-of-home visits, a limited social life, and parents’ neglect of other children

• these problems only occurred in about 25% of a sample of 243 children with a rubella-related defect

• some of these families had experienced similar disruptions even before the infants’ births

– the more serious disabilities requiring more care and adaptive equipment result in the biggest impacts on parental and family life


– a realistic assessment of the child’s abilities and limitations

– continued feelings of sadness – but about the child rather than about the effect on the parents

– a recovery of parents’ self-esteem

Picture from http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2194924/Ehowbabyexample-main_Full.jpg

• Resolution of these challenges usually means

• Most (75%) parents report the growth of feelings of love, joy and acceptance over time

http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2194924/Ehowbabyexample-main_Full.jpg


• The parent-child interaction

• The amount of disruption of the parent-infant interaction depends on the severity of the disability

• The mildest effects are seen in premature infants, many of whom would not be classified as disabled

Picture from: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2201/2077124126_a30f4ef276.jpg

• mothers are often overindulgent and overstimulating in the first year

• premature infants who were delayed in smiling were smiled at less by their mothers

• many of these differences disappear after the first year

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2201/2077124126_a30f4ef276.jpg


• Prematurity

– by age 3 years, differences between preterm and full-term groups are typically absent

– more subtle effects may persist until early and middle childhood (e.g., in emotional maturity, language skills, perceptual-motor functioning)

• In preterm groups, as for full terms, individual differences are best predicted by

– security of attachment at 1 year

– the severity of birth complications independent of prematurity

– the infant’s history of illness during the first years of life


• More serious disorders

– one study of 110 special-needs infants (with Down’s

syndrome, cerebral palsy, and developmental delay) found that the infants smiled and vocalized less than a matched sample of typically developing infants

• 33% of the special-needs infants never smiled in the first 2 years (by age 3, 80% had smiled)

• they also cried more at older ages than the controls

– children with cerebral palsy are likely to receive less maternal warmth if they are not walking by 3 years of age than if they walk earlier


• Down’s syndrome babies

• tend to be slower to develop than typical infants

• parents tend to interrupt the infants’ vocalizations more than with typically developing infants, even though the Down’s infants vocalize less

• most 4-month-olds will cease smiling and gaze away a their mother’s “still face,” Down’s infants actually gaze longer and may even smile

• this suggests that Down’s babies may be overstimulated by social interaction and find it easier to express themselves when mothers are relatively quiet


• Down’s syndrome babies

• maternal attention-directing strategies during object play are usually less successful & coordinated joint attention episodes are less frequent

• mothers are likely to respond less & attempt new interactions less than mothers of typically developing infants

• The prognosis for Down’s syndrome infants is better when there is high family cohesion and a sensitive mother-infant relationship

Picture from: http://pmhealth.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-has-down-syndrome-babies.html

http://pmhealth.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-has-down-syndrome-babies.html


• Down’s syndrome babies are less likely to be securely attached than typically developing ones

• may be due in part to their cognitive deficits and inability to understand the strange situation

• Infants with neurological disorders are more likely to be insecurely attached than other special needs infants


• Blind and deaf infants

– have sensory but not cognitive or motor deficits

• Blind infants

– are delayed by up to 1 year in communicative skills

– do not use gestures (e.g., pointing, showing, or giving), do not seem to be oriented to external objects, and show few intentional behaviors during the 2nd year

– do not pretend play or use spoken language until 3rd year or later

– do not imitate adults

• Parents feel less attached & are likely to interact less


• Blind infants’ parents

– feel less attached & are likely to interact less

– difficult to establish coordinated joint attention

– tend to overcompensate, which further delays the child’s initiative taking

• Once language begins to be acquired in the 3rd year, blind children become more socially oriented

– they do require an environment in which others remain visually

attentive to them and can pick up their sometimes subtle cues

Picture from: http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_visspring99-13.jpg

http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_visspring99-13.jpg


• Deaf children – most forms of coordinated joint attention are visual –

the deaf child can observe parents, imitate, gesture, and produce typical facial expressions

– deaf children may be somewhat delayed compared to hearing children

• Deaf mothers of deaf infants & hearing mothers of hearing infants are rated as more sensitive than mothers in dyads in which either mother or infant is deaf– the matched dyads also spend more time in episodes

of coordinated joint attention


• What can be done for special-needs infants?

– The more parents treat their infants as if they were typically developing children with special problems, the better off the children are in the long run

• in one study, the frequency of social interaction in the early part of the first year predicted the child’s competence at age 2

• several studies have shown that if mothers keep asking many questions, it can have a marked effect on special needs infants’ social & communicative development

Picture from: http://www.plan.ca/belong/uploaded_images/beautiful_baby_cdss-756468.bmp

http://www.plan.ca/belong/uploaded_images/beautiful_baby_cdss-756468.bmp


• Success has been obtained with intervention programs– designed to educate parents about their child’s disability

– that provide emotional support and a supportive network (other parents with similar problems)

– that teach parents how to respond to and anticipate the needs of their individual children

Picture from: http://www.hurstwic.org/activities/albums/recent/pix/baby_and_mom.jpg

http://www.hurstwic.org/activities/albums/recent/pix/baby_and_mom.jpg

Family & Society Nonparental Child Care

• National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study of early child care

– began in 1991

– studied 1,364 children nationwide• 76% Caucasian Americans; 13% African

Americans; 6% Hispanic Americans; 5% other minorities

• from a wide range of income and education levels

• using a wide variety of child care, including center child care, child care homes, and in-home care from relatives or nannies

Picture from: http://www.solopop.com/daycare2.jpg

http://www.solopop.com/daycare2.jpg


• NICHD study results

– on average 33 hours of nonmaternal care per week

– most infants placed into nonmaternal care prior to 4 months

– when they first entered care

• half of the infants were with the father or grandparent

• 20% were in child care homes

• 8% were in a child care center

– mothers with higher incomes and those who had an economic need to work were most likely to place their children in child care

– after the first year, there are an increasing number of children in center care


• The effects of child care depend on– the quality of care

– the quality of the family environment

Picture from www.tallaghtcreche.ie/our-rooms/baby-room.asp

http://www.tallaghtcreche.ie/our-rooms/baby-room.asp


• High-quality child care

– low ratios, trained caregivers, good facilities, etc. (p. 456)

– better caregiving from staff

• Correlated with successful outcomes for children

– children are more securely attached to their caregivers and their mothers and more competent with peers and with adults than are children in low-quality care

– children score better on school readiness & on cognitive and linguistic abilities, have fewer behavior problems


• The quality of the family environment

– Children in high-quality child care under age 1 did better in school at 8 & 13 years than others, but this was partly due to the fact that children who entered child care early had two professional parents

– An Israelian study found that preschoolers’ social competence & communicative skill were more related to positive parent-child interaction than to early child care experience

– NICHD study: if mothers were depressed and/or not contingently responsive to children, childcare children had lower scores on social & cognitive tests, and had more behavior & attachment problems


• Conclusions from research:

– for children who come from supportive and loving families, placement in high-quality child care does not adversely affect development & may even enhance it

– child care after 12 months is not harmful & might be beneficial

• child care infants are more cognitively & socially advanced and are more likely to show independence in compliance to rules

• infants older than 12 months are able to adjust to repeated separations from their mothers

Family & Society Child Care & Attachment Security

• A number of research studies have reported that

– infants are more likely to be insecurely attached when they have been in child care for at least 4 months before their first birthday (more than 20 hrs/week)

– in early child care samples, the proportion of secure attachments across all studies is 57% (vs. 65-75% in the U.S. on average)

– the difference in security between early child care & home care infants is small but statistically significant


• Most at risk for insecure attachments are boys who

– are difficult and/or fussy

– are insecure-avoidant

– have mothers who have strong career orientations, work full time, and express less anxiety about being separated from their infants

• In general, the quality of the mother-infant relationship is a stronger predictor of insecure attachments than the child care situation

– Insensitive mothering coupled with low-quality child care accounts for most of the reported insecurity of attachment


• When the mother is insensitive, a high-quality child care experience can be beneficial

– social and emotional competence in preschool is predicted by the security of attachment to the substitute caregiver and/or the quality of the early care, not by security of attachment to the mother

• This was found for infants in the U.S. and in Israeli kibbutzim in which the child’s primary attachment is with the metapelet

Family & Society Child Care – Earlier or Later?

• Attachment

– Under the age of 1 year, infants appear to be more sensitive to the effects of child care quality & the availability of attachment figures within the child care setting

• More hours in child care under age 1 is related to lower school readiness scores at age 5

– hours in child care after the age of 1 year is related to higher school readiness at age 5

Picture from: http://www.babies-and-sign-language.com/images/daycare-communicate-eachother.jpg

http://www.babies-and-sign-language.com/images/daycare-communicate-eachother.jpg

Family & Society Child Care – Policy & Practice

• The U.S. is one of the world’s wealthiest nations, but subsidizes child care for less than 10% of children under 6 years– compared to 100% in Sweden, 90% in France, and

50% in Israel and Hungary

• More than half of young children in the U.S. are in second-rate child care situations– substandard facilities, poor staff training, and high

staff turnover

– licensed child care facilities account for only 25% of out-of-home care

ApplicationsPoverty & Risk

• In the U.S. in 2005, 18% of children under age 5 were living in poverty

• The fastest growing poverty group is female-headed single families

• Childhood poverty rates are lower in other countries, and they have declined since 1980

– in 1980, the U.S. childhood poverty rate was 17%

– it was 10% in Canada, 8% in West Germany, 5% in Sweden, and 11% in the United Kingdom

ApplicationsCauses of Poverty

• Single parenthood

– a single adult has reduced earning power

– many single mothers, it is not advantageous for to work outside the home because of the added costs and risks of child care.

• Diverse populations

– in the U.S., poverty level varies as a function of race & ethnicity

– the percentage of African American children living in poverty is 3 times as high as for Caucasian children, and the rate for Hispanic children is twice as high as for Caucasian children

– the poverty rate of Caucasian children alone is higher than in most other wealthy nations

ApplicationsCauses of Poverty

• Lack of public support for families

– at least 25% of U.S. families living below the poverty level receive no benefits, while almost 100% of poor families receive benefits in Canada, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom

– in over 75% of poor U.S. families, one or both parents work

• of the remaining 25%, 15% have parents who do not work because of illness or disability or because they are past retirement age

• The economic system

– some alternatives to welfare might help

• e.g., better tax credits, a higher minimum wage, better child care alternatives, and better medical care; parent education & job training, community support & intervention

ApplicationsEffects of Poverty

• Poverty breeds mental and health risks

– increased & continuous stream of stressful life events, including job loss, worry about bills, eviction, illness, alcoholism and drug dependency, marital discord, assault, arrest, and imprisonment

– poor children receive lower-quality prenatal care, lower-quality day care, and lower access to informal and formal support systems

– these factors lead to increasingly dismal cycles of loss, stress, and despair & are compounded with racial and social-class prejudice


• Parents– less emotionally available & affectionate, harsher, and

more likely to punish minor child misbehavior

• Children– more depression, low self-esteem

– poor peer relations, social withdrawal, deviant behavior, aggressiveness (particularly boys), and lowered aspirations (especially girls)

– more infectious diseases

– do less well in language, school & cognitive development


• Conclusion

– Children under age 3 are disproportionately represented in poverty rates & may suffer more from the effects of poverty than older children

– Even small amounts of community support can have lasting positive effects on families and children living in poverty

– Without intervention, some of the effects of early malnutrition, disease, abuse, and neglect may be irreversible

Experiential ExercisesKinesthetic empathy

Part I: Walking

body inter-relationships1. move only one part of body, keeping other parts still2. coordinate different parts with each other3. have the left leg shake and the right arm rotate, etc.

space – taking up a lot of space with arms & legs extended vs. contracted & small

sequencing – try different walking sequences such as extending arm and leg on same side of body vs. opposite side

shape – rounded, straight, snake-like


Kinesthetic empathy – the ability to feel another’s experience simply by watching their movements

• First, the leader demonstrates some common states (e.g., sadness, haste, anger) with his or her body, and students: guess the feeling being demonstrated

• Then, students try posing• Proud

• Dejected

• Determination

• I’m cool

• Vigilant

• Toddler

• Talk about what each of these felt like


Part II – Leader & Follower

• Triads of: witness, walker, and follower

• In silence, the walker walks around; the follower tries to match the walk; and the witness observes. Change roles.

• Using kinesthetic empathy, discuss the experience of following and being followed in triads, sharing about what it was like to “be” the other person

• General discussion

• how do parents use these skills with their babies?

• how can this method be used in treating infants and young children with difficulties?

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Twelve to Eighteen Months Fogel Chapter 9 Created by Ilse DeKoeyer-Laros, Ph.D.

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