Early Experience & Later Life

Ching-Fen Hsu

2013/11/15

Lecture 8

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Out of Home Care: A Threat to Attachment?

• Increasing # of 1y nonparental child care in US

(1) growing # of single- parent 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

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

Effects of Deprivation

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

• Couldn’t walk, amazing ability in perceiving spatial relationships

• Developed language & attachment

• Isolation: physical,

emotional, intellectual

influence

How do E conditions during

& following isolation

interact with each other?

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

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

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?

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

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

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

• (2) play with agemates

• (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

doubled peer interaction rate

Some improvement, no

difference with control group

Emotion Development

Teaching Implications

Questions?