Aspects of Child Psychology - Essay Example

CHILD PSYCHOLOGY Of CHILD PSYCHOLOGY INTRODUCTION In 2002, two children representing a case of severe developmental retardation were discovered and taken into custody. The children, an older sister (referred to as F) and a younger brother (referred to as G), were found to have achieved no more than the physical and mental age level normal to children 1 year of age or less, in spite of their actual respective chronological ages of 6 and 5. Investigation revealed that the children's developmental retardation was due both to extreme social isolation and to complex deprivation. By following their sensorimotor, linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional development from the time of discovery to the date of this writing, we have found that their physical and motor development or recovery has proceeded smoothly, whereas their linguistic and cognitive development has continued to show such weaknesses as defective functioning of internal speech (Vygotsky, 2002) and poor ability to deal with abstract, linguistic subjects. F and G have continued to exhibit a tendency toward undersocialization, but this has at times been rather a positive factor in the process of attaining ego identity during adolescence, especially for G, serving to protect him from unreasonable social pressures to conform to group behavior. In combination with other cases of severe deprivation, the case of F and G holds some interesting implications for theories of human development, particularly the notion of critical periods. DISCUSSION This principle can probably be applied to various other areas as well (For example, many instances of deprivation have been reported in which attachment occurs much later than normal.) And in the case of F and G, though they still could not walk at 5 and 6 years of age, they acquired the ability during the brief period of 1 week following rescue. Clearly, the organism must possess a self-regulating mechanism pertaining to development that is of a higher order than mere homeostasis. The problem remains to elucidate the conditions necessary to initiate and terminate this developmental state of hibernation (Fujinaga, 2001). If these principles prove to be true, then at the very least, the concept of a critical period in the understanding of human development obviously needs to be reconsidered. This concept attained sudden recognition through the imprinting experiments of Lorenz (1935), but it was originally reported as a law of behavioral development in birds, and no evidence has been provided that it can be applied without alteration to the area of human development. The term "critical period" refers to a specific, inherent developmental period during which a stimulus condition determining in an all or nothing manner the development of a specific type of behavior must occur, lest that behavior not appear in the individual. It hypothesizes the existence of a firmly age-bound developmental period that controls the manifestations of a certain behavioral pattern or characteristic. However, if we assume that the process of human development has a high degree of plasticity and potential for self-regulation, the relevance of a postulated age-bound critical period becomes limited. The existence of a functional preparatory system to support manifestation of certain behavior seems to be a more important factor than an age-bound developmental period Interpersonal and social input or stimuli are important items in orienting the human organism towards normal development (Bower, 2003, 1999). In the case of F and G, even though they possessed the competence to walk, it was not manifested as performance until after their rescue and placement in a normal social environment. The fact that children ordinarily learn to walk at about 12 or 14 months of age is thought to be due to maturation. However, in F's and G's case maturation had not yet occurred at 5 or 6 years of age. Thus, it may be not only because of maturation that children walk at 14 months of age; walking may also depend on the effects of modeling of the parents' walking, social reinforcement, or the expectations of others. If that were not the case, it would be impossible to explain why an infant would abandon crawling, a safe and sure method of locomotion, in favor of walking, which is unsteady and dangerous at first. However, such social factors remain unnoticed as they are normally available and operate equally in all children. Maturation should not beoveremphasized in trying to understand the development of motor skills such as walking. The tenacity of the influence of interpersonal and social stimuli is easily seen in the function of socialization that is involved in the formation of attachment. There was a great difference between F and G in the early stages d the process of linguistic development. And although we can surmise that the difference in their level of linguistic readiness before rescue was also a factor in this, what really deepened this difference was the dissimilarity in their formation of attachment to their nurses. G did not develop attachment at test, and interacted little with his nurse, but when his nurse was changed to one capable of better rapport with him, he rapidly formed attachment, which was accompanied by swift initiation of the development of language. The formation of attachment seems to constitute a functional preparatory system for linguistic development that is of great significance. Following attachment, not only language but also socio-emotional development came to show rapid progress. Attachment thus undoubtedly constitutes a basic step toward socialization. In the present case, lack of attachment in the early period apparently led to under-socialization. In addition, serious PSD appeared in our case even though active cruelty was not observed. Accordingly, the main cause of PSD can be surmised to be lack of proper nutrition, lack of attachment, and social isolation rather than cruel maltreatment. According to Lamb (2004), infants are greatly influenced by their parents through paying attention to the parents' verbal instructions, but are also influenced by older children, imitating their handling of toys. In other words, older children give infants mastery of the object environment. If this is the case, then F and G, who had much richer mutual contacts with their older sisters C and D and especially with their older brother E than with their parents, were consequently able to acquire a good deal of mastery of the object environment but were seriously lacking in linguistic stimuli from adults. For that reason, their acquisition of internal speech capability was greatly impaired, aggravating their linguistic retardation, and the imperfect stimuli received from their only slightly older brother and sisters remained at an insufficient level for the purpose of language acquisition. If cognitive development occurs because of the internalization of sensrimotor operations, as claimed by Piaget, then it is noteworthy that there were extremely few sensorimotor restrictions in the case of F and G as compared to other cases of severe deprivation. There was only a slight degree of delayed development in their fine motor coordination, but the development of actions such as walking that require the use of large muscle groups was delayed. However, because they had been free to crawl about and explore the approximately 100 square meter temple garden, they certainly had repeated experiences of the reversibility and associability of the locomotive process as explained by Piaget (2002). Nevertheless, important insufficiencies were seen in their cognitive development. As stated earlier, these were mainly problems requiring abstract or internal speech functions and short-term memory. Of the two, the insufficiency in short-term memory may derive from an organic and/or structural problem caused by lack of proper nutrition. The defects in abstract and internal speech capabilities, however, are probably not due to the same cause. On the other hand, with regard to Piaget's conservation problems, although F could not be tested, G at least did not show insufficiencies. More-over, given that their results on such performance tests as SPM indicate a her high level of ability, that they showed almost no behavioral impairment in a concrete, everyday context, and that genetic defects were not necessarily involved, it seems reasonable to postulate that they originally possessed a high intelligence level. Though P.M. and J.M. showed much greater sensory and motor constraints than did F or G, their cognitive recovery progressed far more rapidly and smoothly. In the present case, though F and G possessed more supportive conditions for the establishment of manipulation than did P.M. and J.M., and although they in fact exhibited the Piagetian concrete operations, cognitive insufficiencies not seen in P.M. or J.M., were severe in F and G. To understand this, two possibilities come to mind. The first is that Piget's (2002) cognitive development theory may not be appropriate in comparing cases of severe deprivation. Rather, Vygotsky's (2002) theory that only when thought meets language does it become human thought may be more appropriate. Against this, there is a second possibility that existing intelligence and other such tests may not necessarily be adequate measures of the ability to perform the operations of which Piaget speaks; or because such tests include many unrelated problems, nonessential developmental retardation and impairments may be expressed in the IQ scores. However, unless one holds absolute faith in Piaget's theory, this second possibility is difficult to accept. In contrast to Genie, P.M., and J.M., it is curious that F and G seemed to have remembered almost nothing of the time before their rescue. One explanation for this may be that many of the events that Genie, P.M., and J.M. were able to recall involved cruelty or other forms of abuse associated with anxiety and fear. It may be necessary for this kind of strong emotional background to exist for the formation of early episodic memory. If this be the case, then it lends strong support to our theory that F and G were not exposed to aggressive cruelty or extreme abuse. Another possibility is that stable long-term memory may require prior development of a sufficient level of linguistic ability before it can be acquired. If so, then at least a considerable level of linguistic readiness must already have been completed in Genie and P.M. and J.M. during their isolation, which must have been lacking in F and G (Fujinaga, 2001). These two possibilities are more than likely intertwined in the case of F's and G's lack of early recollection. It is possible that, under the circumstances of insufficient linguistic ability where linguistically coded long-term memory is not yet present, only episodic memories accompanied by strong emotional background may be stored. It is likely that neither condition was present in F and G. This sort of case necessitates long-term follow-up study, as the possibility of change is great. It is possible to verify positive changes--improvements, recovery, development--during only a limited study period, but without long-term study it is difficult to verify insufficiencies, handicaps, and negative results. 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