Emotional and Social
Development of Infants
Comparing Emotional and Social
Development
• Emotional Development is the process of learning to
recognize and express one’s feelings and to establish one’s
identity as a unique person
– Healthy emotional development leads to a person that can
handle stress, shows empathy towards others, and has selfconfidence
• Social Development is the process of learning to interact
with others and to express oneself to others
– Healthy social development leads to a person who shows
tolerance for others, can communicate well with others, and
listen to different points of view before acting
• Both social and emotional development are connected
– Influences include bond between parent and child, atmosphere
of home, and temperament of child
Attachment
• Babies have a need for physical contact
• Attachment- bond between parent and child
– Requires more than physical contact, there should be interaction as
well
– A gentle massage can soothe a baby and promote bonding
– A baby who is left alone most of the time except for physical care may
fail to respond to people and objects
– Research from Baylor University: abused and neglected children had
brains 20-30% smaller than average
– Infants smiles can fade, cries weaken, and can become withdrawn
when no attention or encouragement is offered
• Failure to Thrive- baby does not grow and develop properly
• How you care for a baby helps build trust
– Keep fed, dry, warm vs. rigid schedule of feeding and no comforting
when crying
Emotional Climate of the Home
• Baby’s catch on to an adults feelings and
mood
– Can become irritable and fussy if adult is
– Bitterness and mistrust can hinder a baby’s
healthy development
– Keep calm language between caregivers
• Write a paragraph describing the ideal
emotional climate for an infant.
– What might keep homes from having an ideal
climate? What effects will those factors have on
an infant. What can a family do to help an infant
in that situation.
• How does the emotional climate of the home
affect older children? Is this only an issue for
babies, or is it relevant for children of all ages?
The Baby’s Own Temperament
• Baby’s bring their own individuality to each
situation
• Different temperaments are revealed based in
how they react to a situation
• Do you think people have the same
temperament as adults that they had as
children?
9 Different Ways to Look at Temperaments
• Intensity- how strong or weak the child’s emotional responses
are
• Persistence- determined to complete an action vs. being
persuaded
• Sensitivity- strong reactions to feelings vs. accepting what
comes
• Perceptiveness- easily distracted vs. handling several tasks at
once
• Adaptability- easy to adjust vs. bothered by surprises
• Regularity- follow strong patterns vs. each day is different
• Energy- physically active vs. move much less
• First Reaction- dive right in vs. hold back
• Mood- cheerful vs. cranky
How Behavior is Learned
• Infants learn how to behave with others based on their
relationship with others, and depends on the
caregivers
• Babies learn physical and social behavior the same way
• Water signals bath time, rocking signals sleep; seeing the same
action brings about the same response repeated times
• Babies learn that certain behaviors are rewarded with
positive and negative responses
– Receiving more negative attention can cause problems
• Children will do negative things to get attention
• Avoid mixed messages
• Use consistency, act the same way in each situation
Emotions in Infancy
• Only 2 emotions when the babies are born
– Pleasure or satisfaction- baby is quiet
– Pain or discomfort- when the baby cries
• End of 1st or 2nd month- show delight by
smiling
– Pg 308-309 in text shows when emotions develop
during the first year
Crying and Comforting
• “easy” baby- one who does not cry often and
easy to comfort
• “difficult” baby- cry often and loudly and hard
to comfort
A Baby Who Cries Needs Attention and
Care:
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Is there a physical problem?
Diaper change or hungry?
Too cold or too hot?
If the baby does not need any of these, the
baby needs comfort
Comfort Measures to Try
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Cuddle with baby in a rocking chair
Move the baby to a new position
Talk softly to the baby or sing
Offer a toy to interest and distract the baby
Stroke the baby’s back to give comfort
Self-Comforting Techniques
• Suck on a pacifier, thumb, or fist
– pacifier safety:
– never tie pacifier to a string and hang around
baby’s neck
– check for cuts and tears
– clean often
• Blanket or stuffed toy
Colic
• Where baby is extremely fussy every day
– Can cry anywhere between 6pm to midnight
– Reflux-partially digested food comes back up
– Gas can gather in stomach and make baby fussy
• Breastfed mothers should avoid milk products,
cabbage, caffeine, and onions
• Formula fed babies should use a soy-based formula, or
specialty formulas for colic
Signs of Social Development in Infancy
• The first days of life- babies respond to human voices
• One month- usually stop crying when lifted or touched, face brightens
when sees a familiar face
• Two months- smile at people, enjoy watching people
• Three months- turn head in response to a voice, want companionship and
physical care
• Four months-laugh out loud, look to others for entertainment
• Five months- show interest in other family members, cry when left alone
in room, start to babble
• Six months- love company and attention
• Seven months- prefer parents over other family members or strangers
• Eight months- prefer to be in a room with other people, can usually crawl
• Nine to ten months- active socially, love attention
• Eleven and twelve months- friendly and happy, sensitive to emotions
around them, like to be the center of attention
Stranger Anxiety
• A fear of unfamiliar people usually expressed
by crying
– Shows that the baby’s memory is improving
– Not a good time to introduce sudden changes in
activities or caregivers
Intellectual Development of
Infants
Learning in the First Year
• Hear, see, taste, smell, and feel are the
building blocks of learning for infants
• A baby’s ability to learn from the senses is
called perception
– Ex: newborn sees object, 3 month old realizes that
it’s three dimensional, then develops hand-eye
coordination to grasp and handle object
4 abilities that show a baby’s growing and thinking
power in the first year of life:
1. Remembering- information from the senses is interpreted
– ex: baby stops crying when someone comes in the room because he
knows that he is likely to be picked up
2. Making associations- linking two things together
– ex: baby associates parent with receiving comfort
3. Understanding cause and effect- the idea that one action results in
another action or condition
– ex: baby shuts his eyes, it gets dark; baby opens his eyes, it get light
again
• As motor skills develop, cause and effect learning changes
– can pull string on a toy to make it move
– they have an understanding of their own power to make
things happen
• Babies learn by repetition
– baby drops a bowl on the floor from the high chair to be sure
that every time it hits the ground
– parents can become frustrated
4. Paying attention- a baby’s attention span grows longer
– attention span- the length of time a person can
concentrate on a task without getting bored
– if an object is presented over and over again, the
baby’s response will become less enthusiastic
– bright babies have a short attention span- they tend
to lose interest sooner than babies of average or
below average intelligence
• beyond infancy, children with above average
intelligence have a longer attention span
Piaget’s Theories
• Piaget- swiss psychologist who studied how children learn
• Piaget found that intellectual development followed a
pattern
– Children learn to master one thinking skill before they master
another
– Children cannot be forced by parents or teachers to develop
understanding any more faster than their abilities mature
– Children who do not get a chance to apply their developing skills
may never reach their full potential
– Children need a constant opportunity for learning
– Learning stages appear in the same order, but ages of stages
differ
Piaget Identified 4 Major Periods of
Development
1. The sensorimotor period
– birth to age two
– babies learn primarily through their senses and own actions
– object permanence- at 10 months, learn that objects continue
to exist even when they are out of sight
2. The preoperational period
– age two to seven
– children think about everything in terms of their own activities
and that they perceive at the moment
– concentration is limited to one thing at a time
– solve problems by pretending or imitating , rather than thinking
it through
– may not be aware of what is real and make believe
3. The concrete operations period
– age seven to eleven
– children can think logically but still learn best from direct experience
– for problem solving, they still rely on actually being able to see or
experience the problem
– logical thinking is possible
– can comprehend that operations can be reversed
4. The formal operations period
– age eleven through adulthood
– capable of abstract thinking
• what might have been the cause of an event without really
experiencing that cause
• allows problem solving just by thinking
– can understand deeper, and less obvious feelings
Using Piaget’s Ideas
• Are the boundaries of his stages set to rigidly?
– In different experiments, children have been
shown to understand concepts before the stage
that Piaget said they should
– Young children learn in their own ways
– Older children learn through symbolic thinkingthe use of words and numbers to stand for ideas
– Younger children rely on concrete experience
Helping Babies Learn
Encouraging Learning
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Encouraging learning depends on the attention, knowledge, and time of parents
and caregivers
Ways to encourage learning
– Learn about child development- provide learning experiences that are age
appropriate
– Give your time and attention- don’t need attention every waking moment
– Provide positive feedback- when a new skill is demonstrated, respond with
praise
– Express your love- this will help the baby grow self-confident and provide
encouragement
– Talk- builds feelings of security, helps the brain grow
Have a safe learning environment
– Allow as much freedom as possible
– Limit time restricted in a playpen or in one room
– Childproof the home
• place gates at the top and bottom on stairs
• safety latched on cabinets
• plastic plugs in light sockets
The Importance of Play
• Play is work and pleasure
• Playtime is essential to intellectual
development and toys are tools for learning
• Play is a physical necessity- it strengthens
muscles and refines motor skills
Appropriate Toys for Different Ages
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Birth to three months:
– bright colors and interesting sounds
– mobiles
Four to six months:
– things to touch, handle, bang, shake, etc
– small to handle, but too large to swallow
– objects with different textures
– simple picture books
Seven to nine months:
– things to handle, throw, shake, etc
– anything that makes a noise; blocks, balls, things to stack,
Ten to twelve months:
– things to crawl after
– things to push or pull if walking
– things to manipulate such as baskets or containers that they can put things in
to and then dump them out
– picture books
Choosing Toys
• Look for toys that encourage participation and
use
• Simple to complex with age
• “educational” toys can be expensive
• Household items such as plastic measuring cups
and spoons, cardboard box as a “house”, pots and
pans, etc
• Look for toys that will remain interesting and
appropriate
– Ex: blocks, used as many different ages
Developing Communication Skills
• Babies should show a steady improvement in
communication skills
• By the end of the first year, babies can make most
of their needs and wants known without words
• Crying develops different patterns for different
problems
• Babies send messages through movements and
gestures
• Babies communicate by using special sounds such
as giggling, shrieking, and grunting
Learning to Speak
• First, baby must be able to associate meanings with
words
• Listening to other people talk, especially to the baby, is
essential for an infant’s language development
• Babies get ready for speech by babbling
– Babbling- preparation for saying recognizable words
– Encourage by responding and imitating the baby’s babbling
• First words are understandable between 8-15 months
– Don’t have large vocabulary or combine words into simple
sentences until after first birthday
Milestones of Language Development
• 1-6 months: coos, gurgles, and squeals; experiments
different sounds by changing the shape of the mouth
• 7-12 months: respond to their name, add actions to words
such as “bye-bye”; connect words to meanings
• 13-18 months: vocabulary grows and can use words in
combinations such as “no nap”
• 18 months-2 years: can learn 12 words a day, use words to
express feelings
• 2-2 ½ years: construct 3 and 4 word sentences, use
pronouns
• 2 ½ -3 years: speak in longer sentences, use past and
present tenses, use plurals, understand that order of words
can affect the meaning in a sentence