CHAPTER 8: Emotional Development
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This chapter discusses the emotional development of children from birth to age three, including theoretical perspectives, emotional stages and milestones, definitions and descriptions, patterns of typical and atypical emotional development, and temperament.
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
- Discuss the theories about early emotional development.
- Highlight typical emotional development stages, milestones, and patterns.
- Understand the principles of behavioral regulation andsensory integration.
- Discuss temperament in relation to emotional development.
- Address disorders associated with atypical emotional development.
Key Terms and Concepts
Action is the infant’s ability to engage in adaptive goal-directed behavior.
Affect is the outward display of emotional states.
Arousal is the infant’s ability to stay alert and transition between behavioral states.
Attention is the infant’s ability to selectively focus on a task or event.
Behavioral regulation is the infants’ or toddlers’ ability to internally regulate themselves (sleeping, eating, and elimination, for example) and to self-regulate their behavior.
Differential emotions theory sees emotions as critical building blocks and prime movers in organizing and motivating developmental processes and all significant human behavior.Proponents identify seven principles that serve as the foundation of this theory.
Difficult children are children who often display negative emotion, have mood shifts, and are unpredictable and easily distracted.
Dyspraxia is a poor ability to conceive, organize, or carry out novel actions.
Easy children are children who rate moderate in intensity, adaptability, approachableness, and rhythmicity, and have predominantly positive moods.
Emotional stages and milestones, as identified by Greenspan and Greenspan, flow into each other.They signify different levels of emotional functioning. Failure to attain emotional milestones is associated with difficulties at subsequent emotional stages.
Emotions are the motivators of human behavior; they develop in the context of relationships.
Goodness of fit looks at the match between the expectations and interactions of the adult and the child’s behavior in relationship to these expectations.
Praxis is the ability of the brain to conceive of, organize, and carry out a sequence of unfamiliar actions.Praxis has three components:ideation, motor planning, and execution.
Psychosocial crises are the conflicts involved in the eight stages in Erikson’s psychosocial theory of emotional development.The successful resolution of these crises leads to positive social/emotional outcomes.
Sensory defensive infants and toddlers have low arousal thresholds and are easily overstimulated.
Sensory integration is the ability of the infant or toddler to take in information through the senses (vision, hearing, touch, movement, taste, and smell) and to combine these perceptions with information stored in the brain to organize it in a way that is useful and can produce meaning.
Sensory modulation is the child’s ability to manage and organize reactions to sensation in a useful way.
Sensory threshold is the zone in which the child is attentive to stimuli, with stimuli below the threshold going unnoticed and those above causing overstimulation.
Slow-to-warm-up children initially appear to have the characteristics of difficult children but do not show the intensity or persistence. Given time, they do in fact “warm up.” They have negative moods, but the intensity is low or mild. They can have either regular or irregular biological rhythms.
Temperament includes the infant’s general mood, activity level, regularity, approach/withdrawal, adaptability, physical sensitivity, intensity of reactions, mood, persistence, and resistance/distractibility.It is made up of predictable patterns of response and preferences.
Chapter Outline
Emotions
Theories Relating to Emotional Development
Emotional Development
Temperament
Sensory Integration and Behavioral Regulation
Atypical Emotional Development
Recommended Reading
Butterfield, P.M., Martin, C.A., & Prairie, A.P. (2004).Emotional connections: How
relationships guide early learning. Washington, DC: Zero to Three.
Gowen, J. W., & Nebrig, J. B. (2002). Enhancing early emotional development:
Guiding parents of young children. Baltimore: Brookes.
Greenberg, P. (1991). Character development: Encouraging self-esteem and self-
discipline in infants, toddlers, and two-year-olds. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Guerin, D. W., Gottfried, A. W., Oliver, P. H., & Thomas, C. W. (2003).Temperament:
Infancy through adolescence.New York:Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Hyson, M.(2004).The emotional development of young children:Building emotion-
centered curriculum (2nd ed.). New York:Teachers College Press.
Lieberman, A. F. (1993).The emotional life of the toddler.New York:The Free Press.
Williamson, G. G., & Anzalone, M. E. (2001). Sensory integration and self-regulation in
infants and toddlers: Helping very young children interact with their environment. Washington, DC: Zero to Three Press.
Relevant Web Sites
FACETS (Family-guided Approaches to Collaborative Early-intervention Training and Services) is a collaborative outreach program for infants and toddlers with disabilities focusing on early intervention. This joint project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, between the University of Kansas and FloridaStateUniversity, provides training for family-guided, activity-based intervention strategies. It provides modules that can be used and other resources.
Maternal and Child Health Library run by MCHB provides accurate and timely information on a broad range of topics related to child and adolescent health.
Parent Training and Information Centersin each state provide training and information to parents of infants, toddlers, school-aged children, and young adults with disabilities and the professionals who work with their families. This assistance helps parents participate more effectively with professionals in meeting the early intervention needs of infants and toddlers with disabilities.The Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers and the National Technical Assistance Center is located at the PACER center in Minneapolis, MN, and provides support for all parents centers as well as information on the location of state parent centers.
Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health at Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, is designed to promote the transformation of mental health care by increasing knowledge of supports, services, and policies that build on family strengths, are community based and family driven, promote cultural competence, and are based on evidence of effectiveness.
Research and Training Center (RTC) on Early Childhood Development isa major initiative of the Center for Evidence-Based Practicesat the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute.Its major aim is to implement a coordinated and advanced program of applied research on knowledge and practice that improves interventions associated with the healthy mental, behavioral, communication, preliteracy, social-emotional, and interpersonal development of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with or at risk for developmental disabilities.The RTCWeb site provides parents, therapists, early childhood educators, and early interventionists, as well as researchers with information about effective early childhood intervention practices based on research.
TaCTICS (Therapists as Collaborative Team members for Infant/Toddler Community Services) is an outreach training project funded by a U.S. Department of Education grant. It provides tools to embed intervention in the child/family's daily routines, activities, and events as a context for assessment and intervention.
The Bright Futuresfor Infants, Children, and Adolescents initiative is a collaboration between MCHB and the AmericanAcademy of Pediatrics.Bright Futures seeks to improve health promotion and preventive services including those for children with social emotional problems.To learn about the missions, activities, guidelines, and effectiveness of Bright Futures, you may access the MCHB government Website with a one-page timely overview.Bright Futures also has its own Website for those who want to find more information about it.
The Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice(CECP) supports and promotes a reoriented national preparedness to foster the development and the adjustment of children with or at risk of developing serious emotional disturbance. Their Website includes monographs on promising practices in children’s mental health.
The Center for Evidence-Based Practices: Young Children with Challenging Behavior has the mission of promoting the use of evidence-based practice to meet the needs of young children who have, or are at risk for, problem behavior. The Center has engaged in a process to identify and describe the current state of knowledge pertaining to evidence-based practices for young children with challenging behavior. Resources on their Website include synthesis documents of what is known about effective practices.
The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) is a national center focused on strengthening the capacity of child care and Head Start programs to improve the social and emotional outcomes of young children. The Center is developing and disseminating evidence-based, user-friendly information to help early childhood educators meet the needs of the growing number of children with challenging behaviors and mental health challenges in childcare settings.
The Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) serves to meet the needs of the maternal and child health populations of the United States and its jurisdictions.
The Tracking, Referral and AssessmentCenter for Excellence (TRACE)is a major initiative of the Center for Improving Community Linkages at the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute.Its major goal is to identify and promote the use of evidence-based practices and models for improving child find, referral, early identification, and eligibility determination for infants, toddlers, and young children with developmental delays or disabilities who are eligible for early intervention or preschool special education.