1

MODULE 2: SPECIAL TOPICS ON HUMAN

DEVELOPMENT
Prepared by

LUCILA D. VIPINOSA, EdD.

Course Facilitator

Overview

This module includes an overview of development in several areas that have lifelong
implications for a child’s functioning. Areas included are attachment, language development,
brain development, and emotional intelligence.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this module, it is expected that you can:

1. make an informed stand on four developmental issues;
2. relate theories and principles on development with the real-life scenario.

Indicative Content

 Attachment
 Brain development
 Language development
 Emotional development

Lesson 1: Attachment
Attachment refers to the close emotional bond children normally form with those who
care for them early on—a mother and/or father, and/or other caregivers. This happens
through regular, positive contact and interaction between the infant and the caregiver(s) or
other familiar figures, as when the adult feeds, comforts, plays with, and talks with the infant
and the infant responds. In this way, ideally, the infant learns that he/she can communicate a
need to the caregiver (e.g., by crying) and get a response that meets the need.

You can see attachment forming in the way a baby responds to the figure to whom he or she
is becoming attached; for instance, the baby touches the parent’s face.

Parental behaviors that promote secure attachment are sensitive and loving handling of
the infant and responses to his or her emotional states; for example, not over handling
or over stimulating a tired baby.

The infant also plays a part, ideally, by responding to and interacting positively with the
caregiver. It is harder for some parents to respond in a consistently loving way to an infant
who is often irritable and/or unresponsive.

1
John Bowlby, a child psychiatrist, first drew attention to the clinical importance of the
concept of attachment (Bowlby, 1969.) He theorized that children have an instinct to seek
or maintain proximity to their caregiver, which he called the attachment instinct. He
postulated that the pattern of an infant’s early attachment to parents would form the basis for
all later social relationships. According to Bowlby, children typically exhibit what he called
secure-base behavior, leaving the caregiver to explore their environment and returning to
seek comfort when they are anxious. He hypothesized that when the caregiver was
unavailable or only partially available during the first months of the child’s life, the
attachment process would be interrupted, leaving enduring emotional scars and predisposing
a child to behavioral problems. A child with separation anxiety also would be likely to spend
less time exploring his or her environment, which could interfere with future development in
the physical or cognitive domains.

Bowlby’s colleague, Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978,) went on
to describe four patterns of attachment that may develop based on early interactions between
child and caregiver. These are:
 Secure attachment – Infants separate readily from their caregivers when caregivers
leave, but then happily greet them when they return. Infants use their caregivers as a
secure base, leaving them to explore, but then returning to them for occasional
reassurance.
 Avoidant attachment – Infants rarely cry when their caregivers leave, and avoid
them upon their return. They do not reach for their caregivers in time of need.
 Ambivalent or resistant attachment – Infants become anxious even before their
caregivers leave, but then show ambivalence toward them when they return (seeking
them out and then resisting contact with them.) These infants do little exploring and
are hard to comfort.
 Disorganized-disoriented attachment – Perhaps the least secure attachment. Infants
show inconsistent, contradictory behavior. They greet their caregivers, but then turn
away or approach them without looking at them. They seem confused and afraid.

The child who is securely attached generally prefers the parent to a stranger and is
comfortable leaving the parent to explore farther afield, but will then return to the parent.
Children who are not so securely attached may not appear to prefer the parent, or may
indiscriminately seek attention and affection.

Attachment is important because it is the first kind of relational experience the baby has and
thus becomes the foundation for other relational experiences in life.

Many theorists believe attachment is necessary for the attainment of developmental tasks.
For example, Erikson describes the primary task for the first period of life as establishing
“basic trust versus basic mistrust.” The child who learns through attachment that his or her
needs will be met is more able to resolve this task positively, and is ready to proceed along
the normal developmental path. The child who does not learn this early in life may be at a
disadvantage developmentally, because this child cannot trust that his/her needs will be met.

Securely attached infants are more likely to become securely attached children. These
children are more likely to show:

 Self-esteem

2
  Independence and willingness to explore on their own
 Social and academic competence
 Trust in people
 Willingness to ask for help when they need it; and
 Success in their relationships with peers and significant adults.

Though early secure attachment is believed by many to be crucial to ongoing normal

development in later stages, consistency of attachment is also important. Trust can be lost if
attachment is not maintained. Attachments may also become more secure if parents or other
caregivers are able to improve their parenting and show more positive emotion in their
interactions with their children.

3
 Exercise:

Based on your experiences, discuss a situation where you have experienced or where you
Itobserved
is also important to recognize
a sibling exhibit that, in patterns
the following some cultures, children have more caregivers, or are
of attachment:
parented more by
Secure attachment siblings or grandparents, for example, than by parents. These children may
form more attachments or may form primary attachments, not to parents, but to other people.
___________________________________________________________________________
When multiple attachments are a cultural and social norm, you would expect to see children
___________________________________________________________________________
easily moving between adult caregivers.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
Lesson
Avoidant 3:attachment
Language Development
___________________________________________________________________________
Language development is crucial to the development of higher-level thinking, reasoning, and
___________________________________________________________________________
memory processes. Language gives us a way to experience and manipulate our world through
___________________________________________________________________________
symbols. For example, language gives children a way to express emotions without physically
___________________________________________________________________________
acting them out, and a way to relate to and learn from others’ thoughts and feelings (Fahlberg,
_______________________________________________________________________.
1991.)
Ambivalent or resistant attachment
___________________________________________________________________________
Children learn language in the social context—by hearing others use words and word
___________________________________________________________________________
combinations and connecting these with things, happenings, and other kinds of meaning.
___________________________________________________________________________
Words are symbols.
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
Attentive parents or other caregivers
Disorganized-disoriented help babies learn to talk in several ways: by talking with
attachment
them, especially slowly and distinctly, and as if they could understand whatever is being said; by
___________________________________________________________________________
talking about what children are looking at or doing; and by playing games with them that involve
___________________________________________________________________________
words and taking turns, as in conversation (for example, pat-a-cake.)
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Exposure to speech helps children learn to speak. More specifically, ways to help children
_______________________________________________________________________.
learn to speak are labeling (identifying the names of objects,) echoing (repeating what the child
says,) and expanding or recasting (restating what the child has said, but in a more sophisticated
form.)

4
Babies with normal hearing prepare for language development by beginning to coo around
2 months and to babble around 6 months. They add consonants and syllables to the coos from
6 to 14 months and, on average, by 7 months are making some sounds of mature spoken
language.

From 6 to 9 months, children begin to understand words, or have a receptive vocabulary.

They say their first words around 12 months, on average. These are usually words that name
important people (mama, dada,) objects (car,) or animals (doggie,) or words that convey
greetings or leave-takings (hi, bye-bye.)

Once the child speaks his/her first word, the spoken vocabulary grows rapidly. Between 18 and
24 months, it may grow from about 50 words to as many as 300 words.

At 20 to 26 months, children start making two-word combinations that mean something

(telegraphic speech.) By the end of the second year, most children are making simple sentences.
From 2 to 3 years into the school years, they are learning to make complex sentences. Parents
can help by encouraging younger children to make whole sentences.

Children have to learn many things in learning language: word meanings and shades of
meanings; pronunciations; word combinations and arrangements; sentence structure; nonverbal
accompaniments to spoken language; tone of voice; acceptable volume in various situations; and
adapting speech to make meaning clear to a variety of people.

Among the impediments to learning language are isolation, lack of response to attempts to speak,
and disabilities, such as deafness.

Culture plays a big part in how children learn languages. For example, in a large, extended
family that interacts regularly, a child is likely to be exposed to more talk and may learn more
words faster than a child who interacts with only one parent. Also, when the language spoken at
home is different from the language of the culture in which a family lives, children in the family
may have a harder time learning the culture’s language.

Gender also plays a role in language development, particularly at young ages. Research has
shown (Feingold 1992, 1993) that although both boys and girls appear to comprehend language
equally well, girls tend to produce language at earlier ages. As infants, girls produce more sounds
at an earlier age, use words sooner, and have larger vocabularies than boys. Usage of standard
grammar also proceeds more rapidly for toddler girls. This advantage in language production for
girls gradually diminishes until, by late adolescence, boys catch up.

5
 Exercise:

Observe a baby in the family or neighborhood. Try to list down 10 words that he or she
utters.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
In at least 100 words, explain how family and the neighborhood important in developing the
child’s vocabulary?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.

Lesson 4: Brain Development

Brain development begins in the third to fourth week after conception. By the end of the second
trimester, the child has more than 100 billion neurons, or nerve cells—all that he or she will
ever have. After birth, these neurons form connections, or synapses, in response to outside
stimulation. Learning occurs through these connections. Much of the brain’s growth and
development occurs during the first few years after birth. By age 3, a baby’s brain is
approximately 90% of its adult size. Thus, early stimulation and interaction with the world
are critical to determining the person we become.

Earlier thinking about children and how they learn viewed them as unreasoning beings who
simply took in what was going on around them in infancy without being able to make sense of it
until sometime later. More recent research on brain development has shown that this is not the
case. In fact, children are reasoning beings even in the early months of life. They take in and
assimilate information and experience, acquiring knowledge about the world and skills to
function in it.

From more recent brain research we know that:

 There are “windows of opportunity” for acquiring specific kinds of skills and
information, times when a part of the brain can pick up and use this new material more
easily than other times. (For example, children are best able to acquire music and
math skills from 1 to 5 years of age.)
 Acquiring skills or information at these prime times helps future development occur in
the best possible time and way.
 Learning (acquiring information and skills and knowing how to use them) occurs through
a combination of things, including genetics, interaction with and response from others,
and other environmental stimulation.
 Interactions with others and the environment help the child keep certain brain cell
connections and discard others. Connections that are used over and over form the basis of
the child’s brain organization and function. This is why stimulation and outside
opportunities for experience are important.
 The brain continues to develop throughout life to adapt to experience. This makes it
possible for individuals to continue learning and, in some cases, to reverse the
damage from periods of sensory deprivation. From what we know now, though, it is

6
 far better for a child to get optimal care and stimulation for brain development
early in life.

Exercise:
In at least 100 words, recall a childhood experience related to your learning experiences.
How do you think did it affect you in your interest to learn today? For example, as a child,
did your parents read books to you, which explains why your reading habits are now well-
established?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.

Lesson 5: Emotional Intelligence

Recently, there has been significant work on the concept of emotional intelligence. Daniel
Goleman, a chief reporter of and spokesperson for this work, describes it generally by saying that
IQ alone is not the most important thing for success. Rather, emotional intelligence, or
understanding and managing one’s feelings wisely, is more important. Some examples are:

 Being able to identify and talk about one’s feelings, such as anxiety and anger, and to see
how these direct thoughts and behaviors;
 Being able to control or redirect feelings to avoid fights or other dysfunctional behaviors;
 Knowing how to get along with other people despite differences;
 Being able to control one’s negative impulses and to delay gratification for a better future
outcome;
 Being assertive rather than passive;
 Negotiating rather than fighting;
 Taking responsibility for one’s actions;
 Following through on commitments; and
 Having an objective view of one’s positive and negative traits, and liking oneself despite
recognized imperfections.
 Thanks largely to Goleman’s work, emotional intelligence is being taught in some
schools to help children develop and use emotional competence in dealing positively with
personal problems and with differences between themselves and others.

Exercise:
“IQ alone is not the most important thing for success. Rather, emotional intelligence, or
understanding and managing one’s feelings wisely, is more important.” Agree or
disagee? Why? Explicitly discuss your answer in no less than 100 words. Cite specific
examples based on your experience.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.

7
References:

Corpuz, B., et al. (2015) Child and Adolescent Development. Lorimar Publishing
The Lifespan Perspective. Available at https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-
lifespandevelopment/chapter/the-lifespan-perspective/
Lifespan development and lifelong learning. Available at https://infed.org/mobi/life-span-
development-and-lifelong-learning.