Ten to Twelve Months

1. Ten to Twelve Months Fogel Chapter 8 Created by Ilse DeKoeyer-Laros, Ph.D.

2. Ten to Twelve Months Physical and Motor Development Perceptual Development Cognitive Development Emotional Development Social and Language Development Family and Society • Experiential Exercises

3. Ten to Twelve Months From 10 to 12 months brings several of the most important achievements of the infancy period infants develop strong and permanent attachments to their primary caregivers, typically the members of the immediate family they prefer to stay close to these people, they do not like separations, and they may become afraid of strangers under certain circumstances the infant’s sense of security or insecurity in those attachment ties has lasting implications for mental health and the success of interpersonal relationships Infants develop a subjective sense of self they learn ways to communicate their perceptions and feelings to others and at the same time learn that others have a view of the world different from their own

4. Physical & Motor Development By the age of 1 year, infant growth rates have leveled off most year-old boys are between 28 1/4 inches (71.75 cm) and 32 inches (81.25 cm) in length girls are between 27 1/2 inches (69.85 cm) and 31 1/4 inches (79.38 cm) both boys and girls will continue to grow at a rate of about 4 to 5 inches (10 to 13 cm) per year for the next several years At 1 year, boys weigh between 18 1/2 and 26 1/2 pounds (8.4 to 12.0 kg) girls weigh between 17 1/4 and 24 3/4 pounds (7.8 to 11.2 kg) By the 12th month, most babies are eating a variety of solid foods, including table foods that are cut up for them most infants are holding their own spoons and can drink from a cup with both hands by this time, almost all infants will have experienced teething pains and will have several teeth to help them chew their food

5. Physical & Motor Development 11 months is the average age at which infants can stand alone (the range is 9 to 16 months) At 11 3/4 months, the average baby can walk alone (the range is 9 to 17 months) By 1 year, most infants can sit down from a standing position, and most can climb up and down stairs by crawling

6. Physical & Motor Development Infants between 3 and 15 months were observed every 3 weeks in a laboratory going up and down a moderate slope The methods used to go up and down depended upon whether the infant was a belly crawler (also called a creeper; see Chapter 7), a hands-and-knees crawler, or a walker Most of the infants adapted their locomotion by checking out the slope in relation to their abilities The more experience they had with the slope, the more conservative they became in their method and the less need there was to rescue the infant from a possible fall With experience, infants began to make “smart” locomotor decisions that required less adult guidance, and parents reported a similar progression at home

7. Physical & Motor Development Infants used four different strategies, depending upon their ability there was the quick glance followed by a plunge, typically when infants felt the surface was safe enough to proceed if the glance suggested some difficulty, the infants took a long look while swaying their bodies, then proceeded with their typical method of locomotion if that did not work, infants took more time to look, and they also touched the slope to check the slant this was sometimes followed by their typical means of locomotion and sometimes by an alternative means if these techniques did not work, as a last resort, infants would hold onto the landing and try out different means of locomotion before proceeding at this point, if they perceived the slope as too risky they would await a rescue from the adult if not, they typically chose a sliding method

8. Physical & Motor Development The first months of independent walking initiate what some refer to as the toddler period of infant development the label “toddler” seems to derive from the characteristic gait of the child who has not fully mastered the skill of walking the earliest forms of childhood bipedalism have a distinct resemblance to a duck out for a jog When adults walk, both legs are moving at the same time: while one is moving forward, the other moves backward relative to the body This kind of movement is called symmetrical gait In the gait of toddlers, many steps are symmetrical, but many are also unsymmetrical this happens because the toddlers often plant one foot and then seem to fall forward onto the other foot in a robot-like walk toddlers still have trouble balancing and they need to walk this way to keep from falling

9. Physical & Motor Development Smoothness of gait reaches nearly adult levels about 6 months after the infant begins walking, regardless of the age at which the infant started taking steps If infants are given support by an adult, their variability lessens, and they seem to be better-coordinated walkers this suggests that balance, not the timing of the limb movements, is the limiting factor balance improves gradually over time with increases in muscle strength and experience walking Locomotion has benefits other than the ability to move from place to place after beginning to walk, 10-month-old infants increase their frequency and duration of social contacts this occurs whether the walking is supported or unsupported it appears that an upright infant is more likely to be able to look, vocalize, and smile at adults

10. Physical & Motor Development Locomotor experience enhances cognitive development one of the tests typically used to assess cognitive knowledge is the ability to search for hidden objects infants with more locomotor experience, who are apparently more accustomed to moving around in the environment, are the most likely to persist in searches for hidden objects The development of walking also facilitates the search for hidden objects by blind infants, even though blind infants walk later than sighted infants Being able to move oneself through the environment is essential for understanding spatial arrangements and the locations of things in that space

11. Physical & Motor Development The motor skill of reaching continues to improve during this period between 6 and 8 months, infants discover that they can lean forward to get objects just outside their reach by 10 months, infants understand the limits of how far they can reach both by leaning forward and by extending their arms by 12 months, infants are able to use mechanical and social aids to get things out of their reach, such as using a long object to get another or asking an adult for help

12. Physical & Motor Development Fine motor development is linked to cognitive and perceptual development In one research study, infants at 6, 9, and 12 months were observed while playing with objects that differed in weight, shape, or texture infants were handed one object to explore and then given another differing only in one property between 6 and 12 months, mouthing the objects decreased, while fingering increased. the 12-month-olds also used more actions that were specific to the properties of the object Related research has shown that by 12 months, infants use touching, listening, watching, and mouthing as alternative sources of information gathering This involves more than intersensory coordination; it is the coordination of different types of motor skills in the service of directed exploration of objects

13. Physical & Motor Development This research shows that by 12 months, infants are using specific actions that are adapted to the type of object they are holding Motor skill improvements and improvements in the ability to relate information cross-modally (such as between vision and touch) are essential in fostering cognitive development because they put infants into direct contact with more aspects of their world

14. Conceptualizing Relationships between Objects & Events Perceptual & Cognitive Development By the age of 7 months, infants are just beginning to understand that objects exist as whole entities and they are starting to categorize objects on the basis of their similarity to a prototype By 10 months, infants are beginning to discover the relationships between objects, between people and objects, and between people This can be seen in the development of relational play relational play is action that demonstrates a knowledge of the relationships between two objects, for example, putting lids on pots, cups on saucers, or spoons in cups the more perceptually distinct the two objects, the more likely it is that babies will combine them correctly

15. Conceptualizing Relationships between Objects & Events Perceptual & Cognitive Development Infants of this age are also able to perceive the relationship between a tool and its use Infants first saw a toy sitting on the far end of a long piece of cloth The near end of the cloth was pulled by an experimenter, moving the toy closer to the experimenter Next they saw the toy sitting next to the cloth In one instance the cloth was pulled and the toy did not move closer (as expected) and in another instance the cloth was pulled and the toy moved closer (an impossible event) The infants were surprised when seeing the impossible event, suggesting that they understood the relationship between the cloth tool and the object being retrieved

16. Conceptualizing Relationships between Objects & Events Perceptual & Cognitive Development In another variant of this procedure, infants watched one puppet (the giver) give a flower to another puppet (the receiver) when the two puppets’ positions were reversed, the infants still expected the original giver puppet to continue being the giver regardless of physical location Forming relationships between objects can also be seen in studies in which infants were placed in front of a tray containing different groups of identical objects for example, four identical human figures, four balls of the same color, and four identical toy cars six-month-olds pick up the objects in random sequence, even though they can visually distinguish the different types of objects in a standard habituation procedure by 12 months, infants will pick up three or four identical objects in a row before going on to pick up other objects

17. Conceptualizing Relationships between Objects & Events Perceptual & Cognitive Development By 10 months, infants are able to classify pictures of animals (dogs versus cats), male versus female faces, and plants versus kitchen utensils the ability of infants of this age to categorize objects is related to their familiarity with those objects rather than to some abstract ability to categorize objects Infants of this age are also able to perceive the relationship between a prior event and a subsequent event, that is, between a cause and an effect infants can understand that when one toy car hits another toy car, the second one should move as a result of the collision they also understand the relationships between faces and voices, that a male voice belongs with a male face and a female voice belongs with a female face

18. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development In these studies, infants are acting as if their object play has particular goals, such as combining objects in a meaningful way This deliberate combination of different actions into a unified pattern of behavior suggests that infants are intending to act in this way This is different from what occurred in earlier periods, when infants first discovered actions by chance and then repeated those actions as primary or secondary circular reactions This intentional and deliberate form of action is what Piaget called the coordination of secondary circular reactions In Observations 8.1 and 8.2, Jacqueline’s pushing away of her parent’s hand shows how the infant can combine different actions with each hand to achieve a goal

19. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development Notice that to perform these deliberate actions, the infant must relate two simpler secondary circular reactions, such as holding the toy in one hand and pushing the adult away with the other Infants are also relating two actions when they search for hidden objects in order to find an object that they see being hidden behind a barrier or a cover, infants have to move the barrier with one hand and grasp the uncovered object with the other hand Piaget found that by 10 months, infants will readily search for the hidden object and seem delighted to find it under the cover

20. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development Now suppose you have two identical handkerchief-sized pieces of colored cloth on a table at which you are sitting opposite the infant You engage the infant with an attractive toy, such as a set of colored keys, and then you hide the keys under one of the pieces of cloth Infants 10 months and older, but not younger, will lift the cloth to retrieve the keys Now suppose you take the keys back from the baby and hide them under the other piece of cloth Infants younger than about 15 months typically will look under the first piece of cloth and will not persist in looking under the second piece of cloth to find the object even though it was hidden in their plain view

21. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development This mistaken search for the missing object is called the A-not-B error by infancy researchers the infants who find the object at location A, the first location, cannot find the object at location B, the second location it seems as if infants lose the intention to find the object after more than one hiding According to Piaget, the infants act as if part of their definition of the object includes its location infants do not yet conceive of a whole independent object infants define the object as the “keys-under-the-cloth,” or the “ball-under-the-chair”

22. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development Following Piaget’s elegant first experiments and his contextual explanation, there have been a number of seemingly contradictory results first of all, it should be noted that by 9 months, infants are almost 100% correct in reaching for hidden objects at the A location second, if objects are displaced at several different locations without being hidden or if objects are hidden under transparent covers, so long as the infants are first familiarized with the covers and objects, they are almost 100% correct in reaching for the object in either location, A or B the only case in which this is not true is if the object or the infant is moved along complex paths with many twists and turns this suggests that following the path of a moving object in space is not limiting the infant’s search when the objects are hidden

23. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development It appears, then, that infants of this age already have a concept of objects as existing when out of sight, and they do not appear to associate objects with particular locations, since they will directly search for the object in multiple locations so long as they can see the object

24. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development The A-not-B error is made most frequently when the object is out of sight, but even then, infants succeed under certain conditions: 1. If there is no delay between the hiding and the opportunity to search for the object, they can find it Errors are increased if infants are restrained for at least 3 seconds after the object is hidden at location B 2. If the infants are shown the object being hidden in the A location multiple times, they are more likely to search in the B location 3. If the infants are allowed to lean their bodies in the direction of the hidden object, they can sometimes find it even after a delay by following the direction of their lean 4. If the objects are hidden under covers that are perceptually very different, it is easier for the infants than if the objects are hidden under identical covers 5. It also helps if the infants are familiar with the objects or if the objects are interesting to them

25. The Emergence of Infant Intentional Action Perceptual & Cognitive Development The A-not-B error is not a serious deficit for infants, and they overcome it within a few months or if the objects are presented in ways that facilitate their search The importance of the A-not-B error lies in questions it raises for understanding human development Development offers many examples in which the emergence of a new skill (like searching for hidden objects) is accompanied by a curious but not serious deficit (like being unable to search in more than one hiding place)

26. Imitation Perceptual & Cognitive Development Imitation is a skill that requires making a conceptual relationship between two actions, in this case, between another person’s actions and one’s own the imitations of newborns occur only for acts that they can already do observing an adult doing the same types of acts increases the probability of the newborn’s selecting a similar act newborn imitation is slow and does not happen for all infants six-month-olds can imitate actions that they have not done before, but only if you give them many demonstrations and allow them plenty of time to process the information between 10 and 12 months, infants become more proficient at imitating actions that they see for the first time or have not done before

27. Imitation Perceptual & Cognitive Development Babies are better at imitating actions that are close to what they can already do nine-month-old infants can imitate simple actions on objects such as opening a box, shaking a toy rattle, and pushing a button in addition, when the same babies were shown the objects 24 hours later, they reproduced the actions that had been modeled previously Imitation that occurs following a delay from the time the action is observed is called deferred imitation deferred imitation also shows that infants can remember the relationships they learn, at least for a short time if infants are allowed to imitate the action immediately, they can remember and imitate after longer delays compared to infants who were only allowed to watch and not imitate the action

28. Individual Differences in Cognition & Attention Perceptual & Cognitive Development The basic trends in cognitive development have been found to occur at about the same ages in different cultures around the world within any group there are individual differences in the age of attainment of cognitive milestones and in the quality of cognitive abilities One important component of cognition is the ability to attend to objects for a long enough time to remember their locations, watch their paths of movement, or learn about their properties during exploratory play individual differences in the duration of sustained attention to objects have been found at the age of 1 year infants who can sustain attention for longer periods engage in higher levels of exploratory play and score higher on developmental tests of mental and motor abilities

29. Individual Differences in Cognition & Attention Perceptual & Cognitive Development What factors account for individual differences in attention to some extent, these differences may be related to differential development of the brain and may be partly constitutional on the other hand, differences in the caregiving environment have been shown to influence the quality of infant attention When mothers are trained to enhance their object-related behaviors during social play with infants—by demonstrating object properties, pointing to and naming objects, and questioning—the complexity of the infants’ exploratory play is enhanced this effect works best for infants who have short attention spans their duration of attention increases following an intervention in which adults work to point out object properties and refocus the infants after a loss of attention, while the duration of attention for high-attending infants does not change following the intervention

30. Individual Differences in Cognition & Attention Perceptual & Cognitive Development Another approach to the study of individual differences in cognitive ability is to assess the infant’s mastery motivation mastery motivation is an inherent motivation to be competent in a particular situation, and its measurement involves persistence in solving problems At 12 months of age, persistent goal-directed actions on objects are typically followed by the expression of smiling or laughter by infants, suggesting that persistence is in fact motivated by a goal and that the achievement of the goal results in positive feelings of efficacy

31. Individual Differences in Cognition & Attention Perceptual & Cognitive Development Adult object-related behavior increased the level of mastery motivation only for 12-month-olds who were rated as being temperamentally low in activity For infants who were highly active, parental intervention had no effect or an interfering effect on the infants’ mastery More active infants are less in need of adult encouragement and intervention in their play than less active infant

32. Individual Differences in Cognition & Attention Perceptual & Cognitive Development These studies suggest that adults can play important roles in the cognitive development of infants, particularly if their actions are designed to enhance the infants’ attention to objects and their properties the adults need not so much teach or reinforce as support the infants’ own initiatives and help the infants to regulate their limited attention spans a similar pattern of parental support also enhances word and language learning

33. Individual Differences in Cognition & Attention Perceptual & Cognitive Development These results also suggest that adult behavior needs to be adapted to the individual infant babies who are less active and poor attenders may need a more involved adult to help organize their play babies who are more active and attentive may have different needs for adults, perhaps needing them to be an appreciative audience to whom the infants can show off their self-directed achievements

34. Individual Differences in Cognition & Attention Perceptual & Cognitive Development Infants of this age are making the discovery that objects and events are related to each other they can combine objects according to their function (lids on pots), their category (trucks vs. cars), or how they need to be combined to achieve a goal (using a fork to get food) This ability to form mental relationships between things is related to important developments in emotion, communication, and the sense of self

35. Emotional Development The infant’s life is becoming increasingly integrated into patterns of intentions and relationships Motor skills create the tools with which the infant can operate on the environment to achieve goals, and goals increasingly structure the way in which the infant behaves During the previous age period, infants became upset when someone caused them pain or when some expected event did not happen between the ages of 10 and 12 months, infants become upset when their goals are blocked and are pleased when they achieve an intended goal they also develop new emotions regarding their relationships with other people

36. The Development of Anger Emotional Development Anger is the emotion most frequently elicited in infants when their goals have been disrupted An angry expression has distinct characteristics the mouth is open with a squarish shape that is angled downward toward the back of the mouth the brows are lowered, and the eyes are opened and intense anger typically involves a bracing of the jaw In the expression of distress, the mouth is similar, but the eyes are usually closed or partially closed

37. The Development of Anger Emotional Development When the infant is crying and making the anger expression at the same time, the state of emotion is more intense When anger expressions were observed without crying, EEG recordings from the infants’ scalps showed heightened activity in the left frontal region when the infants were angry and crying, there was more activity in the right frontal region the right frontal area is believed to be associated with more-intense states of negative emotions these results suggest that low levels of anger, without crying, are probably more cognitively-based (left brain) and maintain the infant’s orientation toward the environment

38. The Development of Anger Emotional Development The emotion of anger began in the previous stage as a more vigilant and intense form of distress Between 10 and 12 months, anger becomes more purposeful and directed infants do such things as stomp their feet, hit away objects or interfering hands, or slap and kick these expressions have the quality of outbursts, and they coincide with the development of goal-directed behavior seen in other realms of infant functioning during this period

39. The Development of Wariness & Fear Emotional Development Around the age of 6 months, infants develop a wary look, which may involve a raised brow furrowing above the nose and a relatively relaxed mouth Wariness is related to the emotion of fear, since both involve an inhibition of action and may reflect a tendency for the individual to withdraw from the situation

40. The Development of Wariness & Fear Emotional Development The expression of fear includes the raised and furrowed brow of wariness while the mouth corners are retracted straight back true fear expressions are rare in infancy, but they first appear around the age of 10 months fear expressions may appear briefly and then change to anger or sadness fear is more likely to be expressed by behavioral inhibition in the absence of a facial expression infants may stop their movements or actively avoid approaching the source of the fear. Infants feel fear when unexpected or threatening events occur

41. The Development of Wariness & Fear Emotional Development Situations that may arouse fear in year-old infants Heights fear of heights has been assessed using the visual cliff situation a piece of hard, clear plastic is extended over a box with a shallow side and a deep side beginning at 9 months of age, infants show fear in approaching the deep side of the cliff Unpredictable objects and movements infants will show fear responses to any objects—either people or inanimate moving objects—that loom unexpectedly in front of them surprising events, like a jack-in-the-box popping up, may also cause fear unpredictable, noisy mechanical toys can cause fear however, in one study, infants were given control over the movements of such toys. when the infants were in control, the toys were significantly less fearsome

42. The Development of Wariness & Fear Emotional Development Acquired fears infants may become fearful of an otherwise benign situation because it reminds them of something they found stressful, fearful, or painful in the past these fears can be said to arise from a conditioned association they are different from fears of such things as heights or looming objects, which may be universal acquired fears are learned examples are fear of particular people, of doctor’s offices, or of certain kinds of sounds, such as a dog’s bark

43. The Development of Wariness & Fear Emotional Development Strangers Fear of strangers takes two forms one is an acquired fear of particular people or people wearing a particular kind of clothing or hairstyle the other is a general wariness of the unfamiliar that appears in most infants in every culture beginning about 8 months of age Infants show less fear if the stranger approaches them slowly and keeps an appropriate distance if their mothers are present when the stranger approaches if they are with familiar caregivers, such as baby-sitters or child-care providers if the stranger is a little person or a child if the stranger does not tower over them if the stranger is sensitive to the infants’ signals and allows the approach to be regulated by the infants if the infants are in an unfamiliar setting, such as a laboratory, compared to a home

44. The Development of Wariness & Fear Emotional Development You might expect a baby to be less fearful at home than in a strange place, but this is not the case when the stranger intrudes on the familiar and predictable setting of the home the infant gets disturbed In strange places, infants seem to expect to see unusual or unfamiliar things A number of studies have shown that babies can engage in positive and rewarding social interaction soon after meeting a new person if the stranger proves acceptable to the baby, the baby often will spend more time playing with this interesting visitor than with his or her own mother

45. The Development of Sadness Emotional Development The emotion of sadness has a different expression than anger and fear during sadness, the brows are raised at the center and drop at the sides, and the mouth corners are drawn back and down Sadness without crying is less intense, showing left-frontal brain activity with crying, sadness is accompanied by right-brain activation in the earlier months, sadness accompanies disappointment when an expected event fails to happen By 9 or 10 months, sadness accompanies a feeling of loss because infants can now connect their memory of absent objects with some concrete action on the objects, the infants may become sad if an object disappears and they cannot find it after a search

46. The Development of Sadness Emotional Development In some cases, but not all, sadness accompanies separation from caregivers this emotion is sometimes called separation distress Research has shown that if mothers leave their babies behind in the company of the regular caregiver (the grandmother, baby-sitter, father), there is little or no separation distress Infants respond more positively to separation from their mothers if they are left with any other person, particularly a familiar one if they are left with toys of any kind if they can see or hear their mothers in an adjoining room if they are left with their own pacifiers

47. The Development of Sadness Emotional Development The mothers' saying “bye-bye” or making some other parting gestures before they left had no effect on 1-year-olds these parting gestures do seem to help older infants the longer parents take to say good-bye, the harder it is for the babies to initially adjust to the new situation

48. The Development of Sadness Emotional Development There are cultural differences in infant response to separation, as shown by a study of brief (30-second) mother-infant separations in Japan about half of the Japanese infants showed distress, even at this brief separation, perhaps because of the close contact between Japanese mothers and their infants and because separation is relatively rare about one-third of the mothers apologized to the infant during the reunion their apologies were done in an intonation pattern that matched the infant’s crying, such as saying Hai, hai, gomen nei, gomen nei, oh, oh (yes, yes, oh, I’m so sorry, so sorry, well, well) the mothers seemed to endorse the infant’s feelings as if to join in their misery and seek their forgiveness, a pattern of emotional sharing commonly seen in Japanese adults

49. The Development of Sadness Emotional Development If infants are separated from parents for long periods and are not provided with adequate substitute caregivers, more serious depression and withdrawal can result, including both behavior and physiological changes These effects can be ameliorated to some extent once the infants are restored to stable adult care, either with their biological parents or with adoptive parents

50. The Development of Enjoyment & Affection Emotional Development In the earlier months, infants showed positive responses to their caregivers The smile of recognition appears at 2 months, and laughter of enjoyment during social play appears at 5 months At 10 months, the infant has a deeper and more lasting type of positive feeling that has been called affection Affection has a characteristic expression that is similar to a simple smile in the mouth region accompanied by a widening of the eyes Such smiles occur at the approach of familiar caregivers and are accompanied by right-brain activation Infants’ smiles at strangers usually lack the wide-eye component; such smiles activate the left side of the brain