Infant Observation Argumentative

Infant Observation On Wednesday, April 3rd, 2002, Lauren an African American, dark brown hair, brown eyed girl was one of the infants that our class observed. Lauren was born on November 7th 2000 and was a full term baby. Right now Lauren is about 1-½ years old and weighs approximately 32 lbs. Lauren lives with her Mother, Father, and 2 older brothers. Lauren’s parents take her to a daycare center almost every day with some exceptions.

1. Lauren focused most of her time on different objects such as toys, food, and people. Berger (pg. 158) says that by the 12 months of an infant’s life he or she should have a vision of 20/20. During the hour we observed Lauren she played with different objects. Mostly the three-dimensional objects she enjoyed more. For example she brought a Barbie with her and played with it for a sufficient amount of time and allowed the other infants to enjoy it as well. Berger (pg. 159) mentions that infants enjoy 3-dimensional object rather than 2-dimensional, which confirms Lauren delight in playing with her Barbie, but Lauren was not habituated with that Barbie or with any other toy that was there. Habituation occurs when an object or stimulus becomes familiar and does not unfold the same physiological responses when it was first introduced to it (Berger, pg. 156). Lauren was stimulated with an object for a few seconds then really didn’t care much for it.

2. Lauren at times would constantly be moving around the room where the other infants would be at and at times sit there by herself and draw or watch for a few seconds. Lauren uses her gross motor skills, which are described as large body movements such as running, jumping, walking, and arm movements (Berger pg. 150). She is also using fine motor skills, which are described as little body movements such as using the hands and fingers to grab, hold or pick up thing (Berger pg. 151-152). Lauren seemed to grab things perfectly fine like the pen that she used to draw with or the candy that she savored. According to table 5.2 (Berger pg. 153), most infants should master their walking by the age of 1 which it seemed as if Lauren has done so since she had no trouble walking by herself around the classroom.

3. Lauren seems to have a glowing smile on her face. Most of the time she would have a smile responding to the people around her that are saying or doing something involving her or someone else (Berger pg. 208). Lauren seemed to adjust to the new surrounding pretty quickly, she felt a little distress for the first few seconds I would say, but got over it quickly. The attachment between Lauren and her cousin contradicts what Berger says on page 225, that people desire continual contact and feel distress when two are separated. Lauren’s cousin and her relationship seem to be more of a secure attachment then insecure. Lauren feels comfortable and confident to explore new things in a new environment, even knowing that her cousin is there or not (Berger pg. 228).

4. Table 6.2 points out that by the age of 13-18 months infants have a slow growth of vocabulary, up to about 50 words (Berger pg., 194). Lauren loved to talk, she would talk to everyone and her words or actions seemed somewhat clear to what she actually wanted to say. Lauren really did not repeat words or certain syllables. She would ask Professor Berg how to spell certain words and try to write them out. When Lauren was drawing in the yellow notepad she would draw many dinosaurs and claimed that everything she drew was pretty much a dinosaur. It seemed as if Lauren was using holophrases, which are single words, that expresses a complete thought (Berger pg. 198). The complete thought in this case would be her drawings and associating it as a dinosaur. As Lauren sat down in one place she would engage a conversation would Professor Berg. Professor berg asked Lauren were the baby bottle went and Lauren had not problem of finding it right under the towel. Professor Berg was having a conversation with her by repeating the same question “where’s the baby bottle Lauren?” and putting stress on a certain words of importance, so that she would respond (Berger pg. 202).

5. Lauren was always exploring things around her, she would be curious of what others were doing especially the two babies that was in the room as well. She had this fascination about helping the other babies, she loved to meddle in what the other two infants were doing but Lauren was not in anyway selfish with anything. According to lecture, Infants like to explore and see new things (Berg, lecture). Lauren explored on her own without feeling the need to ask her cousin for assurance of exploring the surrounding. This applies to what Berger mentions about Social referencing, which states that an infant looks at an adult for assurance of doing something (Berger pg. 210), which Lauren does not follow at all.

6. When object were hidden from Lauren, such as a baby bottle with orange juice in it, the juice would vanish away and reappear when turned the other way around. Lauren would find it right away, but when Professor Berg did the same experiment on the other infant and used the Barbie as the object she would hide, Lauren immediately uncovered it and did not give the other infant a chance to notice that the Barbie was gone. Lauren understands that the Barbie does exist even though she cannot see it, or touch, or hear it. This idea or concept is called object permanence (Berger pg. 181). Piaget being the first theorist to note object permanence (Berger pg. 182) does not really go into much detail until later. When a theorist named Renee Baillargeon also noted that object permanence has to do with habituation (Berger pg. 182), which I think in this case completely relates to Lauren not interested into the object that she sees all the time. Lauren was not really attached to one particular object. For her it would vary unlike the other infants.

7. Lauren had no problem when other people tried to approach her or when she approached others. She was generally really happy. Some of the temperament factors are adaptability, different moods, attention span, activity level, approach or withdrawal and a few other ones (Berger pg. 220). In the book Berger points out that there are three categories in which infants fit in which are easy, slow to warm up and difficult (Berger pg. 221). In Lauren’s case, she seemed to be an easy person. She was not really fussy about anything and she was not the type that starts of slow in getting use to the new environment.

I enjoyed observing Lauren; she seemed to have all the natural ability that a normal infant would have to explore. Lauren had great eyesight; good eye and hand coordination for an infant her age. Her motor skills seemed to be perfectly fine, she was able to grasp little objects and also able to use her gross motor skills and run with the little objects in her hands. One thing I noticed about Lauren, that she loved to have attention and she was not really into playing with the other babies, she was more into herself. I don’t think I would change anything in the setup of the observation except maybe trying to have baby day two day in a row and see how they react and also to see if the slow starters, react to the new environment a little faster. But overall I enjoyed this observation.