There were so many aspects of the readings this last week that were interesting!
One thing that caught my attention was the age at which babble starts sounding more like real speech which is around 8 to 11 months of age. I remember when my kids hit this point and thinking to myself that it sounded as if they thought they were making sounds that were words. As though they had created their own language and I just couldn't understand it. It definitely marked a change in their vocal patterns - rather than just saying the same sound over and over at the same pitch, my daughter started saying the same word at different pitches, and then combining different sounds and pitches. And reading about it made me think of the youtube video of the twins "talking" to each other (in case you haven't seen it here is the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY - it is truly amazing). These twins are particularly amazing, they are so animated in their conversation. They are not just babbling but conversing, with gesticulations, laughter in response to what the other says, and disagreements - all in dadadadadada language..
Another thing that caught my eye was object permanence - how once an object is out of sight, it is out of mind. This seems to work with objects and people. The best illustration for this point I can think of was when my sister in law was playing hide and seek with her daughter and my daughter.. They must have been about 15 months or so. When she was hiding, all she had to do was hide her face/head. At one point she was lying on the floor in the middle of the room with her head under a pillow and the girls could NOT find her anywhere. It was amazing to watch. They couldn't make the connection that her body and her head were connected. And it worked over and over again. They identified her solely with her face! And once that was hidden she was nowhere to be seen.
The other thing I wanted to bring up in my blog was the notion of trust vs mistrust and how that can affect a person later in life if the bond that is created is not a secure attachment. What I am interested in is if you were not able to form a secure attachment this in turn colours your future relationships. The article "Babies, Bonds & Brains" notes that even a "mildly bad environment appears to affect your biology." Though the article goes on to say that all is not lost, and that ultranurturing supermoms can turn the biology around. But what about once you are past the stage of any mom having such an effect? There is much talk about the effects later in life with drugs, depression and inability to have healthy relationships and trust people. Are people who were unable to attach as children basically messed up for good - their biology is now altered and there is a black hole where their empathy is supposed to be? Or can you come back from it at a later stage given the right circumstances? The article also mentions that the brain may reorganize itself every 2 years or so, which indicates that you are never past the point of no return, though it seems like it must be a lot harder work later in life..
One last thing I wanted to throw out there is that I am interested in the difference (if there is one) between forming an attachment as an infant to Attachment Parenting as the term is thrown about in parenting groups etc of late. I know Dr Sears talks a lot about Attachment Parenting and its benefits, and I have to look further into his ideas to know if this is rooted in the same principles we have been learning about in this class. I assume that they must be related as many of the ideas are the same, but in terms of the way Sears talks about it it seems to be a much more specific method of parenting.. Anyway, just a thought...
PS - That home economics text book from the 50s was over the top. It made me think a lot about how women were treated in the 50s and how they were expected to act - always yielding to the husband etc (and I don't know how much of that is how the 50s are presented now versus how they actually were) but it seems insane that the decade before women were asked to go out and work and take over for the man while he was away fighting, only to take two steps backward in the next decade. Did the mindset of the 50s housewife happen as a backlash against women getting out of the kitchen in the 40s? Is this something everyone knows and I am only now making the connection? :)
Oh, I've got to comment on that 50's housewife advice! That was so funny, I was laughing out loud. I wonder, like you have said, how much of this was a reality? Did a large amount of the women take this to heart? I know in my own family, with my grandmothers, they were nothing like this! Throughout my family, the women seem to be the "bosses." My grandmother was the strongest family figure I grew up with and the thought of her "putting on her makeup and getting the paper" makes me crack up. Interesting about the 40's vs. 50's. I for one, don't know the answer to that one, but it seems logical that when the war was over and men came back, they took the jobs the women had been doing.
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