Infant and young child research

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Infant and young child research is an area in developmental psychology . As far as medically relevant problem cases (e.g. premature babies ) are involved, medical research groups in clinical pediatrics are also active in this.

Research subject

Research on infants and toddlers covers the age range from birth, including the prenatal phase, to the end of the second or third year of life. In the English-speaking world, from which much of the present research comes from, this phase is known as infancy . Topics include the interaction diagnostics , the early diagnosis , the early intervention and the development of diagnostics and the development of the bond theory . Margaret Mahler , Martin Dornes , Jean Piaget and Daniel Stern are considered to be important representatives . The relevant empirical research work in the German-speaking region in the shape-theoretical tradition dates back to the 1920s - the work of Kurt Koffka , Kurt Lewin , Eino Kaila , Richard Meili , Kurt Gottschaldt and the Münster school around Wolfgang Metzger should be mentioned here.

Since developmental psychologists discovered that even a newborn baby is by no means a " blank slate ", but rather a small person equipped with many individual predispositions and prenatal influences, there have been many studies worldwide in this subject area. Chinese researchers in Hong Kong discovered z. For example, very young infants were influenced by the sound formation of their parents' language and showed a pronounced ability to differentiate between English and Chinese speakers.

Psychoanalytic Influences

Since its inception, psychoanalysis has seen particular importance in the first years of development. Since the beginning of the empirical observation of toddlers by psychoanalytic researchers such as René A. Spitz , Margaret Mahler or attachment researchers, a modern approach in toddler observation or neonatology has been developed using new methods . Since the 1970s, psychoanalysts have been studying interpersonal interactions between mother and child in particular . For this purpose, they use new possibilities of video technology in order to make the mutual behavioral adaptations in facial expressions and gestures between mother and child explorable.

Above all, the “baby watchers” should be mentioned here: Daniel Stern , who researched the development of self -awareness , Robert N. Emde, who observed the fundamental affects of humans, Joseph D. Lichtenberg , who investigated the needs of small children, and Beatrice Beebe, who has studied the interaction between infants and their caregivers. The neonatological research approach was mainly known in the German-speaking area through Martin Dornes (The competent infant, 1993).

The results of infant research have had a major impact on psychological and psychoanalytic developmental psychology. This also were cognitivist research for the foundation of new psychoanalytic theories included. The results of the research now lead developmental psychology to the assumption that an infant is by no means, as is often assumed, an uninvolved recipient of the care of the caregiver . Today psychology assumes that the baby is an active, competent, contact-seeking and interaction-stimulating being from just a few weeks. What is decisive here is the addition of the observations of object relations theory from the 1950s and 60s. The interaction between child and mother, which can affect the later therapeutic interaction, is no longer viewed as a one-sided process determined by the caregiver. Today it must be assumed that a complicated reciprocal , i.e. mutual, communication strongly influences the affects of the child and its well-being as well as the possibility of their regulation.

This fact is of great importance for the formation of psychoanalytic theories, since pathological conditions in adult patients were often inferred from similar conditions in childhood. Today we assume a competent baby who does not have to go through pathogenic phases. Pathologically relevant lapses in the mother-child dialogue in contemporary psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in early childhood are accessible to a differentiated methodology, also due to psychoanalytic and attachment research.

Scientists who are engaged in research into neuropsychology and neurophysiology and who make use of modern methods for studying the functioning of the brain, such as new imaging methods, can also be counted on this development . These attempt to establish a connection between psychoanalytic theories and findings that have grown out of the neurosciences and relate their findings in part to the changes in psychoanalytic theory.

Infant and toddler researchers

Surname Life dates job Research focus country
Ainsworth, Mary 1913-1999 psychologist Development of attachment theory, childlike attachment patterns with the help of the strange situation United States
Bowlby, John 1907-1990 Child psychiatrist , psychoanalyst Development of attachment theory , attachment behavior England
Dornes, Martin * 1950 Sociologist , psychologist, psychotherapist empirical studies on the parent-child relationship Germany
Eriksson, Zaida 1895-1974 doctor world's first empirical infant and toddler study, development of infants and toddlers in institutional facilities Finland
Hellbrugge, Theodor 1919-2014 Pediatrician Early detection, early therapy and social inclusion, empirical research on hospitalism Germany
Largo, Remo H. * 1943 Pediatrician Long-term studies on child development, author of numerous non-fiction books, etc. a. Baby years , understanding of biological conditions and the diversity of child behavior Switzerland
Mahler, Margaret 1897-1985 Pediatrician, psychoanalyst Empirical studies on the development of young children up to the age of 3 and how they react to short-term separation from their mother. Establishment of a development model for psychological development in infancy and toddler age Hungary, USA
Meierhofer, Marie 1909-1998 Pediatrician Pediatrics and child psychiatry , extensive research and publication on daycare Switzerland
Papoušek, Hanus 1922-2001 Pediatrician conditioned motor reflexes from food in infants, early mother-child relationship, development of learning skills in the first months of life Czech Republic
Papoušek, Mechthild * 1940 Specialist in psychiatry and neurology , developmental psychologist early parent-child relationship , communication in the first phase of life, early childhood regulatory disorders and excessive crying in infancy , intuitive parenting Germany
v. Pfaundler, Meinhard 1872-1947 Pediatrician congenital metabolic diseases, infectious diseases, cause and symptoms of hospitalism Austria
Schlossmann, Arthur 1867-1932 Pediatrician, social hygienist Reduction of infant mortality , world's first clinic for sick infants, first use of warming devices to care for premature babies , improvement of the nutrition of infants Germany
Schmidt-Kolmer, Eva 1913-1991 Doctor, social hygienist Empirical studies on the physical / psychological development of young children (up to three years of age) in families, day and week day nurseries and permanent homes. Austria, GDR
Robertson, James 1911-1988 Social worker , psychoanalyst Development of attachment theory, attachment behavior Scotland
Stern, Daniel 1934-2012 Child psychoanalyst empirical infant research in experimental situations, self development United States
Spitz, René A. 1887-1974 psychoanalyst Empirical studies that capture the relationship between the mother's personality and the child's development. Development of human communication , empirical studies on disturbed maternal relationships in infants with incoherent stimuli: active and passive rejection of the child, overprotection, alternating hostility and pampering , rejection concealed with friendliness, and studies on hospitalism. Austria, USA

See also

literature

  • Anna Arfelli Galli , Gestalt Psychology and Child Research. Empirical contributions by Koffka, Lewin, Kaila, Meili, Gottschaldt, Metzger and their students on the developmental psychology of the child 1921-1975 . Krammer: Vienna 2013. ISBN 978-3-901811-66-1 .
  • Martin Dornes : The competent baby. The preverbal development of man. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-596-11263-X .
  • Martin Dornes: Early Childhood. Developmental Psychology of the First Years of Life. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-13548-6 .
    • Martin Dornes: Psychanalyse et psychologie du premier age , traduit de l'allemand par Claude Vincent, préface de Jean Laplanche , Paris, Puf, coll. "Bibliothèque de la psychanalyse", 2002 ISBN 978-2-13-050307-1
  • Martin Dornes: The emotional world of the child. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-14715-8 .
  • DN Stern: The Interpersonal World of the Infant. Basic Books, New York 1985, ISBN 0-465-03403-9 .
  • Heidi Keller (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Kleinkindforschung . 3. Edition. Huber, Bern 2002, ISBN 3-456-83829-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the research overview by Anna Arfelli Galli , Gestaltpsychologie und Kinderforschung. Empirical contributions by Koffka, Lewin, Kaila, Meili, Gottschaldt, Metzger and their students on the developmental psychology of the child 1921-1975 . Krammer: Vienna 2013.
  2. ↑ W. Mertens: Introduction to psychoanalytic therapy. Volume 1. 3rd edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2000.
  3. ↑ M. Dornes: The competent infant. The preverbal development of man. Fisherman. Frankfurt am Main 1993.
  4. ↑ Mark Solms: Where psychoanalysis and brain research agree. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. No. 101, May 3, 2006.
  5. ↑ Norbert Kühne : Early Development and Upbringing - The Critical Period, in: Teaching Materials Pedagogy - Psychology, No. 694, Stark Verlag , Hallbergmoos 2012