Assignment

0 MONTHS----You are relieved that things have been going so well after Katherine's birth. Things were a little scary for a while. You had high blood pressure, premature dilation of the cervix, and had to go on maternity leave early. You remained in bed for the last two months of the pregnancy. At the last prenatal check-up, the baby was showing some signs of distress. The doctors decided to induce labor early, and Katherine was born three weeks early. She weighed only five pounds, and had an Apgar score of six. She was kept in the hospital for a week, and pronounced healthy at the end of that time. You notice that Katherine seems restless and uncomfortable some of the time, and cries more than most newborns. She was slow to learn how to feed and lost a little weight after birth. However, after 3 weeks Katherine has finally started gaining weight. The doctors will keep an eye on her development over the next few months.

After only a week with Katherine, you can already feel a hormonal connection. When Katherine cries, you begin to lactate! This will increase if you choose to breast feed, but it will die off gradually if you do not.

3 MONTHS---- At 3 months of age, Katherine is showing more intense interest in her surroundings. Katherine smiles at familiar people and toys, is able to laugh at surprising or funny things (such as a little dog), and is developing lots of cute little habits.

8 MONTHS----You and your partner are able to spend a lot of time in the evenings or on weekends playing with Katherine. Everyone seems to be having a lot of fun!

You try the object permanence test. Katherine is able to find a hidden object, as long as you don't wait too long or distract her in the middle of the search. Katherine really likes this hiding game and shows by her interest that she wants it repeated. However, if you hide the object in the same place repeatedly, and then change the hiding place, Katherine has a strong tendency to look in the old hiding place, and then get confused about where the object is, or forget about it. This curious error was first discovered by Piaget, but researchers have some new explanations for the error.

The days are long but the years are short. Life continues to move ahead and you marvel at how quickly time passes.

As Katherine turns 9 months, the pediatrician has the following to say after a routine physical exam, a few items administered from the  Bayley Scales of Infant Intelligence , and some observations of Katherine in the playroom:

Katherine is advanced in her gross and fine motor skills and enjoys crawling, pulling up to stand and manipulating objects.

Katherine readily adapted to the new people and situations in the pediatrician's office. She made eye contact, smiled at them, and vocalized to them quite a bit.

Katherine has strong emotional reactions and has difficulty soothing herself back down. The doctor advises patience in dealing with Katherine's emotions.

When Katherine becomes upset, it is difficult to soothe her down. She sometimes accepts your embraces and sometimes pushes you away.

Based on your report, Katherine is able to digest new foods well, so the doctor recommends that Katherine eat a variety of foods from the family dinner (ground up).

1 YEAR OLD----My Virtual Child uses five dimensions of temperament to describe the child's behavior in the first 30 months. These dimensions are influenced by your questionnaire responses, and change gradually over time in response to events and parenting decisions.

SOCIABILITY (similar to the Big Five trait of Extraversion/Introversion) refers to the child's friendliness and desire for social interaction (ranging from low to high).

EMOTIONALITY (similar to Neuroticism) refers to the intensity of emotion experienced by the child. More emotional children show stronger emotions and more fluctuation in moods than less emotional children. Sometimes emotionality is broken into two dimensions, Positive Emotionality and Negative Emotionality.

AGGRESSIVENESS VS. COOPERATIVENESS (similar to Agreeableness) refers to the tendency of the child to be aggressive in social situations. Highly aggressive children may be quite resistant to adult demands and throw tantrums or even lash out at adults or children. Less aggressive children tend to be more cooperative, or to whine and fuss rather than actively resist adults.

SELF-CONTROL (similar to the Big Five trait of Conscientiousness) refers to the child's ability to control his or her behavior, delay gratification, plan out a course of action, or inhibit undesirable actions. Effortful control is a specific aspect of Self Control that involves inhibition of inappropriate responses such as whining for a cookie, and replacement with a more adaptive action.

ACTIVITY refers to the physical and mental energy level of the child. Highly active children may sleep less, be more restless, and engage in more physical activity than less active children.

GOODNESS OF FIT is NOT an aspect of temperament. It refers to the tendency of the adult to adjust his/her behavior to the child's temperament in a way that promotes adaptive functioning of the child. For example, suppose you have a very active child, and you are trying to promote exploration and learning. Rather than "going against the grain" and attempting to quiet the child down to look at a book about bugs, you might appeal to the child's active nature and choose to go on a walk and talk about the bugs you see as a means of promoting learning.

A college friend of yours who speaks Mandarin visited and named a few things around the place. Katherine tried to imitate the words but her attempts sounded more like English than Chinese.

You try the object permanence test again. This time, Katherine is able to find the object even after long delays and seems to think this is a great game! You set up two hiding places for the object and hide it under one of the two covers repeatedly. When you switch it to the second hiding place, she no longer has the problem you saw earlier of searching at the more common of the two hiding places. You can't even trick her by hiding it in your hand. Katherine likes this game and wants to play it over and over.

Your partner has received an advancement and a pay raise. The three of you celebrate, and Katherine is very happy, but doesn't have a clue what the party is about.

At nine months old, Katherine began to understand a few words and point to something she wanted. At twelve months old, Katherine now clearly understands a couple of dozen words. Your partner was present when Katherine uttered her first clear word. He observed Katherine saying "dog" and pointing at a cute little dog whose owner stopped to let Katherine touch the dog's fur.

1YEAR AND 3 MONTHS---Katherine just turned 15 months of age, and you notice she often studies things in her environment and performs simple little "experiments" with them, almost like a little scientist. For example, she throws a ball against the wall repeatedly, varying the strength or angle of throw and delightedly watching how the ball rebounds. Sometimes she gets hit in the face, but fortunately it's a soft ball!

1YEAR AND 6 MONTHS---Katherine enjoys climbing up the stairs to your apartment, holding your hand, but still goes down them backwards, holding on with both hands to the step above (with you hovering nearby to catch her if she slides too far or loses her balance.

Katherine has shown some interesting new behavior. She acts shy when looking in the mirror, uses the word "me" a lot, and wants to do things herself. You think the new behavior is a sign of self awareness, and you have to decide what the balance will be between allowing Katherine to be independent and teaching her to follow your rules.

You are showing Katherine how to water the growing number of plants you have on the sunny balcony of your apartment, using a child-size watering can. Fortunately the balcony is child-safe, and there is no danger of Katherine falling.

Katherine doesn't seem to be able to clap or move in rhythm to music and doesn't seem interested in trying to sing along with songs. You figure Katherine is a bit slow in learning about music, so you try to teach her some simple songs, but you don't pressure her.