The brain as an organ of the person

2017 ◽  
pp. 173-208
Author(s):  
Thomas Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
First Year ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Resonance System ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intentional Agents ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Mother Child Relationship ◽  
The Brain

‘The brain as an organ of the person’ examines the socially and culturally scaffolded development of the human brain, especially in early childhood. Beginning with early intersubjectivity and intercorporeality in the mother–child relationship, it first focuses on interactive forms of implicit memory. As a neurological basis of this development, the attachment system and the social resonance system (‘mirror neurons’) are discussed. Secondary intersubjectivity manifests itself towards the end of the first year of life, among others, in the development of joint attention. Understanding others as intentional agents lays the foundation for later perspective-taking and thus for the ‘eccentric position’ of human beings. On this basis, language acquisition is examined as the anchoring of an embodied interpersonal practice, connected with the biological resonance system of mirror neurons.

scholarly journals An exploratory study of the ways in which mothers keep their infants occupied

Curationis ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Botha ◽  
G. Cleaver
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Development ◽  
First Year ◽  
Development Research ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Infant Research ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mother And Child ◽  
Mother Child Relationship

The mother child relationship can help or hinder the social, emotional and intellectual development of the infant. Research has shown that the interaction between mother and child can affect the child’s cognitive development. Research has shown that mothers from the lower socio-economic groups do not stimulate their babies optimally and that this may affect the children negatively. In this study 86 underprivileged mothers from two different cultural backgrounds were asked to describe the ways in which they kept their infants occupied during the first year of their infants’ lives. The differences between the two groups are discussed and recommendations are made.

Contribution of Social and Developmental Factors to Lead Exposure During the First Year of Life

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 75 (6) ◽  
pp. 1114-1119
Author(s):  
Kim N. Dietrich ◽  
Kathleen M. Krafft ◽  
Douglas T. Pearson ◽  
Leslie C. Harris ◽  
Robert L. Bornschein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lead Exposure ◽  
Parental Behavior ◽  
Blood Lead ◽  
First Year ◽  
Parental Management ◽  
Developmental Factors ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Lead Levels ◽  
First Year Of Life

The social and developmental correlates of early lead exposure were explored in an interim analysis of data from an ongoing longitudinal investigation in Cincinnati. Regardless of the apparent net availability of lead in the infant's physical environment, parental behavior was still significantly associated with infant blood lead levels. However, this was only the case after infants in the study reached 6 months of age and beyond when prewalking progression and early walking made parental management all the more critical. Future lead screening and abatement programs should include supports for the caretaker-child relationship.

Essential Education

2030 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger van Santen ◽  
Djan Khoe ◽  
Bram Vermeer
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The People ◽  
Equal Chance ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Way

The helplessness of newborn babies is very endearing. They can just about breathe unaided, but they are otherwise entirely unadapted and dependent. Babies can barely see, let alone walk or talk. Few animals come into the world so unprepared, and no other species is as dependent on learning as human beings are. Elephant calves, for instance, can stand up by themselves within a few minutes of being born. Most animals are similarly “preprogrammed.” Female elephants carry their young for no fewer than 22 months, whereas we humans have to go on investing in our offspring long after they are born. Children need years of adult protection. They guzzle fuel, too; their brains consume fully 60 percent of the newborn’s total energy intake. In the first year of life, the infant’s head buzzes with activity as neurons grow in size and complexity and form their innumerable interconnections. The way the brain develops is the subject of the next chapter (chapter 5.2). Here we concentrate on the way we are educated from the first day on. There is virtually no difference between Inuits and Australian aborigines in terms of their ability—at opposite ends of the earth and in climates that are utterly different—to bear children successfully. Other animal species are far more closely interrelated with their environment. Other primates have evolved to occupy a limited biotope determined by food and climate. Humans are much more universal. Every human child has an equal chance of survival wherever they are born. As a species, we delay our maturation and adaptation until after birth, which makes the inequality of subsequent human development all the more acute. Someone who is born in Mali or Burkina Faso is unlikely ever to learn to read. A person whose father lives in Oxford, by contrast, might have spoken his or her first words of Latin at an early age. Inuit and aboriginal babies may be born equally, but their chances begin to diverge the moment they start learning how to live. We are not shaped by our inborn nature but by the culture that is impressed upon us by the people with whom we grow up.

Towards a Postpatriarchal Family

1998 ◽  
pp. 105-112
Author(s):  
Patricia S. Mann
Keyword(s):  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Familial Relations ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Mother Child Relationship

Ours is a time of dramatic and confusing transformations in everyday life, many of them originating in the social enfranchisement of women that has occurred over the past twenty-five years. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild demonstrates a widespread phenomenon of work-family imbalance in our society, experienced by people in terms of a time bind, and a devaluation of familial relationships. As large numbers of women have moved into the workplace, familial relations of all sorts have been colonized by what Virginia Held critically refers to as the contractual paradigm. Even the mother/child relationship, representing for Held an alternative feminist paradigm of selfhood and agency, has been in large part "outsourced." I believe that an Arendtian conception of speech and action might enable us to assert anew the grounds for familial relations. If we require a new site upon which to address our human plurality and natality, the postpatriarchal family may provide that new site upon which individuals can freely act to recreate the fabric of human relationships. It would seem to be our moral and political responsibility as social philosophers today to speculatively contribute to the difficult yet imperative task of reconfiguring the family. In this paper, I attempt to articulate the basic assumptions from which such a reconfiguration must begin.

scholarly journals The Social Origins of Human Prosociality

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audun Dahl ◽  
Celia A. Brownell
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
First Year ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Caregiver Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Second Year ◽  
First Year Of Life

From early in life, children help, comfort, and share with other people. Recent research has deepened scientific understanding of the development of prosociality—efforts to promote the welfare of others. In this article, we discuss two key insights about the emergence and early development of prosocial behavior, focusing on the development of helping. First, children’s motivations and capabilities for helping change in quality as well as quantity over the opening years of life. Specifically, helping begins in participatory activities without prosocial intent in the first year of life, becoming increasingly autonomous and motivated by prosocial intent over the second year. Second, helping emerges through bidirectional social interactions starting at birth: Caregivers and other individuals support the development of helping in a variety of ways, and young children play active roles that often influence caregiver behavior. The question now is not whether but how social interactions contribute to the development of prosocial behavior. Recent methodological and theoretical advances provide exciting avenues for future research on the social and emotional origins of human prosociality.

Culture and Cognitive Development

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Human Adaptation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Intentional Agents ◽  
Human Ontogeny

Human beings are biologically adapted for culture in ways that other primates are not. The difference can be clearly seen when the social learning skills of humans and their nearest primate relatives are systematically compared. The human adaptation for culture begins to make itself manifest in human ontogeny at around 1 year of age as human infants come to understand other persons as intentional agents like the self and so engage in joint attentional interactions with them. This understanding then enables young children (a) to employ some uniquely powerful forms of cultural learning to acquire the accumulated wisdom of their cultures, especially as embodied in language, and also (b) to comprehend their worlds in some uniquely powerful ways involving perspectivally based symbolic representations.

scholarly journals The Postpartum Tradition of Sawa Mahina in Rural Punjab, Pakistan

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azher Hameed Qamar
Keyword(s):  
Infant Health ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Child Attachment ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mother Child Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractThe Punjabi postpartum tradition is called sawa mahina (‘five weeks’). This study investigates infant health care belief practices in rural Punjab and looks at the social significance of infant care beliefs practiced during sawa mahina. During six months of fieldwork, using participant observation and unstructured interviews as primary research methods, the study explored the prevalent postpartum tradition from a childcare perspective. A Punjabi child holds a social value regarding familial, religious, and emotional values. The five-week traditional postpartum period provides an insight into mother-child attachment, related child care belief practices, and the social construction of infancy. A child’s agency is recognised in the embodied mother-child relationship, and a child is seen in a sympathetic connection with the mother. Establishing an early foundation of ascribed identities is another important part of postpartum belief practices.

scholarly journals The intensity of natural selection in man

1912 ◽  
Vol 85 (581) ◽  
pp. 469-476 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Death Rate ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
First Year ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
High Infant Mortality ◽  
Total Death ◽  
Selective Death ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Varying Environment

(1) In a paper communicated to the Royal Society in 1899, and later in greater elaboration published in ‘Biometrika,’ 1901, it has been shown on the basis of the inheritance of longevity that the selective death-rate in man amounted to at least 60 per cent. to 80 per cent. of the total death-rate. The matter has been recently reconsidered by Prof. Ploetz, who, dealing with material wholly different from that of Beeton and Pearson came to similar conclusions. The point is a very vital one, for, combined with: (i) the heredity of physical and mental characters in man, and (ii) the demonstration that the longer-lived have more offspring, we reach a definite knowledge that Darwinism does apply, and very intensely applies, even to man under civilised conditions. The difficulty of a direct investigation of the problem lies in securing uniformity of environment. W e have to demonstrate that when under the same environment there is a heavier death-rate among a given group of human beings, then among the survivors of this group in a given later period the death-rate will be lessened. Now each group of individuals we attempt to deal with has its own environment, and if that is a bad environment we should expect to find a heavy death-rate both at the earlier and later periods; this obviously must obscure the action of natural selection. For example in districts with a high infant mortality we might expect a high child mortality, say deaths from two to five years of life, because a bad environment sends up the intensity of both. The correlation between deaths in the first year of life (0—1) and in the next four years of life (1—5) for a given district will certainly be positive if no correction be made for varying environment. Quite recently this matter has been discussed by determining the correlation between the ages 0—1 and 1—5 in the administrative counties of England and Wales. As ( a ) the group 0—1 was not followed to 1—5, but the deaths in these age-groups for the same years were dealt with, and ( b ) no allowance whatever was made for the differential environment of the administrative counties, it is difficult to find any real bearing of the data on the problem of natural selection in man.

scholarly journals Knowledge and Practices of Mothers towards Infant Oral Health Care in Their Children’s First Year of Life

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-229
Author(s):  
Mayara Delfino Sentone Rossato ◽  
Márjori Frítola ◽  
Paulo Henrique Rossato ◽  
Valéria Campos Mariano Francelino ◽  
Regina Célia Poli-Frederico ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oral Health ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Dental Caries ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
First Year ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Chi Square Test ◽  
First Year Of Life

AbstractThis study aimed to assess mothers’ oral health-related knowledge and practices in immediate and late puerperium, and in the child’s first year of life. This study is a prospective cohort study, in which data were collected from 358 mothers of children born between 2013 and 2014, in immediate and late puerperium, and in children’s first year of life, by interviews with sociodemographic characterization and oral health questionnaires, and were analyzed by descriptive statistics and Chi-square test (α = 5%). Participants were mainly aged 20 to 29 years (53.9%), with 7 to 11 years of education (67.6%), from low social class (72.3%), unemployed (58.9%), married or in common-law marriage (84.1%), with more than one child (60.1%). Although 51.7% of them had received information about children’s oral health, only 0.8%, 32.4% and 13.7%, respectively, knew the concept, etiology and preventive attitudes regarding dental caries. Mothers aged under 20 and over 30 years, with lower education and from low social class presented significantly lower oral health-related knowledge. At children’s first year of life, although 78.7% of the children had already been taken to the dentist, half of them had already tasted sugary foods and drinks. It is highlighted the social determination and the need of an improvement of mothers’ oral health related knowledge and practices. Educational actions, especially in prenatal programs, are important to achieve this improvement and to decrease early childhood caries rates.Keywords: Dental Caries. Child. Health Knowledge Attitudes, Practice. Parents. Oral Health.ResumoAvaliar o conhecimento e as práticas de mães sobre a saúde bucal de seus filhos no puerpério imediato, tardio, e no primeiro ano de vida da criança. Trata-se de um estudo de coorte prospectiva, no qual os dados foram coletados de 358 mães de bebês nascidos entre 2013 e 2014, no puerpério imediato, tardio e um ano após o parto, por entrevistas com perguntas sobre dados sociodemográficos e sobre saúde bucal. Os dados foram analisados por estatísticas descritivas e pelo teste Qui-quadrado (α = 5%). As participantes apresentavam, majoritariamente, idades entre 20 a 29 anos (53,9%), com 7 a 11 anos de estudo (67,6%), eram de baixa classe social (72,3%), desempregadas (58,9%), casadas ou em união estável (84,1%), e tinham mais de um filho (60,1%). Apesar de 51.7% delas afirmarem ter recebido informações sobre saúde bucal infantil, apenas 0,8%, 32,4% e 13,7%, respectivamente, sabiam o conceito, etiologia e as atitudes preventivas à cárie. Mães com idades abaixo de 20 e acima de 29 anos apresentaram menor conhecimento sobre saúde bucal do que as demais. No primeiro ano de vida, apesar de 78,7% das crianças já terem ido ao dentista, metade delas já havia experimentado alimentos e bebidas açucarados. Destaca-se a determinação social e a necessidade de melhora no conhecimento e práticas das mães sobre saúde bucal. Ações educativas, especialmente em programas de atenção pré-natal, são importantes para atingir essa melhora e, consequentemente, diminuir as taxas da cárie na primeira infância. Palavras-chave: Cárie Dentária. Criança. Conhecimentos, Atitudes e Práticas em Saúde. Pais. Saúde Bucal.

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