The transition from crawling to walking: Can infants elicit an alteration of their parents' perception?

Our study was designed to address a gap in the literature on parents’ perception and motivation to protect their infants from potential risk of injury in the transition from crawling to walking. The participants were 260 Italian subjects, of whom 158 were women and 102 men, aged between 20 and 45 years. They were asked to draw two domestic objects to assess the possible alterations in the perception of environmental elements seen by the parents as a potentially dangerous cause of unintentional injury for their child. Analysis showed that the group of mothers with children aged 9 to 18 months had drawn the largest tables, while the table areas of the other two categories of women were much smaller.Concerning males, the group that drew the largest tables was the one with children, but not in the age range of 9-18 months, while there was no great difference between the other two groups. The final descriptive analysis concerned the average scores on the STAI-Y tests both for state and trait anxiety. In all groups a substantial parity was observed, except for the non-parent men, who had a lower a lower level of state anxiety. Both the fathers and the mothers of children of 9-18 months obtained lower scores, both for state and trait anxiety. Based on the findings, we demonstrate that children transitioning from crawling to walking can elicit a perceptive reactivity their mothers, which satisfies their natural need to protect their offspring

The role of playing in the socio-cognitive development of children from 3 to 5 years of age: an observational study

INTRODUCCIÓN: Jugar es esencial para el desarrollo de funciones psicológicas superiores; de hecho, los juegos pueden servir para mostrar, desarrollar y mejorar la exploración del medio ambiente, la representación y manipulación de objetos, así como fomentar las primeras interacciones sociales. El propósito de este estudio es mostrar que jugar constituye un paso esencial en el desarrollo socio-cognitivo del niño describiendo el tiempo de juego como indicador de la superación gradual, paso a paso, del pensamiento centrado en sí mismo, con el fin de adquirir nuevas estrategias de adaptación social. MÉTODO: La actividad de investigación incluyó a 64 niños, de escuelas infantiles en la ciudad de Turín (edad media: 4.3). Herramientas: El trabajo de investigación se basó en la observación directa y de las grabaciones de vídeo de juego espontáneo entre niños en la escuela. Se aplicaron dos sistemas de codificación (Escala de Observación de Juego, integrada por un patrón de codificación ideado por los autores). Estos dos métodos hicieron posible analizar las variaciones en cuanto a las actividades de la ideación, la exploración, la socialización y la imitación. RESULTADO DISCUSIÓN Y CONCLUSIONES: Los resultados preliminares parecen confirmar que jugar proporciona un marco dentro del cual es posible articular y expresar los progresos de un niño, en términos de desarrollo social y de habilidades cognitivas. El nivel de madurez individual afecta, por un lado, a las características de la interacción social y a los patrones de pensamiento por el otro. El ajuste mutuo del desarrollo de estos dos procesos se muestra también en el cambio gradual de la forma en que se negocian los conflictos: la superación del pensamiento egocéntrico, por lo tanto, también se expresa en un gradual cambio de perspectiva en relación con el niño.INTRODUCTION: Playing is essential for the development of higher psychological functions; indeed games may serve to show, develop and improve the exploration of the environment, the manipulation and representation of objects, as well as fostering the first social interactions. The purpose of this study is to show that playing constitutes an essential step in the socio-cognitive development of children by describing playtime as the indicator of the gradual, step-by-step overcoming of self-centred thinking, with a view to acquiring new social adjustment strategies. METHOD: Participants The research activity included 64 children, from nursery schools in the city of Turin (average age: 4.3). Tools: The research work was based on the direct and video-recorded observation of spontaneous playing among children at school. Two coding systems were applied (Play Observation Scale, integrated by a coding pattern devised by the authors). These two methods made it possible to analyse the variations as regards ideation, exploration, socialising and imitation activities. RESULT DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The preliminary results seem to confirm that playing provides a framework within which it is possible to articulate and express the progress made by a child, in terms of both social development and cognitive skills. The individual maturity level affects, on the one side, the social-interaction features and the thought patterns on the other. The mutual adjustment of the development of these two processes is also shown in the stepwise changing of the way in which conflicts are negotiated: the overcoming of self-centred thinking, therefore, is also expressed by a gradual change in perspective as regards the individual child.peerReviewe

Reconsidering the scribbling stage of drawing: A new perspective on toddlers' representational processes

Although the scribbling stage of drawing has been historically regarded as meaningless and transitional, a sort of prelude to the actual drawing phase of childhood, recent studies have begun to re-evaluate this important moment of a child's development and find meaning in what was once considered mere motor activity and nothing more. The present study analyzes scribbling in all its subphases and discovers a clear intention behind young children's gestures. From expressing the dynamic qualities of an object and the child's relationship with it, to gradually reducing itself to a simple contour of a content no more alive on the paper, but only in the child's own imagination, we trace the evolution of the line as a tool that toddlers use to communicate feelings and intentions to the world that surrounds them. We will provide a selected number of graphical examples that are representative of our theory. These drawings (13 in total) were extracted from a much wider sample derived from our studies on children's graphical-pictorial abilities, conducted on children aged 0 to 3 years in various Italian nurseries. Our results appear to indicate that scribbling evolves through a series of stages, and that early graphical activity in children is sparked and maintained by their relationship with their caregivers and the desire to communicate with them