Shouldn’t that cause us to question the sheer number of children we have sedated in this country? We depend on medication as a country and are teaching our children to do so also. Many countries would see this as a problem. Nearly half a million prescriptions for medications like Ritalin written in 1995 were written for children between the ages of 3 and 6 (Gibbs 1998). Also the percentage of children with an ADHD diagnosis that are being placed on medication jumped from 55% in 1989 to 75% in 1996 (Gibbs 1998).
This experiment took 22 orphaned children some with stutter problems and some without. This study was made with a thesis that states “If stuttering is learned behavior, it can be unlearned.” (Gretchen Reynolds, 2003, mytimes.com). By using this thesis to build an experiment, the children were broken into groups and some were told that there stutter was not as bad as they thought while the remaining children were told that their stutter (which was not existent) was a lot worse than the scientists had expected. Within a months’ time. the children who were told that their stutter was worse became inconsistent with their speech.
Michael Rutter and the case study of Romanian orphans in 1998 Aim: Rutter et al wanted to find if it was separation from the mother or the severe circumstances in Romania that was responsible for any negative effects Procedure: 111 Romanian children were assessed on a variety of measures of physical and intellectual ability when they arrived to Britain. Most of them had been in the orphanages from shortly after they were born. The children’s IQ was tested when they came in the UK and the average score for the Romanian orphans was 63.For those over 6 months the average was 45.Physical development was also poor,51% of them being in the bottom of 3% of the population for weight. They were also shorter in height than was normal for their age and had smaller head circumferences. The Romanian children were tested again at the age of 4 and compared to a control group of 52 British-adopted children who were 4 as well, who didn’t show any of the negative effects suffered by the Romanians.
44 Thieves Study (Bowlby, 1944) John Bowlby believed that the relationship between the infant and its mother during the first five years of life was most crucial to socialization. He believed that disruption of this primary relationship could lead to a higher incidence of juvenile delinquency, emotional difficulties and antisocial behavior. To support his hypothesis, he studied 44 adolescent juvenile delinquents in a child guidance clinic. Aim: To investigate the effects of maternal deprivation on people in order to see whether delinquents have suffered deprivation. According to the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis, breaking the maternal bond with the child during the early stages of its life is likely to have serious effects on its intellectual, social and emotional development.
U.S. divorce rates have been rising since the beginning of the 20th century. More than a quarter of people age 18-44 come from a divorced family. Psychologists have known little about the long term effect this has on kids and are just now coming out with useful information. (“BreakupBacklash”) Researcher Sara Hara Estroff Marano(www.psychology.com) found that effects of divorce depend on what happened in the marriage before the divorce occurred. For example, kids that have lots of high conflict in their family are happier after the divorce occurs.
Many studies have looked at the link between maternal depression, attachment and disturbed behaviour. One study of 18 month old infants who’s mothers had suffered from post natal depression were found to be much more likely to be assessed as ‘insecurely attached’ in the ‘Strange Situation Test’ [Woodhead, M et al 2005]. The Strange Situation Test is designed to assess the child’s attachment to their caregiver. It is usually performed on infants 1 – 2 years old. The test consists of ‘a series of separations and reunions of child, caregiver and a stranger’ [Oates et al, 2005].
People also think that it could lead to an insecure attachment and lead to psychological effects on the child later in life. There are many studies which argue both sides to the effects of day care and I am now going to look at some closer. Clarke-Stewart studied 500 children and found that children in care for up to 30 hours per week were no more distressed than other children who had attended much lower hours of day care when separated from parents in the strange situation. This shows that children can form strong attachments with mothers even if they are in their 24/7 care, although the experiment could direction the other way as the experiment was only done in one area opposed to several so it lacks in population validity. Roggman et al (1994) compared infants who had attended day care in the first year with those who had remained at home and they found no difference in attachment with mothers.
Unit 201 Child and young person development From birth until 19 years of age children and young people will tend to exhibit certain similarities which have complied into a development plan. Although children and young people are different and have different experiences, they grow and develop in a similar way. Babies are usually born at 40 weeks, which is a full term pregnancy. At this early stage they show signs of recognition towards their mother, they know her voice and smell. They even know that if they cry it is a sign of distress which lets people know they need help.
John Money of John Hopkins University suggests that gender identity is easy to persuade during the first years of life, after that gender is permanent. However, this suggestion has its challenges. It is during infancy that parents create and determine the gender role by the decisions the parents make for the child. Social learning theories describe types of reinforcement in families, which places value on environmental factors and gender role. It is often that we see female babies cuddling with their mothers while the males are often seen playing with toys and balls with more aggression and with the fathers (Ghosh, 2013).
Sleep has been found to be more important in children than adults. A study was taken on 12 year old children to see what effect sleep had on them. In this study, there was a comparison between overweight children that slept only 14.4 minutes less than normal weight children (Horne). The results brought the conclusion that for every extra hour of sleep, the child was 20%-40% less likely to be overweight (Horne). This appears to be a bigger impact than in adults.