Brain Story Certification: Module 4

Alberta Family Wellness’s 4th module (n.d.) provides a focus on the concept of serve and return.  This specifically outlines how interactions shape the brain’s architecture.  The notes of this module are as follows:

Introduction Video 1 – A Brief Introduction to Serve and Return

•  Serve and return interactions are bi-directional (amongst all senses).  The child indicates an interest in stimuli and the adult returns interest in the stimuli.  This builds enthusiasm to explore the environment, leading to repeated explorations by the child of their environment.
• The process has the child beginning to develop the neural circuits over and over again based on the interaction with the attentive caregiver.
• Positive feedback encourages the use of the circuit in the brain architecture.  Active engagement is key between both child and caregiver.  This impacts all future development.

Excerpt from “Eight Failed Assumptions: What we thought we knew about early childhood development.” Tom Boyce, MD

•  Babies are not inert!  They are highly responsive to their environment from post-uterine moments.
• Babies look for the contrast in features that exist on a human face, rather than locations of facial structures themselves.  Differences in light and shadow thus help an infant determine the face(s) of individuals they encounter.
• By the 4th week of life, the contrast of a face is no longer preferred by the infant but an image that represents an actual face.
• Imitative behavior by the infant soon follows
• Visual acuity starts at 20/600 from birth to 20/20 by one year of age.
• The preference for a human face/patterns emerges.
• The infant can recognize the face of their mother on day one.
• Infants can imitate the facial expressions and behaviours of their parents.
• Infants can distinguish (through hearing and watching) language – with a preference for their native language
• Can recognize their mother’s breastmilk by smell.

Notes from:

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2016) From best practices to breakthrough impacts: A science-based approach to building a more promising future for young children and families.

• Family and close individuals beyond mother and father have a role to play.
• Domains such as intellectual, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development are influenced by the interactions.
• Serve and return has the child providing a stimulus and the adult responding with a stimulus in turn.  These can include babbling, facial expressions, gestures, words, and emotional engagement
• The interactions are individualized to fit with the child’s unique personality style – building on their interests, capabilities, and initiative.  This fuels the child’s self-awareness that enhances their growth and development.

Excerpt from “Foundations of Social & Emotional Development.” Heather Henderson, PhD

• Social interactions are not an outcome, but a process.
• Early child development (first days-years) shape risk and resilience.
• Animals naturally are driven towards social interaction.  Learning is a significant component of this.  The bioecological theory of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory.
• There is a bi-directional relationship between the child and their environment.  The contexts of different environments the child interacts with are also bi-directional (eg. the community impacts the home, and the home impacts the community.  Another example could be the school impacts the place of worship environment and the place of worship impacts the school environment.
• This is looked at throughout the life course.
• Gottlieb’s Epigenetic Model of development – the influences of environments go back-and-forth over time.
• Interactions with others increase social interaction competency.
• Perceiving social signals begins at the moment of birth.  Engagement begins with eye contact initially – looking for social interaction.
• Babies show a preference for the voices of parents that they heard in utero, and learn to discern the smell of caregivers from others.
• Learn to distinguish what is important to understand people within the first 2 months (eyes-mouth).
• Babies’ emotional expressions are closely tied to those of others around them.  There may be some mapping of emotional responses – reflexive level.
• Within weeks of birth perceiving and producing social signals become tied together.  The social smile serves a communicative function to maintain/prolong interactions with others.
• The emotions and behaviours are related to and coordinated with those of others.  The face-to-face/still-face paradigm outlines this.  There is a residual impact when the still-face takes place and resumes to normal interaction.
• Coordination of attention – sharing attentional space with others.

Excerpt from “The Core Story of Brain Development.” Judy Cameron, PhD

• Children learn best when an attentive adult is engaged with them in the learning process.
• Social Interactions work best when caregivers pay attention and help direct the child’s attention to things.  1-on-1 attention is important.
• Serve and return builds the brain by creating associations between different stimuli.

Excerpt from “Foundations of Social & Emotional Development.” Healther Henderson, PhD.

• Impacts of interactions (quality and quantity)
  • Temperamental differences
  • Developmental disabilities
• Relationship factors
  • Attachment security
  • Parental Psychopathology
• Contextual factors
  • Out-of-home care
  • Neighbourhood factors

 

Excerpt from “Foundations of Social & Emotional development.” Heather Henderson, PhD.

•  By 4 months of age, there are stable individual responses to novel experiences. These were predictive of inhibited and exuberant behaviour in toddlers and preschool years.
• Inhibition is the initial reaction to unfamiliar people, objects, contexts, or challenging situations.  This care includes being quiet and watchful, ceasing current activities, retreating from unfamiliarity, and refusing to engage in interaction. – stress reaction!
• It is believed that this is related to a lowered threshold to react to potentially threatening stimuli.  Functions to direct attention and information processing leading to biases over time of perceptions of self and the world.  Neurons that fire together wire together – the pathways for threatening situations become a stronger pathway.
• The reactivity patterns may not be easily changed in the brain, but how we respond to them can be changed.  It also impacts how we interact with the environment, leading to snowballing of effects.
• Inhibited childhoods are associated with
  • Social maladjustment
    • social reticence
    • poor peer relationships
  • Academic difficulties
    • Low school readiness
    • Lower academic achievement
  • Risk for psychopathology
    • Negative self-perceptions
    • Internalizing behaviour problems
• Engagements are key to social and academic learning.
• Autism defined by deficits in social interactions, communication, and restricted interests and/or repetitive behaviour.
• Higher functioning children with autism have an IQ above 70 – interventions have helped improved educational component, but not made many gains in the social dimension.
• Children with autism to not coordinate their attention with others while interacting.
• They do not preferentially encode socially-relevant information
  • Limited quantity and quality of social interaction impacts and opportunities for social learning.
  • The child does not coordinate attention with others during interaction
  • Fail to preferentially encode socially-relevant information.  There are a limited quantity and quality of social interactions – impacting opportunities for social learning and learning in general.
  • This impacts language, self-processing, theory of mind, and social competence.
• These children do desire the interaction, are aware of their differences from others socially – they want more interaction and interaction competency.

References

Alberta Family Wellness. (n.d.). Brain story certification.  Retrieved from https://training.albertafamilywellness.org/