THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY EXPERIENCE

The critical period for the correct emotional development of a human infant is between six months and two years. The human infant seems to need both to fee] secure and to develop not as an isolated being, but as a member of society. Growth and socialization require that an infant becomes used to change, but if the change is loo sudden and is introduced without consideration for the habits already formed, satisfactory emotional development may be impaired.

The effects of early experience are very important for human beings. Recently there appeared in the national press mention of the death of a 'wolf boy'. This was a human being who was discovered some fifteen years ago in a railway station in North America. He was about 14. When found he was walking on all fours and he behaved like an animal rather than as a human. He had even grown teeth like an animal's. He was so unlike a human that it could only be assumed he had been suckled by a wolf and had managed to survive by learning animal behaviour. Though looked after by humans for the rest of his life he never learnt to speak nor to be in any way educable. In the 14 years of his animal environment he had learnt to behave as an animal and could not modify his behaviour very much when put into a human environment. Of course he may have had very little potential intelligence when born. This we do not know.

It has been found that normal human infants develop responses later than usual if their environments are restricted. For example, the normal age for an infant to learn to grasp a ring is six months, provided the ring has been placed in the cot for some weeks previously and he has had a chance to observe it and play with it. A pair of twins were shown no rings till they were eight months old, by which time an infant would be expected to grasp a ring naturally. These twins were shown rings for 30 seconds a day on succeeding days, but it was not until the 13th day in the one case and the 20th day in the other that they first succeeded in grasping the rings.

In this instance, where the learning of physical activity, such as grasping was delayed through lack of opportunity, no lasting harm appears to be done. Though the infants learnt the activity concerned when they were older their eventual performance was as good as that of other younger children.

Emotional development seems to be more lastingly affected by early environmental influence. Anthropologists have come across two tribes in New Guinea which differ markedly both in the way they bring up their children and in the way they behave as adults. The Arapesh tribe bring up their children permissively and are always gentle towards them. As adults they are friendly to one another and to strangers. The Mundugumor on the other hand are harsh to their children and are aggressive to one another and to strangers. In the island of Bali the infants are mainly looked after by small girls and have little ^con~ tact with their own mothers. The lack of close relationships in childhood may possibly be the reason why the Balinese people are un£^mo~ tional. Children need one another's company and friendship, b^ut of even greater importance is their need of someone on whom the/ ^candepend, to whom they can go when they feel unhappy or insecure. Normally this is their mother.

The years from birth to five are vitally important for the htfman infant; this is particularly true of the period between six month? ^andtwo and a half years when a child is becoming increasingly awa^re ol what is happening but cannot yet express his feelings in speech. The evidence that this period is critical comes not only from people ^wh° later in life develop neurotic illness but from children who bec'^omedelinquent. Many criminals are found to have had a less settled secure childhood than others of similar temperament and intelligence who have remained co-operative members of society.

(James Breese. «Psychology and Everyday Life». L., 1971, pp. 14 — 16).

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