(no subject)

[rivka]

Every skill can be broken down into two parts. There are the things you need to do, and the things you need to not do. The ability to not do the things you're not supposed to do is called behavioral inhibition, and in many contexts it's an invisible, hard-to-identify component of learning.

Not so when you're four or five months old. When Colin first started to be interested in reaching and grabbing, he spent a lot of time with his hands clasped in front of him. Why? Because when he reached out, pretty often the first thing his hand would encounter would be the other hand. He didn't know how not to grab it, even if he'd initially been reaching for something else.

He's since mastered the ability to inhibit himself from grabbing that other hand, but he's still working on a couple of other inhibition issues. When he tries to put a toy into his mouth, sometimes he'll aim it wrong and get the hand holding the toy into his mouth instead. Someday soon he'll be able to take that as a sign that he should turn the toy so he can chew on his real target. Right now he just gnaws on his hand, the toy hanging in front of his mouth out of reach. If he gets the toy angled right, great! If not, he can't inhibit the chewing response and redirect himself.

Also, he really wants to spend a lot of time these days holding his feet. But his thighs are in the way. He winds up holding his thighs or gripping behind his knees, even when he was clearly aiming for the feet. He just can't stop himself from grabbing on, even if holding his thighs prevents him from what he really wants to do.

I learned about behavioral inhibition in developmental psychology classes, but it has become so much more real through observation.

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Why are babies so very interested in their feet? (This is an honest question.)

[lizzibabe.livejournal.com]

I think it's because their hands have nothing more to offer them. Hands have stopped being interesting and have become invisible things that let them *do* stuff. Since feet are much further away, they still hold interest.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. Maybe for the same reason that people climb Mt. Everest?

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a childless old crone, er, just post-menopausal woman, so that unless I turn into the biblical Sarah I won't be having these experiences myself, I find your close observations of Colin's and Alex's evolving development -- neural, physical, psychological and, erm, spiritual, to be endessly fascinating and delightful.

On this one, I'm also curious to know how marydell's Charlie handled that stage of development, what with having had to skip the "inhibition on grabbing other hand" step, and what sort of extremely subtle effects it might have on a person to have had to bypass that one particular step :-)

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I'm always fascinated to read these, but also I'm left wondering just what I'm missing about my kids by not having a better education in developmental psych. :-)

[ailbhe]

It's so fantastic that that has a name! That's amazing. I will now have to restrain myself from telling everyone. That's brilliant.