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| Dr Suzanne Zeedyk - Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Dundee. |
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| Written by Administrator |
| Friday, 04 September 2009 14:14 |
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Our final speaker of the day was Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, a Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Dundee. She has also been involved in many research projects concerning parent-infant interaction and communication. One of her more recent projects was the work commissioned by the Literacy Trust, to research the effects of forward facing baby buggies, which has attracted much media publicity. Suzanne’s first topic was around how cuddling babies builds a better world. Babies are born able to communicate, due to innate social sensitivities of eye gazing, vocalisation and touch. Of these, touch is the one used least and is least researched in developmental psychology. This has an impact on individual infant development and also societal function. Because a baby’s brain development is affected by communicative interactions, the network of neurons and synapses are formed by all the baby’s experiences. Suzanne used Robin’s RAD as an example of how the Russian orphans’ experiences were neurologically embedded from birth to 3, when brain development is the most active. The brain of a neglected child is also much smaller than that of a normally developed brain; however, if intervention is made early enough whilst the brain is still flexible, then the negative effects can be reversed. Two hormones are very important, cortisol, the stress hormone, will slow down growth of the brain and in addition a child who is worrying will not find it easy to learn. The other is oxytocin or the love hormone, which promotes relaxation and leaves an individual more open and receptive to others. In effect, Suzanne is saying that a society low on touch is also low on oxytocin, which makes people low on empathy. Ultimately, a society low on empathy is likely to be a violent society. Therefore, cultural practices are very important as they dictate parental practices, which in turn affect infant development and future societal functioning. Linking to this theme of infant communication, Suzanne introduced her study on the use of forward facing buggies. Up until the 60s, prams and pushchairs were all parent facing and then they changed to forward facing. There is the potential for over stimulation when facing away and there is no touch or communication. The study looked at how often parents talked to their children when they were in buggies, being carried or walking. Children in forward facing buggies had the least interactions, with the most interactions being seen when children were being carried or were walking. Another interesting theme was then introduced, making contact with children with communicative impairment. The use of ‘mirroring’ behaviour seems to work well with 1:1 play, if a child leads and you follow, they will become far more engaged with you. Mirroring works because we shift to their terms, normally we are over stimulating and the child will just switch off. Infant massage helps to encourage imitation, with the child in the driving seat and attunement from parents/caregivers, it nurtures empathy for others. This early intervention would save society costs for the future, in prison and criminal behaviour, foster care and psychiatric treatment and health care. Suzanne also briefly mentioned the frustrating results of the Touch Learn study on Infant Massage, where the quantative data conflicted with the narrative from mums, who had gained a lot of benefit from attending massage classes. Any future study may involve different measurements. Suzanne summed up the whole conference with her final conclusion:
I certainly came away with a wealth of information and an even greater confidence in the value of the work we are all doing in promoting infant massage to everyone. Books mentioned by our speakers:
Websites mentioned by our speakers: |