1. The reports of Virtual Child Assignment<br />When Micky was 0 months old...<br />Micky was in a hurry to be born! You are still amusing people you know with the dramatic story of his birth. Your water broke at home one week before the due date, and you rushed to the hospital as quickly as possible. You went into full contractions on the way, and were nearly fully dilated by the time the nurses wheeled you into the delivery area. You couldn't even use the natural childbirth breathing and relaxation techniques you had been practicing for the past three months before it was time to push! When Micky was born, you both felt the biggest surge of emotion that you had ever had. When you held Micky in the delivery room you were amazed that you and your partner had brought this new being into existence.<br />After only a week with Micky, you can already feel a hormonal connection. When Micky cries, you begin to lactate! This will increase if you choose to breast feed, but it will die off gradually if you do not.<br />When Micky was 3 months old...<br />At 3 months of age, Micky is showing more intense interest in his surroundings. Micky smiles at familiar people and toys, is able to laugh at surprising or funny things (such as a little dog), and is developing lots of cute little habits.<br />Micky is able to focus his eyes on you. He spends a lot of time studying your face and the faces of anyone who comes close to him.<br />You have not been feeling very energetic since shortly after Micky was born. You are listless and don't take much interest in activities around you. You complain that you don't have enough energy to deal with the baby.<br />At 8 months:<br />Micky is sometimes a little reluctant to part from you at daycare and starts crying. He usually gets over it quickly after you leave.<br />Micky's caregiver moved out of town a few weeks ago. You set Micky up with a new caregiver, but you have been unhappy with this caregiver for the last month. You are searching for a new caregiver while trying to improve things with the current one.<br />You try the object permanence test. Micky is able to find a hidden object, as long as you don't wait too long or distract him in the middle of the search. Micky really likes this hiding game and shows by his interest that he wants it repeated. However, if you hide the object in the same place repeatedly, and then change the hiding place, Micky has a strong tendency to look in the old hiding place, and then get confused about where the object is, or forget about it. This curious error was first discovered by Piaget, but researchers have some new explanations for the error.<br />As Micky turns 9 months, the pediatrician has the following to say after a routine physical exam, a few items administered from the Bayley Scales of Infant Intelligence, and some observations of Micky in the playroom: When Micky becomes upset, it is difficult to soothe him down. He sometimes accepts your embraces and sometimes pushes you away. Based on your report, Micky is able to digest new foods well, so the doctor recommends that Micky eat a variety of foods from the family dinner (ground up). Micky is cautious and shy in most new situations or with new people. With you present, he will eventually explore, but rarely warms up completely to the strange situation or person. Micky had fairly mild to positive reactions to most of the situations and people in the pediatrician's office and the playroom. He cried when given the vaccination, but calmed down rather quickly. The only problem came with a brief separation from Mom, but that would be expected. Micky's motor skills are typical for age: crawling, sitting up, and standing up, but not walking yet. <br />窗体顶端<br />窗体底端<br />At 12 months:<br />Virtual Child uses five dimensions of temperament to describe the child's behavior in the first 30 months. These dimensions are random at birth, are influenced by your questionnaire responses, and change gradually over time in response to events and parenting decisions. The five dimensions are activity, sociability, emotionality, aggressiveness vs. cooperativeness, and self control. There is behavior genetic and longitudinal evidence for varying numbers of temperamental traits and the five traits used in the program are on a lot of lists. Studies also show that temperament changes in response to strong environmental pressures. <br />ACTIVITY refers to the physical and mental energy level of the child. Highly active children may sleep less, be more restless, and engage in more physical activity. Less active children may sleep more, enjoy quiet pastimes, and show less interest in vigorous physical activity. <br />SOCIABILITY refers to the child's friendliness and desire for social interaction. Highly sociable children are sometimes given the label quot;
extrovertedquot;
and less sociable children the label quot;
introverted.quot;
<br />EMOTIONALITY refers to the intensity of emotion experienced by the child. Highly emotional children may show more of everything (anger, joy, sadness) and more fluctuation in moods. Less emotional children may show less extreme emotions and less fluctuation over periods of time. <br />AGGRESSIVENESS VS. COOPERATIVENESS refers to the tendency of the child to be aggressive in social situations with the parent, day-care provider or other children. Highly aggressive children may be quite resistant to parental demands and throw tantrums or even lash out at the parent or other children. Less aggressive children tend to be more cooperative, or to whine and fuss rather than actively resist the parent. Research indicates that boys are somewhat more aggressive than girls, but there is a great deal of overlap between the sexes, and this is reflected in Virtual Child. <br />SELF CONTROL refers to the child's ability to control his or her behavior, delay gratification, plan out a course of action, or inhibit responses to a typical situations. This is not exactly the same thing as aggressiveness or emotionality. For example, a child with low self control might take a cookie when asked to wait, not out of a spirit of lack of cooperation, but just due to low impulse control. Children who are extreme on this dimension may fit typical criteria for attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. The Virtual Child has a 5% chance of having moderate to severe hyperactivity and a 5% chance of having mild hyperactivity. <br />GOODNESS OF FIT is a concept that is closely related to temperament. It refers to the tendency of the parent to adapt his/her behavior to the child's temperament. For example, suppose you have a very active child, and you are trying to promote exploration and learning. Rather than quot;
going against the grainquot;
and attempting to quiet the child down to look at a book about bugs, you might appeal to the child's active nature and choose to go on a walk and talk about the bugs you see. Goodness of fit also applies to developmental level. For example, at 6-8 months most infants are at least somewhat anxious around strangers, so you would want to introduce the child to a new person gradually rather than thrusting the child into the person's arms. Parents desiring to change their child's temperament, or help their child develop a particular skill, can benefit from the principle of goodness of fit, and the related concept of moderate novelty. Parents desiring to encourage growth in their child should introduce moderately novel activities and experiences, because children are more likely to pay attention to and profit from such experiences.<br />You, your partner and Micky like to visit grandma and grandpa's house on weekends, and you all have a great time. Micky loves to play with their gentle dog, and gets a lot of attention from grandma and grandpa.<br />You try the object permanence test again. This time, Micky is able to find the object even after long delays and seems to think this is a great game! You set up two hiding places for the object and hide it under one of the two covers repeatedly. When you switch it to the second hiding place, he no longer has the problem you saw earlier of searching at the more common of the two hiding places. You can't even trick him by hiding it in your hand. Micky likes this game and wants to play it over and over.<br />At nine months old, Micky began to understand a few words and point to something he wanted. At twelve months old, Micky now clearly understands a couple of dozen words. In fact, Micky just recently pronounced his first clear word and pointed at the object in question....Was it quot;
Momquot;
? Was it quot;
Dadquot;
? No, it was the name of your parents' dog!<br />Micky's first birthday is coming in a few days! You invite all the relatives over and throw a big party.<br />Your partner has received an advancement and a pay raise. The three of you celebrate, and Micky is very happy, but doesn't have a clue what the party is about.<br />At 15 months:<br />Micky just turned 15 months of age, and you notice he often studies things in his environment and performs simple little quot;
experimentsquot;
with them, almost like a little scientist. For example, he builds a little mound of dirt and then studies the effects of pouring water on it.<br />At 18 months:<br />You are showing Micky how to take care of the growing number of plants you have on the sunny balcony of your apartment. Fortunately the balcony is child-safe, and there is no danger of Micky falling.<br />