Thomas and chess's classic temperamental categories

General guidelines: a good answer will address every part of the question, and will describe the child’s behavior and provide 1 or 2 supporting examples. In addition, wherever possible, you should relate your descriptions and explanations of the child’s behavior to the concepts, theories, and research covered in class or in the book.

1. How does your infants' eating, sleeping and motor development compare to the typical developmental patterns?

2. At 8 months of age was your child an “easy”, “slow to warm up”, or “difficult” baby in terms of Thomas and Chess’s classic temperamental categories? On what do you base this judgment?

3. How are your child’s attachment relationship to you and your partner developing? What is happening at the 3-month and 8-month periods that might affect attachment security according to Bowlby and Ainsworth, and various research studies?

4. Describe examples of changes in your child’s exploratory or problem-solving behavior from 8 through 18 months and categorize them according to Piagetian and information processing theories. Note that 8 months is included, so you’ll need to use the timeline to look back at 8 months for examples.

5. Analyze your baby’s temperament in more detail at 19 months than you did at 8 months. How would you describe your baby in terms of the five aspects of temperament utilized by the Virtual Child program (activity, sociability, emotionality, aggressiveness vs. cooperativeness, and self-control)? Has your child’s temperament been stable over the first 18 months? A blurb defining and providing examples of the five aspects of temperament is provided at 12 months, but you should seek out further explanations of temperament from your textbook.

6. Explain how the concept of goodness of fit (also discussed in the blurb on infant temperament) applies to your interactions with your child.

7. Were you surprised by anything in the developmental assessment at 19 months? That is, does your perception of your child’s physical, cognitive, language and emotional development differ from that of the developmental examiner? Give specific examples. If you were not surprised, write instead about some aspects of your child’s behavior that need the most work. Answer the questions listed under each assignment briefly, citing specific examples from your child. Type up the answers in 12 point font, double-spaced, with a recommended 2-4- page length for each assignment. Assignments are worth 25 points.