The newborn infant: a missing stage in developmental psychology

Abstract

Although neonatology, the study of the newborn, is well established in medical science, psychological research on the newborn is relatively scarce. Can we justify this period as a distinct stage of human development in Psychology? This introductory article considers the unique characteristics of the neonatal period, the impact of the transition to extrauterine life, including the impact of birth itself, and the stages of brain development that characterize this period. It presents evidence of an intentional, intersubjective neonate, and uses behavioural and neuroscientific evidence to argue that the neonate's early social preferences and responses indicate a unique, sensitive, experience-expectant stage of development.The authors of this issue agree in proposing that the newborn infant is prepared, evolutionarily and psychobiologically, to be born intersubjective. The notion of an intersubjective newborn infant, however, is virtually impossible to support without data and models from neuroscience, medicine, perinatology, physiology, ethology, evolutionary psychology and cognitive science. This issue is an attempt to bring scientists together from many of these fields to explore the unique characteristics of the first weeks of life.

Comparing emotional coordination in early spontaneous mother–infant and father–infant interactions

“…(A) The first weeks show large developments in the cerebral cortex as the infant adapts vital functions of the body, actions and awareness to a new environment within maternal care (Nagy, 2011). After 6 weeks, intimate protoconversations with caregivers show the regulations of "primary intersubjectivity", with imitations of expressions of eyes, face, mouth and hands.…”

Autism as a developmental disorder in intentional movement and affective engagement

“…The well-coordinated performances and expressions of affect of newborn infants in expectant orientation to real or imagined objects, and to persons (Trevarthen, 1984, 1986b; Nagy, 2011), the development of intentional movements and rhythmic emotional expressions of fetuses (Trevarthen and Delafield-Butt, 2013), and the behaviors of anencephalic children (Merker, 2007) support phylogenetic evidence that primary conscious states and emotional evaluations, which are essential regulations in all goal directed consciousness, are indeed first generated and regulated sub-cortically (Solms and Panksepp, 2012), without neocortical involvement. These motor-emotional systems are elaborated in the orbito-frontal cortex and the temporal lobe of human beings, which continue to develop to adult stages (Schore, 1994, 2005).…”

“…Infant psychology and paediatric practice have been transformed by abundant confirmation that precise coordination of well-formed intentions, interests and feeling may occur within the child and between the child and an attentive and affectionate adult from the neonate stage (Brazelton and Nugent, 1995; Trevarthen, 1977, 1998, 2009a; Stern, 2000; Sander, 2008; Nagy, 2011). This is the arena in which we must be alert for weaknesses in developing human sense and for special support it may need from the parental and social environment (Narvaez et al, 2013).…”

Early Departures from Normative Processes of Social Engagement in Infants with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Neonates' remarkable attunement to their caregivers, even in the absence of extensive experience with others, presents a ready (Bushneil et al, 1989;DeCasper & Fifer, 1980;Macfarlane, 1975). From rooting and sucking reflexes that help breastfed infants find their mother's nipple to preferential attention to conspecifics, neonates display a host of adaptive skills that help them to successfully engage their caregivers (Nagy, 2011). When just 10-min old, infants already show tremendous sensitivity to faces, evinced by their proclivity to track a moving face-like pattern but not a scrambled or inverted face pattern (Goren, Sarty, & Wu, 1975;Johnson, Dziurawiec, Ellis, & Morton, 1991;Simion, Valenza, Umilta, & Barba, 1998;Valenza, Simion, Cassia, & Umiltà, 1996).…”