social and emotional devlopment 0-5

• Mental health difficulties are often centred around deficits or unusualpatterns of emotional expressiveness
• Research indicates that by intervening early to facilitate healthysocial and emotional development, it is possible to influence thestructure of the young immature brain.
• irth – 6 months: basic emotions observed -startle, disgust infants are aware of and take interest in other infants
• months: between 7 and 9 months, infant begins to show genuine fear ofstrangers - separation anxiety common
• 6 – 12 months: infants show clear interest in peers and reflect each other’semotional expressions
• By 12 months: social referencing appears, (ie using another’s emotionalexpressions as source of information)
• 1 – 2 years: complex emotions observed – shame, pride Social emotion, empathy (abilityto feel emotions of another)
• nfant mainly engages in parallel play with others, but understanding of turn-taking starts to emerge
• 2 – 3 years: complex emotions envy, guilt, embarrassment become apparen
• 3+ yearspeer preference clearly shown at age 3.Pro-social behaviour such as sharing and helping emerge tom
• Multiple secondary contexts impact of the other parent or grandparents both directly on infant, andthrough support to the primary caregive