NSE11 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Tabula Rasa, Naturalistic Observation, Scientific Method
Document Summary
For reasons that remain unknown, the government instructed staff workers not to interact with the children, even when giving them their bottles: shortly after the government collapsed, a number of this children were adopted. Research has shown that when these children arrived in their adoptive homes, most were malnourished, mental retarded, and socially immature. A lot more research were executed afterwards (pg. 7) these findings reflect a basic principle of child development that is relevant to many aspects of human nature: the timing of experiences influence their effects. Historical foundations of the study of child development: a number of profound thinkers observed and wrote about children. He believed that the most important goal of child-rearing is the growth of character: jean-jacques rousseau believed that parents and society should give children maximum freedom from the beginning. He claimed that children learn primarily from their own spontaneous interactions with objects and other people, rather than through instruction by parents or teachers.
