The aim of this study was to develop a Gestalt programme for parents of toddlers to empower them to contribute to the optimal development of their toddlers. Intervention research (Thomas & Rothman) as phase model was used as method for this study. During the first phase the managers or heads of three day-care centres were used to gain access to parents of toddlers. Parents were asked to complete a questionnaire with the objective to explore their attitude towards aspects such as communication with their toddlers, emotions of their toddlers and their disciplinary style. The questionnaire was also used to determine their needs with regard to the education of their toddlers. During the second phase a literature study was undertaken to explore the development of the toddler and the dynamics of the Gestalt approach. The Gestalt approach was used as cornerstone for the programme because of its holistic approach to the interaction between persons and the environment on all levels. This study concludes at Phase 4 by designing a prototype Gestalt programme for parents of toddlers. / Social Work / M. Diac (Play Therapy)

The aim of this study was to develop a Gestalt programme for parents of toddlers to empower them to contribute to the optimal development of their toddlers. Intervention research (Thomas & Rothman) as phase model was used as method for this study. During the first phase the managers or heads of three day-care centres were used to gain access to parents of toddlers. Parents were asked to complete a questionnaire with the objective to explore their attitude towards aspects such as communication with their toddlers, emotions of their toddlers and their disciplinary style. The questionnaire was also used to determine their needs with regard to the education of their toddlers. During the second phase a literature study was undertaken to explore the development of the toddler and the dynamics of the Gestalt approach. The Gestalt approach was used as cornerstone for the programme because of its holistic approach to the interaction between persons and the environment on all levels. This study concludes at Phase 4 by designing a prototype Gestalt programme for parents of toddlers. / Social Work / M. Diac (Play Therapy)

Much research has been done in the area of toddler compliance/defiance and emotion regulation from a socialization perspective, and although some of this research has used attachment theory as a theoretical basis, there is little empirical literature that measures both attachment in infancy and parental limit-setting in toddlerhood as predictors of toddler compliance, emotionally negative defiance, or emotion regulation. In addition, few studies include fathers’ attachment and limit-setting along with mothers, or examine the different combinations of parenting units’ influence on toddler behavior. The goals of the current study are to assess how infant-parent attachment and parental limit-setting with mothers and fathers separately predict toddler behavior both with the same parent and with the other parent, and how different combinations of parental units, including mother-infant and father-infant attachment and maternal and paternal limit setting, relate to toddler behavior. This study uses longitudinal data, with the infantparent attachment relationships assessed using the Strange Situation at 12 and 15 months, and at 24-months the toddlers were brought into the lab and videotaped in a 20-minute play session, clean-up, and two teaching tasks with each parent. The parents were rated individually on their use of developmentally appropriate, permissive, and harsh/controlling parenting styles, and the toddlers were rated on compliance and emotionally negative defiance; the toddlers were also rated on emotion regulation in a separate task with an experimenter. Using OLS regression analyses, this study found parental limit-setting to be a stronger predictor of toddler behavior than attachment, and toddler behavior can only be predicted in the interaction with the same parent--maternal limit-setting does not predict toddler behavior with father or vice versa. Combinations of parent-infant attachment classifications were then assessed using ANOVAs, and different combinations of infant-parent attachment were related to toddlers’ emotion regulation. Hierarchical clustering techniques were implemented to determine how to create parenting units based on the different parenting styles, and four distinct clusters emerged: both parents developmentally appropriate, both parents are harsh/controlling and permissive, mother is appropriate and father is permissive, mother is permissive and father is appropriate. ANOVAs were then used to relate these clusters to the toddler behaviors. / text

Contemporary cognitive psychology and neuroscience contend that learning across development is a dynamic process; that learning is flexible, adaptive, and context-dependent. Moreover, particular learning demands, capacities, and sensitivities to external (i.e., social, environmental, etc.) and internal (i.e., biological) influences change over the course of development, depending on specific developmental niches, or periods of unique specialization. Given these theoretical contexts, this dissertation examines developmental niche-relevant influences on learning at three different stages of development, such as social modulators (i.e., parental proximity, and caregiving-related early adversity) and neural mechanisms (i.e., neural dynamic network flexibility). Studies 1 and 2 consider the parent-child attachment relationship and tested associations between parental proximity and classical conditioning reward learning in toddlers utilizing a within-subject study design. Findings suggest parental proximity and presence had a significant effect on reward learning outcomes. However, effects varied as a function of age and order of the parental presence versus absence manipulation. Study 3 investigates the relationship between caregiving-related early adversity (crEA) in school-age children and implicit motor sequence learning (MSL), a form of basic learning. There was no difference in MSL between crEA-exposed and age-matched, non-crEA-exposed, comparison children. However, group differences in executive functioning (EF) were present. Findings illuminate the selective impact of early stress on higher-order functioning (i.e., EF), but not on possible underlying lower-level processes (i.e., basic learning). Lastly, Study 4 employed a novel approach to quantify brain network changes over the course of learning, dynamic network flexibility (DNF), to examine associations with learning on a probabilistic reinforcement learning task in a sample of adolescents who perform better on the task compared to adults. This study provides evidence that average whole brain DNF, and DNF of the striatum in particular, is associated with reinforcement learning in adolescents, as was previously found in adults. However, DNF did not explain better learning outcomes observed in the adolescent sample. Each study separately contributes to the growing knowledge of social and neural associations with learning abilities that are not exclusive to, but important for study-specific developmental niches. Taken together, this dissertation provides evidence in support of a dynamic systems theory of cognition and asserts that learning and behavior during development is a dynamic process that is dependent on social input, adaptive to early experiences, and is supported by flexible neural network architecture.