-
Developing Attachment
This picture features me as a 3-month old, clinging to my mother as she provides the support and at other times nourishment I need to gain the basic trust as described by Erikson's trust vs. mistrust stage of development. My attachment is developing out of a desire to seek comfort and warmth during this critical period of social development. -
Sitting up with support
In this case for my approximately half-year old self, maturation is allowing me the physical development to be able to keep myself from falling over, with the help of a developed vestibular sense. It is part of my sequence of growth from sitting to standing to walking. -
Development of language and schemas
Although it doesn't explicitly show it, this picture features me at the stage in my life at which I am transitioning from telegraphic speech to more complex sentences, as I acquire an understanding of grammar from both syntax and semantics. During this period, when we passed by Deer Park mall being built, I would say "Uh oh, broken!" This phrase not only illustrates what I learned grammatically but that I had developed a schema for what broken things looked like and assimilated the construction. -
Cognitive Abstractions
This picture shows me playing the piano around age 5 or 6, which requires not only motor development to precisely control fingers, but more significantly cognitive development as I head into Piaget's concrete operational stage. I need to be in this stage in order to process the abstraction of musical notes and translate it into the motor movement of my fingers. -
Attempt at learning new language
When I was around 6, I started trying to learn Hebrew from my older sisters' books. I was able to learn the alphabet pretty well and with their help the vowel pronunciation, but unfortunately I have not retained this ability well as it fell outside the critical period of the first few years of infancy for language development. When I reached adolescence, the neural connections devoted to this were likely pruned without my consistent practice, and the efforts in the picture were futile. -
Understanding of Logic
This journal I wrote in 1st grade illustrates my budding sense of logic as I officially transition into Piaget's concrete operation stage of cognitive development. I was able to understand that my sister's illness was the cause of my subsequent illness and clearly convey this idea of cause-and-effect in my writing. When I explain how the problem was that I never told anyone, it signifies a shift from the present-focused thinking of the preoperational stage into reflective thoughts of the past. -
Gender typing
Due to my sisters' participation in dance and my early exposure to it, I developed an unusual concept of gender identity as my gender typing in early elementary school differed from most other males. I took dance classes and never thought it abnormal that I was the only guy in the class until middle school really. This picture illustrates how my social development differed from many males my age at the time. -
Culmination of Moral Learnings
This is a picture of me at my bar mitzvah when I was thirteen and at the beginning of adolescence. The bar mitzvah is the coming-of-age ceremony in the Jewish religion and represented a culmination of all the morals and values I had learned and acquired (through socialization) at Hebrew School and in discussions with my family. Requirements of the bar mitzvah often facilitated these discussions, and taught me the principles needed to transition into Kohlberg's post-conventional morality.
