Imitation from Infancy Through Early Childhood: Typical and Atypical Development

203 Pages·2022·4.111 MB·English

by  Mikael Heimann

Mikael Heimann
Imitation
from Infancy
Through Early
Childhood
Typical and Atypical Development
Imitation from Infancy Through Early Childhood
Mikael Heimann
Imitation from Infancy
Through Early Childhood
Typical and Atypical Development
Mikael Heimann
Dept. Behavioural Sciences and Learning
Linköping University
Linköping, Sweden
ISBN 978-3-031-08898-8 ISBN 978-3-031-08899-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08899-5
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In memory of
Tomas Tjus
best friend and colleague
I know it looks like I’m moving but I’m standing still
Bob Dylan (1997) “It’s not dark yet” © Special Rider Music Printed by permis-
sion of Sony Music Publishing Scandinavia / Notfabriken Music Publishing AB
Acknowledgment
There are so many colleagues and co-authors to thank, so instead of naming every-
one individually, I take the safe way and just say: Thanks to all and every one of
you! Without collaborative efforts, the work summarized in the book could not have
been accomplished. I also extend my thanks to the various places and institutions I
have had the pleasure to be part of. And that accepted my obsession with imitation:
the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, Linköping University, Sweden, the Center
for Advanced Studies, Oslo, Norway, the University of Bergen, Norway, Georgetown
University, USA, and Penn State University, USA.
I am grateful to several friends, colleagues, and family members that read pre-
liminary versions of the chapters and provided helpful and critical feedback: Agneta
Swerlander, David Heimann, Emil Holmer, Felix-Sebastian Koch, Karin Strid, and
Rebecca Vella. Thank you all, your input have been essential for me to complete
the work.
I would also like to thank some people at Springer: Garth Haller, for convincing
me that this was a doable project, although it took much longer than you estimated,
Clement Wilson Kamalesh, for your always positive and supporting e-mails, and
Judy Jones for your patience with all my questions.
To my children and grandchildren, I would like to say that life is bigger than
research, and family is most important (don’t laugh, I’m serious, although I suspect
that some of you have a hard time believing me).
Thanks also to Jolo, my dachshund. Many ideas came as we took our daily walks.
Katarina! Thanks for giving me the space to write this book. I promise to be bet-
ter tending to everyday matters. Getting the garden in order, growing potatoes. Your
love means everything to me!
ix
Contents
1 Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Part I From the Social Infant to the Verbal Child: Insights
from Imitation
2 A Fresh Look on Neonatal Imitation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Is There a Capacity to Imitate at Birth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Defining Neonatal Imitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Neonatal Imitation Among Typical Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Using the Mother as the Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Imitation at Birth and the First 3 Months of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
A Note on Lip Protrusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Do Temporal Aspects Influence Neonatal Imitation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Achieving Reasonable Matching Although Many Systems
Are Immature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3 Neonatal Imitation and Children with Autism
or Down Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Motivation and Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Searching for Studies on Neonatal Imitation and Atypical
Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Neonatal Imitation in a Child That Later Developed Autism . . . . . . . . . 34
Home Video Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Near-Neonatal Imitation in Infants with Down Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . 38
An Attempt to Sum Up: Suggesting an Updated Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4 Imitation at Birth and Then What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Neonatal Imitation and Early Mother-Infant Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Neonatal Imitation and Imitation Later in the First Year . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
xi
xii Contents
Imitation Across Time and Dimensions: Following Children
from 9 to 36 Months . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Results for Immediate and Deferred Imitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Results for Facial Imitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Individual Response Patterns for Facial Imitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Is There Stability in Imitation Across Ages and Dimensions? . . . . . . 60
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5 Imitation and Temperament in Infancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
A Personal Starting Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Why Temperament? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Facial Imitation and Temperament at 3 Months of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Early Imitation and Temperament: Sample 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Early Imitation and Temperament: Sample 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Facial Imitation and Temperament Beyond Infancy up
to 3 Years of Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
An Attempt to Tie It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Part II Memory and Imitation in Infancy
6 A Window into the Preverbal Child’s Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Deferred Imitation and Our Memory Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
A Note on Infantile Amnesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Deferred Imitation and Then What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Memory and Electrophysiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
A Bit More on the Method Used in Our 2015 Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
A Bit on What We Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7 A Rational Mind? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Imitation of Novel Acts from Memory: Are Rational Processes
Involved? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
General Method and Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Deferred and Rational Imitation in an Unfamiliar Setting . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Unfamiliar setting: What We Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Deferred and Rational Imitation in Familiar Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Familiar Setting: What We Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Collapsing the Two Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Aiming for an Integrative Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Contents xiii
Part III Imitation: A Vehicle for Change for Children with Autism
8 Is Imitation an Obstacle for Children with Autism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Is Autism Today and Yesterday the Same Thing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
A Note on Imitation Training in the Early Years: A Historical
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
How I Entered the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Do How We Present a Task Determine If Children
with Autism Imitate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Deferred Imitation and Memory in Children with Autism . . . . . . . . . . . 134
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
9 A Can Opener of the Social World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Imitation Affects Social Awareness: Some Experimental Evidence . . . . 141
A “Being-Imitated” Intervention for Children with ASD . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Implementation of the Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
What We Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Interpreting the Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
“Being Imitated” and Joint Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Part IV Ending
10 It’s Closing Time: For Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
The Law of Jante . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
The Influx of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
The Missing Gold Standard? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Fallacies to Avoid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Is Neonatal Imitation an Ontogenetic Adaptation or a Spandrel? . . . . . . 174
The Neonate as an Influencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
What About the Brain and Neonatal Imitation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Looking Ahead: Notes for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Regression and Imitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Is There a Temporal Architecture That Can Explain Neonatal
Imitation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193