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A NEW BOOK by DR BERNARD HART

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Its Development and its Place in Medicine

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REFLEXES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD: THEIR DEVELOPMENT, VARIABILITY, EVANESCENCE, INHIBITION, AND RELATION TO INSTINCTS

BY C. W. VALENTINE

The development of the eye-blink reflex (pp. 3–8).
The eye-blink in response to sounds (pp. 8–10).

The instability of a reflex (pp. 10-11).

The variability of a reflex (pp. 11–12).

The finger-grasp reflex (pp. 12–15).

Transition from reflex to voluntary movement (pp. 15–18).
Sight and touch co-ordination (pp. 18–20).

The evanescence of a reflex (pp. 20–24).

The arm-raising reflex (pp. 20-22).

The walking reflex (pp. 22-24).

The inhibition of reflexes (pp. 24-29).

Mutual inhibition of antagonistic muscles (pp. 28-29).
Reflexes and instincts (pp. 29-35).

Reflex or instinct: the sucking impulse (pp. 29–31).
The distinction between reflexes and instincts (p. 31).
Supposed marks of a reflex:

(a) Reaction of only part of organism (pp. 31–32).
(b) No profiting by experience (pp. 32–33).

(c) Inevitability (p. 33).

(d) Dependence on external stimulus (pp. 33-35).

IN the study of the development of mind in early childhood it is impossible to ignore the reflexes: and in observing these we find much that is suggestive for an understanding of the general nature and growth of mind; for, as I shall try to show, they are more inextricably mingled with other functions and with the general condition of the individual than is commonly supposed.

Further, the more precise study of the reflexes in infancy, the fixing of the usual age of the first appearance of signs of definite stages of development, and the exemplifying of individual differences in such matters, may lead to an earlier and more exact diagnosis of mental capacity and defect, and to more reliable prophecies of further probable development, based on the first few months of life.

Med. Psych. VII

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Catalogue for Biol. Lib.

For in view of existing evidence suggesting that retardation even at the age of 4 or 6 months may mean proportional retardation at a few years of age1, it is possible that prognosis of some value may be made. even on the basis of observations made at 1 or 2 months, and that the observation of the reflexes may be an important element in such prognosis, and may indeed form the beginnings of a kind of Binet Scale of tests, applicable from the first few months of life.

If however this is to be done we cannot rest content with the crosssection method of study such as that used by J. B. Watson and Gesell, in which a group of infants at a given age are tested. This method has its values: and it will be essential if we are to make wide generalizations. But it cannot, at this stage, replace the daily, almost hourly, observation and repeated testing, over a continuous period of months, of the same child in normal home surroundings. For as we shall see, even the reflexes which might be thought the most stable of phenomena are so variable, so dependent on general conditions, that a brief examination of a child, unsupported by further observations under varying conditions, may be misleading.

In my own observations, however, the definite fixing of dates and stages of development has been of less interest than general psychological significance. As the merest details may be of importance here, I must ask the reader who has no special point of interest to pardon an amount of detailed observation which, apart from any inferences here suggested, may be useful as raw material to researchers on various special problems in genetic psychology.

My own main purpose in this paper, in addition to recording observed facts and experimental results, will be to illustrate and emphasize the fact that many, if not all, of the so-called reflexes, come at some stage of mental development into relation with instinctive and voluntary behaviour. And that the difficulty of deciding when and how far emotional and voluntary influences enter makes it exceedingly difficult, at least at some stages of development, to draw any hard and fast line between reflex and instinctive or voluntary action-so intact and so complex a mechanism is man.

In this paper, unless otherwise specified, my own observations relate to my boy B, who was a healthy energetic child, 10 lbs. at birth. I have

1 See especially the important pioneer work of Dr Arnold Gesell, The Mental Growth of the Pre-School Child (Macmillan, New York, 1925). Dr Gesell refers to the "incontestable clinical observation that one month of constitutional retardation in early infancy may be predictive of a whole year of retardation after the first birthday."

indicated my three boys by the letters A, B, and C, and my two girls by X and Y, alphabetical order not to be taken as denoting seniority. A was 8 lbs. at birth; a more placid baby than B. A was very healthy till the age of 11 months, when an illness of several months affected his development for some time. E stands for their mother. In the case of B there was constant observation by myself and systematic testing from the 1st day: usually some observation during each of his waking periods and practically every day for the first 12 months or so, supplemented by constant enquiry of his mother who attended to him almost entirely for that period. The same applied to a less extent to Y, whilst on A and especially X, though observation was fairly constant, testing was much less frequent.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EYE-BLINK REFLEX.

It may seem strange to speak of the development of a reflex. The essential and invariable marks of a reflex are usually thought to be the fixity and inevitability of its occurrence in response to a definite stimulus; some of our leading psychologists have spoken of its psychological isolation, its independence of any complication with other functions of the organism.

The work of Sherrington has shown the difficulty of maintaining such a view. The "simple reflex," he states, is a "convenient but artificial abstraction." The nervous system functions as a whole1. Now Sherrington's position was based mainly on experiments with animals; but the study of some of the early appearances of reflexes in the infant impresses one still further with the complication and interdependence of supposed definite reflexes with other functions, and with the possibility of the development and inhibition of reflexes.

I select first the eye-blinking reflex in response to the rapid approach of an object near the eyes: it illustrates especially the possibilities of the extension and complication of the sphere of appropriate stimuli of a reflex.

Very different dates are given by different observers for the first appearance of this reflex. J. B. Watson says that it "does not appear until about the 100th day2." A. Gesell puts it down as a test for a normal 4 month old development3.

1 Integrative Action of the Nervous System, p. 114.

2 Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, 2nd edition, p. 253.

3 Op. cit. p. 367,