A newborn arrives in this world with the inherent capacity to learn. This includes simple reflexes such as sucking, Moro reflexes, grasping etc. These “pre-installed” capacities help the baby to survive, particularly in the early months before there has been time to gaining new capabilities through learning. Once an infant starts to learn simple reflexes, the instinct becomes less important. Most of the human abilities are acquired through learning in educational institutions. An innate theory of development is that a child is born with the abilities or pre-disposition called as genetic makeup that increases the likelihood of a child being able to display a particular characteristic. Innate language factors are genetically programmed physiological and neurological features that facilitate a person making speech sounds and acquiring language skills. Crying, sucking, and grasping are some of reflexes of children, while learning includes classical conditioning; in which a connection of association is learned, so that a response initially elicited by one event is now elicited by an event paired with the original one. School teachers, developmental psychologists, and teacher educators must be aware of the following: What are the acquired abilities of children? Does education enhance the acquired abilities of children through learning? What kind of education is necessary to enhance students’ abilities? Keeping these questions in mind, this paper provides a strong theoritical base for human learning.
Newborns have certain ability inherent to their natural behaviour while arriving into the world. A baby's inherent behaviour can be changed into learned human behaviour through education. However, some of those capabilities that are largely acquired or learned retain substantial innate elements. The present study helps to understand the basic nature of children. The studies described in this paper provide insight into the ontogeny of learning, that is, learning occurs in development. Development and learning are two sides of the same coin. Infants acquire sets and paired association in the larger context of ongoing developmental changes. The innate and acquired processes are linked with each other, which means that learning and development are coincident, but the developmental changes need to be specific to the type of learning mechanism employed or the nature of what is learned. Development in one domain can constrain or facilitate learning in another domain.
Developmental changes in infants skills and environments may facilitate the acquisition of new learning sets by providing immense amount of practice with continually varying and novel stimuli. Most of the competencies are acquired abilities, which mean a child develops abilities as the variety of potentials of a child become practical. This implies that a child is born with certain innate abilities and basic competencies. During childhood, these abilities and skills develop in all developmental domains like motor, emotional, social, and cognitive.
The innate theory of development proposes that a child is born with abilities, a predisposition called genetic makeup, which increases the likelihood of a child being able to exhibit a particular characteristic. An innate ability is a trait or characteristic that presents in every organism at birth. It is always inherent in an organism and is not a learned or acquired behaviour. Some of this innate behaviour is found in all animals, for example, even simplest animals have known how to eat (Hibbard, 2002).
Innate behaviour is defined as “something which exists or has the potential to exist at birth by virtue of genetic factor” (Mukherji & O'Dea, 2000). For example, human beings have the innate ability of language and are programmed to learn any language spoken across the world.
Most children are born with the ability to talk, push, and grasp an object. Walking, pushing, and grasping are some of the abilities necessary to learn how to ride a tricycle. As children mature, they are able to combine abilities to develop their skills for riding a bicycle.
However, developing the skill is dependent on the availability of a tricycle in the child's environment. Developing skill is a process. To develop any kind of skill, a sort of learning is important, for example, even though speech is innate ability of children, but what to speak, how to speak, when to speak, etc are learned under the purview of acquired ability of children. When children learn more and more skills like body movements, thinking, and social and emotional behaviour, their competencies increase. As children mature, they acquire physical skills, cognitive skills, and affective and aesthetic skills. In doing so, children become more independent. For example, when Master X is able to pedal a two wheeler bike, he begins to ride with his friends around the path. His skill in socialability increases along with the motor achievement of pedalling the bike. Through these extensive learning processes, a baby gradually acquires fine motor skills and comes to master the complicated pincer grip, which helps to pick up small objects at 9-12 months of age. Developing this skill does not mean that the baby will use the pincer grip exclusively. In another example, when an infant's spontaneous smile evokes a response from the adult, which gradually makes the child's smile a more conscious socio-emotional skill a “smile back”. It helps to develop a social smile. Over time, the child develops the ability to communicate with others through language. Later, this skill evolves the ability to tell rational stories. An important feature of this perspective of competence is that a certain basic abilities may be present at the time of birth of a child (i.e., facial imitation), but majority of the abilities are acquired through learning (Sommer, 2012).
All children go through the same four language stages because of innate language factors. Innate language factors are genetically programmed physiological and neurological features that facilitate a person’s making speech sound and acquiring language skills. There are three innate language features that work together to help a person learn to speak and use a language.
Human beings have a particularly adapted vocal apparatus that allows them to make sound and form words. Without specialised vocal apparatus, humans would be imperfect to making animal sound.
When people speak or use sign language, certain brain areas are activated. The left hemisphere of the brain is prewired to acquire and use language whether spoken or signed. Damage to similar language areas, descripts the use and understanding of language.
There is a critical period when acquiring language is easiest. The critical language period is the time from infancy to adolescence when language is easiest to learn. The second language is usually more difficult to learn at any time after adolescence (Bukatko & Daehler, 2012).
For example, immigrant children learn English as a second language, while immigrant adults who passed the critical period have more difficulty and do less as well.
The critical period for learning a language explains why it is easy for a child to learn a native language, and as an adult, learning a foreign language is many times more difficult.
The innate biological factor provides the programming, so that a child can acquire any one of the 6,909 languages, (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2014) and which particular language the child learns depends on their environment.
How each child learns a particular language depends on social interactions, which is one of the environmental factors. Environmental language factors refer to interactions children have with parents, peers, teachers, and others who provide feedback that rewards and encourages language development, as well as provides opportunities for children to observe, imitate, and practice language skills. Children are prewired by heredity to speak a language, they need certain environmental stimuli, such as listening, speaking, and interacting with others in order to learn to speak and use a language. Environmental and innate factors interact and influence a child's ability to acquire a language.
Humans are generally intelligent species and they have very little innate behaviour. Reflexes are only innate behaviours in humans. A reflex is a response that always occurs when a certain stimulus is present.
Example: A human infant will grasp an object such as a finger that is placed on its palm. The infant has no control over this reaction because it is innate. Reflex behaviours in human babies may help them to survive. Children gain new and diversified abilities as they grow and change. Their brains mature and their bodies change, causing them to develop the movement, social ability, and thinking. Maturational progress takes place and changes occurs in the ability to control the head, toes, legs, feet, arms, hands, and fingers. A healthy body allows a child to participate and interact, which increases their opportunities to develop added proficiency in the development of skills.
While many of an infant's initial behaviours are instinctual and not learned, some of these automatic reflexes disappear within the first few months of life, while others eventually become part of an infant's voluntary behaviour. Following are some of the innate behaviours usually found in infants.
Crying is an innate behaviour of infants. An infant does not learn how to cry, they just does it. Infants cry for a lot of reasons as a means of communicating. It is similar to an adult's speech. Through crying, the baby shows their physical and psychological state. It is known that crying is related to neuro psychological status of infants (Sanfeliu & Ruiz-Shulcloper, 2003). Babies cry when they are hungry, sleepy, need changing or are otherwise uncomfortable.
Sucking is an automatic reflex for a newborn. Sometimes, the reflex is present even before birth as infants will often suck their thumbs while still in the womb. Sucking is one of an most common innate behaviour of infants. After birth, infants rely on the sucking reflex for both nourishment and comfort. Sucking on their fingers or a fist is a natural response that most infants use to soothe themselves.
When an object is placed in the palm of an infant's hand, they will curl the fingers around the object strongly enough to support the infant's entire body weight. By 3-4 months, the grasping reflex declines, and infants are involuntarily lets go off objects placed in their palms. Once sitting up at 6-8 months, infants transfer objects from hand to hand across the midline of their body, and release the objects at will. By 9-12 months, they control the individual movement of the thumb and forefinger to use a pincer-like grip to pick up finger foods. Grasping is a good example of how development evolves. (Thies & Travers, 2001)
As further examples, on stroking the palm of the hand, an infant will grip the finger or will curl her toes on stroking the bottom of her foot. While an infant's grasp in those first weeks of life may feel strong, it is only a reflex they cannot control. This grasp reflex is an innate behaviour that normally decreases during the second month and is absent by the time an infant is three months old. At four months, a baby begins to grasp objects voluntarily. As they grows, they gains more control over their movements, so their grasping becomes more voluntary.
Infants produce automatic reflexes in response to stimuli in their environments. Reflexes are automatic, stereotyped responses to specific stimuli. The fact that many reflexes are present in all neurologically healthy neonates is good evidence that those reflexes are inherited. Most of them appear to have had adaptive value (Schlinger & Poling, 1998).
For example, newborns are sensitive to light and will automatically shut their eyes to glare and newborns respond to their mother's voices from the first day, while loud and sudden noises startle them. Reflex, is an involuntary response normally present at birth.
These are some of the examples for innate reflexes of infants, and most of these reflexes vanish when a child grows and acquires new abilities. A teacher who takes care of the early childhood of children needs to focus on their developing abilities,and the innate capacities of children. So teachers should enhance their developing skills.
Learning enhances human potentialities and gives people the ability to do things they cannot do without education. This includes both active powers, especially skill and relatively passive powers such as the ability to enjoy and take pleasure in experiencing things that demands education.
For example, listening to classical music or watching paintings with pleasure and understanding, or following a lecture or a book.
For example, humans acquire an education by their own efforts. Most of human behaviour is learned. Learned behaviour is a behaviour that occurs only after experience or practice. It has an advantage over innate behaviour, and it is more flexible. Learned behaviour can be change if conditions change.
For example, usually a child knows the route from the house to school. If that child moves to a new house in a different place, they has to take a different route to school. If the old route was an innate behaviour, the child would not be able to adapt. But it is a learned behaviour. The child can learn the new route just as it learned the old one.
Although most animals can learn, animals with greater intelligence are better at learning and have more learned behaviours. Humans are most intelligent animals. They depend on learned behaviour more than any other species.
Other behaviours may be learned from other people. Humans and other animals can learn behaviours in different ways. These methods of learning are explored below.
Competence is any personal trait, characteristic, or skill which can be shown to be directly linked to effective or outstanding job performance. According to Spenser and Spenser (1993), competence as an underlying characteristic of an individual, which is causally related to criterion referenced effective or superior performance in a job or situation (Berman, 1997).
Competence denoted as skill and ability. In psychological terminology, competence is often used to refer to one of three aspects.
Abilities that have not yet to emerge or are not fully developed. In children, competencies imply some inherent, not acquired, possibilities.
For example, the capacity for tuning into baby talk. Competencies as potentials are especially useful for discussing basic human nature.
A child develops abilities or functions as various potentials come to completion. It implies that a child is born with certain innate abilities or basic competencies. During childhood, these abilities and skills develop within all developmental domains- motor, emotional, social, and cognitive (Sommer, 2012). Another example is how, over time, the child develops the ability to communicate with others through language. Later, this skill evolves to include the ability to tell coherent stories.
An important feature of this perspective of competencies is that certain basic abilities may be present from birth, while the vast majority are acquired. The point is that a child possesses many more competencies than they actively applying.
For example, a child uses a large number of competencies during play with their peers. However, when eating with elders, the play competencies are put aside, and only contextually pertinent competencies are used.
A competency is used to refer a qualified performance or accomplishments in practice. Thus, a child's level of competence is measured on the basis of what the child does. When the child displays skills in external actions or behaviours, the competencies are directly observable. Although these three meanings of competence are interrelated, they are distinctly different. Competencies include potentials, acquired abilities, and qualified performance.
Even young infants possess potentials, acquired competencies, and practical skills. However, much remains to be developed during childhood. If the competencies are fully developed early in life, then there would be no room for learning, influences, and development in life. From birth, human infants possess innate basic competencies required to engage in, affect and learn about the physical world.
Even newborn babies consider their environment 'interesting', and attempt to 'construe meaning' by looking for connection between events. A distinction has to be made between events. A distinction has to be made between Basic Proto Competencies (innate) and Acquired Competencies (learned). Basic, social and emotional, and cognitive competencies constitute the foundation for taking the first step forward in a year-long developmental process. New competencies develop along the way, others disappear, and the existing ones are expanded and refined. Even the most accomplished person is not fully competent at all areas.
Brembeck (1971) opined that even the most competent child may be anything but strong and autonomous in every possible context.
According to Maccoby (1976), it should be emphasized that 'Authority Relation' is not synonymous with 'authoritarian' or 'dictatorial adult-child relationship, but instead that an authoritative adult manages a delicate balance between articulating demands and expectations and being able in a democratic way to empathize with the child and also adopt the child's perspective. Adults gradually involve children and delegate autonomy and authority to children as they develop their necessary competencies.
According to Dam (2000), “Children are active participants who influence their own developmental process.”
Learning is a process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Learning happens when people can demonstrate something they do not know before (insights and realization as well as facts) and/or when they do something they have not been able to do before (Mumford & Gold, 2004).
Classical conditioning: In classical conditioning, a connection of association is learned, so that a response initially elicited by one event is now elicited by an event paired with the original one. In a newborn human baby, if she hears the same sound each time she starts receiving milk, the sucking response that was produced by the milk is eventually elicited by the sound on its own, even if the milk is not provided.
Operant Conditioning: Behaviour may be regarded as a function of certain environmental events (Blackman, 2017).
For example, a young child might learn to put away his toys by being rewarded with a bedtime story. An older child might learn to study for tests in school by being rewarded with better grades.
Conditioning does not always involve a reward. It can involves a punishment.
For example, a toddler might be punished with a time-out each time he grabs a toy from his baby brother. After several time-outs, he may learn to stop taking his brother's toys and human children can learn by playing as well. For example, playing games and sports can help them learn to follow rules and work with others.
In operant condition in animals, responses that are reliably rewarded start to be made at a higher rate. This also happens in human babies. For instance, even in the first week of life, babies can learn to vary their rate of sucking in order to gain the reward of hearing their mother's voice. If the sound of the mother's voice is made available whenever the rate of sucking increases, the infants will suck more quickly. If the arrangements are reversed, so that slower rather than faster sucking produces mother's voice, the speed of sucking will decrease.
Very young infants are capable of primitive imitative response, which are gradually replaced by acquired imitation skills, and imitating parents and others is an activity that helps to extend the young child's repertoire of acquired skills.
Habituation is learning to get used to something after being exposed to it for a while. It usually involves getting used to something that is annoying or frightening, but not dangerous. Habituation is one of the simplest ways of learning.
For example, a child reads a book, and someone switches on a television in the same room. At first, the sound of the television is annoying. After a while, the child may no longer notice it. If so, the child has become habituated to the sound.
Observational learning is learning by watching and copying the behaviour of someone else. Human children learn much behaviour in this way. People learn social behaviours mainly through observing and imitating others, rather than through direct experience (Franzoi, 2010). For example, children learn how to tie their shoes by watching others. And learn how to dance by watching a dancer dancing on TV. Most likely, children learn how to do math problems by watching their teachers solving problems on the board at school.
Most children like to play. Play is one way to learn the skills they need as adults. Human children learn by playing as well. For example, playing games and sports can help them learn to follow rules and work with others. The toddler likes to playing in the sand. They learn about the world through play.
Insight learning is learning from past experiences and reasoning. It usually involves coming up with new ways to solve problems. Insight learning generally happens quickly and requires relatively great intelligence. Human beings use insight learning more than any other species to solve problems ranging from inventing the wheel to flying rockets into space. A child may figure out how to solve a new type of math problem or how to move on to the next level of video games. If the child relies on past experiences and reasoning for doing it, then the child is uses insight learning.
Now-a-days, the education system is changing with more and more innovations and different spectra of schools. Thus, an early childhood care educator can provide more sensory training. Simple physical exercises and different kinds of art and craft education are significant for children. Any form of drama, art, music, and kinaesthetic activities are important for growing child. As far as possible, children should study many languages by watching cartoons, talking with people, and by reading books. More and more language development helps to develop social skills. As far as acquired ability is concerned, children develop more and more competencies like motor, cognitive, social, emotional, communication, before adolescence; it is easy to learn anything. Later, as the body grows, it is difficult to study adaptive behaviour. The present research article can be implemented to frame the curriculum of early childhood care and education, nursery and pre-nursery education. By studying the basic nature of child development, we can draw the best from children.
Present theoretical views provide extensive insights into the nature of human learning, early childhood care and education. It motivates teachers and parents towards holistic child development, learning means not just bookish knowledge, but every aspect of human development i.e, kinaesthetic ability, musical ability, attitude, aptitude, etc. further, it helps to conduct some empirical studies and one can develop effective tool. In the process of development of an infant, the surrounding circumstances always influences the acquiring ability of the child. So, the early childhood care taker including parents and pre-primary educator has to provide situation where a child can acquire good behaviour and module its personality. In the growing ladder of maturity, one should never lose hope.
Present study can be best implemented in different spectrum of education. For a teacher educator innate and acquired ability is one of the concepts in childhood and growing up subject, the teacher can train young graduates with more insightful ideas. By getting knowledge of this particular concept, a teacher can train students in better manner. It helps to develop various kinds of intervention programmes for children to improve their acquired behaviour, learning, and skills. Child development is a process, so the particular study can be helpful for an early learning centre teachers, they can motivate parents to study different skills such as art, drama, music, kinaesthetic abilities like karate and sports. For parents, this particular paper gives insightful ideas related to growing child. One of the less identified areas of human growth and developmental issues can be tackle effectively by studying the present research.
Innate and acquired abilities are very basic nature of human learning, and many reflexes of infancy and childhood disappears as a child grows. Reflexes are a kind of innate behaviour of children. During early education, a teacher or a nursery education mentor should know these basic natures of human beings. Developmental psychology is very important for a teacher and a teacher educator, because child development is a continuous process. In the growing ladder of maturity, one should never lose hope because the entire education psychology takes care of the growing child. Through learning the basic nature of child development, a teacher can contribute the best to the society.