Develop. Med. Child Neurol. 1968, 10, 101-110

Annotations

TEMPERAMENT IN THE CHILD’S DEVELOPMENT EVERYONE knows that babies differ from the start, that sensible and consistent parents may find one child easy and another difficult, and that some children suffer seriously from separations and similar vicissitudes on which others seem to thrive. Yet generalisations are often made as though what is good for one child must necessarily be good for all. Rules are laid down for parents and nurses, and when difficulties arise it is too often assumed that the adults in charge are to blame.

Dr. CHESS’ and her colleagues at New York University believe that temperamental characteristics of individual children, detectable at three months of age if not earlier, determine the type of handling that each child needs, the kinds of experience from which he can benefit, and the stresses to which he will prove most vulnerable. They claim to have identified nine primary traits or behaviour categories which can be observed in infants, or assessed from detailed interviews with the mother, and which remain substantially constant in most children. These nine behai ioural characteristics-activity level, rhythmicity, approach or withdrawal, adaptability, intensity of reaction, threshold of responsiveness, quality of mood, distractibility, and attention span or persistence-manifest themselves in the ordinary commerce of everyday life, and, though they vary from one action to another, tend towards a typical level for any given child: thus an adaptable child will take new experiences in his stride, a child who maintains a regular rhythm in one function will generally function regularly in other directions as well, and so on.

Once a child’s temperament is described, it becomes easier to predict what methods of handling will best suit him. Thus self-demand feeding will suit children whose functioning has a natural rhythmicity, whereas highly irregular children may need guiding towards a routine. Non-distractible children will need earlier warning of interruption of their play than readily distractible ones. To immobilize a highly active child for long periods is asking for trouble. Dr. CHESS writes: ‘It was our finding that disturbance could invariably be traced to a maladaptive interaction between a child with a particular temperamental pattern and significant features of his environment.’ And later: ‘Stress results when the demand is made of the child that he in effect become a different individual.’

When children are difficult it is not necessarily their parents’ fault. Children who are by nature arhythmic, non-adaptive, and prone to negative moods of high intensity require handling with ‘unusual firmness, patience, tolerance and consistency’. But, we may reflect, in so far as temperament is inherited-a point on which the investigators have not committed themselves-parents of such children may well be rather shorter of these desirable qualities than those with easier children. If so, they need extra help and consideration in bringing up difficult children with less than optimal equipment in their own personalities. Since, by the same token, they may find difficulty in accepting help offered or following advice con-

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sistently, the maternity wards and child welfare clinics need to be staffed by people of mature wisdom and diplomatic skill, fully aware of the temperamental incompatibilities that may exist between mother and child.

Dr. CHESS found that some easy children-those blessed with regular functioning, adaptability and a prevailingly positive mood-are peculiarly susceptible to stress when they have suddenly to exchange the home environment to which they are nicely adjusted for a fresh milieu such as school, where expectations are very different. 'Adaptability' as 5een by parents may involve too compliant a life style for the peer group norms : a reminder of the relativity of psychological terms.

The identification of individual characteristics which make some children specially vulnerable to certain types of experience would be a great step forward, one which could lead to the elimination of unnecessary frictions and the reduction of disturbances of behaviour and personality. Dr. CHESS and her colleagues are giving an important lead, and their research deserves the compliment of rigorous critical inspection.

To assess its merits one must read their book, Behavioral Individualitji in Early Childhood.2 This gives details of the method used to assess the children's behaviour-essentially an analysis of verbatim responses of their mothers to a semi-structured interview, which was repeated periodically to establish the consistency of the patterns observed. To validate these interviews an observational check was made, but the information given is insufficient to enable the reader to judge its adequacy. The method of arriving at the nine key traits is not made clear; nor is it established whether they are truly inherent from birth or determined by the interaction of inherent tendencies with experience gained in the first few weeks of life. The main weakness, however, lies in the authors' claim that most of the traits are shown consistently throughout the age-span dealt with (from 5 to 27 months, now extended to 5 years and onwards)-a claim not borne out by careful inspection of the correlations presented. This failure of objectivity is both regrettable and pointless, since the value of the work does not rest on establishing long-term consistency, as distinct from short-term reliability. The authors in fact recognize that behaviour can change in response to environ- mental forces. Their main point stands : the child's individuality should be taken seriously from the beginning, his behaviour should be understood in terms of his inborn equipment

well as his experiences, and the methods of handling used should be adapted as far as possible to his personal needs.

If clinical case-histories of children were routinely extended to include questions throwing light on their characteristic modes of reaction both to everyday occurrences and to occasional stresses, much could be done to avoid trauma, to fit the treatment to the child, and perhaps, when we learn how, to help parents and children to dovetail their temperaments so as to minimise friction and maximise a positive and co-operative approach to life.

TERENCE MOORE

Child Guidance Training Centre, 120 Belsize Lane, London, N.W.3.

REFERENCES I . Chess, S. (1967) 'The role of temperament in the child's development.' Acta paedopsych"'., ?,91. 2. Thomas, A., Chess, S., Birch, H. G. , Hertzig, M. E., Korn, S. (1963) Behavioral Individuality in Early

Childhood. New York: New York University Press.

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