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Who's that cute baby?

Luke is endlessly fascinated by his own reflection. When I hold him up to a mirror, he kicks and squeals, and then he tucks his head down onto my chest and cuddles and is shy. It is quite clear that he doesn't know that the reflection is of himself yet, I forget when he gets that idea... Perhaps if there were a developmental psychologist reading the blog, she could post a comment =)

So I shouldn't have been surprised this morning as he was crawling around the floor when he caught a glimpse of himself in the stainless steel garbage can and stopped to play with the cute baby. Our garbage can is round, and not shiny clean anymore, but he still recognized another person and was still interested in talking, waving his hands up and down, and so forth. I let this go on until he tried to kiss the other baby =) he probably played for about 5 minutes. What fun!
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Anonymous said…
Around 12-18 months most babies start to figure out that that is their own reflection. 21-24 month old babies reliably do so.

You test this by putting a red dot or sticker on hisnose when they aren't looking and then show him his reflection; if the baby touches his own nose, then he knows that is his reflection. If he is amused that that cute baby in the mirror has a red nose and tries to grab the reflection, then he has developed this skill of self-recognition.

Once self-recognition is in place it sets the ground work for socialization, as well as a set of emotions that involved the self (e.g., pride, shame, guilt).

Chimps and dolphins seem to have self-recognition... I wonder if they feel guilty at times...

Love,
Your handy neighborhood developmental psychologist
November 7, 2007 at 12:02 PM
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