Behavior is first, relating, and second, communicating. Babies first display behaviors in response to sensation, environment and the relationship between stimuli from the environment affecting their senses. Their behavior will likely show whether that experience is pleasurable, uncomfortable, or painful. When stimuli are neutral the baby shows little movement or facial response; their behaviors are limited. When something really feels good, or bad, the become mor active and “behave” in more obvious gestures, expression and movement.
The second layer of behavior is as communication. Whether caretakers are present or not, an infant will respond to sensations. But, when adult caretakers interact with that baby, the brain begins to recognize that the presence of that other person can bring pleasure or relieve discomfort. Because most adults caring for a baby respond very quickly to crying, laughing, attempts to move, and facial engagement, the baby learns to behave in the ways that cause the most pleasurable sensations, or that relieve pain more quickly.
Babies who spend early months in institutional care, like orphanages, often learn behaviors that seem opposite of those that babies in attentive homes display. For example, an infant who was only picked up and held when they smiled may give up crying as a way to get attention or interaction from caregivers. Once adopted it may take time for that child to learn that in the new environment making sounds or crying will actually draw caretakers to them to investigate. They may be described by adoptive families as unusually quiet or “easy going” early on. In short, from day 1 in the world of sensory experience and interaction with other people, our brains and bodies are processing inputs and recording memory that drives our behavior.
Behavior is more than our personal response to our environment and internal experience of how the surroundings affect us. It’s expressive too. Once other people join us in our environment behavior becomes communication. While our experiences come together over time, to teach us what to do, and when and how, it’s only through behavior that others can see our learning. To put it another way, our performance communicates to others which behaviors we have learned and rely upon. Repeated behaviors are the observable results of learning.
This does not exclude behaviors that are already part of our inborn capacities. We all have instincts, and some are behavioral. The hand grip of an infant is a classic. At the same time, the great flexibility and adaptive potential of human beings lies in our being able to replace instinct with learned behavior, abandon behavior that works in one situation but is unsuccessful in another, or acquire a completely new behavior through mimicry, problem solving, or creative play.
How does this help your family? Well, when you seek additional support to improve performance, whether that’s academic, athletic, social, artistic, or any other area of human endeavor, you need to know where you’re starting. To IMPROVE performance you have to know the scope and reasons for the performance GAP—the difference between your current capability and the level you want to achieve.
Performance gaps are usually the result of accidental learning. Many areas of life set goals for us. They tell us what grades, salary, or points we need to earn to be considered “good,” or “excellent.” Too often the support to reach those outcomes is not very intentional, or people assume we know how to get there and we just need to “execute” or “apply ourselves.” We usually tackle it by just using whatever solutions we feel can satisfy the immediate demands as we understand them. We repeat them and they become learned behavior that we then apply to other situations if they seem similar. The most common result is mediocre or poor performance. These intuitive solutions aren’t about leveling up. They are just meant to alleviate social pressure and discomfort.
That behavior and performance gap, that comes from just meeting the needs of the comfort zone, are addressed with strong executive functions. Executive functions is a conscious, purposeful process that takes you through assessing your current resources, environment, skills, knowledge, and motivation. With that in mind you’ll be able to enrich your resources, improve the environment, provide the knowledge, and increase the motivation to close that gap.
