Approach centred on the two-year-old children: social profiles and affective, cognitive and environmental origins
Young child is a social being: he must be studied as a unit (emotional, cognitive and social) integrated into his circles of life. This research, based on person-oriented approach, aims at understanding how the social, temperamental, cognitive, motor and environmental characteristics of a young child integrate to form a unit. The objectives are 1) to establish social profiles of 61 two-year-old children, based on ecological observation; and 2) to show that within the same profile the children present psychological resemblances (temperamental, cognitive, motor) and environmental (familial and extra-familial), ones. Temperament is estimated by mother questionnaire. Emotion comprehension, language and global motricity are evaluated with psychometric tools. The results bring to light five children social profiles that differ socially, psychologically and environnementally. If the notion of continuity/discontinuity is taken into account, some of these profiles seem to be precursors of later difficulties.