“So Big”: The Development of Body Self‐Awareness in Toddlers

Abstract

Early development of body self-awareness was examined in 57 children at 18, 22, or 26 months of age, using tasks designed to require objective representation of one's own body. All children made at least one body representation error, with approximately 2.5 errors per task on average. Errors declined with age. Children's performance on comparison tasks that required them to reason about the relative size of objects and about objects as obstacles, without considering their own bodies, was unrelated to performance on the body awareness tasks. Thus, the ability to represent and reflect on one's own body explicitly and objectively may be a unique dimension of early development, a distinct component of objective self-awareness which emerges in this age period.

An ecological stance on risk and safe behaviors in children: The role of affordances and emergent behaviors

“…The relationship between body and environment is not easily perceived by children during early development. Until the second year of life, toddlers frequently make body self-awareness errors related to their body size (e.g., trying to squeeze their bodies through doors that are too narrow or to fit in replica toys that are too small for them), or related to the capability of perceiving their body as an obstacle (e.g., trying to push a stroller attached to a blanket where there are standing without realizing that they have to remove themselves from the blanket) (Brownell, Zerwas, & Ramani, 2007). These self-awareness or self-perception errors sometimes might lead to injury.…”

The development of multisensory body representation and awareness continues to 10years of age: Evidence from the rubber hand illusion

“…Given that a subjective sense of hand ownership and perceived location of the hand appear to develop according to different timelines, this suggests that the bodily self is not a unitary construct developing in a unitary manner, but rather consists of several processes which unfold at different rates. Brownell, Zerwas & Ramani (2007) suggest that "body self-awareness may serve as a developmental bridge between the kinaesthetically based awareness and discrimination of one's own body evident in infancy and the more complex psychological self that develops over childhood and adolescence". In contrast, our data demonstrate no evidence that body identification or self-awareness, which can be gained from visual-tactile signals, develops after 4 years of age.…”

Diagnosis and Management of Infantile Hemangioma

“…133 Whether IH affects the psychosocial well-being of affected patients, and the age at which it may do so, is uncertain. Some authors suggest that "children first represent and reflect on themselves as independent, objective entities" in the latter half of the second year of life 134 and that the emotional responses of others may affect a child's mood even earlier than 12 months of age. 135 Thus, there may be some effect on the child even before entering preschool.…”