Running head: CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE FILM BABIES 1

Critical Review of the Film Babies

Kayla Suazo

Georgia State University

Educational Psychology 2050

Professor Sosa

March 6, 2017
CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE FILM BABIES 2

Critical Review of the Film Babies

The film Babies is a documentary that shows the lives of four children up until each is a

little past the age of one. Each child is from a different place in the world; Ponijao is from a place

near Opuwo, Namibia, Bayar from around Bayanchandmani, Mongolia, Mari from Tokyo, Japan,

and Hattie is from San Francisco, California. For each child, there are different features that

show their physical development, cognitive development, and emotional & social development.

Both babies from Mongolia and Namibia lived in rural/country settings and were considered low

social economic status places because their parents seemed to have no source of income. The

babies from California and Japan appeared to be from a bit higher SES because the film showed

that their parents (mostly one) worked and they lived in an urban setting. Although some of the

theories we learned are not shown in the film, there are some that are applied to the children.

Physical Development

For all the children shown in the film, the cephalocaudal trend is seen the most. The

cephalocaudal trend is when the babys head is bigger in proportion to the rest of the body (Berk

& Meyers, 2016). Another theory that was shown was classical conditioning. Breastfeeding was

part of the classical conditioning; the babies learned that whenever their mothers took out or

showed their breast, it was time for them to eat. This was seen the most with Ponijao and his

mother, since she breastfed him the most, and with Mari and her mother. The others were fed

from a bottle. Imitation, which is when a someone (the baby) copies whatever another person

does, was also displayed in the film (Berk & Meyers, 2016). This, again was seen with Ponijao

and Mari. While their mothers made silly faces, with or without sounds) the babies would try to

recreate the faces they saw and sounds they heard with their mouths. Like Berk and Meyers

stated on page 185, reaching and graspingstart out as gross [but then turns into] mastery of
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fine movements. A fine motor that was shown at the beginning when the babies were born was

pre-reaching. Bayar began to do this when he was left unattended on the bed, wrapped in a

blanket. The Hattie also did this when her mother was bathing her. The others were not shown

doing pre-reaching, but Mari did appear to be doing the ulnar grasp (months later) while her

father was talking on the cell phone. According to Berk and Meyers, the ulnar grasp is when the

baby is 3 to 4 months and they begin do make uncoordinated grasps. Hattie also began to do the

ulnar grasp when she wanted to put her grandmothers fingers in her mouth. Ponijao began to do

a combination of the ulnar grasp and pincer grasp when he was trying to pick up a rock (or dirt)

from the ground to place in his mouth. Bayar also used the pincer grasp to eat a cracker while his

mom and others had a meal. While he was doing this, an adult was singing, causing the baby to

turn and stare at the person. At that moment, we know that he had fully developed his hearing.

Music was introduced to Mari, but it was uncertain whether she enjoyed it or not because she

didnt show any type of signs. Each of the babies hearing development was different because

some had no access to music players or they made their own type of music. Where the family

lives and whether they had some sort of income highly affect the children.

Cognitive Development

Although the director filmed the babies until they were about 12 months old, they only showed

secondary circular reactions, primary circular reactions, and reflexive schemes from Piagets

sensorimotor stage. The newborns reflexive schemes were easy to spot out with each of them,

while the other reactions were limited per baby. The babies learned how to grasp in the first sub

stage and they also learned how to suck to drink milk. For the primary circular reaction, Hattie

learned that if she began to cry whenever she was hungry, she would be fed. An example for

secondary circular reaction would be when Mari learned how to play with the round blocks with
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the stick, threw them down, began to cry, and picked them up again. A couple of examples zone

of proximal development, which is tasks that babies/ young children cannot do on their own and

need help from grown-ups, would be when the children learned how to eat (Berk & Meyers,

2016). At first the nipple or the bottle was held up towards their mouths and they learned how to

suck/eat. Another task that the baby was introduced to, but could not do on their own, would be

sitting up on their own. Eventually, they learned how to do this alone, but before that, they would

be assisted and held. All four babies showed signs of language development. Ponijao learned and

began to say mama and knew what it meant because he looked at his mother while saying this.

Bayar called out for his mother when she was not around, probably wanting to see her and/or

looking for her. Before saying these small words, all babies cooed and babbled a couple of

months after they were born.

Emotional and Social Development. For each of the children, there was a sense of trust,

or basic trust versus mistrust, because the parents were loving and showed that they care about

them (Berk & Meyers, 2016). Whenever they felt uncomfortable and/or sad, they knew that their

parents would comfort them. All the babies showed basic emotions like happiness, sadness,

anger, surprised, and many others. There was a section where Ponijao acted surprised was when

he was falling asleep and realized he was falling. Bayar showed signs of sadness when his older

brother was slapping his face with a cloth. Mari showed signs of frustration when she was alone,

playing with her toys and she began to cry and threw herself to the floor. Hattie was happy when

her parents were reading a story to her. Every single one of the children showed signs of

attachment to their parents, except Bayar. In my perspective, he was left alone the most and

didnt notice or care much about the absence of his mother. Even though Hattie and Mari

socialized with other adults, they didnt develop an attachment to them. This differs from the
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babies from Ponijao and Bayar because their parents didnt have the necessity, or money, to take

them somewhere else.

Theories Not Covered. There were a couple of theories from physical development,

cognitive development, and emotional & social development that were not shown with the

children in the film. One, out of the many theories, from the cognitive development that was not

in the film was memory. At no time did any of the babies show if they recalled things. They also

didnt categorize anything, or group things into one representation (Berk & Meyers, 2016). We

also didnt see any signs of the babies developing an intermodal perception. For the emotional

and social development, one of the theories not seen was the emotional self-regulation, which

would be how they regulated their own emotions.

Conclusion

The babies in the film from Mongolia, Namibia, California, and Japan all displayed some

theories we learned in our Educational Psychology class. We learned, from this film, what

families from low and higher socialeconommic status do and dont do and how they affect the

development of their children. Some children had advantages compared to the others, but all

incorporated some sort of physical, cognitive, and emotional & social development in their lives.
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References

Berk, L. E., & Meyers, A. B. (2016). Infants, Children, and Adolescents (8th ed.). Boston:

Pearson.

Chabat, A.(Producer), & Balmes, T.(Director). (2006). Babies [Motion Picture]. France:

StudioCanal