Infancy
Babies grow at a faster rate in this stage of development then in any other year of their life
What is the developmental stage of Infancy?
birth weight doubles by 5months; triples by end of year one to av.22#
they accumulate a lot of fat that keeps their body temperature constant.
and their height also increases dramatically from 20" to 30" at the rate of one inch per month
What are the two basic principles of physical growth?
What is the cephalocaudal principle (growth begins at the top and proceeds downward to the rest of the body ex. infant=head is 1/4 of body; adult=head is 1/8 of body)
and what is the proximodistal principle (growth proceeds from the middle of the body outward ex. trunk and arms grow faster then the hands and fingers)
Who developed the most influential theory of cognitive development from infancy through adolescence?
Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980)- his observations convinced him that children of different stages think differently, and that changes in cognitive development proceed in distinct stages. His approach became known as the cognitive-developmental approach.
idea of cognitive stages means that each person's cogn. abilities are organized into mental structures- a person who thinks within a particular stage in one aspect of life should think within that stage in all other aspects of life as well.
maturation- the biological drive behind learning (at one year old you can't learn what a four year old is able to learn)
schemes- how one processes, organizes, and interprets information; it uses assimilation (read, think through experience and easily assimilate) and adaptation (learn new info and you accommodate what you know to expand your knowledge and understanding)
Temperament includes qualities such as:
What is activity level, attention span, and emotionality?
Infants are classified as easy, difficult, and slow to warm up.
Emotional regulation has also been added as a dimension of temperament, but it is difficult to measure in infants due to the frequent changes in infants' state.
Infants need a lot of food and they need it often. At which time in their development is their nutritional energy needs are the greatest?
What is their whole first year? Need more fat; which breastmilk is incredibly high in
solids are typically introduced between 4-6 months (when they can sit up; still have gag reflux); usually soft-thick pureed foods
Marasmus- the disease in which the body wastes away due to insufficient protein and calories. Body stops growing, muscles atrophy, the baby becomes increasingly lethargic, and eventually death results
The entire brain is composed of neurons, the neurons in different parts of the brain have specialized functions. The brain is divided overall into how many major regions? And what makes it highly responsive to environmental circumstances?
What is three? Hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain.
hindbrain and midbrain mature the earliest in prenatal development. They perform the basic biological functions necessary for life. They keep your lungs, heart, and body moving.
The forebrain is divided into two main parts: limbic (hypothalamus- monitors/regulates basic animal functions of hunger, thirst, body temperature, sexual desire, and hormonal levels), thalamus (receiving/transfer center for sensory information from/to the rest of the body), and hippocampus- crucial for memory, especially long term) and cerebral cortex (larger than animals and 85% of the brain weight; the basis of all things that make us human, speak and understand language, solve complex problems, think in terms of concepts, ideas, and symbols).
The cerebral cortext is specialized in two ways (1) its divided into two hemispheres, left and right, and they are connected by a band of neural fibers called the corpus callosum that allows them to communicate. Lateralization is the term used for the specialization of those two sides- left for language and processing information in a sequential step-by-step way, and right for spatial reasoning and for processing information in a holistic, integrated way. (2) cerebral cortex is also specialized in that each hemisphere has four regions/lobs with distinct functions- occipital (visual); temporal (auditory; language); parietal lobes (bodily sensations); and frontal (producing speaking language and making decisions; prefrontal cortex- foremost part of the frontal lobe- plans, organizes, and directs behavior).
Plasticity- the infant brain is high in plasticity which makes it responsive to the environment- highly adaptable but also very vulnerable. (damaged, other parts can take over; but environmental deprivation can have profound and permanent effects)
What are the four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory?
Sensorimotor (0-2yrs)- coordinates activities of the senses with motor activities
Preoperational (2-7yrs)- capable of symbolic representation, such as in language, but with limited ability to use mental operations
Concrete Operations (7-11yrs)- capable of using mental operations, but on in concrete, immediate experiences; difficulty in thinking hypothetically
Formal Operations (11-5years and up)- capable of thinking logically and abstractly; capable of formulating hypothesis and testing them systematically; thinking is more complex, including ability to think about thinking (metacognition)
this means that children develop best if there is a "good fit" between temperament of the child and environmental demands.
What is "goodness-of-fit"?
ex. at a family level when infants with difficult temperaments benefit when they are responded to with tolerance (not anger)
Erik Erikson's stage of psychosocial development at the age of infancy is what?
What is Trust verse Mistrust?
Infants are dependent on others for their survival; through trusting someone to care for them they will believe that others will be trustworthy and believe they are worthy of love. If lacking, they not only don't trust their c/g but others in their social work and cannot learn to count on the good will of others; thus may shrink from social relations in the world that seem harsh and unfriendly.
Thus learning to trust will provide a strong foundation for all future social development.
Two important sleep issues in infants are?
What is SIDS- sudden infant death (highest risk is 2-4 months; Factors: sleeping stomach down; low birth weight/APGAR scale; smoking mother/parent; hot room w/ layers; soft bedding)
and what is co-sleeping (Western- own crib w/in weeks-months after birth: independence/intimacy of parents; Traditional- co-sleep until 2-4 years old; close parent-child connection/dependency on each other)
What is the approach to understanding cognitive functioning that focus on cognitive processes that exist at all ages?
What are information processing approaches?
We have moved from a computer model to seeing that the brain is more complex in its processing- components of thinking operate simultaneously (stimulus; attention; executive function- long and short term/working memory; and response). Executive functioning is the ability to integrate attention and memory
attention: habituation (gradual decrease in attention to something after it has been presented many times) and dishabituation (following habituation, the revival of attention when a new stimulus is present ex. show faces and then add a new face to the mix)
Memory- short (retain for a brief amount of time) and long (knowledge that has accumulated and retained over time)
Recall and recognition- mobile and baby kicking- recognized and then recalled what to do; from infancy on recognition memory becomes easier then recall
What are the primary emotions of infants? And what feelings develops later in infancy?
What are distress (evident in crying), interest, pleasure (smiles and laughter)?
And what is anger, fear, (six months) surprise (6m), and happiness (2-3 m in relation to quos)? Those develop within a few months after birth and sadness tends to appear after infancy (unless in the case of a depressed mother).
Secondary feelings- embarrassment, shame, and guilt are called secondary emotions/sociomoral emotions because infants are not born with a knowing but learn it from their social environment. Usually develop between ages 1 and 2.
What are some main features of infant's social world across cultures?
Developing countries- are often surrounded by other people, held and carried
Developed countries- have a smaller social word and more time alone, but they also learn to function socially.
Over the first year, remarkable advances take place in the infants _______________ and _______________ development?
What is gross motor (balance and posture; whole body movements like crawling) and fine motor (hands that can grasp; manipulate objects) development?
Gross- hold up head without support; roll over; sit without support; crawl; stand; walk (lots of variability if in sequential order and in timing). Learning is a combination of ontogenetic (inborn, genetic based, individual timetable) and environmental. Cultural implications for how it is encouraged but by age six there is no difference in gross motor developmental between children in different cultures.
Fine- we have the opposable thumb! reaching, grasping, and coordinating the movements between the two. by 9-12m they have the "pincer grasp" down.
There are a few scales that have been created to assess cognitive ability and development in infants- their goal is to what?
What is predict later intelligence?
Bayley Scales (Bayley Scales of Infant Development- BSID-III) - it has three scales (assess 3m to 3 1/2 yrs) (1) cognitive- attention and exploration; (2) language- use and understanding of language; (3) motor scale- fine and gross motor abilities. This will give a developmental quotient (DQ) to share overall infants developmental progress. Low rate=serious developmental problems. It does not predict later IQ and school performance as IQ tests look at verbal and spatial abilities.
Information-processing approaches- looks at habituation "short" and "long" lookers. Shorter=more efficient at information processing abilities. They tend to have higher IQs. This measure is now included in the Bayley.
What is the term used for when infants (towards the end of their first year) are able to draw emotional cues from how others respond to ambiguous situations?
What is social referencing?
from their first day they are socially aware of others' emotions and respond with distress to the distress of others. By the end of their first year they develop social referencing- when infants (towards the end of their first year) are able to draw emotional cues from how others respond to ambiguous situations
Which year of an individual's life is the most perilous period?
What is the first year of life?
most infant mortality is neonatal mortality- usually in teh first month and d/t severe birth defects or preterm birth complications, or an indirect consequence of the mother's death during childbirth.
higher in developing then developed countries. Recommendations that have helped are: having trained/available midwives to assist at birth; and access to hospitals for emergencies.
Other causes of death are: malnutrition; diseases like pneumococcus and H. influenzae type B; malaria; diarrhea;
Vaccinations have helped...weakness in the mitochondria
When babies are born their brains are large but immature; over the course of their first year, it is peak time for what to occur in their brain development?
What are the development of connections of neurons?
Neurons differ from other cells in that they don't directly connect with each other. Instead, they are separated by tiny gaps called synapses across which the communication takes place.
Neurons communicate across the synapses through the release and reception of chemicals called neurotransmitters. Axons release neurotransmitters and the dendrites receive them.
At birth,, neurons have relatively few connections, but by age 2 each neuron is connected to hundreds or even thousands of other cells. The greatest density of connections appears in toddlerhood.
It's not just about how many connections but also the speed at which the communication occurs- myelination is the process of the growth of the myelin sheath (axons are wrapped in a white, fatty substance) that increases the speed of communication between the neurons.
Later in childhood and throughout adulthood, synaptic pruning takes place- "use it or lose it" where dendritic connections that are used become stronger and faster and those that are not used whither away.
Name the milestones of infant language development?
2m- cooing (preverbal and gurling sounds)
4-10m babbling (repetitive consonant-vowel combinations)
8-10m first gestures (ex bye-bye)
12m first spoken word (ex. mama; dada; dog; car; milk; hi; etc.)
***discrimination of simple sounds appears to be universal at first and then becomes more specialized toward the end of the first year to the language of the infant’s culture
John Bowlby (1969) developed what theory?
What is attachment theory?
A crucial focus in infancy must be the c/g and child relationship. The importance of this relationship influences all later emotional and social development for the rest of the individual’s life. Trust is the key issue in developing attachment to another person. If the primary c/g is sensitive and responsive, the infant will learn that others to, can be trusted in social relationships. If lacking, then will perceive others as unreliable social partners.
Most research related to this theory has been done with toddlers and will be looked at more closely later.