Are all babies cute? Some are…but your own is always the cutest!
The Cephalocaudal Pattern
The cephalocaudal pattern is the sequence in which the greatest growth
always occurs at the top—the head— with physical growth in size, weight, and
feature differentiation gradually working its way down from top to bottom.
Aspects of the Cephalocaudal Pattern
This same pattern occurs in the head area, because the top parts of the
head—the eyes and brain—grow faster than the lower parts. An
extraordinary proportion of the total body is occupied by the head during
prenatal development and early infancy. Sensory and motor development
proceed according to the cephalocaudal principle.
The Proximodistal Pattern
The sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves
toward the extremities.
Height
The average North American newborn is 20 inches long. Ninety-five percent
of full-term newborns are 18-22 inches long. Infants grow about 1 inch per
month during the first year, reaching approximately 1½ times their birth
length by their first birthday. Infants’ rate of growth is considerably slower in
the second year of life. At age 2, the average infant is 32-35 inches long.
Weight
The average North American baby weighs 7½ pounds. Ninety-five percent of
full-term newborns weigh between 5½ and 10 pounds. In the first several
days of life, most newborns lose 5-7 percent of their body weight before they
adjust to neonatal feeding. Infants gain 5-6 ounces per week during the first
month. They have doubled their birthweight by the age of 4 months. They
have nearly tripled their birthweight by their first birthday. During the second
year of life they gain a quarter to half a pound per month. At 2 years of age
they have reached about one-fifth of their adult weight.
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Vaccinations against the most common, historically deadly and debilitating
diseases are started in infancy. Some are combined into one shot; some are
part of a multi-year series.
There is NO EVIDENCE that vaccines “cause” autism. One researcher in
England found a correlation, but it was later revealed that he was paid by
lawyers who wanted data in their favor. He later lost his license to practice
medicine.
Definition of a Neuron
A nerve cell that handles information processing at the cellular level
The Brain’s Development
At birth, the newborn’s brain is about 25% of its adult weight and, by the
second birthday, it is about 75% of its adult weight. Newborns have all of the
neurons they will ever have—about 100 billion. Some areas of the brain, such
as the primary motor areas, develop earlier than others, such as the primary
sensory areas. Among the most dramatic changes in the brain in the first 2
years of life are the spreading connections of dendrites to each other.
Myelination
The process of encasing axons with fat cells. Myelination both insulates the
nerve cells and helps nerve impulses travel faster. A myelin sheath (a layer of
fat cells) encases most axons. Myelination for visual pathways occurs rapidly
after birth and is completed in the first 6 months. Auditory myelination is not
completed until 4-5 years of age. Some aspects of myelination continue into
adolescence.
Measuring the Brain’s Activity in Research on Infant Memory
Even the latest technologies don’t enable researchers to make out fine details
in brain imaging of babies, and they often can’t be used with babies. Charles
Nelson is pioneering informative infant-brain research using 128 electrodes
attached to babies’ scalps. Nelson has found that newborns produce
distinctive brain waves that reveal they can distinguish their mother’s voices
from another woman’s, even while they’re asleep. He has also found that by
8 months, babies can distinguish a picture of a wooden toy they were allowed
to feel, but not see, from pictures of other toys. This coincides with the
development of the hippocampus.
The Brain’s Hemispheres
The highest level of the brain, the cerebral cortex, is divided into two halves,
or hemispheres. There continues to be considerable interest in the degree to
which each hemisphere is involved in various aspects of thinking, feeling, and
behavior. The most extensive research on the brain’s hemispheres has
focused on language. At birth, the hemispheres have already started to
specialize, with newborns showing greater electrical brain activity in the left
hemisphere than the right hemisphere when listening to speech.
Definition of Lateralization
The specialization of functions in one hemisphere of the cerebral
cortex or the other
Early Experience and the Brain
Starting shortly after birth, a baby’s brain produces trillions more connections
between neurons than it can possibly use. The brain eliminates connections
that are seldom or never used—continuing at least until 10 years of age.
Current belief is that the infant’s brain is waiting for experiences to determine
how connections are made. Before birth, genes appear to direct how the
brain establishes basic wiring patterns. After birth, environmental
experiences are important in the brain’s development.
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Sleep
Developmentalists are interested in infants’ states of consciousness, or levels
of awareness. Classifying infant states has helped researchers identify many
aspects of infant development, such as the sleep-waking cycle. Newborns
sleep 16-17 hours a day with individual variations. Most 1-month-olds begin
sleeping longer at night. Most 4-month-olds usually have moved closer to
adultlike sleep patterns. Researchers have found cultural variations in infant
sleeping patterns.
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep
A recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur. Most
adults spend about one-fifth of their night in REM sleep. Infants spend about
one-half of their sleep in REM sleep and it begins their sleep cycle. By 3
months the percentage of REM sleep falls to 40%, and it no longer starts their
sleep cycle. REM sleep is thought to promote the brain’s development in
infancy.
A Classification Scheme for Infant States
• No REM sleep
• Active sleep without REM
• REM sleep
•
•
•
•
•
Indeterminate sleep
Drowsy
Inactive alert
Active awake
Crying
Shared Sleeping
There exists considerable variation across cultures in newborns’ sleeping
arrangements. Some child experts believe shared sleeping is beneficial with regard
to promoting breast feeding, responsiveness to infant crying, and detection of
dangerous breathing pauses. The American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on
Infant Positioning and SIDS recommends against shared sleeping due to an
increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Shared sleeping remains a
controversial issue.
SIDS
Sudden infant death syndrome is a condition that occurs when infants stop
breathing, usually during the night, and suddenly die without apparent cause. It is
the highest cause of infant death in the U.S. with approximately 13% of all infant
deaths due to SIDS. Risk of SIDS is highest at 4-6 weeks of age. Some researchers
believe that an inability to swallow effectively in the prone sleeping position is an
important factor in SIDS. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended
since 1992 that infants sleep on their backs.
Risk Factors for SIDS
• Low-birthweight infants are 5 to 10 times more likely to die of SIDS.
• Twins and triplets, even at normal birthweight, are twice as likely to die of SIDS.
• After one twin dies, the surviving twin has an increased risk of dying from SIDS.
• Infants whose siblings have died of SIDS are two to four times as likely to die of
it.
• Six percent of infants with sleep apnea, a temporary cessation of breathing in
which the airway is completely blocked, usually for 10 seconds or longer, die of
SIDS.
• African American and Eskimo infants are four to six times as likely as all others
to die of SIDS.
• SIDS is more common in lower socioeconomic groups.
• SIDS is more common in infants who are passively exposed to cigarette smoke.
• Soft bedding is not recommended.
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Nutritional Needs and Eating Behavior
The importance of adequate energy and nutrient intake consumed in a loving
and supportive environment during the infant years cannot be overstated.
Nutritionists recommend that infants consume approximately 50 calories per
day for each pound they weigh—more than twice an adult’s requirement per
pound. A controversy has existed over whether infants should be fed on a
regular schedule (e.g., 4 ounces of formula every 6 hours), or fed on demand
(determined by the infant). Diets designed for adult weight loss and
prevention of heart disease may actually retard growth and development in
babies, who need high-energy, high-calorie food.
Breast- Versus Bottle-Feeding
Human milk, or alternative formula, is the baby’s source of nutrients and
energy for the first 4 to 6 months of life. For years, debate has focused on
whether breast-feeding is better for the infant than bottle-feeding. The
growing consensus is that breast-feeding is better for the baby’s health. The
American Pediatric Association strongly endorses breast-feeding throughout
the first year of life. Mothers least likely to breast feed are those who work
full-time outside the home, mothers under 25, mothers without a high school
education, African-American mothers, and mothers in low-income
circumstances. Some researchers have found no psychological differences
between breast-fed and bottle-fed infants.
Benefits of Breast Feeding
• Appropriate weight gain
• Fewer allergies
• Prevention or reduction of diarrhea, respiratory infections, bacterial and
urinary tract infections, and otitis media
• Bone density in childhood and adulthood
• Reduced childhood cancer and reduced incidence of breast cancer in
mothers and their female offspring
• Lower incidence of SIDS
• Neurological and cognitive development
• Visual acuity
And it helps mom lose weight faster!
Malnutrition in Infancy
In many of the world’s developing countries, mothers used to breast-feed
their infants for at least 2 years. To become more modern, they’ve stopped
breast-feeding much earlier and replaced it with bottle-feeding. Weaning
from breast milk to inadequate nutrients, such as unsuitable and unsanitary
cow’s milk formula, can lead to conditions called marasmus and kwashiorkor.
Even if it’s not fatal, severe and lengthy malnutrition is detrimental to physical,
cognitive, and social development. In some cases, even moderate
malnutrition can produce subtle difficulties in development.
Marasmus and Kwashiorkor
• Marasmus is a wasting away of body tissues in the infant’s first year, caused
by severe protein-calorie deficiency. Infant becomes grossly underweight
and muscles atrophy.
• Kwashiorkor is a condition caused by a deficiency in protein in which the
child’s face, legs, and abdomen swell with water. It causes a child’s vital
organs to collect the nutrients that are present and deprive other parts of
the body of them. The child’s hair also becomes thin, brittle, and colorless.
The child’s behavior also often becomes listless.
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Reflexes
Reflexes, genetically carried survival mechanisms, govern the newborn’s
movements. They are automatic and beyond the newborn’s control; built-in
reactions to stimuli. In these reflexes, infants have adaptive responses to their
environment before they’ve had the opportunity to learn. Reflexes may serve
as important building blocks for subsequent purposeful motor activity.
The Sucking Reflex
Occurs when newborns automatically suck an object placed in their mouth.
Enables newborns to get nourishment before they have associated a nipple
with food. Present at birth; later disappears at 3-4 months. Most newborns
take several weeks to establish a sucking style that is coordinated with the
way the mother is holding the infant, the way the milk is coming out of the
bottle or breast, and the infant’s sucking speed and temperament.
The Rooting Reflex
The rooting reflex occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked or the side of the
mouth is touched. In response, the infant turns its head toward the side that
was touched in an apparent effort to find something to suck. The rooting
reflex disappears when the infant is 3-4 months old, as it is replaced by the
infant’s voluntary eating.
The Moro Reflex
The Moro reflex is a neonatal startle response that occurs in response to a
sudden, intense noise or movement. When startled, a newborn arches its
back, throws back its head, and flings out its arms and legs. The newborn
then rapidly closes its arms and legs to the center of its body. Steady pressure
on any part of the infant’s body calms the infant after it has been startled.
Tends to disappear around 3-4 months of age.
The Grasping Reflex
Occurs when something touches the infant’s palms. Infant responds by
grasping tightly. Replaced around the end of the third month by voluntary
grasps, often produced by visual stimuli.
Gross Motor Skills
Gross motor skills involve large muscle activities, such as moving one’s arms
and walking. These are the most dramatic and observable changes in the
infant’s first year of life. The actual month at which gross motor milestones
occur varies by as much as 2 to 4 months. The sequence of accomplishments
is quite uniform. In the second year of life toddlers become more motorically
skilled and mobile. Development experts believe that motor activity during
the second year is vital to the child’s competent development, and that few
restrictions (other than for safety) should be placed on their motoric
adventures.
Gross Motor Milestones
• Birth - no appreciable coordination of the chest or arms
• 1st month - lift head from a prone position
• 3 months - hold chest up and use arms for support
• 3-4 months - roll over
• 4-5 months - support some weight with legs
• 6 months - sit without support
• 7-8 months - crawl and stand without support
• 8 months - pull up to a standing position
• 10-11 months - walk using furniture for support (cruising)
• 12-13 months - walk without assistance
• 13-18 months - pull a toy, climb some steps
• 18-24 months - walk quickly, run stiffly, squat, kick, jump
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Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills involve more finely-tuned movements, such as finger
dexterity. Infants have hardly any control over fine motor skills at birth. They
do have many components of what later become finely coordinated arm,
hand, and finger movements. The development of reaching and grasping
becomes more refined during the first 2 years of life. Initially, infants show
only crude shoulder and elbow movements, but later they show wrist
movements, hand rotation, and coordination of the thumb and forefinger.
The maturation of hand-eye coordination over the first 2 years is reflected in
the improvement of fine motor skills.
Developmental Biodynamics
Developmental biodynamics seeks to explain how motor behaviors are
assembled for perceiving and acting. It is an outgrowth of developments in
the neurosciences, biomechanics, and the behavioral sciences. This view
contrasts with the traditional maturational view by proposing that even the
universal milestones, such as crawling, reaching, and walking, are learned
through a process of adaptation. It proposes that the new task, the challenge
of the context, rather than prescribed genetic instructions, represents the
driving force for change.
Toilet Training
The ability to control elimination depends on both muscular maturation and
motivation. Children must be able to control their muscles to eliminate at the
appropriate time, and they must want to eliminate in the toilet or potty rather
than in their pants. There are no data on the optimal time of toilet training,
but developmentalists argue that when it is initiated, it should be
accomplished in a warm, relaxed, supportive manner. In North American
culture, being toilet trained is a skill that is expected to be attained by 3 years
of age. By the age of 3, 84% of children are dry throughout the day, and 66%
are dry throughout the night. The best way to toilet train: reward success
with juice! Then the child will have to go again, getting more practice. It’s
possible to toilet train a child over a weekend!
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What Are Sensation and Perception?
Sensation occurs when information interacts with sensory receptors—the
eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin. The sensation of hearing occurs when
waves of pulsating air are collected by the outer ear and transmitted through
the bones of the inner ear to the auditory nerve. Perception is the
interpretation of what is sensed. The information about physical events that
contact the ears may be interpreted as musical sounds, human speech, or a
jet engine.
Visual Perception
Visual Acuity and Color
• The newborn’s vision is estimated to be 20/400 to 20/800 on the Snellan
chart—about 10-30 times lower than normal adult vision (20/20).
• By 6 months of age vision is 20/100 or better.
• By the first birthday, the infant’s vision approximates that of an adult.
• At birth, babies can distinguish green and red.
• By 2 months of age, there is adultlike functioning in all three types (red,
blue, green) of color-sensitive receptor (cones).
Visual Preferences
In 1963 Robert Fantz discovered that infants look at different things for
different lengths of time. He found that infants preferred to look at patterns
rather than at color or brightness. Fantz also found that 2-day-old infants look
longer at patterned stimuli than at single-colored discs. The conclusion is that
pattern perception has an innate basis, or at least is acquired after only
minimal environmental experience.
Depth Perception
Gibson and Walk conducted the classic “visual cliff” experiment in 1960 to
assess how early infants could perceive depth. They placed a piece of glass
over a drop-off patterned the same as the table next to it. Mothers coaxed
their infants from across the “cliff” to see if they would crawl on the glass over
the drop-off. Most infants would not crawl out onto the glass, choosing
instead to remain on the shallow side—indicating they could perceive depth.
Problems with drawing a conclusion as to how early depth perception is
present include the fact that very young infants can’t crawl—a requirement of
the study.
Other Senses
Hearing
In the last few months of pregnancy, a fetus can hear sounds (the mother’s
voice, music, etc.) After birth, infants responded in a certain way when
mothers read them a story that they had read to them during the 6 weeks
prior to birth. This finding suggests that the infants recognized the story’s
pattern and tone—something they’d only been exposed to prenatally. Infants
can hear immediately after birth, but a sound must be louder to be heard by a
newborn than an adult. As infants age from 8 to 28 weeks, they become
more proficient in localizing sounds. Infants are born with the ability to
discriminate speech sounds from any language, but without constant
exposure, they lose the ability by their first birthday.
Touch and Pain
Newborns respond to touch, particularly with the sucking and rooting reflex.
An important ability that develops during the first year is to connect
information about vision with information about touch. It used to be believed
that newborns were impervious to pain, but it is now known that it is not
true. Newborn males show a higher level of cortisol (a stress indicator) after a
circumcision than prior to the surgery. Anesthesia is now used in some cases
of circumcision.
Smell and Taste
Newborns can differentiate odors. They appear to like vanilla and strawberry
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scents, but not those of rotten eggs and fish. Infants do require several days
of experience to show preference for the scent of their mother’s breast pad.
Sensitivity to taste may be present prior to birth due to increased swallowing
of a near-term fetus when saccharin was added to the amniotic fluid. Twohour-old newborns made different facial expressions when they tasted sweet,
sour, and bitter solutions. At 4 months of age, infants prefer salty tastes,
which newborns found aversive.
Intermodal Perception
The ability to relate and integrate information about two or more sensory
modalities, such as vision and hearing. Various studies have found that infants
as young as 3½ months not only can coordinate visual-auditory information,
but prefer to experience what they see together with what they hear.
Perceptual-Motor Coupling and Unification
There is an increasing belief that perceptual and motor development do not
occur in isolation from one another but, rather, are coupled. Individuals
perceive in order to move and move in order to perceive.
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Piaget’s Theory of Infant Development
Piaget believed that the child passes through a series of stages of thought
from infancy to adolescence. Passage through the stages results from
biological pressure to adapt to the environment (through assimilation and
accommodation) and to organize structures of thinking. The stages are
qualitatively different from one another; the way that children reason at one
stage is different from the way they reason at another stage. Children have
schemes (cognitive structures that help individuals’ organize and understand
their experiences) from birth. Schemes change with age. As children grow
older and gain more experience, they shift from using physically-based
schemes to mentally-based schemes.
The Stage of Sensorimotor Development
According to Piaget, this stage lasts from birth to about 2 years of age. Mental
development is characterized by considerable progression in the infant’s
ability to organize and coordinate sensations with physical movements and
actions. Children progress from having little more than reflexive patterns to
work with to complex sensorimotor patterns and a primitive system of
symbols.
Substages
Simple Reflexes
Stage corresponds to the first month after birth. The basic means of
coordinating sensation and action is through reflexive behaviors. The infant
develops an ability to produce behaviors that resemble reflexes in the absence
of obvious reflexive stimuli (e.g., sucking upon simply seeing a bottle). This is
evidence that the infant is initiating action and is actively structuring
experiences in the first month of life.
First Habits and Primary Circular Reactions
This stage develops between 1-4 months of age. Infants’ reflexes evolve into
adaptive schemes that are more refined and coordinated. A habit is a scheme
based on a simple reflex that has become completely separated from its
eliciting stimulus. A primary circular reaction is a scheme based on the
infant’s attempt to reproduce an interesting or pleasurable event that initially
occurred by chance.
Secondary Circular Reactions
This stage develops between 4-8 months of age. The infant becomes more
object-oriented or focused on the world, moving beyond preoccupation with
the self in sensorimotor interactions. The infant imitates some simple actions
and physical gestures of others, but only those he can already produce.
Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions
This stage develops between 8-12 months of age. Several significant changes
take place that involve the coordination of schemes and intentionality. Infants
readily combine and recombine previously learned schemes in a coordinated
way. Actions are even more outwardly directed. Related to their coordination
is the presence of intentionality: the separation of means and goals in
accomplishing simple feats.
Tertiary Circular Reactions, Novelty, and Curiosity
This stage develops between 12-18 months of age. Infants become intrigued
by the variety of properties that objects possess and by the many things they
can make happen to objects. Tertiary circular reactions are schemes in which
the infant purposely explores new possibilities with objects, continually
changing what is done to them and exploring the results. Piaget believed this
marks the developmental starting point for curiosity and interest in novelty.
Internalization of Schemes
This stage develops between 18-24 months. The infant’s mental functioning
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shifts from a purely sensorimotor plane to a symbolic plane. The infant
develops the ability to use primitive symbols (internalized sensory images or
words that represent events). Primitive symbols permit infant to think about
concrete events without directly acting out or perceiving them. Symbols also
allow the infant to manipulate and transform the represented events in simple
ways.
Object Permanence
Object permanence is the Piagetian term for understanding that objects and
events continue to exist, even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or
touched. It’s why playing peek-a-boo is fun!
Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage
Piaget opened up a whole new way of looking at infants by describing how
their main task is to coordinate their sensory impression with their motor
activity. The infant’s cognitive world is not nearly as neatly packaged as Piaget
portrayed it, and some of his explanations for the cause of change are
debated. Many of today’s researchers believe that Piaget wasn’t specific
enough about how infants learn about their world and that infants are far
more competent than Piaget envisioned.
New Perspectives on Infant Development
Perceptual Development
A number of theorists believe that infants’ perceptual abilities are highly
developed very early in development. Studies have shown that infants as
young as 4 months old have intermodal perception—the ability to coordinate
information from two or more sensory modalities. Other research has
indicated that 4-month-olds expect objects to be substantial and permanent.
Researchers now believe that infants see objects as bounded, unitary, solid,
and separate, possibly at birth or shortly thereafter. Young infants have much
to learn, but the world appears both stable and orderly to them, thus capable
of being conceptualized.
Conceptual Development
Piaget constructed his view of infancy mainly by observing his own children as
few laboratory techniques were available at the time. Researchers have since
then devised ways to assess whether or not infants are thinking. These
methods have led to findings that indicate that infants have more
sophisticated perceptual abilities and can begin to think earlier than Piaget
envisioned. Researchers believe humans are either born with or acquire these
abilities early in their development.
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Conditioning
Both classical and operant conditioning have been demonstrated to occur in
infants. If an infant’s behavior is followed by a rewarding stimulus, the
behavior is likely to recur. Operant conditioning has been helpful to
researchers in their efforts to determine what infants perceive. Studies have
demonstrated that infants can retain information from the experience of
being conditioned.
Imitation
Andrew Meltzoff believes infants’ imitative abilities to be biologically based
because they can imitate a facial expression within the first few days after
birth. This occurs before they’ve had the opportunity to observe social agents
in their environment or the behaviors they have been observed to imitate.
Meltzoff also believes infant imitation involves flexibility, adaptability, and
intermodal perception. Not all experts accept Meltzoff’s conclusions and
believe the babies were automatically responding to a stimulus.
Deferred Imitation
Deferred imitation is imitation which occurs after a time delay of hours or
days. Meltzoff found that 9-month-old infants could imitate actions that they
had seen performed 24 hours earlier. Piaget believed that deferred imitation
doesn’t occur until about 18 months of age.
Memory
• Implicit memory involves retention of a perceptual-motor variety
that is involved in conditioning tasks.
• Explicit memory is the ability to consciously recall the past.
Memory in Infancy
Memory is a central feature of cognitive development that involves the
retention of information over time. Some argue that infants as young as 2-6
months can remember some experiences through 1½-2 years of age. Critics
of these findings argue that they fail to distinguish between implicit memory
and explicit memory. Most researchers don’t find that explicit memory occurs
until the second half of the first year. Most adults cannot remember anything
from the first 3 years of life, a phenomenon referred to as infant amnesia.
One explanation of infant amnesia focuses on the maturation of the brain,
especially in the frontal lobes, which occur after infancy.
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Individual Differences in Intelligence
Individual differences in infant cognitive development have been studied
primarily through the use of developmental scales or infant intelligence tests.
It is advantageous to know whether an infant is advancing at a slow, normal,
or advanced pace of development. Infant developmental scales differ from
those used to assess older children in that they are necessarily less verbal,
contain more perceptual motor items, and include measures of social
interaction.
Arnold Gesell
Gesell is the most important early contributor to the developmental testing
of infants. He developed a measure used as a clinical tool to help sort out
potentially normal babies from abnormal ones. The Gesell test was widely
used years ago, and is still used by pediatricians to assess normal and
abnormal infants. The current version of the Gesell test has 4 categories of
behavior: motor, language, adaptive, personal-social. Results yield an infant’s
developmental quotient (DQ)—an overall developmental score that combines
subscores in the four categories.
The Bayley Scales of Infant Development
These scales are widely used in the assessment of infant development. The
current version has 3 components: a mental scale, a motor scale, and an
infant behavior profile. It includes assessment of the following:
• Auditory and visual attention to stimuli
• Manipulation, such as shaking a rattle
• Examiner interaction, such as babbling and imitation
• Relation with toys, such as banging spoons together
• Memory involved in object permanence
• Goal-directed behavior that involves persistence
• Ability to follow directions and knowledge of objects’ names
The Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence
The Fagan test is becoming increasingly popular. It focuses on the infant’s
ability to process information in such ways as:
• encoding the attributes of objects
• detecting similarities and differences between objects
• forming mental representations
• retrieving those representations
The Fagan test uses the amount of time babies look at a new object
compared with how long they look at a familiar object to estimate their
intelligence. This test elicits similar performances from infants in different
cultures and is correlated with measures of intelligence in older children.
Effectiveness of Infant Intelligence Tests
Tests of infant intelligence have been valuable in assessing the effects of
malnutrition, drugs, maternal deprivation, and environmental stimulation on
infant development. They have, however, been met with mixed results in
predicting later intelligence on a global scale. Specific aspects of infant
intelligence are related to specific aspects of childhood intelligence, as in the
areas of language and perceptual motor skills. Evidence is accumulating that
measures of habituation and dishabituation predict intelligence in childhood
with regard to efficiency of information processing. It is important that we
turn our attention to identifying ways in which cognition is both continuous
and discontinuous in its development.
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Defining Language
Language is a form of communication, whether spoken, written, or signed,
that is based on a system of symbols. All human languages have some
common characteristics such as infinite generativity and organizational rules.
Infinite generativity is the ability to produce an endless number of meaningful
sentences using a finite set of words and rules.
How Language Develops
First few months of life - infants startle to sharp noises
3-6 months - begin to show an interest in sounds, respond to voices
6-9 months - babbling begins (goo-goo) due to biological maturation; infants
also begin to understand their first words
Early communication is in the form of pragmatics to get attention:
• Making or breaking eye contact
• vocalizing sounds
• performing manual actions such as pointing
10-15 months - the infant utters its first word
The First Words
A child’s first words include those that name
• Important people (dada)
- Body parts (eye)
• Familiar animals (kitty)
- Clothes (hat)
• Vehicles (car)
- Household items (keys)
• Toys (ball)
- Greeting terms (bye)
• Food (milk)
These were the first words of babies 50 years ago and they are the first words
of babies today. One theory as to the meaning of these one-word utterances
is that they stand for an entire sentence in the infant’s mind. The holophrase
hypothesis states that a single word can be used to imply a complete
sentence, and that infants’ first words characteristically are holophrastic.
The Two-Word Stage
At 18-24 months, children begin to utter two-word statements. They quickly
grasp the importance of expressing concepts and the role that language plays
in communicating. To convey meaning, the child relies heavily on gesture,
tone, and context. Two-word sentences may omit many parts of speech; they
are remarkably succinct in conveying many messages. Telegraphic speech is
the use of short and precise words to communicate. Young children’s twoand three-word utterances are characteristically telegraphic. In every
language, a child’s first combinations of words have this economical quality.
Meanings Expressed in Children’s Two-Word Utterances
Identification: “See doggie”
Location: “Book there”
Repetition: “More milk”
Nonexistence: “All gone thing”
Negation: “Not wolf”
Possession: “My doggy”
Attribution: “Big car”
Agent-action: “Mama walk”
Action-direct object: “Hit you”
Action-indirect object: “Give Papa”
Action-instrument: “Cut knife”
Question: “Where ball?”
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Biological Influences
The strongest evidence for the biological basis of language is that children all
over the world reach language milestones at about the same time
developmentally, and in about the same order. Occurs despite vast variation
in the language input they receive (in some cultures, adults do not talk to
children under 1 year). There is also no other convincing way to explain how
quickly children learn language than through biological foundations.
Biological Evolution
In evolutionary time, language is a very recent acquisition. Many experts
believe that biological evolution shaped humans into linguistic creatures. The
brain, nervous system, and vocal apparatus of our predecessors changed over
hundreds of thousands of years. Physically equipped to do so, Homo sapiens
went beyond grunting and shrieking to develop abstract speech. Language
clearly gave humans an enormous edge over other animals and increased the
chances of survival.
Biological Prewiring
Linguist Noam Chomsky believes humans are biologically prewired to learn
language at a certain time, in a certain way. He states children are born with a
language acquisition device (LAD)—a biological endowment that enables
them to detect certain language categories, such as phonology, syntax, and
semantics. The LAD is a theoretical construct that flows from evidence about
the biological basis of language. Supporters of this concept cite:
•
the uniformity of language milestones across languages and cultures
• biological substrates for language
• evidence that children create language even in the absence of well-formed
input (e.g., deaf children)
Behavioral and Environmental Influences
Behaviorists view language as just another behavior involving chains of
responses or imitation. However, many of the sentences we produce are
novel. The behavioral mechanisms of reinforcement and imitation cannot
completely explain this. Parents have been observed to occasionally smile
and praise their children for sentences they like, including sentences that are
ungrammatical. Another criticism is that language is highly structured and
rule driven, yet behavior theory would predict that vast individual differences
should appear to each child’s unique learning history.
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The Importance of the Environment
We do not learn language in a social vacuum; most children are bathed in
language from a very early age. We need this exposure to language to acquire
competent language skills. Most language experts today believe children from
a variety of cultures acquire their native language without explicit teaching
and, in some cases, without apparent encouragement. Although there appear
to be very few aids necessary for learning language, studies have shown
differences in language development due to environmental circumstances
such as socioeconomic status.
Other Environmental Influences
Infant-directed speech is the type of speech often used by parents and other
adults when they talk to babies. It has a higher than normal pitch and involves
the use of simple words and sentences. It has the important functions of
capturing the infant’s attention and maintaining communication. Recasting is
rephrasing something the child has said in a different way, perhaps turning it
into a question. It works to let the child initially indicate an interest and then
proceed to elaborate that interest—commenting, demonstrating, and
explaining improve communication and help language acquisition. Echoing is
repeating what a child says, especially if it is an incomplete phrase or
sentence. Expanding is restating, in a linguistically sophisticated form, what a
child has said. Labeling is identifying the names of objects. These strategies
are used naturally and in meaningful conversations. Parents do not (and
should not) deliberately teach their children to talk.
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Is it important to read to babies? Yes! Babies look at the pictures and listen
to mom’s and dad’s voices. They pick up language quickly, associate words
with visual cues, and benefit from the physical contact (the only way to read
to a baby is by having him/her on your lap!).
Defining Emotion
Emotion is a feeling, or affect, that can involve physiological arousal,
conscious experience, and behavioral expression. Psychologists debate which
of these components is the most important aspect of emotion, and how they
mix to produce emotional experiences. An important aspect of emotional
development is emotional regulation. During the first year, infants develop an
ability to inhibit or minimize the intensity and duration of emotional
responses. An example of early emotional regulation are infants’ soothing
themselves by sucking.
Affect in Parent-Child Relationships
Emotions are the first language with which parents and infants communicate.
The initial aspects of infant attachment to parents are based on emotionlinked interchanges, as when an infant cries and the caregiver responds. By
the end of the first year, a mother’s facial expression— smiling or fearful—
influences whether an infant will explore an unfamiliar environment. When
children hear their parents quarreling, they often react with distress. Infant
and adult affective communicative capacities make possible coordinated,
bidirectional infant-adult interactions.
Developmental Timetable of Emotions
The Maximally Discriminative Facial Movement Coding System (MAX) is used
to code infants’ facial expressions related to emotion.
• Interest, distress, and disgust are present at birth.
• A social smile appears at about 4-6 weeks.
• Anger, surprise, and sadness emerge at about
3-4 months.
• Fear is displayed at about 5-7 months.
• Contempt and guilt don’t appear until 2 years old.
Crying
Crying is the most important mechanism newborns have for communicating
with their world. Babies have at least three types of cries:
• The basic cry is a rhythmic pattern usually consisting of a cry followed by a
brief silence, then a short inspiratory high-pitched whistle, followed by a
rest prior to another cry.
• The anger cry is a variation of the basic cry with more excess air forced
through the vocal cords.
• The pain cry differs from other cries, as it suddenly appears without
preliminary moaning and followed by
an extended period of breath
holding.
Responding to Infant Cries
Most parents, and adults in general, can determine whether an infant’s cries
signify anger or pain. Parents can distinguish the cries of their own baby
better than those of a strange baby. There exists controversy as to whether
parents should respond to an infant’s cries or not. However,
developmentalists increasingly argue that an infant cannot be spoiled in the
first year of life, suggesting that parents should soothe a crying infant rather
than be unresponsive. Infants will thus develop a sense of trust and secure
attachment to the caregiver.
Smiling
Smiling is another important communicative affective behavior of the infant.
Two types of smiling can be distinguished:
• A reflexive smile does not occur in response to external stimuli, rather
during irregular patterns of sleep.
• A social smile occurs in response to an external stimulus, usually a face. It
does not occur until 2-3 months of age.
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Stranger Anxiety
Stranger anxiety is exhibited when an infant shows a fear and wariness of
strangers. It tends to appear in the second half of the first year of life,
intensifying and escalating around 9 months of age. When infants have a
sense of security, through familiar settings and physical proximity to mom,
they are less likely to show stranger anxiety. Who the stranger is and how
he/she behaves also influence stranger anxiety.
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Defining and Classifying Temperament
Temperament is an individual’s behavioral style and characteristic way of
emotional response. There is a debate as to the key dimensions of
temperament. Many scholars conceive of temperament as a stable
characteristic of newborns, which comes to be shaped and modified by later
experiences. However, it may be that as a child becomes older, behavior
indicators of temperament are more difficult to spot.
Temperament Classifications of Chess and Thomas
Psychiatrists Alexander Chess and Stella Thomas believe there are three basic
types of temperament.
• An easy child is generally in a positive mood, quickly establishes regular
routines in infancy, and adapts easily to new experiences.
• A difficult child tends to react negatively and cry frequently, engages in
irregular daily routines, and is slow to accept new experiences.
• A slow-to-warm-up child has a low activity level, is somewhat negative,
shows low adaptability, and displays a low intensity of mood.
New Classifications of Temperament
Mary Rothbart and John Bates have concluded that, based on current
research, the best framework for classifying temperament involves a revision
of Chess and Thomas’ categories. The general classification of temperament
now focuses on:
• positive affect and approach (like extraversion/introversion)
• negative affectivity
• effortful control (self-regulation)
Goodness of Fit
Goodness of fit refers to the match between a child’s temperament and
environmental demands the child must cope with. Goodness of fit may be
important to the child’s adjustment. A lack of fit between the child’s
temperament and strong environmental demands may produce adjustment
problems for the child.
Parenting and the Child’s Temperament
Parents often don’t discover the importance of temperament until the birth of
their second child. Management strategies that worked with the first child
might not be as effective with the second child, and new problems might
arise. Temperament experts Sanson and Rothbart conclude that the following
are implications of temperamental variations for parenting:
• Attention to and respect for individuality. Parents need to be sensitive and
flexible. Parents need to be sensitive to the infant’s signals and needs.
Some temperament characteristics pose more parenting challenges than
others. Children’s proneness to distress (exhibited by frequent crying and
irritability) can contribute to the emergence of avoidant or coercive
parental responses. Parents might react differently to a child’s
temperament, depending on the child’s gender and the culture they live in.
Parents should respect each child’s temperament, rather than try to fit all
children into the same mold.
• Structuring the child’s environment. Crowded, noisy environments can pose
greater problems for some children than others. We also might expect that
a fearful, withdrawing child would benefit from slower entry into new
contexts.
• The “difficult child” and packaged parenting programs. Some books and
programs for parents focus specifically on temperament, particularly
“difficult” temperaments. Acknowledgement that some children are
harder to parent, and advice on how to handle particular difficult
characteristics can be helpful. There is a problem, however, identifying a
child as “difficult” implying that the problem rests solely with him or her,
rather than being on the particular “fit” between characteristics and
environment.
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Trust
According to Erik Erikson, the first year of life is characterized by the trustversus-mistrust stage of development. Erikson believed that infants learn
trust when they are cared for in a consistent, warm manner. If the infant is
not well fed and kept warm on a consistent basis, a sense of mistrust will
develop. Trust vs. mistrust arises again at each successive stage of
development.
The Developing Sense of Self
Infants are not “given” a self by their parents or the culture, rather they find
and construct selves. In the animal kingdom, only the apes learn to recognize
their reflection in a mirror, but humans accomplish this feat by about 18
months of age. To determine whether infants can recognize themselves,
psychologists employ the “rouge test.”
Independence
The theories of Margaret Mahler and Erik Erikson have important implications
for both self-development and independence. Mahler believes the child goes
through separation, involving movement away from the mother, and then an
individuation process, involving the development of self.
Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt
Erikson described the second developmental stage as autonomy versus shame
and doubt. Autonomy builds on the infant’s developing mental and motor
abilities. Infants feel pride in their new accomplishments (such as climbing,
pushing, pulling, etc.). They want to do everything themselves, and it is
important for parents to recognize the motivation of toddlers to do what they
are capable of doing at their own pace. When parents consistently
overprotect or criticize toddlers, children develop an excessive sense of shame
and doubt about their ability to control themselves and their world. Erikson
believed this stage had important implications for the development of
independence and identity during adolescence.
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Attachment is a close emotional bond between the infant and the caregiver.
Harlow and Zimmerman study found that feeding is not the crucial element in
the attachment process and that contact comfort is very important. Erikson
believed that the first year of life is the key time frame for the development of
attachment. John Bowlby believes that the newborn is biologically equipped
to elicit the attachment behavior from the primary caregiver.
The Phases of Attachment
• Phase 1: Birth to 2 months - Infants instinctively direct their attachment to
human figures.
• Phase 2: 2-7 months - Attachment becomes focused on one figure,
usually a primary caregiver.
• Phase 3: 7-24 months - Specific attachments develop.
• Phase 4: 24 months on - A goal-directed partnership is formed in which
children become aware of others’ feelings, goals, and plans.
Studying Attachment
Mary Ainsworth believes that some babies have a more positive attachment
experience than others. She created the Strange Situation—an observational
measure of infant attachment that requires the infant to move through a
series of introductions, separations, and reunions with the caregiver and an
adult stranger in a prescribed order. With the Strange Situation, researchers
hope that their observations will provide them with information about the
infant’s motivation to be near the caregiver, and the degree to which the
caregiver’s presence provides the infant with security and confidence.
Individual Differences
Secure babies use their caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the
environment. Insecure avoidant babies show insecurity by avoiding their
caregiver. Insecure resistant babies may cling to the caregiver then resist her
by fighting against the closeness, by kicking or pushing away. Disorganized
babies are disorganized and disoriented, appearing dazed, confused, and
fearful.
Caregiving Styles and Attachment Classification
• Caregivers of securely attached babies are sensitive to their signals and are
consistently available to respond to their infants’ needs.
• Caregivers of avoidant babies tend to be unavailable or rejecting, tending
not to respond to their babies’ signals and having little physical contact
with them.
• Caregivers of resistant babies sometimes respond to their babies’ need and
sometimes do not.
• Caregivers of disorganized babies often neglect or physically abuse their
babies, and sometimes these caregivers suffer from depression.
Attachment, Temperament, and the Wider Social World
Researchers recognize the importance of competent, nurturant caregivers in
an infant’s development, but it is debated whether or not secure attachment
is critical. Not all research reveals the power of infant attachment to predict
subsequent development. Some researchers stress that genetic and
temperament characteristics play more important roles in a child’s social
competence. Cultural variations in attachment have been found.
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The Transition to Parenthood
When people become parents they face disequilibrium and must adapt.
Parents want to develop a strong attachment with their infant, but they still
want to maintain strong attachments to their spouse and friends and possibly
continue their careers. In one study, many couples report that being parents
enhanced their sense of themselves and gave them a new, more stable
identity as a couple.
Reciprocal Socialization
Reciprocal socialization is bidirectional; children socialize parents just as
parents socialize children. The behaviors of mothers and infants involve
substantial interconnection, mutual regulation, and synchronization.
Scaffolding is parental behavior that supports children’s efforts, allowing them
to be more skillful than they would be if they were to rely only on their own
abilities. It is evidenced when parents time interactions in such a way that the
infant experiences turn-taking. Scaffolding is not confined to parent-infant
interaction, but can be used to support children’s achievement-related efforts
in school.
The Family as a System
As a social system, the family can be thought of as a constellation of
subsystems defined in terms of generation, gender, and role. Each family
member is a participant in several subsystems:
• Dyadic (two people)
• Polyadic (more than two people)
Maternal and Paternal Infant Caregiving
Fathers have the ability to act sensitively and responsively with their infants as
mothers do. Maternal interactions usually center around child- care activities.
Paternal interactions are more likely to include play. Fathers engage in more
rough-and-tumble play, while mothers’ play is less physical. In stressful
circumstances, infants show a stronger attachment to their mother.
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Far more young children are in day care today than at any other time in
history.
The type of day care that young children receive varies extensively. Unlike
many European countries, the United States does not have a policy of paid
leave for child care, thus day care has become a major national concern. A
special contemporary interest of researchers who study day care is the role of
poverty. Quality of care is typically based on group size, child-adult ratio,
physical environment, caregiver characteristics, and caregiver behavior.
Findings of Day Care Research
It has been discovered that children in low-quality day care as infants were
least likely to be socially competent in early childhood. Children who come
from families with few resources are more likely to experience poor-quality
day care than more advantaged children. Child care in and of itself neither
adversely affected or promoted the security of infants’ attachment to their
mothers. Certain child care conditions, in combination with certain home
environments, did increase the probability that infants would be insecurely
attached to their mothers. High-quality child care, especially sensitive and
responsive attention, was linked with fewer child problems.