Chapter 3

Question 1

What is the average length at birth and at 24 months?

Answer 1

Birth: 20 inches
24 months: 34 inches

Question 2

What is the average weight at birth and at 24 months?

Answer 2

Birth: 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms)
24 months: 28 pounds (13 kilograms)

Question 3

What is failure to thrive?

Answer 3

Body developing under the norm.

Question 4

Why do sleep specifics vary?

Answer 4

Because of biology, caregiving and culture.

Question 5

What is the norm for sleeping for newborns and by 12 months?

Answer 5

Newborn: 15-17 hours a day
12 months: 12 to 13 hours daily

Pain/hunger disrupts sleep

Question 6

What is co-sleep?

Answer 6

Parent sleeping near by the baby (not in the same bed).

Question 7

What is bed-sharing?

Answer 7

Baby sleeping in the bed with parents.

Question 8

What is sudden infant death syndrome, and what can cause it?

Answer 8

SIDS, it can be caused from bed-sharing, i.e. pillow could suffocate baby, parent could roll over the baby, etc. Many recommend against bed sharing because of SIDS.

Question 9

Why is there a disparity between Asian and non-Asian rates of co-sleeping?

Answer 9

It could be that western parents use a variety of gadgets and objects– monitors, night-lights, pacifiers, cuddle cloths– to accomplish some of what Asian parents do.

Question 10

Explain prenatal and post natal brain growth.

Answer 10

Crucial for healthy development of the brain. Head-sparing is a biological mechanism that protects brain when malnutrition disrupts body growth. (protects brain growth above all else). Brain is the last part of the body to be damaged by malnutrition.

Question 11

Explain exuberance and pruning.

Answer 11

Specifics of brain structure and growth depend on genes and maturation but even more on experience. Early dendrite growth called “transient exuberance.” Unused dendrites whither (through pruning) to allow space between neurons in the brain, allowing more synapses and thus more complex thinking (sculpting).

Question 12

What is experience-expectant?

Answer 12

Experiences that are essential for brain growth to happen normally. A part of every day life. Nutrition. What a child needs. What experiences are expected. Must happen for normal brain growth.

Question 13

What is experience-dependent?

Answer 13

Not “necessary.” These might happen. Can be due to culture, parenting, environment, etc. Related to the idea of plasticity.

Question 14

Babies need stimulation (T/F)

Answer 14

T: Sever lack of stimulation stunts brain growth.

Question 14

Explain stress and the brain.

Answer 14

Too much of wrong stimulation has adverse effects. Shaken baby syndrome (abusive head trauma, can cause neural pathways to die).

Question 15

Explain hearing development.

Answer 15

Develops during the last trimester of pregnancy. Most advances of the newborn’s senses. Speech perception four months after birth.

Question 16

Explain eye sight development.

Answer 16

Least mature sense at birth. Newborns focus between 4 and 30 inches away. Binocular vision between 2 and 4 months. Experience and maturation of visual cortex improve shape recognition, visual scanning, and details.

Question 17

Explain testing and smelling development.

Answer 17

Smell and taste function at birth and rapidly adapt to the social world. Foods of culture may aid survival. Adaptation occurs for both of these senses.

Question 18

Explain touch development.

Answer 18

Sense of touch is acute in infants. Although newborns respond to being securely held, soon they prefer specific touches. Some touches may be experience-expectant for normal growth. Pain and temperature are often connected to touch. Pain is probably less intense than adult pain but not absent altogether.

Question 19

Explain motor skill development.

Answer 19

Gross motor skills: Every basic motor skill develops over the first two years of life. (head-down and center-out).

Fine motor skills: Physical abilities involving small body movements, especially of the hands and fingers, such as drawing and picking up a coin. Shaped by culture and opportunity.

Question 20

Describe an innate desire to learn.

Answer 20

Infant brain has inborn readiness to learn. Perception bias and attentional patterns shows this. Gaze-following: Caregiver gaze following instinctively without cues (child follows the gaze of the caregiver). Early logic (innate logic).

Question 21

Explain infant memory.

Answer 21

Implicit memory: evident by 3 months, begins to stabilize by 9 months; lifelong. Making associations.

Explicit memory: longer to emerge (language-dependent), rovee-collier’s mobile kicking research findings.

Question 22

What is implicit learning?

Answer 22

Strategies are learned early in life. Effortful or easy learning. Learning how to learn.

Question 23

What did Piaget notice in infancy and childhood?

Answer 23

Noticed age-related similarities in problem-solving strengths and deficits. The mind develops through a series of universal, irreversible stages from simple reflexes to adult abstract reasoning. Babies are active learners who construct meaning. Children construct knowledge by interacting in their physical and social environments. They build schemas that are used and adjusted through assimilation and accommodation. The primary motivation for learning is to reach equilibrium. Children think in qualitatively different ways at different ages.

Question 24

Explain the 6 stages of Sensorimotor intelligence.

Answer 24

Question 25

What is object permanence?

Answer 25

Realization that an object still exists even when the infant can no longer see the object (Usually stage 4 of Piaget’s 4th stage in sensorimotor stage).

Question 26

Explain language development.

Answer 26

Universal sequence. Infants throughout the world follow the same sequence of language development. Development begins at birth and infants acquire much native language before uttering their first word.

Sequence: Listening and responding -> babbling -> gestures -> first words -> cultural differences -> naming differences -> putting words together

Question 27

Explain listening and responding.

Answer 27

Child-directed speech: high pitched, simplifies, repetitive.

Question 28

Explain babbling.

Answer 28

Extended repetition. 6-9 months old. Gradual imitation of accents, cadence, consonants, and gestures. Even deaf babies babble.

Question 29

Explain gestures.

Answer 29

Powerful means of communication; pointing. Baby signing may enhance parent responsiveness for deaf babies.

Question 30

Explain first words.

Answer 30

About 1 year, babies speak a few words; coincides with walking. Spoken vocabulary increases gradually. First words become holophrases.

Question 31

Explain cultural difference in language.

Answer 31

Early communication transcends linguistic boundaries. More difficult for other cultures to understand what baby is trying to communicate.

Question 32

Explain naming explosion.

Answer 32

Once vocabulary reaches about 50 words, it builds rapidly. About 50-100 words per month.

Question 33

Explain putting words together.

Answer 33

Grammar emerges and includes all devices by which words communicate meaning. Sequences, prefixes, suffixes, intonation, volume, verb forms, pronouns, negations, prepositions, and articles. Proficiency in grammar correlates with sentence length.

Question 34

What are the 3 theories of language learning?

Answer 34