Chapter 3 Flashcards
What is the physical growth of infants?
-year 1 represents the fastest period of growth:
-average weight at birth: 7.5 pounds
-weight doubles by month four
-weight quadruples by age two
-newborns have disproportionately large heads that the rest of their body eventually catches up to
What is the Neurological development from ages 0-2?
-Synaptogenesis: new sensory experience leads to rapid growth in formation of new synapses
-primary motor areas develop earlier
-primary sensory areas develop after, including the visual cortex and the somatosensory area
-the prefrontal cortex continues to develop into young adulthood
What is the difference between synaptic blooming an synaptic pruning?
-synaptic blooming: period of rapid neural growth
-synaptic pruning: neural connections are reduced thereby making those that are used much stronger
*blooming occurs during the first few years of life, and pruning continues through childhood and into adolescence in various areas of the brain.
What is the Dynamic Systems Theory?
-motor-perceptual coupling: motor and perceptual development are coupled and interact through dynamic feedback loop patterns
-as a result of motor-perceptual coupling across the first year, a sequence of motor milestones unfolds
What is the sequence of motor milestones?
-holding head up
-sit with assistance
-sit unassisted
-crawling (sometimes skipped)
-pulling up
-cruising (walking with support)
-walking (between 9-18 months)
What are the infant reflexes?
-sucking: on anything that touches the lips
-rooting: turning head when cheek is touched
-grasp: fingers grip anything that touches palm of hand
-Babinski: toes fan out & curl when sole of foot is stroked from heel to toe
-moro: sudden noise or loss of head/neck support causes infants to spread out their arms/legs
-tonic neck: fencer pose when laying on back with head to 1 side
-stepping: legs move in stepping like motion when feet touch a smooth surface
What is the difference between motor skills, fine motor skills and gross motor skills?
-motor skills: our ability to move our bodies and manipulate objects.
-fine motor skills: focus on the muscles in our fingers, toes, and eyes, and enable coordination of small actions.
-gross motor skills: focus on large muscle groups that control our head, torso, arms and legs and involve larger movements.
What are the Palmer Grasp and Pincer Grasp?
-Palmer: grasping an object involves the use of the fingers and palm, but no thumbs.
-Pincer: use of the thumb comes at about 9 months of age when the infant is able to grasp an object using the forefinger and thumb.
How much do infants’ sleep?
-sleep: consolidation of learning
–newborns: 16.5 hours (50% in REM)
–1 month: 15 hours
–6 months: 14 hours
–2 years: 10 hours
What is Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID)?
-deaths infants <1 year old with no immediately obvious cause
-SIDS: sudden/unexpected death of healthy infant
-unknown cause: unexplained death & thorough investigation not conducted
-accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed: caused by bedding, crib, mattress, wall or another person
What is infant’s vision like?
-infants can perceive color, but the colors need to be very pure forms of basic colors (vivid red or green)
-infants quickly learn to distinguish the face of their mother from faces of other women
-binocular vision: input from both eyes; present around month 3 and continues to develop during the first 6 months
-by 6 months infants can perceive depth perception in pictures
What is hearing like in infants?
-infant’s sense of hearing is very keen at birth, and the ability to hear is evidenced as soon as
the seventh month of prenatal development.
-newborns prefer their mother’s voices over another female
-between six and nine months they show preference for listening to their native language
What is nutrition for infants like?
-exclusively breastfeeding babies until 6 months is recommended
-most mothers start out breastfeeding
-most common reasons for stopping are “not enough milk” or “difficulty with technique”
-women in their 30s, who are married/have a common-law partner, and have post-secondary education are more likely to breastfeed for 6 months
What are the benefits of breastfeeding?
-breastfed children have lower rates of childhood leukemia, asthma, obesity, type 1 and 2 diabetes, and SIDS
-mothers are at lower risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis
What are the effects of malnutrition in children?
-infantile marasmus: starvation due to a lack of calories and protein.
-infants with protein deficiency may experience kwashiorkor: “disease of the displaced child” often occurring after another child has been born and taken over breastfeeding. It results in a loss of appetite and swelling of the abdomen as the body begins to break down the vital organs as a source of protein.
-malnutrition leads to lower IQ scores, poor attention, and behavioural issues in classroom
What are the key concepts in Piagetian theory?
-schemas: long-term memory knowledge structures; framework for organizing information
-accommodation: changes in the schemas in response to environment; framework expands
-assimilation: properties of the environment are integrated into schemas; new info into existing framework
-adaptation: balancing of accommodation & assimilation; growth/development
What are the Piagetian Stages?
-Sensorimotor stage, ages 0-2: sensorimotor coordination –> object permanence
-preoperational stage, ages 2-6: growth in language; pretend play
-concrete operations stage, ages 7-11: conservation; reversibility; perspective-taking; classification
-formal operations stage, ages 12+: possibilities; hypothesis-testing; abstract concepts
What are the 6 substages of the Sensorimotor stage?
1: reflexes (0-1 month)
2: primary circular reactions (1-4 months); repeated activity with body
3: secondary circular reactions (4-8 months); planned interactions with objects
4: coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12 months); combination of reflexes & simple behaviours to achieve goals
5: tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months); exploring the world
6: beginning of representational thought (18-24 months); solve problems, and pretend play
What are the criticisms of Piaget’s theory?
-he underestimated infants’ abilities at this stage:
–timeline for substages was too slow
–achieved understanding of object permanence earlier
What are some characteristics of infant memory?
-infantile amnesia: inability to recall memories from first few years of life
-infant memory is very context dependent
-deferred imitation: imitation of actions after a time delay (at six-months of age)
-by 12 months of age, infants no longer need to practice the behavior in order to retain the memory for four weeks
