Chapter 5 - Physical Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Question 1

Growth patterns from 0 - 2 yrs

Answer 1

Height: around 32” at 1 year, 50% growth from birth, and 75% growth around 2 years (36”)
Weight: 5 months, doubled birth weight; 1 year, tripled birth weight; 2 years, quadrupled birth weight

Question 2

2 different growth patterns

Answer 2

Cephlocaudal trend

proximodistal trend

Question 3

Cephlocaudal trend

Answer 3

from the Latin for “head to tail”. During the prenatal period, the head develops more rapidly than the lower part of the body

Question 4

Proximodistal trend

Answer 4

Growth proceeds, literally, from “near to far” - from the center of the body outward

Question 5

Skeletal age

Answer 5

Best estimate of a child’s physical maturity. A measure of bone development. It is determined by X-raying the long bones of the body to see the extend to which soft, pliable cartilage has hardened into bone. Gradual process that is completed in adolescence. Girls progress faster than boys.

Question 6

Synaptic pruning

Answer 6

A process that returns neurons not needed at the moment to an uncommitted state so they can support future development. This shows the importance of stimulating babies minds!

Question 7

Cerebral cortex

Answer 7

Surrounds the rest of the brain, resembling half of a walnut shell. The largest brain structure, accounting for 85% f the brain’s weight and containing the largest number of neurons and synapses. One of the last parts of the brain to stop growing, and therefore sensitive to environmental influences longer than other parts of the brain

Question 8

Prefrontal cortex

Answer 8

Lying in front of areas controlling body movement, is responsible for thought - in particular, consciousness, inhibition of impulses, integration of information, and use of memory, reasoning, planning, and problem-solving strategies.

Question 9

Lateralization

Answer 9

The specialization of the two hemispheres (Right and Left)

Question 10

Left Hemisphere

Answer 10

Better at processing information in sequential, analytic ways. Largely responsible for verbal abilities and positive emotions.

Question 11

Right Hemisphere

Answer 11

Better at processing information in a holistic, integrative manner, making sense of spatial information and regulating negative emotions

Question 12

Brain plasticity

Answer 12

A highly plastic cerebral cortex,in which many areas are not yet committed to specific functions, has a high capacity for learning. And if a part of the cortex is damaged, other parts can take over the tasks it would have handled. Is more plastic during first few years of life than it will ever be.

Question 13

Experience-expectant brain growth

Answer 13

Refers to the young brain’s rapidly developing organization, which depends on ordinary experiences - opportunities to explore the environment, interact with people, and hear language and other sounds.

Question 14

Experience-dependent brain growth

Answer 14

Occurs throughout our lives. Consists of additional growth and the refinement of established brain structures as a result of specific learning experiences that vary widely across individuals and cultures.

Question 15

Influences of early physical growth

Answer 15

• Heredity
• Nutrition
• Malnutrition
• Emotional well-being

Question 16

Marasmus

Answer 16

A wasted condition of the body caused by a diet low in all essential nutrients. It usually appears in the first year or life when a baby’s mother is too malnourished to produce enough breast milk, and bottle feeding is also inadequate.

Question 17

Kwashiorkor

Answer 17

Caused by an unbalanced diet very low in protein. The disease usually strikes after weaning, between 1 and 3 years of age.

Question 18

Food insecurity

Answer 18

Uncertain access to enough food for a healthy, active lire. Especially high among single-parent, low-SES families, and low-income ethnic minority families.

Question 19

Growth-faltering

Answer 19

A term applied to infants whose weight, height, and head circumference are substantially below age-related growth norms and who are withdrawn and apathetic. In as many as half such cases, a disturbed parent-infant relationship contributes to this failure to growth normally.

Question 20

Learning capacities

Answer 20

• Classical conditioning
• Operant condiitoning
• Habituation
• Imitation

Question 21

Classical conditioning

Answer 21

A form of learning where a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that leads to a reflexive response. Once the baby’s nervous system makes the connection between the two stimuli, the neutral stimulus produces the behavior by itself. Babies build expectations about stimulus in the environment, but they do not influence the stimuli that occur.

Question 22

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS), Unconditioned Response (UCR)

Answer 22

Must consistently produce a reflexive (unconditioned, UCR) response. Example: breastmilk (UCS) results in sucking (UCR)

Question 23

Conditioned Stimulus (CS), Conditioned Response (CR)

Answer 23

If learning has occurred, the neutral stimulus (Conditioned stimulus) produces a response similar to the reflexive response. The response it elicits is called the Conditioned Response.
Summary:
UCS –> UCR
CS + UCS –> CR

Question 24

Operant Conditioning

Answer 24

Infants act, or operate, on the environment, and stimuli that follow their behavior change the probability that the behavior will occur again. Involves Reinforcements and punishments.

Question 25

Reinforcer

Answer 25

A stimulus that increases the occurrence of a response

Question 26

Punishment

Answer 26

Removing a desirable stimulus or presenting an unpleasant one to decrease the occurrence or a response.

Question 27

Habituation

Answer 27

Refers to a gradual reduction in the strength of a response due to repetitive stimulation

Question 28

Recovery

Answer 28

When a new stimulus - a change in the environment - causes responsiveness to return to a high level. Usually following habituation.

Question 29

Familiarity preference vs. novelty preference

Answer 29

Adults and children tend towards a familiarity preference, recover the familiar stimulus faster than the novel one. (returning somewhere you haven’t been in a while, you often will latch onto the things that are the same - “I remember this was here last time!”)

Question 30

Imitation

Answer 30

copying the behavior of another person

Question 31

Mirror neurons

Answer 31

specialized cells identified by scientists in motor areas of the cerebral cortex in primates that may underlie early imitative capacities. They fire identically when a primate hears or sees an action and when it carries out that action on its own.

Question 32

Dynamic systems theory of motor development

Answer 32

According to this theory, mastery of motor skills involves acquiring increasingly complex systems of action. When motor skills work as a system, separate abilities blend together, each cooperating with others to produce more effective ways of exploring and controlling the environment.

Question 33

Prereaching

Answer 33

A newborn’s poorly coordinated swipes toward an object

Question 34

Ulnar grasp

Answer 34

A clumsy motion in which the young infant’s fingers close against the palm

Question 35

Pincer grasp

Answer 35

Infants use the thumb and index finger in a well-coordinated pincer grasp

Question 36

Perceptual Development factors

Answer 36

• Hearing
• Vision
• Object perception
• Intermodal perception

Question 37

Perceptual Narrowing Effect

Answer 37

Shown in the ability to perceive faces; a perceptual sensitivity that becomes increasingly attuned with age to information most often encountered.

Question 38

Statistical Learning Capacity

Answer 38

By analyzing the speech stream for patterns, infants acquire a stock of speech structures for which they will later learn meanings, long before they start to talk around 12 months.

Question 39

Contrast Sensitivity

Answer 39

A principle that explains early pattern preferences. Contrast refers to the difference in the amount of light between adjacent regions in a pattern. If babies are sensitive to the contrast in two or more patterns, they prefer the one with more contrast.

Question 40

Size constancy

Answer 40

Perception of an object’s size as the same, despite changes in the size of it retinal image

Question 41

Shape constancy

Answer 41

Perception of an object’s shape as stable, despite changes in the shape projected on the retina.

Question 42

Intermodal stimulation

Answer 42

Simultaneous input from more than one modality (sensory system)

Question 43

Intermodal perception

Answer 43

When we make sense of these running streams of light, sound, tactile, odor, and taste information, perceiving them as integrated wholes. (example - we see lips moving and think sound, see a ball and know it is a circle, and know that hitting a table with one’s hand will make a loud, smacking sound)

Question 44

Amodal Sensory Properties

Answer 44

Information that is not specific to a single modality, but that overlaps two or more sensory systems. Babies perceive input from sensory systems in a unified way by detecting this information.

Question 45

Differentiation Theory

Answer 45

Proposed by James and Eleanor Gibson, this says that infants actively search for invariant features of the environment - those that remain stable - in a constantly changing perceptual world.

Question 46

Affordances

Answer 46

The action possibilities that a situation offers an organism with certain motor capabilities. The discovery of these guides perception.