Chp: 12.2: Sensory, Motor and Brain Development Flashcards
Within a few days of birth, most infants are able to reproduce the facial expressions of an adult. This behaviour is likely the product of a simple, biologically based form of ______.
mechanism that helps them respond to caretakers
Hearing in infants (3)
- Prenatal 7-8 months -> hearing and listening
- Young infants = especially attentive to voices
- Most attentive to mother’s voice
Vision in infants
Newborn infants: • Experience vision as their least mature sense • Poor visual acuity • 20/800 -> 40 times worse than 20/20 - Face preference: • tend to track faces rather than other patterns • Preferential looking procedure
Motor Development (4)
- Motor skills evolve in definite, stage-like sequence
- Guided by maturation
- Most infants walking around 1st birthday
- Timing of milestones -> not predictive of intelligence
Brain Development (3)
- Last 3 prenatal months and first 2 years = brain growth spurt
- Brain possesses all major structures at birth
- Continue to develop into adulthood
Myelination (3)
• Begins prenatally
• Myelin sheaths increase speed of neural impulse transmission
• improves brain communication
• Rapid myelination during first years of life
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Higher brain centers myelinated in adolescence and/or early adulthood
Synaptogenesis (2)
- The formation of new synapses
* Occurs rapidly during infancy and childhood
Synaptic Pruning (2)
- Less stimulated neurons lose synapse
- Stand in reserve (compensate for brain injury/ new skills)
preferential looking procedure
a study type used by Fantz to research infants’ visual preferences
maturation
a genetically programmed, biological process that governs our growth
cephalocaudal principle
the tendency for physical development to proceed in a head-to-foot direction
proximodistal principle
the principle that physical development begins along the innermost parts of the body and continues toward the outermost parts
