Development in infancy

Question 1

What physical changes occur in the first year of life?

Answer 1

Weight triples, grow in length up to 10 inches, physical changes mirrored by behavioural milestones, many brain changes

Question 2

What brain changes occur in infancy?

Answer 2

Neuron number stable
Neural CONNECTIVITY rapidly increases (synaptic proliferation) - majority of connections have formed between 7-12 months
Different areas increase connectivity at different rates, prioritising basic functioning such as vision before higher centres become necessary
Myelination - increases speed of neurotransmission

Question 3

What do we see following synaptic proliferation?

Answer 3

Synaptic pruning - experience determines which connections are most important, so those that are less important degenerate to make room for more essential functions
Individual differences in this process - thought to not occur/occur less in autistic individuals

Question 4

How does motor development advance during infancy?

Answer 4

Both motor and visual areas of cortex mature
Grasping reflex becomes pincer grasp, more coordinated action under voluntary control (important development for interactions with world)

Question 5

What did McGraw suggest regarding the progressive development of locomotor control at this stage?

Answer 5

Distinct stages: lying, sitting, crawling at 9 months, standing, walking by 12 months

These increased abilities to explore and interact with world in new ways provide more opportunities for learning

Question 6

Why is perceptual and cognitive development harder to measure?

Answer 6

Attentional and motivational limitations - infants are easily distracted/sleepy
Motor limitations
Linguistic limitations

Question 7

What are 5 more specialised methods for assessing perceptual/cognitive development?

Answer 7

Measure HR - guide to what a baby finds surprising/unexpected, indicating what their current awareness is
Eye position and fixation
Sucking (preferential stimuli)
Head turning 
Kicking

Question 8

What is the preference method?

Answer 8

Infants attend to some stimuli more frequently, fixating longer
e.g. experimenter presents pictures A and B and measures how long baby looks at each
If look at A more they may prefer it
Swap pictures round to control for possibility of preferential direction
Results indicate infants can discriminate preferred and non-preferred stimuli, and preferred is somehow more important

Question 9

What is the habituation method?

Answer 9

Involves habituation and test phases
HABITUATION - stimulus presented long enough for infant to start losing interest, attending progressively less
TEST - If attends more to a new stimulus, indicates they can discriminate it from the habituated stimulus
We can measure discrimination thresholds in this way i.e. amount of stimulus change needed in order for infant to detect it

Question 10

What is the conditioning method?

Answer 10

Infant conditioned to respond only when detect a stimulus - head turn rewarded, then a reward is only provided when certain visual pattern in view
Child learns to only turn head for that stimulus
Visual pattern then changed in some way - if response rate decreases this suggests the stimuli appear distinctly different to the infant

Question 11

How can we assess an infant’s visual acuity?

Answer 11

Using the habituation method - shown progressively coarser test image until notice difference between test and habituation image

Question 12

What is object permanence and what did Piaget propose?

Answer 12

Knowledge that objects have substance and maintain their identities when they change location, continuing to exist even when out of sight

Infants less than 9 months don’t search for hidden objects - not yet achieved object permanence i.e. representational abilities not sufficiently developed so unable to hold representation of object in working memory

Question 13

What is a criticism of Piaget’s view?

Answer 13

His studies were limited and there may have been other reasons why the children may not have reached for the hidden object - motivation, motor limitations (can they plan and execute motor commands), attention (other visible objects are now more salient so child distracted

Question 14

What was Bower’s experiment into object permanence?

Answer 14

Methods that avoided problems of Piaget’s studies
Looked for object permanence in infants <8months
Occluded an object, and when screen removed item was either still there or had vanished
HR used as measure of surprise
Greater increases in rate in removal condition i.e. infants do seem to have OP and expected item to still be there

Question 15

What was Baillargeon’s experiment into object permanence?

Answer 15

Used the habituation method with 6.5month olds
Habituated to screen moving through 180 degrees
Box placed in path of screen - in the POSSIBLE EVENT the screen moved but stopped at box
In the IMPOSSIBLE EVENT the screen carried on through 180 degrees, appearing to pass through the space where the box was
Children looked longer at the impossible event, indicating object permanence for the box

Question 16

What did Wynn demonstrate regarding the infant capacity to understand number?

Answer 16

5 month olds shown a doll, then hidden by a screen
Second doll visibly added behind screen, but when screen lifted either they see both dolls or just one still - infants looked longer when only one i.e. number inconsistent with what they were expecting (same when doll was visibly removed from an initial two)
Indicates that 5 month olds can understand concepts of more and less, and can understand that adding an object to another makes two/removing one from two leaves one

Question 17

What are infant memory capacities like?

Answer 17

Long term memory for speech sounds, facial expressions and events
Piaget - infants could reproduce facial expressions they had seen in past (DEFERRED IMITATION)
Meltzoff - 9month old infants shown 3 toys in scenarios where they were either stationary or being played with by adults; after 24hrs those who witnessed adults playing were likely to produce the same actions i.e. they had remembered what they had seen

Question 18

What are the 2 major developments in infancy in terms of social capabilities?

Answer 18

Attachment and early communication

Question 19

What is attachment?

Answer 19

A long-enduring and emotionally meaningful tie to a particular individual - highly EMOTIONAL BONDS between infant and caregiver

Question 20

What are the key characteristics of attachment behaviour in infancy?

Answer 20

Focused on specific individuals
Infant seeks to maintain close proximity
Close proximity produces comfort and security
Separation produces distress

Question 21

What is a possible cause for development of attachment?

Answer 21

Biological and evolutionary benefit - motivation to be near parent increases likelihood of receiving care –> survival

Question 22

What did Bowlby suggest?

Answer 22

Attachment develops gradually in 4 distinct stages:

1) Birth (pre-attachment) - indiscriminate social responsiveness, accepts care from anyone
2) 2-7 months (attachment in the making) - recognition of familiar people but still accepts care from anyone
3) 7-24 months (full blown) - infant will follow caregiver, wary of strangers, protests at separation
4) >24 months - attachment behaviour lessens as develop awareness of accommodating caregiver needs

Question 23

What was Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?

Answer 23

Attachment to a mother figure is crucial to development
Orphans displayed cognitive, linguistic and social deficits, suggested to be a direct consequence

However orphan studies confound separation with factors such as socially and intellectually unstimulating environments - may not be absence of mother but absence of environment mother commonly provides

Question 24

What is Ainsworth’s strange situation test?

Answer 24

Used to measure attachment strength - important parts are where infant is reunited with mother; if able to be comforted this is the clearest indicator of attachment

Question 25

What are the 4 major attachment types suggested by Ainsworth’s test?

Answer 25

SECURE - actively seeks proximity esp at reunions and unable to be comforted by stranger when mother absent
INSECURE-AVOIDANT - ignores/avoids mother at reunions and no distress when separate; equally accepts attention from stranger i.e. weak attachment
INSECURE-RESISTANT - difficult to console at reunions and shows mixed avoidance/contact at these times; overly strong attachment
INSECURE-DISORGANISED - disoriented with no clear pattern of behaviour

Question 26

What did Stern demonstrate with regards to how attachment styles connect to parenting styles?

Answer 26

INSECURE ATTACHED INFANTS - inconsistent parenting, not always available to meet child’s needs, intermittent empathy/care
SECURELY ATTACHED INFANTS - parents alter behaviour to suit infant needs, show empathy and reliably available

So attachment type has a SOCIAL BASIS

Question 27

What is thought regarding an infant’s ability to PERCEIVE sound?

Answer 27

Well prepared for learning to interpret speech, responding to sound before birth and preferring the frequency range of speech
DeCasper and Fifer - preferential sucking for voices over music
Infants <1month can discriminate phonemes even if not in native language
Werker and Tees - infants at 6 months showed equal performance at discriminating phonemes in native and 2 foreign languages, but decline by 12 months where good accuracy for native but foreign at chance level

Capability for speech perception innate and able to be fine-tuned by experience (lose sensitivity when not exposed to certain speech sounds)

Question 28

What are some developmental milestones in speech PRODUCTION?

Answer 28

<2 months - reflexive sounds e.g. to indicate discomfort
2 months - vowel sounds
2-4 months - laughing and more varied vowel sounds
6 months - babbling and consonant vowel strings e.g. baba
7 months - babbling incorporates more varied sounds
12 months - single words which can express intention (holophrases)

Question 29

What did Papousek and Papousek find?

Answer 29

Increasing imitation of mothers speech sounds in infancy - utterances more likely to match (in pitch, duration and rhythm) as get older, with 27% match at 2 months but 43% at 5 months

Theory is that parents reinforce speech sounds in infant’s native language while sounds not in that language are used less - speech can be shaped

Question 30

What is development of speech comprehension like?

Answer 30

Comprehension occurs around 7-8 months i.e. before speech production - will orient head to certain concepts
First words understood are usually own name, names of family members or familiar objects
Up to 12 months there is a steady increase in vocabulary, reaching around 80 words - after this point the increase is more rapid