Developmental Psychology Lecture 2-Physical and Cognitive Development in Infancy Flashcards
Apart from prenatal development, the greatest degree of physical change occurs when?
During the first 2 years of life
Synaptogenesis:
Formation of connections (synapse) among neurons
Proceeds rapidly during the brain growth spurt
Synaptic Pruning:
Refinement and elimination of neurons
Begins near the time of birth and completed near end of sexual maturation
Plasticity:
Capacity for changes; a developmental state that has the potential to be shaped by experience
Myelination:
Is the process by which neurons are enclosed in waxy myelin sheaths that will facilitate the transmission of neural impulses (creates efficiency!!!)
What parts of the brain develop first?
The lower subcortical brain regions (primitive areas and regions)
What parts of brain develop last?
Higher order functions, things that control executive functioning (pre frontal cortex) develop last
By 6 months what happens to infants brain?
primary motor areas of the cerebral cortex directs most of the infant’s movements
Inborn responses disappear by now (palmar grasp)
What are newborn reflexes?
Involuntary, automatic responses to stimuli
What are survival Reflexes:
Help newborns survive
Some survival reflexes disappear in infancy or childhood but others persist throughout life (swallowing)
What are primitive reflexes?
Are controlled by primitive parts of the brain
Disappear by about 6 months of age - not being used as much
Babinski, palmer
Cries
Basic Cry
Angry Cry
Pain Cry
Does picking up your baby when they cry reduce amount of crying later on?
YES
Colic:
An infant behavior pattern of unknown cause, involving intense daily bouts of crying, totalling 3 or more hours a day for several months
What is prenatal bone structure like?
soft cartilage that gradually hardens into bony material (ossification)
What is bone structure like at birth?
most of infant’s bones are soft, pliable and difficult to break
When is a child’s skull formed?
by age 2 will pliable points (sutures)
Locomotor skills (gross motor)-
crawling
Manipulative Skills (fine motor control)-
use of hands and fingers
When should routine immunization check-up commence
2 months
What is sensation
A mental process resulting from the external information experienced through the sensory organs and transmitted to the brain
What is perception?
The interpretation of sensory input
What is Visual Acuity:
How well one can see details at a distance
What is babies visual acuity compared to adults?
40 times worse but reach adult visual acuity at around age 7
Prefer to have moderately complex patterns
Tracking?
The ability to track and follow a moving object
Color vision
Very similar to adults
Which sense is best developed of them all in infants?
Touch and Motion
3 different methods researchers will use to look at perceptual skills
Preference Technique
Habituation/dishabituation
operant conditioning
Stereopsis
Depth perception:
by 3 months of age (both eyes come together to create one image)
What is sleeper effect?
When early experience is lacking, visual capability fails to develop normally many years later
what is Intermodal Perception:
(reaching behind back into bag example in class)
Formation of a single perception of a stimulus that is based on information from 2 or more sense (seen later on in infant development)
Cross-Modal Transfer:
The transfer of information from one sense to another
Who influenced study of cognitive development?
Piaget
The majority of neurons a person has are formed by when?
Most neurons are formed by second trimester before brain growth spurt
Jamie has brown eyes even though one of his biological parents has blue eyes. Genes for blue eyes are part of Jamie’s:
genotype
phenotype
genotype and phenotype
cannot be determined from the information given
genotype
According to the principles of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, _____ shape our responses to new information.
Schemes
Intermodal perception is the formation of a single perception of a stimulus that is based on information from two or more senses
T
F
T
Early development of brain
Synaptogenesis
Synaptic pruning
Plasticity
Schemas:
The organization of experiences into expectancies, or “known” combinations
Schematic learning involves categories
Behaviors are schemes that we are constantly adapting and adjusting to be more complicated and more complex
Milestones of sensorimotor stage
- Reflexive schemes (birth-1 month) newborn reflexes
2.Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months) Simple motor habits centers around own body
3.Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months) Repeat interesting effects in soundings
4.Coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12 months) Intentional, goal-directed behavior - Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months) Explore properties of objects through novel actions
6.Mental Representations (18 months-2 years) Internal depictions of objects or events;defferd limitation
When do babies start to develop imitation
During the tertiary circular reactions
Main milestones of sensorimotor stage
Imitation
Object permenance
(Invisible displacement)
When do young kids develop object permenance?
by around 2 years old
What would a behaviorist think about language
That it is learned through reinforcement
What would a natavist think about language
language acquisition device, born with it
What would aninteractionist think about language
That it involves both nature and nurture
Infant-directed speech (IDS)
simplified, higher-pitched speech that adults use with infants and young children
