Unit 4

Question 1

Body growth

Answer 1

-growth is more rapid on infancy than any other period after birth
-infants double weight in 3 months
-infants triple weight by 1 year
-toddlers are half as tall as they will be as adults at about 2 for girls and 2 1/2 for boys

Question 2

synaptic development

Answer 2

synaptogenesis- the creation of synapses, followed by a period of synaptic pruning= efficiency

Question 3

Neuroplasticity

Answer 3

brain ability to reorganize neural pathways and connections- plastic or maluable (like mush)

Question 4

myelinization: reticular formation

Answer 4

-myelin covers axons and insulates improving conductivity (so more communication can develop)
-reticular formation= regulates attention- isnt fully myelinized until the mid-20s

Question 5

the brain and nervous system development

Answer 5

-most changes happen in the cortex and in the connections
-moving from flexibility to efficiency

Question 6

newborns reflexs: unlearned, primitive

Answer 6

-newborn is born with a rich set of reflexes, unlearned responses that are triggered by specific stimuli (environment)
-some reflexes may have survival implications. ex-rooting and sucking (adaptive)

-other reflexes (primitive reflexes) may be precursors voluntary motor behaviour (disappear before they start walking)
-may inform about child nervous system

Question 7

Newborn reflex: babinski

Answer 7

sole of the food is stroked and toes fan out and up. disappears around 12 months

Question 8

newborn reflex: grasping

Answer 8

object touches the palm and infant grasps it strong for first few months and becomes voluntary by 5 months

Question 9

newborn reflex: moro

Answer 9

sudden noise or loss of support= arch back and throw arms and legs out and then bring them back in
-disappears after 4 or 5 months

Question 10

newborn reflex: Plantar

Answer 10

curls toes under when an object is pressed under them
-disappears by 12 months

Question 11

Newborn reflex: rooting

Answer 11

soft touch on cheek= turn toward touch and open mouth in an attempt to suck
-disappears by 3 months

Question 12

newborn reflex: tonic neck

Answer 12

infant is placed on back with head to one side=extends arm and legs on that side and flexes opposite arm and leg
-looks like a fencing position and disappears by 4 months

Question 13

behavioural state

Answer 13

states of consciousness:
- patterns of sleep and wakefulness stablizie with age
–clear nighttime patterns and daytime naps are established
-neonates sleep 80% of the time
-by 8 weeks, babies will begin to “sleep through the night”
-by 6 months, babies are sleeping 13 hours per day

Question 14

Infant sleep and wakefulness: deep sleep, active sleep, quiet sleep, quiet awake, active awake, crying/fussing

Answer 14

deep sleep: eyes closed, regular breathing, no movement expect occasional startles

active sleep: eyes closed, irregular breathing, small twitches, no gross body movement

quiet awake: eyes open, no major body movement, regular breathing

active awake: eyes open, movements of the head, limbs, and trunk, irregular breathing

crying/ fussing: eyes partly or entirely closed, vigorous diffuse movement with crying or fussing sounds

Question 15

reflexes and behaviour state: cries and cross-cultural studies

Answer 15

-basic cry signals hunger- rhythmical pattern
-angry cry- louder and more intense
-pain cry- very abrupt onset

cross-culture studies- crying increases until 6 weeks then tapers off

prompts attention to crying in the first three months leads to less crying later

Question 16

reflexes and behaviour state: colic

Answer 16

-intense daily bouts of crying (3+ hours/ day, 3+ times/ week for >3 weeks with no other cause
-unknown cause
-interventions-family interventions, breastfeeding cessation, probiotics, environment changes

Question 17

Bones in infant developing

Answer 17

• increase in length of long bones
  -changes in number and density are responsible for improved coordination

Question 18

ossification

Answer 18

-hardening of bones
-begins prenatally
-continues through puberty

Question 19

muscles in infant developing

Answer 19

-fibres are virtually all present at birth
-initially small and have a high ratio of water to muscle
-high fat content declines to adult levels by age 1

Question 20

lungs and hear in infant developing

Answer 20

-improvements in lung efficiency and increasing strength of hear muscles= greater stamina by 2

Question 21

motor skills in infant developing: locomotor

Answer 21

-locomotor skills (gross motor)- crawling (moving from one location to another)
-non-locomotor skills- controlling head movements-

Question 22

motor skills in infant developing: typical pattern: cephalocaudal, proximodistal

Answer 22

typical pattern:
—cephalocaudal-starts first from head then down to the legs lastly
—proximodistal- begins from centre (like eggs) (spinal cord develops first) and then it develops out from there
—milestones don’t always follow (reach with feet before hands)

Question 23

motor skills in infant developing: fine motor

Answer 23

-manipulative skills (fine motor control)- use of hands and fingers

Question 24

milestones of motor development in the first 2 years: month 1

Answer 24

age- month 1
-locomotor skill: stepping reflex
-nonlocomotor skill: lifts head slightly; follows slowly moving object with eyes
-manipulative skills: holds up object if placed in hand

Question 25

milestones of motor development in the first 2 years: 2-3 months

Answer 25

age- 2-3 months
-nonlocomotor: lifts head up to a 90-degree angle when lying on stomach
-manipulative skills: begins to swipe at objects in sight

Question 26

milestones of motor development in the first 2 years: 4-6 months

Answer 26

age 4-6 months
-locomotor: rolls over; sits with support; moves on hands and knees (“creeps”)
-nonlocomotor: holds head erect while in sitting position
-manipulative skills: reaches for and grasps objects

Question 27

milestones of motor development in the first 2 years: 7-9 months

Answer 27

age 7-9 months
-locomotor: sits without support; crawls
-manipulative skills: transfers objects from one hand to the other

Question 28

milestones of motor development in the first 2 years: 10-12 months

Answer 28

age 10-12 months
-locomotor skills: pulls self up and walks grasping furniture; then walks alone
-nonlocomotor: squats and stoops; plays patty cake
-manipulative skills: shows some signs of hand prefernce; grasps a spoon across palm but had poor aim when moving food to mouth

Question 29

milestones of motor development in the first 2 years: 13-18 months

Answer 29

age 13-18 months
-locomotor: walks backwars, sideways; runs (14-20 mos)
-nonlocomotor: rolls ball to adult; claps
-manipulative skills; stacks two blocks; puts objects into small container and dumps them out

Question 30

milestones of motor development in the first 2 years: 19-24 months

Answer 30

age 19-24 months
-locootor skills: walks up and down stairs, two feet per step
-nonlocomotor: jumps with both feet off ground
-manipulative skills: uses spoon to feed self; stacks 4 to 10 blocks

Question 31

Explaining Motor Skill Development

Answer 31

– Virtually all children follow the same sequence
– Developmentally delayed children just do so more slowly
– Maturation of some kind seems to be occurring
– Experience in normal environments influences motor development

Question 32

gender differences

Answer 32

Girls are ahead during infancy
* Slight advantage in manipulative skills (self –feeding)
– Boys are typically more active
* Clear preference for rough & tumble play
* More aggressive play than girls by the end of the second year

Question 33

sensory skills

Answer 33

Newborns & young infants have more sensory capacity than was recently thought

Question 34

vision: acuity, colour

Answer 34

Newborns respond to light & track moving objects
* Visual Acuity (clarity of vision)
– Smallest pattern that is distinguishable
– Infants at 1 month see at 20 feet what adults see at
200-400 feet
– By 1 year, infant’s visual acuity is the similar to adults
* Eye tracking present early-on
* Colour Vision
– Red, green & blue present by 1 month
– Ability almost identical to an adult’s

Question 35

Hearing

Answer 35

Auditory Acuity
– Newborns hear nearly as well as adults do
– High-pitched noises need to be loud to be heard
– Can locate the direction of sounds at birth

Question 36

taste and smell

Answer 36

Newborns react differently to each basic taste as early
as birth
– React to pleasant & unpleasant odors
– Prefer their own & mother’s odor

Question 37

touch and motion

Answer 37

Touch and Motion
– Best developed of all senses
– Babies react to touch with reflexes & other movements
– Babies react to painful stimuli

Question 38

perceptual development: innate (nativist) aspects

Answer 38

Newborns have very impressive sensory capabilities

Question 39

perceptual development methods

Answer 39

Studying perceptual development
– Preference Technique: an experimental technique used specifically for studying infants and toddlers in order to assess how they orient to and understand visual and/or auditory stimuli.
– Habituation/Dishabituation: the diminishing of a physiological or emotional response to a frequently repeated stimulus
– Operant Conditioning: is a learning process where voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition of reward or aversive stimuli

Question 40

perceptual development: experiential

Answer 40

Minimum exposure to sensory stimuli is required for normal development

Question 41

looking: critical periods

Answer 41

Early Visual Stimulation
– Critical periods of time early on
* A specific quality of visual stimulation is needed to develop
normal visual perception
* Infants born with cataracts show later abnormalities in
detecting position of facial features after corrected (Le Grand
et al., 2001)

Question 42

looking: depth perception: cues and visual cliff

Answer 42

Depth Perception
– Ability to judge relative distances to objects
– Appears to begin to develop at about age 3 months
– Binocular cues
* Involve both eyes
* Closer object = greater difference in view from each eye
* Eye muscles informs about distance
– Monocular cues
* Input from one eye
* Interposition - one object in front of another
* Linear perspective - lines closer together = farther away
– Kinetic cues
* Motion from objects or the eyes

Depth Perception
– Visual cliff studies – 6-week-olds react with
emotional indicators or interest to depth
differences
– 7-month-olds, show fear of the deep side of the
cliff
– Infants at 4-6 months use retinal disparity
(difference between object images in each eye) to
discern depth
– 5-month-olds use motion & interposition to
perceive depth.

Question 43

looking: preferences

Answer 43

What Babies Look at
– Babies initially scan for light/dark contrast
– At 2 months, babies scan entire objects to identify things
– Caron and Caron (1981) suggest that by 3 – 4 months
babies can find and pay attention to patterns
* Faces: An example of responding to a complex pattern
– NOT uniquely interesting to infants
– Clearly prefer attractive faces
– Prefer the mother’s face from the earliest hours of life

Question 44

listening: discriminating speech sounds

Answer 44

At 1 month - discriminate between single syllables
(e.g. pa & ba)
– At 6 months - discriminate between two-syllable
words
– By 3 months - recognize the sound despite who says it
(male or female, young or old)
– At 6 months - distinguish sound contrasts in any
language
* Fades by 1 year
* Correlates with syntaptic growth and pruning

Question 45

listening: discriminating individual voices

Answer 45

– Newborns – discriminate mother’s voice from
another female
* But, not father’s from another male
– Mother’s voice is preferred
– Babies learn this in utero

Question 46

licencing: discriminating other sound patterns

Answer 46

– Babies recognize melody patterns by 6 months

Question 47

intersensory integration

Answer 47

Intersensory Integration
– Coordination of information from 2 or more senses
– Infants attend to intersensory redundancy
* Cross-Modal Transfer
– Transfer of information from one sense to another
* Piaget - these skills did not develop until late in first year
* Gibson & Gibson & others - some of each skill is built in
at birth
* Experience is required for both