Week 3 - Infancy (Birth > 12 months)

Question 1

discuss major changes in infancy, such as growth, the brain and sleep patterns

Answer 1

Growth -
Faster rate of growth in the first year than any other developmental stage.
Childs weight doubles in 1st 5 months.
Percentiles used to compare ‘normal’ growth.
Cephalocaudal principle - top to bottom, growth occurs from head down.
Proximodistal principle - centre to extremities, core growth to fine motor.

Brain -
Overproduction - a burst in the production of dendritic connections between neurons.
Myelination - growth of the myelin sheath around the axon of a neuron.
Synaptic pruning - dendritic connections that are used become stronger and faster and those that are unused wither away.
Hindbrain and midbrain mature the earliest and perform basic biological functions (lungs, heart, movement)
Forebrain made up of limbic system (hypothalamus, thalamus, hippocampus) and cerebral cortex
Plasticity - brains are adaptable and can be damaged or regenerated.

Sleep -
Sleep problems affect 15-35% of babies (excessive night waking, excessive parental involvement in sleep)
SIDS

Question 2

describe infants’ motor development

Answer 2

Infants tend to roll, sit up, crawl, stand and walk.
Gross Motor Skills -
Involves larger muscles, torso, arms, legs.
Posture is foundation for movement.
Inner ear regulates balance
Tummy time aids development, then rolling and sitting up.
Most experts see GMS development as a combo of genetics and parental support.

Fine Motor skills -
small muscles and finely tuned movements (finger dexterity, grasping, picking up)

Question 3

describe how infants learn, remember and conceptualise

Answer 3

Short term and long term memory expands over the first year.
Recognition is more important than recall.
Stimulus info > sensory memory > (via attention) > short term/working memory > response > onto LTM

Schemes - cognitive structures for processing, organising and interpreting information.
Assimilation - cognitive process of altering new info to fit an existing scheme.
Accommodation - cognitive process of changing a scheme to adapt to new info.

Question 4

describe the nature of language and how it develops in infancy

Answer 4

Babies begin to understand language long before they can speak.
Babies prefer the sound of their mothers voice from day 1 after birth.
2 moths - cooing/gurgling
4-6 months - Babbling
8-10 gestures (waving, shaking hands)
10-12 months - comprehension
12 months + - first words.

Question 5

discuss the development of emotions and personality in infancy

Answer 5

Temperament - innate tendencies that would become adult personality
Consists of activity level, attention span, emotionality, soothability, sociability, adaptability and quality of mood.

Emotions - with age, emotional displays become deliberate.
Primary emotions: anger, disgust, sadness, fear, surprise, happiness.
Secondary emotions: require social learning, embarrassment, shame, guilt.
Emotions develop from 6 moths on in particular.

Question 6

describe the development of attachment in infancy

Answer 6

Attachment - the strong affectionate tie that develops between infants ad familiar people who have responded to their needs.

Bowlby's ethological theory - the emotional tie to the caregiver is an evolution to aid survival.
Attachment theory (Bowlby) - emotional and social development theory focusing on crucial importance of the relationship between infant and caregiver.

Erikson’s psychosocial theory -
Trust vs mistrust stage. If a child can trust that 1st attachment = others can be trusted. If child cant trust 1st attachment = others cant be trusted.

Question 7

summarise and evaluate Piaget’s theory of infant development

Answer 7

Most influential theory of cognitive development.
Based theory on observations of own and other children.
States that children go through stages of cognitive development as they construct their understanding of the world.
Stages -
1 - Sensorimotor: learning centred around senses coordinating with motor abilities.
2 - Preoperational: symbolic representation (language) but limited mental operations
3 - Concrete: capable of using mental operations but only in concrete, immediate experience and have difficulty thinking hypothetically.
4 - Formal operations: capable of thinking logically and abstractly, can formulate hypotheses and test systematically. More complex thinking and metacognition (thinking about thinking)
Object permanence - even though the child cant see and object, they know it still exists.
Limitations - cultural limitations and oversimplified.