Week 3: Sensory, Perceptual and Motor Skill Development in Infancy

Question 1

What are neonatal reflexes?

Answer 1

Primitive reflexes to support neonates’ survival upon birth. A normally developing neonate should respond to certain stimulation in the environment with these automatic reflexes.

Question 2

When do neonatal reflexes get inhibited and disappear?

Answer 2

During 3 to 12 months of infancy.

Question 3

Do some neonatal reflexes form the basis of more complex motor skill development?

Answer 3

Yes

Question 4

What is the root reflex?

Answer 4

The baby turns their head and opens their mouth to a touch on their cheek or corner of their mouth.

Question 5

What is the suck reflex?

Answer 5

When something is touching the roof of the baby’s mouth, they instinctively suck it.

Question 6

What is the tonic neck reflex?

Answer 6

When the arms form an L shape.

Question 7

What is the grasp reflex?

Answer 7

When something touches the palm of their hands, they instinctively wrap their fingers around it. Applies for their foot as well.

Question 8

What is the step reflex?

Answer 8

When you carry a baby vertically, it will alternate its feet to plant them on the ground.

Question 9

What is the moro reflex?

Answer 9

When the infant is startled, they jerk their hands and legs outwards and bring them back towards the center of their body.

Question 10

What does a lack of disappearance of neonatal reflexes after certain timepoints signal?

Answer 10

Brain damage

Question 11

What are the 5 infant states of sleep and arousal?

Answer 11

1. Regular sleep (NREM)
2. Irregular sleep (REM)
3. Drowsiness
4. Quiet alertness
   5, Waking & crying

Question 12

What are the characteristics of regular sleep and how long is it?

Answer 12

8-9 hours
- At full rest
- Almost motionless
- No eye movements
- Eyelids closed
- Slow regular breathing
- Brain wave activity is slow and even

Question 13

What are the characteristics of irregular sleep and how long is it?

Answer 13

8-9 hours
- Gentle limb movements
- Occasional stirring
- Occasional rapid eye movements
- Breathing, heart rate, blood pressure are irregular

Question 14

What are the characteristics of drowsiness?

Answer 14

• Gentle limb movements
• Occasional stirring
• Occasional rapid eye movements
• Irregular breathing

Question 15

What are the characteristics of quiet alertness and how long is it?

Answer 15

2-3 hours
- Inactive body
- Eyes open and attentive
- Breathing is even

Question 16

What are the characteristics of waking and crying and how long is it?

Answer 16

1-4 hours
- Frequent bursts of uncoordinated body activity
- Very irregular breathing

Question 17

How does REM sleep change over the years?

Answer 17

Declines steadily over the prenatal period and first few years of life.

Question 18

What is REM sleep vital for?

Answer 18

Central Nervous System development

Question 19

How common is parent-infant co-sleeping?

Answer 19

Common cultural practice for approx. 90% of the world’s population

Question 20

What does parent-infant co-sleeping pose risks for?

Answer 20

Sudden infant death syndrome

Question 21

What is classical learning?

Answer 21

A neural stimulus is paired with an unconditioned, reflexive stimulus to condition the baby to exhibit a learned behaviour.
ie. If you keep stroking the baby’s forehead when it sucks the nipple, it will associate forehead stroking with feeding.

Question 22

What is operant learning?

Answer 22

When infants act or operate on the environment based on the consequences of the action.

Question 23

What is habituation?

Answer 23

Infants’ interest in certain stimuli gradually declines in the strength of response due to repetitive stimulation. Usually indexed with looking time, heart rate etc. When a new stimulus is presented, infants exhibit a high level of response again (recovery).

Question 24

What is the habituation paradigm?

Answer 24

During habituation phase, infants look less. During the immediate test phase (1 minute later), they look longer. During the delayed test phase (7 weeks later), they look longer as they forgot about the stimulus. Can predict IQ later in life.

Question 25

What are the milestones of reaching and grasping?

Answer 25

1. Prereaching (poorly coordinated swipes toward an object in front of them)
2. Ulnar grasp (clumsy motion in which the fingers close against the palm)
3. Transfer object from hand to hand
4. Pincer grasp (use the thumb and index finger in a well coordinated manner)

Question 26

What is the sensory development of touch (birth - 12 months)

Answer 26

Birth: Responds to touch and pain
1-6 months: Frequently engages in exploratory mouthing of objects
7-12 months: More elaborate touching with the hands

Question 27

What is the sensory development of taste and smell (birth - 6 months)

Answer 27

Birth: Distinguishes sweet, sour, bitter tastes (prefers sweet). Prefers mother’s smell
1-6 months: Readily changes taste preferences through experience

Question 28

What is the sensory development of hearing (birth - 12 months)

Answer 28

Birth: Prefers complex sounds to pure tones. Prefer own mother’s voice to unfamiliar voices. Prefer native language to foreign language.
1-6 months: Prefer listening to human speech. Become sensitive to syllable stress patterns in own language.
7-12 months: Screen out sounds not used in native language.

Question 29

What is the perceptual narrowing effect (evidence for culture specific learning in infants)?

Answer 29

6 months old can discriminate both human faces and monkey faces but 9 months old typically only can discriminate human faces but not monkey faces. Shows that infants’ perception becomes more attuned to the stimuli that are most exposed to.

Question 30

What is the least developed sense at birth?

Answer 30

Vision. Visual structures in both the eye and the brain are not yet fully formed. Newborns see fuzzy images and not good at discriminating colour.

Question 31

What is the relationship between 3D vs 2D objects and colour vs black-and-white objects when it comes to 9 month old infants number of behaviours?

Answer 31

More behaviour when it comes to coloured and 3D objects.

Question 32

What did the visual cliff experiment test and find?

Answer 32

Aimed to study how infants perceive depth and how they react to the visual cues of a drop-off. Found that a significant number of infants avoided crawling over the deep side, suggesting that they can perceive depth difference and see it as a risk.

Question 33

4 month olds can discriminate between the structurally “possible” and “impossible” drawings of a cube

Answer 33

True, they look much longer at the impossible cube.

Question 34

Do infants have a built in preference for faces of their own species?

Answer 34

Yes, they prefer to look at photos of faces with features arranged in a natural direction and prefer a face-like pattern. They also look longer at attractive faces.

Question 35

What is object permanence?

Answer 35

The ability to understand that even if the object disappears from the sight, it continues to exist in the world.

Question 36

What is size constancy?

Answer 36

Ability to perceive an object as having a constant size despite changes in its distance from the observer.

Question 37

What is shape constancy?

Answer 37

The perception that an object’s shape remains constant despite changes in its orientation or angle of view.

Question 38

What is object unity?

Answer 38

The ability to perceive an object as a single, continuous entity rather than as separate parts. Understanding that an object is whole even if a part of it is obstructed.