Chapter 3 Physical and Cognitive Development in Infancy

Physical Growth and Development in Infancy

Head
large relative to the rest of the body
flops around uncontrollably

Infant becomes capable of

sitting
standing
stooping
climbing
usually walking

Cephalocaudal and Proximodistal Patterns

Cephalocaudal -- sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top, beginning with
the head
Proximodistal -- sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the
extremities

The First Year

Average North American newborn -- 20 inches long; 7½ pounds
Most newborns lose 5 to 7 percent of their body weight adjusting to feeding
They double their birth weight by the age of 4 months; nearly triple it by their first birthday
Infants grow about 1 inch per month during the first year

From Age 1 to 2 Years

At 2 years of age, children weigh approximately 26 to 32 pounds
gaining a quarter to half a pound per month
attain about one-fifth of their adult weight
At 2 years, the average child is 32 to 35 inches tall--nearly half of their eventual adult height

The Brain
Cerebral cortex covers the forebrain like a wrinkled cap
Two halves, or hemispheres, based on ridges and valleys in the cortex
Four main areas, lobes, in each hemisphere
frontal lobes, occipital lobes, temporal lobes, parietal lobes
Lateralization -- specialization of function in one hemisphere or the other

Neuron
Parts of the neuron
Axon carries signals away from the cell body
Dendrites carry signals toward it
Myelin sheath -- a layer of fat cells -- provides insulation and helps electrical signals
travel faster down the axon
At the end of the axon are terminal buttons, which release chemicals called
neurotransmitters into synapses
Synapses -- tiny gaps between neurons' fibers
 Changes in Neurons
Chemical interactions in synapses connect axons and dendrites, allowing information to pass
from neuron to neuron
The pace of myelination also varies in different areas of the brain
The infant’s brain is waiting for experiences to determine how connections are made

Changes in Regions of the Brain

Both heredity and environment influence synaptic overproduction and subsequent
retraction
“Blooming (development) and pruning” vary considerably by brain region
Pruning -- unused connections are replaced by other pathways or disappear
Prefrontal cortex -- the area of the brain where higher-level thinking and self-regulation occur

Sleep
Considerable individual variation in how much infants sleep
typical newborn sleeps 16 to 17 hours a day

SIDS
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) -- condition that occurs when infants stop breathing,
usually during the night, and die suddenly without an apparent cause
SIDS is the highest cause of infant death in the United States
Risk of SIDS is highest at 2 to 4 months of age

Risk Factors for SIDS

SIDS decreases when infants sleep on their backs
More common in low birth weight infants
Infants who are passively exposed to cigarette smoke are at higher risk
More frequent in infants who sleep in
soft bedding
Less likely in infants who use a pacifier when they go to sleep

Benefits of Breast Feeding

Appropriate weight gain a
lowered risk of childhood obesity
Fewer allergies
Prevention or reduction of diarrhea, respiratory infections, bacterial and urinary tract infections,
and otitis media
Denser bones in childhood and adulthood
Reduced childhood cancer and reduced incidence of breast cancer in mothers and their
female offspring
Lower incidence of SIDS

When Mother Should Not Breast Feed

If she is infected with AIDS or any other infectious disease that can be transmitted through
her milk
If she has active tuberculosis
If she is taking any drug that may not be safe for the infant
 Nutritional Needs
Nutritionists recommend that infants consume approximately 50 calories per day for each pound
they weigh
This is more than twice an adult’s requirement per pound

Dynamic Systems Theory

Infants assemble motor skills for perceiving and acting, which are coupled together
When infants are motivated to do something, they might create a new motor behavior
Mastering a motor skill requires the infant’s active efforts to coordinate several
components of the skill

Mastering a New Skill

The infant is motivated by a new challenge
Partially accomplishes the task
“Fine tunes” movements to make them smoother and more effective
“Tuning” is achieved through repeated cycles of action and perception of the consequences
of that action

Reflexes
Reflexes -- built-in reactions to stimuli
Genetically carried survival mechanisms
automatic
involuntary
Allow infants to respond adaptively to their environment

Example reflexes
Rooting and sucking, Moro or startle reflex, coughing, sneezing, blinking, shivering, and
yawning
Gross Motor Skills
Skills that involve large-muscle activities
Sitting with support -- 2 months
Sitting upright without support -- 6 to 7 months of age
Pull themselves up and hold on to a chair -- 8 months
Stand alone – 10 to 12 months

With experience, babies learn to avoid risky situations, integrating perceptual information with
the development of a new motor behavior

Toddlers become more mobile

13–18 months
can pull a toy attached to a string
use their hands and legs to climb up a number of steps
18–24 months
toddlers can walk quickly or run stiffly
 walk backwards without losing their balance
stand and kick a ball without falling and stand and throw a ball
jump in place
Fine Motor Skills
Finely tuned movements

At birth, infants have very little control over fine motor skills
During the first two years of life, infants refine how they reach and grasp

Perceptual-motor coupling is necessary for the infant to coordinate grasping

Experience plays a role in reaching and grasping

Sensory and Perceptual Development

Sensation occurs when information interacts with sensory receptors -- the eyes, ears, tongue,
nostrils, and skin
Perception is the interpretation of what is sensed

Our perceptual system can select from the rich information that the environment provides
We directly perceive information that exists in the world around us

Studying the Infant’s Perception

Perception brings us into contact with the environment in order to interact with and adapt to it
Visual Preference Method -- Infants look at different things for different lengths of time
Orienting response -- to determine if an infant can see or hear a stimulus
Habituation -- decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus
Dishabituation -- is the recovery of a habituated response after a change in stimulation

Visual Acuity and Color   

Newborn’s vision is estimated to be 20/600 on the well-known Snellan eye examination
chart
By 6 months of age -- vision is 20/40 or better
By about the first birthday, the infant’s vision approximates that of an adult
By 8 weeks, possibly even by 4 weeks, infants can discriminate among some colors

Perception of Pattern and Depth

Infants prefer to look at a normal human face rather than one with scrambled features

Depth perception -- visual cliff

Infants develop the ability to use binocular (two-eyed) cues to depth by about 3 to 4 months of
age
Hearing, Touch, and Pain
Prenatally at 7 months, infants can hear sounds such as mother’s voice and music
Immediately after birth, infants cannot hear soft sounds or pitch as well as adults do
Newborns respond to touch and feel pain

Smell and Taste

Newborns can differentiate among odors
Sensitivity to taste might be present even before birth
At only 2 hours of age, babies made different facial expressions when they tasted sweet,
sour, and bitter solutions
 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget thought we build mental structures that help us to adapt to the world
Adaptation involves adjusting to new environmental demands

Processes of Development
Developing brain creates schemes, which are actions or mental representations that
organize knowledge
Assimilation -- children use their existing schemes to deal with new information or
experiences

Accommodation -- children adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences
into account

Equilibrium and Disequilibrium

Cognitive conflict -- disequilibrium
the child is constantly faced with inconsistencies and counterexamples to existing
schemes
An internal search for equilibrium creates motivation for change
the child assimilates and accommodates, develops new schemes, and organizes and
reorganizes old and new schemes

Cognition is qualitatively different in one stage compared with another

Sensorimotor Stage
Infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences (such
as seeing and hearing) with physical actions
Lasts from birth to 2 years
At the end of this stage, 2-year-olds can produce complex sensorimotor patterns and use
primitive symbols
Object Permanence
Object permanence -- understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot
be seen, heard, or touched
One of the infant’s most important accomplishments
Watch an infant’s reaction when an interesting object disappears. If the infant searches for
the object, it is inferred that the baby knows it continues to exist

Evaluating and Modifying Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage  

The infant’s cognitive world is not as neatly packaged as Piaget portrayed it
Some of Piaget’s explanations for the cause of change are debated
Piaget's view of sensorimotor development needs to be modified
Some researchers conclude that infants’ perceptual abilities are highly developed very early
in development

Learning, Remembering, and Conceptualizing

Infants can learn through operant conditioning
Attention is the focusing of mental resources on select information and improves cognitive
processing on many tasks
Joint attention involves individuals focusing on the same object or event and involves:
 The ability to track another’s behavior
One person directing another’s attention
Reciprocal interaction

Language Development
Language -- a form of communication—whether spoken, written, or signed—that is based on a
system of symbols
All human languages have some common characteristics
Rules describe the way the language works
Infinite generativity -- the ability to produce an endless number of meaningful sentences
using a finite set of words and rules

Key Milestones in Language Development

Babies' sounds and gestures go through this sequence during the first year
Crying: can signal distress, but there are different types of cries that signal different
things
Cooing: about 1 to 2 months, gurgling sounds that are made in the back of the throat and
usually express pleasure during interaction with the caregiver
Babbling: In the middle of the first year, babies babble -- strings of consonant-vowel
combinations, such as “ba, ba, ba, ba”
Gestures: Infants start using gestures, such as showing and pointing, at about 8 to 12
months of age

Recognizing Language Sounds

Phonemes -- the basic sound units of a language
First words occur between 10 to 15 months (average is 13 months)

Two-Word Utterances
Occurs by the time children are 18 to 24 months of age
“Big car”
“Where ball?”
Telegraphic speech is the use of short, precise words without grammatical markers such as
articles, auxiliary verbs, and other connectives
“Mommy give ice cream”

Biological Influences
The ability to use language requires vocal apparatus as well as nervous system capabilities
Brain regions predisposed for language
Broca’s area -- an area in the left frontal lobe of the brain involved in producing words
Wernicke’s area -- a region of the brain’s left hemisphere involved in language
comprehension
Aphasia -- a loss or impairment of language processing as a result of damage to brain

Language Acquisition Device (LAD) -- Humans are biologically prewired to learn language at a
certain time and in a certain way and to detect the various features and rules of language

Environmental Influences
Behaviorists opposed Chomsky's LAD hypothesis
Stated that language was nothing more than chains of responses acquired through
reinforcement
 The behavioral view is no longer considered a viable explanation of how children acquire
language
Language is not learned in a social vacuum
Most children learn at a very early age
Vocabulary development is linked to the family’s socioeconomic status and the type of talk
that parents direct to the child
Child-directed speech is language spoken in a higher pitch than normal, using simple words
and sentences
Other strategies include recasting, expanding, labeling