2022-01-03

INFANCY & TODDLERHOOD

PSYC 333

Infant state of arousal

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Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

 1 in 1,000 in North America
 Risk zone: 1-10 months
 Possible relationship with number of neurons in the brain
 Stomach sleeping
 Reduce risk:
 When infants sleeps, place infant on his/her back
 Keep away from fluffy bedding

Overview
 Physical changes
 Body & Brain
 Motor development
 Sensory development

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Body
 Changes in body size and muscle-fat makeup
 Cephalocaudal trend: head develops more rapidly than lower part of the body
 Proximodistal trend: body grows from the center outward

Brain: Key terms

 Neurons: nerve cells that store  Neurotransmitters: chemicals released
and transmit information by neurons and cross the synapse

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Brain
 Synaptogenesis: proliferation of neural connections
 Myelination: formation of fatty layer encasing axons

And much later,

 Pruning: reduction of unused synapses and/or neurons

Brain
 Synaptogenesis: proliferation of neural connections
 Myelination: formation of fatty layer encasing axons

And much later,

 Pruning: reduction of unused synapses and/or neurons

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Brain
 Brain volume quadruples during first 4 years
 Brain circumference increased for first 5 years

https://slideplayer.com/slide/10227726/34/images/3/Brain+Brain+rapi
dly+grows+in+fetus+and+then+during+early+childhood+years.+Growth
+of+the+brain%3A+Neurons+stop+dividing+in+an+infant..jpg
BrainFacts.org

Newborn
 Reflexes
 Automatic responses or actions programmed by brain centers

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Assessing brain functioning

 Electroencephalogram (EEG)
 Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
 Positron emission tomography (PET)

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Assessing brain functioning

 Electroencephalography (EEG)
 Measures electrical activity in the brain

Adaped from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9IkanNXsAAPdYM.jpg

Assessing brain functioning

 Positron emission tomography (PET)
 Injected with tracer substance → active brain parts “light up”

https://i2.wp.com/thescientificparent.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/child-
abused-brain-750x437.jpg?resize=750%2C437&ssl=1

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Assessing brain functioning

 functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
 Brain molecules excited → relaxation: signal emitted

Brain
 Two Hemispheres
 Left: verbal, analytic processing
 Right: spatial, holistic processing
 Brain Lateralization
 Certain functions are located on one side of
the brain.
 E.g. left side of infants’ brains “light up” when
exposed to language
 Brain Plasticity
 Brain’s ability to adapt
 Sensitive Period
 Stimulation contributes to brain growth

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Appropriate stimulation
Experience-expectant brain growth Experience-dependent brain growth
 Young brain’s rapidly  Refinement of established brain
developing organization, structures as a result of specific
which depends on learning experiences that vary
ordinary experiences widely across individuals and cultures
 Sensitive period  No sensitive period

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sensitiveperiodsandexperiencedependentlearning-
vceu4psychaos1-120714050359-phpapp01/95/sensitive-periods-and-experience-
dependent-learning-vce-u4-psych-aos-1-6-728.jpg?cb=1342242280

Physical changes: Influences

 Heredity
 Genes provide boundaries
 Nutrition
 Breast milk → breastfeeding recommended for ≈6 months
 Nutrients, antibodies, mother-child bond
 Malnutrition
 Extreme lack of protein →imbalance in gastrointestinal system
 Stunting

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Learning

Learning: other key terms

 Habituation: gradual reduction in the strength of a response due to
repetitive stimulation
 Recovery: once-habituated stimuli now elicit a response again

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Motor development
 Gross-motor development: crawling, walking
 Fine-motor development: reaching, grasping
 Sequence is fairly uniform, but individual differences in rate of motor
progress

 Dynamic System
 Body movement capacity
 Child’s goals
 Environmental support for the skill

Gross vs. Fine Motor skills

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Auditory development

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/fa/87/93fa876
904d8ee40bb0b44ab2be04c95.png

Visual development
Shortly after birth 20/400 visual acuity
Can fix and follow a light source, face, or toy
1 month Fixation is central, steady, maintained.
Can follow a slow target.
Focuses on complex facial characteristics.
3 months Binocular vision. Eye coordination. Eyes follow a moving light or
a face
6 months Reaches out accurately for toys. Perceives and reacts to emotional
expressions on faces
9 months Looks for hidden toys. Moving while avoiding objects.

12 months 20/20 visual acuity

Detect familiar objects represent by incomplete drawings.

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Visual cliff test

 Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk
(1960s):
 Depth perception: ~ 8 months

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Other senses
 Smell:
 Turning away and expression of disgust to unpleasant odors
 Neonates prefer the odor of milk
 Recognize mother by the smell of her breasts
 Taste:
 Different taste elicit different reactions
 Prefers sweet taste
 Touch:
 Important for bonding
 Gentle massaging for inattentive or agitated infants
 Used to explore environment

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Infant perception
 Gibsons’ Differentiation theory:
 Searching for invariant features in the environment
 Notice stable relationships between features, detecting patterns
 Gradually detect finer and finer features → differentiation

 Active exploration (with affordances) helps differentiation

Intermodal perception
 Starting associating different senses

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Piaget – Cognitive development theory

 Cognitive development theory: children actively learn as they experience the
world to, ultimately, achieve maturation

Piaget – Cognitive development theory

 Sensorimotor stage (birth – 2 years):
 Manipulating objects → physical reality
 Development of language
Primary Circular Reactions Secondary Circular Reactions Tertiary Circular Reactions
(1-4 months) (4-12 months) (1-2 years)

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Repetitive habits centering Repetitive habits centering Repetitive habits centering around
around the baby’s body on environmental objects exploring objects’ properties

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Piaget – Cognitive development theory

 Sensorimotor stage (birth – 2 years):
 Deferred imitation
 Means-end behavior

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvOTu215ZlE

Piaget – Cognitive development theory

 Sensorimotor stage (birth – 2 years):
 “Out of sight, out of mind” →
Object permanence
 Limitation in thinking: A-not-B error

A minute ago, this 4-month-old girl was delightedly

grabbing this little dog but, when this barrier
blocked her image, it was “out of sight, out of
mind”

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Piaget – Cognitive development theory

 Sensorimotor stage (birth – 2 years):
 “Out of sight, out of mind” →
Object permanence
 Limitation in thinking: A-not-B error

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue8y-JVhjS0

Piaget – Cognitive development theory

 Contributions
 Transformed perceptions of infancy and childhood

 Criticisms
 Infants grasp physical reality basics before age 1
 Bower and Wishart (1972) “lights out” technique in 1-4 month-olds
 Rene Baillargeon’s (1985, 1987) “violation of expectation paradigm” in 3 ½ -5 month-olds

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Piaget – Cognitive development theory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwgo2O5Vk_g

Information-processing model

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Memory and conceptual abilities

 Memory:
 ≈9 months: remembering events from previous days
 Forming categories:
 ≈7-9 months: distinguishing between animals and vehicles
 Understanding numbers
 ≈5 months: differentiating between different numbers

Vygotsky – Social development theory

 Social development theory: emphasis on sociocultural influences on cognitive
development
 Cognitive development stems from social interaction

https://tadahgroup.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/untitled.jpg

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Infant & Toddler intelligence test

 Bayley Scales:
 Cognitive
 Language
 Motor
 Social-emotional
 Adaptive behavior

 Predict later intelligence poorly

 Used for screening

Social cognition
 Social cognition
 Inferences made about people’s inner feelings and goals, based on their actions

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Social cognition
 Joint attention
 1st sign of getting human intentions

Eye contact Intentional joint attention Pointing

2-3 months ~6 months 8-9 months
Gaze checking
> 9 months

Language
 Noam Chomsky’s Nativist theory: biologically-programmed Language
Acquisition Device

 B. F. Skinner’s view: language learnt by being reinforced

 Social-interactionist view:
 Interactions between baby and caregiver: one encourages the other
 Language is dependent on the place where a person is reared

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Language

2-4 months 6-11 months 12 months 18 months–2 years

• Cooing: • Babbling: • Holophrases: • Telegraphic
First sounds. “oooo” Alternate First one-word speech: Two-word
vowel-consonant sentences. combinations.
sounds. “ja” for “Me juice” for
“ba-ba-ba” “I want juice” “I want juice”

Psychosocial development

Life Stage Primary Task

Infancy (birth to 1 year) Basic trust versus mistrust

Toddlerhood (1 to 2 years) Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt

Early childhood (3 to 6 years) Initiative versus guilt

Late childhood (6 years to puberty) Industry versus inferiority

Adolescence (teens into twenties) Identity versus role confusion

Young adulthood (twenties to early forties) Intimacy versus isolation

Middle adulthood (forties to sixties) Generativity versus stagnation

Late adulthood (late sixties and beyond) Integrity versus despair

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Attachment
 Powerful bond of love between a caregiver and child

STOCKBYTE/GETTY IMAGES

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Behaviorism
 John B. Watson
 Appeared hostile to the idea of attachment
 Crusaded against the dangers of “too much” mother love

 B. F. Skinner
 Minimized human attachment need
 Believed “maternal reinforcement” created infant’s need to be close to caregiver

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Ethology
 Konrad Lorenz
 Biologically programmed attachment
response
 Gooselings “imprinting”

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www.dabase.org

Animal psychology
 Harry Harlow
 Experiment with monkeys
 Isolating babies from mothers at birth
 Contact comfort important to bonding

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Donald Willicott
 Psychoanalyst
 Good enough parent
 Importance of the holding environment - foundations of child’s
psychological health

Applegate, 1993; Kanter, 1990

Attachment theory
 John Bowlby
 Put evidence together from
 Lorenz’s ethological studies
 Harlow’s research
 Winnicott’s research
 Own findings on hospitalized children
 Children hospitalized and separated from their mothers
 Promoted idea: a primary attachment figure is crucial for healthy development

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Attachment theory
 John Bowlby’s evolutionary-based theory
 1st year ≈ critical period when the attachment response is programmed to emerge
 Proximity-seeking behavior: survival response activated by threats occurring at any
age

Attachment theory
 Pre-attachment stage (birth-3 months):
 Social smile, but does not reflect attachment to
a specific person
 Attachment in the making stage (3-7 months):
 Transitional period
 Clear-cut attachment stage (7 months+):
 Needing the primary caregiver close
 Reciprocal relationship (≈18-24 months)

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Attachment theory: Working model

 ≈3 years:
mental representation of
attachment figure

 Need to make contact under

stress → responsive caregiver
will fortify attachment bond

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Strange Situation
 Mary Ainsworth (1969) – Strange Situation
 Attachment response during a clear-cut stage

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Ignored or
frightened

Disorganized

Attachment theory
 Synchrony: bidirectional relationship
 Caregiver-sensitivity hypothesis: caregiver’s response to baby’s signals are
foundation for secure attachment
 Temperament: inborn style of dealing with the world

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Basic emotions

Self-conscious emotions & emotional regulation

 Age 1 ½ - 3 years: sense of “self”
 Self-conscious emotions
 Shame
 Embarrassment
 Guilt
 Pride
 Envy
 Emotional Regulation
 Prefrontal cortex development
 Manage negative emotions
 Inhibit impulses and behave in socially acceptable ways
 Assistance of caregivers

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Maternal deprivation
 Can children recover from deprivation, and is there an age at which help
might come too late?
 Institutionalization, Reactive attachment disorder

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Attachment theory
 Attachment styles
 Environmental influences
 Under life stress
 With responsive caregiving
 Stability
 Genetics
 Mutation in genes involved in production of oxytocin

Psychosocial development

Life Stage Primary Task

Infancy (birth to 1 year) Basic trust versus mistrust

Toddlerhood (1 to 2 years) Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt

Early childhood (3 to 6 years) Initiative versus guilt

Late childhood (6 years to puberty) Industry versus inferiority

Adolescence (teens into twenties) Identity versus role confusion

Young adulthood (twenties to early forties) Intimacy versus isolation

Middle adulthood (forties to sixties) Generativity versus stagnation

Late adulthood (late sixties and beyond) Integrity versus despair

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Helping toddlers
 Respond with sensitivity and support
 Give advance notice of change in activities
 Explain the reasoning behind each behavior
 Reinforce self-controlled behavior
 Encourage sustained attention
 Support language development
 Increase rules gradually

Socialization
 Socialization: process by which children are taught to obey the norms of
society

 Self-regulation ≈ a challenge at age 2 years:

 Exuberant, joyful, fearless toddlers more difficult to socialize
 Shy toddlers tend to withdraw from social interactions

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Socialization
 Keys to socializing a shy toddler
 Do not ”treat them as glass”
 Be responsive
 Expose them to new situations
 Keys to socializing a rambunctious toddler
 Foster positive guidance
 Arrange child’s environment to suit
temperamental style

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