CHAPTER 5

INFANCY
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
• distinguish between newborn and infancy
• describe the infant sensory capabilities
• describe intermodal perception
 Infancy
Infancy –
a. Newborn
•aka neonate
•the first 4 weeks or first month of life. It is a transitional
period from intrauterine life to new environment.
b.Infancy – It is the period which starts at the end of the
first month up to the end of the first year of age. Infant's
growth and development during this period are rapid.
 Infant states
Sleep-waking
•newborn sleep-waking becomes better organized over the first
year.
•spend 70% of time – 16-18 hours (sleeping)
•REM sleep characterized by rapid eye movements.(45 minutes
– 2 hours)
•Function of REM state – provide infants with necessary
stimulation that help develop the central nervous system
 Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
(SIDS)
- Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) – the
unexplained death of a sleeping infant who
suddenly stops breathing
- aka crib death or cot death
 Infant Sensory Capabilities
Hearing
■ Young infants can hear very well: even newborns can
discriminate sounds that differ in loudness, direction, duration
and frequency.
■ prefer their mother’s voice to that of another woman
 Infant Sensory Capabilities
- Baby can distinguish among a wide variety of different sounds
diverse developmental effects.
- he will probably show a particular fondness for human voices
– Talking softly to your baby will stimulate his sense of hearing in a way
he will enjoy.
 Infant Sensory Capabilities
Taste, smell, and touch
■ Babies are also born with definite taste preferences,
favoring sweets, sour, bitter, or salty substances.
■ They avoid unpleasant smells and soon come to
recognize their mothers by odor alone if they are
breast-fed.
■ Newborns are also quite sensitive to touch,
temperature, and pain.
• Vision
■ Newborns can see patterns and colors and can
detect changes in brightness.
■ Their visual acuity is poor by adult standards
but improves rapidly over the first 6 months.
 Visual Perception in Infancy
• Visual perception develops rapidly in the first year.
• After birth - 7 to 12 inches away from her eyes.
(Conveniently, this distance approximates the distance of
your face when you hold your baby in your arms to feed her.)
 Within weeks, the range of her sight will expand.
She can now see objects that are farther away,
she will probably show interest-
through facial expressions or coos.
 Visual Perception in Infancy
• 0 to 2 months: Babies are “stimulus seekers” who prefer to look at
moderately complex, high-contrast targets, particularly those that move.
• 2 to 6 months: Infants begin to explore visual targets more systematically,
become increasingly sensitive to movement, and begin to perceive visual
forms and recognize familiar faces.
• 9 to 12 months: Infants can construct forms from the various cues.
• Newborns display some size constancy but lack stereopsis and are
insensitive to pictorial cues to depth; consequently, their spatial
perception is immature.
• By the end of the first month, they become more sensitive to kinetic cues
and respond to looming objects.
 Intermodal Perception
• Intermodal perception is perception of
information from object or events available to
multiple senses (sounds, sights, smells)
simultaneously.
• According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development, intermodal perception
improves across the first year of life.