chap 3 infant body and mind dev. review

dendrites of neuron

fibers that receive electrochemical impulses transmitted from other neurons

axon of neuron

fiber that extends from a neuron and transmits electrochemical impulses

synapse of neuron

• intersection between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite of another neuron

• neurotransmitters are released across the synapse to communicate information to the next neuron

myelin

covers axon and speeds up neural impulses and serves as insulation

full maturation at 25 years old

Sleeping infants

Infants get more total sleep and a higher percentage of REM sleep than adults do because it’s a time for infants to mature their brains, and store knowledge

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

sudden death that occurs between 2-4 months old

risk factors for SIDS

• Stomach sleeping

• Overheating from excessive sleepwear and bedding

• Male

• Smoking, drinking, or drug use during pregnancy

• Poor prenatal care

• Prematurity or low birth-weight

• Mothers who are younger than 20

• Smoke exposure following birth

back to sleep campaign

• baby sleep on back to reduce SIDS

• risk: flat head → resolve with tummy time

• no tummy time can delay crawling for needing neck support to do so

gross motor skills

physical abilities involving large body movements, such as walking, rolling over, sitting up, and crawling

fine motor skills

physical abilities involving small body movement, especially of hands and fingers, pincer grasp, and pre-reaching

infants visual capacities

• Newborns legally blind (around 20/600)

• Improves to 20/100 by 6 months and as good as adults by 2-years-old

• Newborn/Infant scanning styles

  • one month old → eyes mouth and top of hair

  • two month old → the whole face

• Pattern preferences

  • Contrasts

  • Facial Preference

Infant hearing

• Sensitive to sounds in human voice range

  • Better at hearing higher pitches

• Preference for sounds exposed to prenatally

  • Mom

  • Music, stories

• Infants are sensitive to the differences in phonemes (the most basic units of sounds in language) that humans can make

benefits of breast feeding

• Infection fighting

• Nutrition, ease of digestion

• Obesity prevention

• Cost

• Baby’s IQ

• Beneficial for mom’s health

disadvantages of breast feeding

• Personal comfort

• Time and frequency of feedings

• Maternal medical conditions

• Medicines may be problematic

• Limiting caffeine, legal and illegal drugs

importance of immunization

• stimulate the body’s immune system to develop antibodies against specific diseases

  • e.g., measles, mumps, polio

herd immunity

When a critical portion of a community is immunized, most community members are protected because there is little opportunity for an outbreak

Piaget’s sensorimotor stage

• Birth to about 2 years

• Children learn about their senses and how to move and manipulate objects

• Circular Reactions

• 8-12 months → object permanence

• 18-24 months → deferred imitation (infant copy later after seeing someone do it)

primary circular reactions

• repeating chance behaviors that involve the infant’s own body that are pleasurable events

• 1-4 months

• Piaget

secondary circular reactions

• repeating chance behaviors involving people and objects that are pleasurable events

  • Infants attempt to produce exciting experiences, making interesting events last

  • Rattles make noise

• 4-8 months

• Piaget

tertiary circular reactions

• child varies their responses to see their effect on the world

• Active exploration and experimentation

• Conduct novel schemes

• 12-18 months

• Piaget

critiques of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage

• Object Permanence - at 6 months

• Conceptual Development

  • Categorization

• Deferred Imitation

habituation

• process of getting used to (bored with) an object or event through repeated exposure

  • This allows the infant to attend to new, novel objects and learn about them

• a research strategy involves repeating one stimulus until a baby loses interest, and then presenting a different stimulus

implicit memories

• Unconscious memories

• Procedural memories, conditioned memories, emotional memories, and perception/sensation-based memories

explicit memories

• Memories that can be retrieved on demand

• Person has conscious awareness of these memories

  • cortex (stored) and hippocampus take longer to form/function

• Semantic memories (general knowledge), episodic memories (how you learned about knowledge)

infantile amnesia

Adults’ inability to remember events from when they were infants and toddlers

why does infantile amnesia occur

• Infants are less likely to explicitly store memories as the areas of the brain that do this are less developed

• As infants lack a sense of self, they do not store memories episodically

• Infants and toddlers typically do not encode information verbally, whereas older children and adults do

  • When adults search using verbal codes, they cannot find memories from early in life as those memories were not encoded with verbal cues

infant directed speech

• Higher pitch

• Variation in pitch

• Simpler words

• Shorter sentences

• Repetition

• Gestures

• More emotion expressed

• Slower pace

reason for infant directed speech

• Easier for infants to hear

• Gets infants’ attention

• Infants prefer it

• Helps infants learn the language

phonemes

small units of sound “ba ba”

• language development

semantics

• study of meaning in language

• can differentiate between native and non-native languages

• develop an understanding of the relationship between sounds and meanings

• language development

grammar

organize words/small sentences

• language development

morphemes

grammar: prefix and suffix

• language development

syntax

grammar: word order

• language development

pragmatics

how to communicate, w/ gestors, talking queues

• language development

cooing

• 2 months

• a, e, i, o, u, h, y

• language development

babbling

• extended repetition of certain syllables

• 6-9 months

• ba-ba-ba, da-da-da

• language development

first words

around 10-14 months

• language development

holophrase

single word that expresses a complete, meaningful thought

• language development

learning theory

• Language is a learned skill

• Language becomes similar to adult speech through shaping

• Cannot explain how children learn grammar

epigenetic approach

• Language is an innate (inborn, natural) skill

• Language-Acquisition Device (LAD)

language-acquisition device

• a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language

  • Includes basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and intonation

universal grammar

All human languages share some underlying grammar concepts