Infant and Child Development Exam 2

Cephalocaudal Principal of Growth

The growth from head to toe

Proximodistal Principal of Growth

The growth from spine and out

Children grow...

...faster during the first 3 years of life, especially during the first few months

Breastfeeding is...

...always nutritionally the best

Increases in breastfeeding are most notable in what population?

Socioeconomic groups that have been historically less likely to breastfeed

It is only bad to breastfeed if...

...baby has galactosemia, you have AIDS/HIV/other infectious illnesses, if you've been exposed to radiation, or if you have been taking drugs that are unsafe

Breastfed Benefits for Babies

- Less likely to contract infectious illnesses or bacterial infections

- Lower risk of SIDS and of postneonatal death

- Less likely to develop obesity, diabetes, or childhood cancer

- Perform better on IQ/cognitive tests

- Have fewer cavities

Breastfed Benefits for Mothers

- Quicker recovery from childbirth

- Less risk of postpartum bleeding

- More likely to return to previous weight

- Less likely to develop obesity long-term

- Reduced risk of anemia

- Less likely to develop osteoporosis or ovarian/breast cancer

Breastfeeding should begin...

...immediately after birth and continue for at least 1 year

Brain development begins in...

...the first 8 weeks of gestation

Cerebrum

Largest part of brain, divided into two hemispheres

Corpus Callosum

Tough band of tissue connecting the hemispheres

Fetal nervous system development begins at...

...about 3 weeks during gestation

Cerebellum

Balance and coordination part of the brain that grows rapidly during first year of life

The forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain form....

...at 1 month during gestation

At birth the spinal cord and brain stem are...

...nearly complete, but the brain is only ~25% of its adult volume

By age 2 the brain is...

...at about 80% of its eventual adult size because of cerebellum (balance/motor coordination) growth

Integration

The neurons that control various groups of muscles coordinate their activities

Differentiation

Each neuron takes on a specifc, specialized structure/function

Cell Death/Prining

Normal elimination of excess cells to achieve more efficient functioning

Myelination

Process of coating neural pathways with fatty substance called myelin to enable faster communication between cells

Myelination begins...

...halfway through gestation, peaks during the first years of life, and continues into adolescence and into 30s

Reflexes

Automatic, innate responses to stimulation controlled by lower brain centers responsible for involuntary processes

Primitive Reflexes

Reflexes related to instinctive needs for survival/protection (like sucking, rooting, and grasping)

Locomotor Reflexes

Resemble voluntary movements and may imepede development of voluntary movements unless they disappear

Touch

First sense to develop

Capacity for Pain

Emerges by third trimester of pregnancy and newborns do have it

Because anesthesia is dangerous for young infants...

...alt methods of pain management are used like skin-to-skin

Smell and taste...

...begin to develop in the womb

Certain tastes and smells...

...can be learned in utero and during first few days after birth

Taste preferences...

...can be shaped by exposure to diverse flavors/odors through breastfeeding but are largely innate reflecting adaptive processes

Hearing...

...does happen in the womb because fetuses can tell new speech sounsd from the ones they've heard before

In regard to sounds, infants can...

...remember/respond differently to sounds played to them in last trimester (ex: baby dancing to No Hands because you danced to it a lot in your last trimester)

Lateralization for Language

By 4 months, infants' brains are showing this, as occurs in adults with the left side of the brain responding preferentially to speech

Sight is...

...the least developed sense at birth

Neonate Vision

Eyes focus best from about 1 foot away

Binocular Vision

Enables depth/distance perception and does not develop until about 4 months of age

Infant Facial Preferences

Infants prefer looking at mother's face over stranger and focus more one faces that are from the same gender as primary caregiver

Gross Motor Skills

Involve use of large muscle groups

Fine Motor Skills

Require precise coordination of small muscles

Depth Perception

Ability to perceive objects/surfaces in three dimensions, which depends on cues that affect the image of an object on the retina of the eye

Haptic Perception

Involves the ability to acquire information by handling objects rather than just looking at them (ex: putting objects in mouth)

Visual Cliff

Apparatus designed to give the illusion of depth and used to assess depth perception in infants

Dynamic Systems Theory

argues that motor development is a continuous process of interaction between baby and environment (includes variables like motivation, musclular strength, and environmental affordances (ex: learning to crawl on floor vs. carpet))

Infant Mortality Rate

Proportion of babies born alive who die within first year of life

Right Hemisphere

Processes visual and spatial information

Left Hemisphere

Center of language and logical thinking

Main Causes of Neonatal Death Worldwide

Preterm birth, childbirth complications, infections, and birth defects

In the US the infant mortality rate...

....has fallen continuously since the beginning of the 20th century but higher than in many other developed countries

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

Also called crib death, sudden death of infant under age 1 where cause of death remains unexplained ever after a thorough investigation/autopsy

SIDS accounts for...

...roughly 21% of infant deaths worldwide and roughly 7% in the US

Possible Cause of SIDS

Babies with brain stem delays/defects starting to breathe stale air and not escape when sleeping face down/on sides/trapped under blankets

90% of all injury deaths are due to...

...suffocation, car accidents, drowning, fires, and falls

Vaccines are estaimated to avert...

...2 to 3 million deaths of children under a year

Vaccine Hesitancy

Reluctance/refusal to vaccinate despite availability (named in WHO's top 10 threats to global health)

Number of Safe/Effective Vaccines

Over 25

Failure to Thrive (FTT)

Slowed or arrested physical growth with no known medical cause accompanied by poor developmental/emotional functioning (oft seen in maltreated babies)

In regard to maltreatment, infants and toddlers...

...have the highest rates of victimization and death

Shaken Baby Syndrome

Form of maltreatment in which shaking an infant or toddler can cause brain damage, paralysis, or death (found mostly in infants under the age of 2)

Characteristics of Abusive/Neglectful Parents

Glorification of violence, rigid gender roles, and attitudes on corporal punishment

Triple Risk Model

3 factors that put baby at particularly high risk of SIDS

-high-risk infant

-critical time period (highest 2-4 months)

-outside stressors (prone sleep position, smoke, soft bedding)

Behaviorist Approach

Concerned with how we learn/how behavior changes in response to experiences

Operant Conditioning

Infant learns to operate, or act, on environment in response to stimulus (rather than through classical association)

Reinforcement

Increases behavior ("Clean your room more")

Punishment

Decreases behavior ("Stop shaking that container")

Positive Conditioning

Adds a stimulus ("I'll give you a piece of candy")

Negative Conditioning

Removes a stimulus ("I'll take away your tablet")

Psychometric Approach

Measures quantitative differences in abilities that make up intelligence by using tests that indicate/predict these abilities (like IQ tests, Bayley Scales, and HOME)

Intelligent Behavior

Agreed to be by professionals as goal-oriented and adaptive

Piagetian Approach

Cognitive development approach looking at changes/stages in quality of cognitive functioning

Sensimotor Stage

First of Piaget's stages, from birth to age 2 where infants learn about themselves and their world through developing sensory and motor activity

Schemes

Organized patterns of thought and behavior

Circular Reactions

Term for behaviors performed by an infant that stimulate their own repetition

Representational Ability

Ability to mentally represent objects and actions in memory, largely through symbols, that frees toddlers from immediate experience (Ex: i can think of a ball anytime and not just when ball is here)

The Sensorimotor Substages

- Use of reflexes

- Primary circular reactions

- Secondary circular reactions

- Coordination of secondary schemes

- Teritary circular reactions

- Mental combination

Use of Reflexes (0-1 month)

Neonates practice their reflexes and modify and extend their schemes for basic practices such as sucking (Only using reflexes like sucking/looking to understand environment)

Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months)

Babies learn to purposely repeat a pleasurable bodily sensation first achieved by chance (a primary circular reaction). They begin to coordinate different kinds of sensory information (Ex: thumb gets in mouth accidentally, try to repeat because good)

Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months)

Babies show a new interest in manipulating objects and learning about their properties. They intentionally repeat an action to get results beyond their own body (secondary circular reactions). Actions are intentional but not goal-directed (Ex: Baby coos when sees smiling face, baby coos again/action gets response so baby repeats action)

Coordination of Secondary Scemes (8-12 months)

Babies have built upon the few schemes they were born with. They have

learned to generalize from past experiences to solve new problems. This substage marks the development of complex, goal-directed behavior (Ex: accidentally steps on duck, duck squeaks, baby squeezes duck purposefully, duck squeaks)

Teritary CIrcular Reactions (12-18 months)

Babies now vary behaviors to see what might happen, in tertiary circular reactions. They use trial and error until they find the best way to attain a goal.

Mental Combination (18 months to 2 years)

Transition to preoperational stage where representational ability frees toddlers from immediate experience. Ability to pretend and think before acting/finding solutions emerges

Object Permanance

Realization that something exists even out of sight that is fully achieved between 18-24 m

Visible Imitation

Imitation that develops first using body parts that baby can see on them (like feet or hands)

Invisible Imitation

Imitation that involves parts of body that babies cannot see (like facial features), developing at about 9 months

Deferred Imitation

Reproduction of observed behavior after passage of time

Immediate Imitation

Copying behavior right after observing it.

Dual Representation Hypothesis

proposal that children under age 3 have difficulty grasping spatial relationships because of the need to keep more than one mental representation in mind at the same time

Information-Processing Approach:

Approach to study cognitive development by observing/analyzing mental processes involved in perceiving/handling information (big focus on perception, memory, learning, and problem solving)

Habitituation

Type of learning in which familiarity with stimulus reduces/slows/stops a response

Dishabitiuation

Refers to an increase in responsiveness after presentation of a new stimulus

Visual Preference

Refers to tendency of infants to spend more time looking at one sight than another

Cross-modal Transfer

In which babies use information gained from one sense to guide another (ex: person negotiating dark room by feeling for location of familiar objects)

Causality

The principle that one event causes another which develops earlier than Piaget envisioned

Scale Error

the attempt by a young child to perform an action on a miniature object that is impossible due to the large discrepancy in the relative sizes of the child and the object

Novelty Preference

infants are more likely to pay attention to new objects or people than those they've seen before.

Implicit Memory

Remembering that occurs without effort or even conscious awareness (seems to develop early)

Explicit Memory

"Declarative memory" with conscious/intentional recollection of things such as facts/names/events

Cognitive Neuroscience Approach

Examines hardware of CNS to identify what brain structures are involved in specific areas of cognition

Working Memory

Short-term storage of information the brain is actively processing or working on

Emotions

Subjective reactions to experience that are associated with physiological and behavioral changes