Human Development Exam #2

6 Infant Behavioral States

1. Quiet/Deep sleep

2. Active sleep

3. Quietly alert

4. Actively alert

5. Drowsy

6. Crying

Quiet/Deep sleep

Active sleep

Quietly alert

Actively alert

Drowsy

Crying

Which of the 6 infant behavioral states is associated with REM sleep?

Why is REM sleep important in babies?

Basic Reflex Arc (simple basic reflex drawing given lecture)

• Spinal cord

  • hardwired, automatic, unlearned!!

  • inborn, unconscious

S: sensory
A: afferent (input)
M: motor
E: efferent (output)

S.A.M.E

What are the criteria for a reflex being a reflex?

• unlearned

• unvoluntary

• automatic response to stimulus

Survival Reflexes

Clear adaptive value!!

• Permanent

  • breathing (medulla oblongata)

  • eye blink (defensive, protection)

  • pupillary (constrict/ dilate)

• Early Life

  • rooting

  • sucking

  • swallowing

Survival Reflex Examples (stimulus trigger and motor response)

1. Rooting: touch cheek

   • turns towards touch stimulus

   • baby orients to breast or bottle

2. Sucking: touch, stroke roof of mouth or lips

   • suck

3. Swallowing: food, liquid, saliva reaches the back of mouth

   • muscles contract

   • airway closes (epiglottis)

Primitive Reflexes

NO clear adaptive value!! Evolutionary

• Moro (startle)

• Babinski

• Grasping

• Diving (swimming)

Primitive Reflex Examples (stimulus trigger and motor response)

1. Moro: baby falling

   • will throw out arms to side, and arms come back in

2. Babinski: stroke side of foot

   • foot flexes and toes spread out

3. Grasping: feels something in palms

   • close hand around object

4. Diving/ Swimming: submerge/ contact with water

   • flailing, kicking arms and legs

   • curious, wandering eyes

   • hold breath

   • heart rate slows

What did Myrtle McGraw do (video)?

(catch babies learning new skills, and how they did it)

• dunk baby in water to see if could swim

• Johnny learned how to roller skate at 13 months

  • outperformed twin on most physical activity

  • BUT he did not pass him up in normal things like standing and walking

• baby learned to jump

• how babies learn to control their kicking and how to use their arms

Dynamic Systems Approach

• Maturation: genes, hormones

• Learning: experiences

  • Interaction between experiences AND genes!!

  • laws of motion, body size, muscle strength, coordination task and environmental factors

Who is Esther Thelen? Theory Definition. What 5 things does her theory day?

• Dynamic Systems Theory

  • more complex motor behavior emerges overtime through a “self-organizing’ process

  • children use sensory feedback to modify their motor behavior in adaptive ways

  • (Ever changing system!!)

• An infant is…

  1. motivated by a goal

  2. constrained by current body limitation

  3. actively putting together movement skills

  4. use perception to fine-tine movements

  5. continually improving skills through perception and action

What does your text say about babies about navigating slanted walkways/ handrails?

• recognize that handrails are studier

• bent their knees and kept upper bodies stiffly upright to keep their balance

• recognized it was too steep for safe travel

• either avoided it or scooted down

• look to moms for advice

• those with more walking experience did better

How many falls a day do toddlers have?

100

Orthogenetic

• general > specific/ specialized

• simple > complex

  • ex: moves whole body, extends one arm, grasps bottle with hand

  • skill progresses in an orderly fashion, predictable

Cephalocaudal

• Head to tail

• body control/ growth starts from top to bottom

  1. lifts head before controlling trunk to turn (2-3 m)

  2. sits up before controlling legs to walk (3-4 m)

Proximodistal

• Center/ midline of body outwards

  • trunk > arms > fingers

  • ex: moves arm and legs before pincer grasp

Motor Milestones: lifts head while lying on stomach

2-3 months (cephalocaudal)

Motor Milestones: rolls over

3-4 months

Motor Milestones: ulnar grasp

4-6 months

Motor Milestones: sit wo support, crawling, stands holding on

6-8 months

Motor Milestones: ‘reliably see’ pincer grasp, walks holding on

1 year (as early as 6 months)

Motor Milestones: walks well alone

14 months

Motor Milestones: scribbles with a crayon / construct a tower of blocks

16 months

Motor Milestones: walks up steps

17-22 months

Motor Milestones: run in a straight line

3 years???

Motor Milestones: kicks ball forward

24 months

Motor Milestones: use household tools

9 years

Motor Milestones: Is there such a thing as ‘throwing like a girl’?

• YES LOL

  • by 13 girls throw at 38.5 mph, boys 53.5 mph

  • could be due to nurture, muscle mass, etc

Know height & weight changes across the lifespan; fill in the blanks/growth chart.

???

Whose growth spurt occurs first?

• Female!

  • girls 12

  • boys 14

Puberty, (see sexual maturation p. 120-124)

Adrenarche

Menarche

Semenarche

Androgens/testosterone

Estrogen/progesterone

Menopause (p.130)

Andropause

Sensation

Bottom-up processing

Transduction

Perception

Top-down processing

Habituation

Habituation

Preferential looking or visual preference method.

Visual/lens Accommodation (p. 143).

What is visual acuity at birth and 1 month?

3 Functions of Reflexes

1. Positive

2. Diagnostic

3. Negative

Functions of Reflexes: Positive

neonatal survival

adult automation

• Ex: Asymmetric tonic neck

  • turn head and neck to right!!

  • extension of right arm and leg

  • flexion of left arm and leg

Functions of Reflexes: Diagnostic

Appears on time

Disappears on time

• should disappear, be overridden or integrated into voluntary motor pattern

• if still there, could have developmental delays, abnormalities, head injury

  • Babinski

  • Extensor

  • Flexor

Schedule of Disappearance

Diagnostic Reflex Function

Functions of Reflexes: Negative

May interfere with motor development

• Ex: Extensor Thrust Reflex

  • pushing down with feet

  • uncontrolled leg extension

  • extends trunk

When can babies perceive a ‘meaningful face’? (p. 145)

What are some properties of faces that infants like? (p. 144-145).

Fantz’s experiment on infant visual perception (video & text p.143-144)

Fantz’s Experiment: What did they babies prefer to look at (most to least)?

Fantz’s Experiment: Patterns/What level of complexity (p. 144 & lecture)?

Fantz’s Experiment: Figure/ground

Fantz’s Experiment: Contour

Fantz’s Experiment: What is common motion, at what age can babies use it to help identify contour figure? (p. 143) (remember the Dalmatian dog video)

When does brightness detection mature?

When does color detection mature?

When does exploring interior of figures mature?

When does visual acuity/accommodation mature?

Depth Perception

What as the visual cliff? Know the visual cliff by Gibson & Walk and by Campos.

When do babies perceive the visual cliff? When do they fear it?

Cross-modal matching/perception (p.157)

What ‘problem’ put infants at risk for visual development problems (p.152)?

The ‘sticky mittens experiment showed what was important in developing reaching behaviors, exploratory behavior and focused attention (p.152)

What are ‘sleeper effects’? p. 153

Hearing acuity at birth – can babies hear before birth?

What helped premature babies develop a larger auditory cortex?

What was associated with a better feeding outcome (p.147)?

What story was used in the DeCasper & Spence experiment to test the effect of the mother’s voice experience prenatally (p. 149)?

Can our early experience with foods leave us with lasting taste preferences (p.150)? Does this apply to what the mother eats in breastfed babies (p.150)?

Olfactory capability at 1 wk – what babies can best identify their mothers by smell?

Development of attention (infancy to adolescence): Multi-tasking

Development of attention (infancy to adolescence): Divided Attention

Development of attention (infancy to adolescence): Selective Attention

Older adults had problems with processing what kinds of visual information (p. 169)?

What happens to ‘sensory thresholds’ with increased age (p. 164)?

Describe changes in vision with age (p. 164-167).

Presbyopia (what causes it p. 166 & Table 5.3, p 165 & lecture)

Cataracts

Glaucoma

AMD

Ptosis

What about glare - what is dark adaptation?

Hearing in adulthood and aging

Decibels