Infant Physical Development Behavioral & Social Learning Theories

What are newborn’s motor & perceptual capacities?

• Gross motor development

  • Gross-motor development refers to control over actions that help infants get around in the environment, such as crawling, standing, and walking. 

• Fine motor development 

  • Fine-motor development has to do with smaller movements, such as reaching and grasping.

• Perceptual development

  • Newborn senses of hearing

    • Can hear a variety of sounds at birth 

    • Prefer complex sounds to pure tones 

    • Learn sounds patterns within day s

    • Sensitive to voices 

    • Biologically prepared to learn language 

  • Newborn sense of taste and smell

    • Prefer sweet tastes at birth 

      • Thats because milk is very sweet born preferring sweet taste which helps them seek out nourishment from mom 

    • Specific preferences bc their floating around amniotic fluid they experience the smells and states that vary with what mom eats

      • distinguish and prefer that states that they have tasted while in utero or in mom 

    • Amnise experiment 

      • Found that women in France eat a lot of this flavor and so when babies were born they liked it 

      • Other babies who were not exposed to it didn't like it 

      • Develop in utero even before the baby is born very well developed once baby is born 

    • Have odor preferences from birth 

    • Can locate odors and identify mother by smell 

  • Newborn sense of touch 

    • Early reflexive response to touch on mouth palms soles genitals 

    • Sensitive to pain 

      • Pain can affect later behavior 

      • Relieve pain with anesthetics  

      • Touch is important to early physical and emotional and social development 

      • Present at birth 

      • Highlight sensitive to touch

  • Newborn sense of vision

    • Least developed sense at birth 

    • Probably because they have very limited opportunity in utero to see 

    • Cells in retina are not fully matured until a couple of months after their born 

    • Nearsighted 

      • UNable to see long distances focus clearly 

      • See best 8-12 inches 

      • 8-15 inches 

    • Scan environment and try to track interesting objects 

    • Color vision not mature until 4 months

What are the major milestones in fine and gross motor development in infancy?

• Milestones in gross motor development 

  • Newborn

    • When held upright, holds head erect and steady 6 weeks 

    • When prone, lifts self by arms 2 months 

    • Rolls from side to back 2 months

  • 4-7 months 

    • Rolls from back to side 4 1⁄2 months 

    • Sits alone 7 months 

    • Crawls 7 months 

  • 8-9 months 

    • Pulls to stand 8 months 

    • Plays pat-a-cake 9 months

  • 11 months 

    • Stands alone 11 months 

    • Walks alone 11 months

• Milestone in fine motor development

  • Newborn 

    • Prereaching 

      • Hands fisted 

      • Swats at objects 

      • Recognizes hands

  • 3-4 months 

    • Ulnar Grasp

      • Hands open 

      • Brings hands together 

      • Picks up object with whole hand

  • 4-5 months 

    • Transferring object from hand to hand 

      • Transfer object hand to hand

  • 9 months 

    • Pincer grasp

      • Pokes & points with index finger 

      • Pincer grasp 

      • Turns book pages 

      • Scribbles with fist

What are the major milestones in infant perceptual development?

• Vision

  • Newborns (0–1 month): Newborns have limited visual acuity (20/600, meaning they see at 20 feet what adults see at 600 feet). They prefer high-contrast patterns and faces, showing early sensitivity to human facial features. They can track moving objects briefly but with jerky eye movements.

  • 2–3 months: Visual acuity improves (around 20/200 by 3 months). Infants begin to distinguish colors, especially reds and greens, and show better eye coordination (convergence and binocular vision). They start to prefer complex patterns and can track moving objects more smoothly.

  • 4–6 months: Depth perception emerges, supported by binocular cues (using both eyes) and monocular cues (e.g., relative size, perspective). Infants become more adept at scanning objects and recognizing familiar faces or objects across different contexts.

  • 6–12 months: Visual acuity approaches adult levels (20/20 by around 12 months). Infants develop better object permanence (understanding that objects exist when out of sight) and show improved perception of 3D space, aiding in crawling and reaching.

• Hearing

  • Newborns: Infants are born with well-developed hearing, responding to a wide range of sounds, including human speech. They prefer their mother’s voice and can distinguish speech sounds (phonemes) from different languages, showing early sensitivity to language patterns.

  • 3–6 months: Auditory localization improves, allowing infants to turn toward sounds more accurately. They begin to categorize speech sounds specific to their native language, narrowing their focus from universal phoneme detection.

  • 6–12 months: Infants refine their ability to discriminate familiar words and intonations. They respond to their own name and show increased sensitivity to musical and rhythmic patterns, laying the groundwork for language acquisition.

• Taste and Smell

  • Newborns: Infants can detect and prefer sweet tastes, as evidenced by facial expressions (e.g., smiling for sweet, grimacing for bitter). They recognize their mother’s odor, especially from breast milk, which helps with bonding and feeding.

  • 3–6 months: Preferences for familiar tastes and smells strengthen. Infants may show curiosity toward new flavors but remain sensitive to unpleasant odors or tastes.

  • 6–12 months: As solid foods are introduced, infants develop broader taste preferences, influenced by cultural and familial diets. They use smell to explore their environment, showing increased discrimination of odors.

• Touch 

  • Newborns: Touch is highly developed at birth, with infants responding to tactile stimulation (e.g., rooting reflex for breastfeeding). They are sensitive to pain, temperature, and pressure, using touch to explore objects and people.

  • 3–6 months: Infants improve in using touch to explore objects, grasping and mouthing to learn about texture, shape, and weight. The palmar grasp reflex fades, allowing more intentional exploration.

  • 6–12 months: Fine motor skills improve, enabling infants to manipulate objects with greater precision (e.g., pincer grasp). They use touch to differentiate between familiar and novel objects, integrating tactile information with visual and auditory cues.

Define “dynamic systems” theory? Give an example.

• the child’s mind, body, and physical and social worlds form an integrated system that guides mastery of new skills. The system is dynamic, or constantly in motion. A change in any part of it—from brain growth to physical or social surroundings—disrupts the current organism–environment relationship. When this happens, the child actively reorganizes his or her behavior so the various components of the system work together again but in a more complex, effective way

  • Ex: an infant learning to walk, involves the interaction of many factors within the child (like increasing leg strength), the environment (like gravity pulling down on chubby thighs), and the task itself. This interaction creates a new, organized pattern of behavior—walking—that is more than the sum of its parts

Define classical conditioning. Provide an example related to child development.

• In this form of learning, a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that leads to a  reflexive response. Once the baby’s nervous system makes the connection between the two stimuli, the neutral stimulus produces the behavior by itself.

  • Ex: Classical Conditioning in a Newborn

    • Before conditioning 

      • Neutral stimulus – a stimulus that at first elicits no response

        • Breast milk

        •  Baby sucks

    • During conditioning 

      • Neutral stimulus -> Unconditioned stimulus (a stimulus that leads to an automatic response) -> Unconditioned response (an automatic response to a stimulus)

        • Rub baby's head when baby drinks breast milk 

        • Baby sucks 

    • After conditioning 

      • Conditioned stimulus (a stimulus that can eventually trigger a conditioned response) ->Conditioned response – a learned response to a previously neutral stimulus

        • Rub baby's heads

        • Baby sucks

Define operant conditioning. Provide an example related to child development.

• A form of learning in which behavior (or actions) become more or less probable depending on the consequences they produce

  • Types:

    • Reinforcement 

      • Goal of Reinforcement

        • Increase behavior 

        • Negative Reinforcement

          • Unwanted stimulus removed by behavior 

        • Positive reinforcement 

          • Rewarding stimulus presented by behavior 

      • Ex: A child receives a sticker for telling the truth. 

    • Punishment

      • Goal of punishment

        • Decrease behavior 

        • Positive punishment 

          • Add something unpleasant 

        • Negative punishment 

          • Remove something desirable 

Ex: You buckle your seatbelt to stop the car's annoying beeping sound

Define observational learning. Provide an example relevant to child development.

• Ex:

  • Bandura Bobo Doll Experiment 

    • Children who observed the aggressive model were significantly more likely to imitate the aggressive behavior.

    • Children in the non-aggressive and control groups displayed fewer aggressive actions.

    • Boys exhibited more physical aggression than girls but similar levels of verbal aggression.