Infant & Child Development Exam 2

Productive Language

Usually starting with noises, then crying, then cooing, then babbling word sound alikes, then words

Sentence Comprehension and Production

Toddlers usually speak in single words, but at about 2 years babies begin speaking in slightly longer sentences

Productive Language

Usually starting with noises, then crying, then cooing, then babbling word sound alikes, then words

Sentence Comprehension and Production

Toddlers usually speak in single words, but at about 2 years babies begin speaking in slightly longer sentences

Phonemic Tuning

Toddlers begin to understand the importance of certain sounds and recognize the patterns of speech

Statistical Learning

The ability of infants to perceive and learn regularities in language, such as the speech sounds that make up a word

Word Comprehension

Similar to statistical learning and phonemic tuning, toddlers discover where words begin and end in fluent speech, this usually begins in the latter half of the second year. Babies can understand referents as early as 5 months

Word production

For english speaking children and for children who speak certain languages, first words tend to be simple nouns referring to objects and social words.

Social Cues for language

Infants look at others’ gestures to determine what the person is talking about, including following someone’s pointing to learn new words

Mutual Exclusivity

The assumption that each object has only one label.

Language Exposure

Children who have this happen to them tend to have a stronger understanding of language at an earlier age. Allows for phonemic tuning and statistical learning (?)

Bilingualism

Those who learn 2 languages display similar growth rates in vocabulary and total vocabulary size to SLL. They are not surprised by two names for two identical objects, and have a greater acceptance of mispronounced words

Maternal Use of mental state verbs, emotion words

Frequent use of these words promote social cognition, theory of mind, and emotional regulation

Vocabulary explosions

Prominent expansion in the 15 - 20th months

Developmental cascades of language

Language development influences cognitive development, processing speed, executive control, later school achievements, and effects of poverty

Machine Learning Theory

Vong Et Al trained a general purpose machine learning program on 61 hours of video from a baby’s head mounted camera and transcribed recordings of adult speech. The system acquired many word referent mappings.

Chomsky’s Grammar Theory

He believed that there were an innate set of abstract grammatical rules shared by all human languages. This was explain by the language acquisition device, which was an innate module in the mind that explained the rapid acquisition of language

Nativist Approach of language acquisition

They believed in biases and sign language. Also cited critical periods in language settings.

Connectionist Theory

The belief that infants build language from the bottom up based on input. Based on experience with language, the brain constructs complex representations - conceptual, lexical, phonological that facilitate complex rapid thinking

Dynamic/Developmental Systems Theory

Children’s experiences contribute to language development to organize the brain’s network, making the child an active participant in language development

Ainsworth’s Attachment Stages

Secure

Insecure Ambivalent (Overly clingy)

Insecure Avoidant

Internal Working Model

A model that guides interactions with caregivers and other people in infancy and at older ages. A mental representation of the self, of attachment figures, and of relationships in general

Chess & Thomas Theory

Babies are easy, slow to warm up, or difficult

Rothbart’s Theory

Babies have different dimensions of temperament, them being

• Activity level

• Attention Span/persistence

• Fearful Distress

• Irritable Distress

• Positive Affect

• Effortful Control: Called orienting/regulation in infancy

Kagan’s Study

Studied babies at 3 - 4 months in a lab situation. Inhibited children had higher heart rates, lower vagal tone, and higher cortisol levels, among others

Key names for socio-emotional development in infancy & toddlerhood

Rene Spitz, Harlow, Lorenz (Imprinting), Bowlby, Ainsworth

Parental sensitivity, affection, responsiveness, and self regulation

These promote early and more effective development of self regulation. Parents should keep the child’s environment as stimulated as necessary - but not too stimulated.

Sequence of recognition of emotional expressions, production of emotional expressions

Babies are initially able to discriminate between positive and negative expressions. Being able to recognize these things allow infants to use social referencing.

Cultural differences in attachment and expressiveness

Whilst the results of the strange situation is relatively the same among cultures, secure attachment is higher in many African cultures and avoidant attachment is higher in germany. Clear cut attachment is higher is Japan

Secure Base

Something that provides an infant or toddler with a sense of security that makes it possible to explore the environment

Developmental Cascades from Attachment

A possible affect is higher adolescent level of personality functioning

Bowlby’s Stages of Attachment

Preattachment - Infants produce innate signals and are comforted by interaction

Attachment in the Making - Infants respond preferentially to familiar people

Clear Cut Attachment - Infants actively seek out contact with their regular caregiv

Reciprocal Relationships - Taking an active role in partnerships with caregivers

Spitz’s findings

They compared institutionalized children with children of imprisoned mothers. Those who were institutionalized and deprived of maternal care had reduced exploration, locomotion, and motor action. The babies reacted with terror, anger, and fear to any person, along with other negatives.

Bowlby’s findings

Tested the idea that affectional ties were secondary and babies only needed basic needs, which turned out wrong. Believed that attachment behavioral system is active throughout life and accounts for central aspects of emotional reactions. Early attachment figures are replaced by friends or partners.

Growth Rates and physical changes

The brain increases to 90% of its adult weight, and toddlers grow taller and thinner. The child’s shape becomes more streamlined, and individual differences in size become more apparent

What type of sickness is a prominent problem for children?

Lead poisoning

Brain development

Aside from growing, there is synaptic pruning and apoptosis of some neurons, connectivity increasing in the prefrontal cortex, myelination increases in sensory and motor areas, the corpus callosum is created enabling coordination, among other changes, maturation of motor skills and gross and fine skills

Eating patterns and problems

Inadequate nutrition can impede normal physical growth. Many children approaching age 2 become unpredictable and picky eaters, and the social environment influences food choices. A poor diet depresses the immune system, which makes children far more susceptible to disease.

Illness and mortality, global patterns

Middle ear infections are seemingly common among toddlers, and unintentional injuries are the leading cause of of death in industrialized nations. There are family, community, and societal factors too.

Vaccination

About 28% of US infants and toddlers are not fully immunized, growing to 32% of poverty stricken children.

Child Maltreatment

There are four major types of abuse, emotional, physical, sexual abuse, and neglect

Piaget Pre-operational period

Two crucial parts of this period are egocentrism and centration, there are limitations in symbolic representation and in ability to make mental transformations. Dual representation and conservation are also parts of this.

Dual representation

Viewing a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol

• Aided by pointing out similarities between models and real world spaces

• Providing opportunities to make drawings and label them and to observe others doing the same

Conservation

The understanding the changing the form of an object or substance does not change its amount

Centration

Focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event

Logical Thinking, classification

Logic often fails for the preoperational child. Centration and irreversibility are seen in preoperational children’s lack of hierarchical classification. (?)

Information processing approach

An approach focusing on how information is encoded into the memory (?)

Declarative memory

The type of memory that involves consciously recalling facts and events

Episodic Memory

The ability to recall specific past events, typically everyday events

Semantic Memory

A type of long term memory involving the capacity to recall words, concepts, or numbers, which is essential for the use and understanding of language

Infantile Amnesia

The idea that adults have few memories from earlier than age 3, but children 5 to 8 have memories well before age 3. Explained as language limitations for encoding

Play and cognition

Play is very important and can be a facilitator of executive function. There were forms of children centered learning that emphasized the importance of playing for both learning and social development.

Attention

A part of the information processing approach, preschoolers gain the ability to inhibit impulses and focus on a competing goal. Shifting of attention improves during the preschool years.

Working memory

The ability to maintain and use a small amount of information in conscious attention

• Important for understanding language, directions, and learning new information. Usually 4 items for 4 to 5 year olds.

Cognitive flexibility

The ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts or to think about multiple concepts simultaneously

Attentional Control

The ability to choose voluntarily what to pay attention to and what to ignore