PSY 215 Exam 3

Gross Motor Skills

movement that uses large muscles (legs, arms, torso); whole body coordination

Fine Motor Skills

movement that uses small muscles (fingers, hands, wrists); precise movement

Cephalocaudal

growth/development that progresses from head to toe

Proximodistal

growth/development that progresses from center to outer

Postural & Locomotion Milestones 

Birth: lift head 

2 months: Push chest up with arms 

3 months: Roll from stomach 

4 months: pull up with assistance 

5 months: Remain sitting wout assistance once up 

6 months: Sit up wout assistance 

7 months: Pull self up to stand 

8 months: Stand holding onto furniture 

9 months: Walk holding onto furniture 

10 months: Stand well alone 

12 months: Walk well alone 

17 months: Walk backwards 

Milestones of Reaching

Newborns: Pre-reaching

3 months: Batting

4-5 months: Reaching

Types of Grips

• Power/Palmer

• Precision

• Pincer 

Motor Development Milestones 

Birth - 5yo: Fundamental Motor Skills 

5yo - 9yo: Transitional & Fine Motor Skills 

10yo - adulthood: Task Specific Motor Skills 

Fundamental Motor Skills 

basic movement patterns that form the foundation for more complex activities like sports and daily tasks 

• locomotor skills (running/jumping)

• object control skills (throwing/catching)

• stability skills (balancing/twisting)

Transitional & Fine Motor Skills

movements using small muscles in the hands and fingers for precise tasks like writing, buttoning, or using utensils

Task Specific Motor Skills 

abilities that are highly particular to a specific task

Types of Growth

Height & Weight

Factors impacting growth

• Genetics & Physiology (polygenic inheritance)

• Environment (nutrition)

• Socioemotional factors (failure to thrive bc of lack of skin to skin contact)

Nutrition

• Breastfeeding until 6-12 months (provides colostrum, antibodies for immune system)

• Cow’s milk only after 1yo, low-fat after 2yo

• Important to ingest healthy fats, calcium, vitamin D, & iron

• Limit sugars, sodium, and saturated fat

Phases of Maturity 

Prepubescence & Precocious puberty 

Precocious puberty

When a child developes sexual characteristics at unusually young age

Skeletal Maturity

bone is fully ossified, not growing anymore

marks the end of physical growth in terms of height 

Sexual Maturity (primary sexual characteristics)

characteristics present at birth, developed during puberty

Sexual Maturity (secondary sexual characteristics) 

characteristics that develop in response to hormonal changes of puberty (EX: facial hair or breasts) 

Adrenarche

natural bodily process where a child's adrenal glands begin to produce more dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) (6-10yo)

Gonadotrophic hormones 

Estrogen and Testosterone 

released from hypothalamus, pituitary glands, and the gonads 

Menarche

first menstrual cycle

Spermarche

first sperm ejaculation

Sensation

initial detection of stimuli by our sensory organs

Transduction

translate info into signal of the brain

Perception

taking info of the brain and turning it into meaning

Tests of Visual Acuity

Letters, Directions, Lines

Habituation-Dishabituation Paradigm

research method on infants that observes responses to novel and repeated stimuli 

Preferential Paradigm

experimental methodology to measure infant & toddlers’ spontaneous looking and listening behavior towards visual and auditory stimuli via habituation and dishabituation 

Fovea

color and acuity

spot in eye where visual sharpness is highest; highest [] of retinal cones 

Smooth Pursuit vs Saccades (visual functional diff)

Following an object w eye vs “jumping” movements

Vergence 

simultaneous movemnt of pupils towards/away from one another 

Stereopsis

brain’s ability to perceive 3D depth from 2 separate/slightly diff images 

Strabismus

condition where eyes don’t align properly (fixed with patches and glasses) 

Amblyopia 

caused by strabismus 

when the pruning of the neurons of the eye that isn’t delivering clear vision 

Looming effect (kinetic cues)

that brain using movement cues to make your body flinch (3D movie/VR)

involved in depth perception

Pictorial Cues (monocular cues)

visual signal that enables depth perception using only 1 eye

• interposition of objects

• relative size

• linear perspective

Pinna

outer ear; collects soundwaves

Middle ear

Malleus, Incus, Stapes 

Inner ear

Cochlea (tiny hairs that perform transduction) & auditory nerve (electrical signal transmission) 

Auditory system

starts function in womb (6 months prenatal) & lasts longer outside womb

Infant hearing tests

Otoacoustic emission test (OAE)

Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR)

Head-turn Paradigm

Otoacoustic Emissions Test (OAE) 

measures an echo (sound bouncing off eardrum) 

Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) 

Measures if information is actually getting to the brain by measuring its brain activity after playing a sound

Hearing sensation 

volume, pitch, and tone 

Hearing perception 

localization & patterns 

Head-turn Paradigm 

classical and operon conditioning (play a sound, head turn = rewarded w something fun looking) allows us to measure timing of their hearing 

Development of Sensation for Hearing

Prenatally - 2 months: Volume

Prenatally - 10 years: Pitch/Bandwidth and Tone 

Hearing Perception

• Sound localization (determining where the sound is coming from)

• Patterns (spoken languages) 

Hearing Aids

helps boosts volume of sound

usually diagnosed at 18months - 2yo

Cochlear implant

provides pathway of hearing since it’s mechanically broken

usually diagnosed at 2 yo 

*important to diagnose asap to prevent pruning

Intermodal perception

ability to integrate info from multiple senses

McGurk Effect

auditory illusion where a person perceives a sound that’s diff from the one being played bc of audio & visual mismatch 

Behaviorism & Social Cognitive Theory

Reinforcement & Imitation (babies learn their first words bc of conditioning)

Problems: creativity of languages & recasting of errors (refeeding the language error through conversation) 

Statistical Learning 

transitional probability (cognitive spell check & autofill) 

Nativism

Universal grammar (we’re born with a set of rules of languages)

Learning acquisition device (language is an innate capacity)

Biological perspective of how we learn languages

Predictable milestones

Critical periods

Lateralization & Brain Areas for brain (centered in left hemisphere)

Broca’s Area

if this area in brain is injured, verbalizing thoughts become challenging

Wernicke’s area 

area in brain that receives and understands languages 

Interactionist Theories 

language involves environmental & biological factors 

Comprehension

ability to understand language

Production

ability to speak language

Language developmental trends

Phonology/Morphology

Semantics 

Syntax 

Pragmatics

Phonology

patterns in spoken languages 

Smallest units of sound that’ll change the meanings of words

Cat vs Hat

semantics

meanings of words in languages

syntax

structure of languages

pragmatics

how to use language within social contracts

Prosody 

babies have preferences to: 

• mom’s voice 

• native language 

• infant directed speech (raising pitch, slowing down speech, reinforcing words)

Morphemes 

patterns in spoken languages 

smallest of languages that has meanings on their own

Cat vs Cats

Cooing

drawn out vowel sounds starting at 2 months

babbling

combining 2 sounds starting at 4-6 months

canonical babbling

combining many different sounds as an attempt to speak the language at 6-10 months

Physical changes that aid phonology production

growth of mouth

strengthening of tongue 

larynx descends 

whole object bias

assumption that a new word refers to whole object not just parts

mutual exclusivity bias

assumption that an object only has one name

Protodeclarative

pointing to share common interest and attention

protoimperative 

express desires 

vocabulary burst

happens at 18 months where babies start learning 10-12 words/day

underextension

using words only in limited contexts

overextension

overused word & applied to things that aren’t it

bootstrapping

happens around 18-20 months where babies learn new words through context clues 

types: semantic vs syntactic

telegraphic speech

happens around 2 years-old where they make 2-3 word sentence structures EX: “No…NO….No…”