Patterns of Growth

• Cephalocaudal pattern is the sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top - the head

  • Infants’ eyes and brains grow faster than their jaw

• Proximodistal pattern is the sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the extremities

  • Infants control the muscles of their trunk and arms before they control their hands and fingers

Height and Weight

• Most newborns are 18 to 22 inches long and weigh between 5 and 10 pounds.

• Infants grow about 1 inch per month during the first year

• By 2 years of age

  • Approx weight - 26 to 32 pounds

  • Approx height - 32 to 35

The Brain

• Contains approximately 100 billion neurons at birth

• Because the brain is still developing rapidly in infancy, the head should be protected from falls and other injuries

  • Shaken baby syndrome - brain swelling and hemorraging

• Newborn’s brain is about 25% of its adult weight

  • By the 2nd birthday, it is about 75% of its adult weight

  • However, the brains areas do not mature uniformly

Mapping the Brain

• Frontal lobe is involved in thinking, decision making, personality, and intentionality

• Occipital lobe functions in vision

• Temporal lobe facilitates hearing, language processing, and memory

• Paretial lobe plays important roles involving spatial location, attention, and motor control.

Early Experience and the Brain

• Children who grow up in a deprived environment may have depressed brain activity

  • Sensory stimuli is important

    • exaggerated speech

    • Basic colors and shapes

  • Observational learning

    • learning by observing others

    • following the example

• However, the brain tends to demonstrate both flexibility and resilience

  • Studies have shown specific cases in which the effects of deprived environments were reversible

  • But if it’s later in development it’s harder to reverse and won’t be able to fully develop as intended

Sleep

• Typical newborn sleeps approximately 18 hours a day

  • The most common infant sleep-related problem is nighttime waking

• Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) occurs when an infant stops breathing, usually at night

  • Infant dies suddenly without an apparent cause

    • Less likely to occur in infants who use a pacifier when they go to sleep

    • Shared sleeping is linked with a higher incidence of SIDS

    • Low birth weight infants are 5-10x more liley to die of it

Nutrition

• Nutritional needs and eating behavior:

  • Infants should consume approximately 50 calories per day for each pound they weigh

  • As motor skills improve, infants change from using suck-and-swallow movements to shew-and swallow movements with semisolid and then complex foods

  • Infants need to have a diet that includes fruits and vegetables

Breast vs Bottle feeding

• During the first 4-6 months of life, human milk or an alternative formula is the baby’s source of nutrients and energy

• Although the consensus states “fed is Best,” there are some benefits to breastfeeding:

  • Fewer gastrointestinal infections

  • Fewer respiratory tract infections

  • Lower likelihood of obesity

  • Lower likelihood of type 1 diabetes in childhood

Motor Development

• Dynamic systems theory

• Reflexes

• Gross motor skills

• Fine motor skills

The dynamic systems theory

• According to the dynamic systems theory, infants assemble motor skills for perceiving and acting

• Motor skills initially develop alongside the development of the nervous system

• To continue the development of motor skills, infants must perceive something in their environment that motivates them to act and fine-tune their movements

Reflexes

• Reflexes are built-in reactions to stimuli

  • They are automatic and govern the newborn’s movements

• Rooting reflex occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked or the side of the mouth is touched

  • Infants turn their head trying to find something to suck

• Sucking reflex occurs when newborns automatically suck and object places in their mouth

• Moro reflex is a neonatal startle response that occurs in reaction to a sudden, intense noise or movement

• Grasping reflex occurs when something touches the infants’ palms

Gross Motor Skills

• Gross motor skills involve large-muscle activities:

  • Lifting head

  • Rollin over

  • Sitting

  • Crawling

  • Walking

Fine Motor Skills

• Fine motor skills involve finely tuned movements:

  • Grasping a toy

  • Using a spoon

  • Buttoning a shirt

    • Any activity that requires finger dexterity

    • Problem solving

What are sensation and Perception?

• Sensation occurs when information interacts with sensory receptors - the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin

• Perception is the brain’s interpretations of what is sensed

  • At birth, the nerves and muscles and lens of the eye are still developing

  • Newborns cannot see small things that are far away

  • Faces are the most important visual stimuli in children’s social environment; they extract a lot of information from other’s faces.

Vision

• By 8 weeks, infants can discriminate some colors; by 4 months, they have color preferences

• Perceptual consitancy is the perception of an object as constant even though our sensation of the object changes.

  • Perception of size and shape of an object remains the same even if the distance or orientation of the object has changes

  • Presented in babies as young as 3 months of age

• Depth perception is the ability to judge if objects are nearer or farther away then other objects

  • This begins to develop around the 5th month but will not be fully developed after 2 years of age.