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'Infancy' Article

Key developments:

  • Social developments:

    • Is shy with strangers

    • Cries when parents leave

    • Has favorite things and people

    • Shows fear in some situations

    • Hands adults a book when they want to hear a story

    • Repeats sounds or actions to get attention

    • Puts out an arm or leg to help with dressing

    • Plays games such as “peek-a-boo” and “pat-a-cake”

  • Cognitive developments and communication skills:

    • Responds to simple spoken requests

    • Uses simple gestures, like shaking their head for no, or waving “bye-bye”

    • Makes sounds with changes in tone that mimic speech

    • Says “mama” and “dada” and exclamations like “uh-oh”

    • Tries to repeat words they hear

    • Explores things in different ways, like shaking, banging, and throwing

    • Finds hidden things easily

    • Looks at the right picture or thing when it’s named

    • Starts to use objects correctly, like a cup or hairbrush

    • Puts things in a container, takes things out of a container

    • Lets things go without help

    • Pokes with index finger

    • Follows simple directions like “pick up the toy”

Can babies think logically?

  • By the end of their first 12 months, they are capable of logical reasoning, testing their hypotheses about the physical world, and spending more time pondering unexpected results than expected ones

  • They also appear to use the process of elimination to come to conclusions, not unlike adult detectives and scientists

How does skin-to-skin contact benefit babies?

  • Cuddling is an essential piece of the bonding process for parents and babies, especially for premature babies

  • Touch calms babies by reducing levels of stress hormones like cortisol and lowering their heart rate, and can also calm stressed-out new parents

  • There is also no evidence that holding or carrying babies too much will spoil or otherwise inhibit them

Are babies moral?

  • A growing body of research shows that humans may be innately prosocial

  • Studies of babies as young as seven months old find that they’re willing to share food, toys, and other objects, not only with their parents but with strangers as well, and both when requested and spontaneously

  • Newborns also show empathy:

    • They cry in reaction to hearing another baby’s cry in the first days of their life

    • Later, they mimic the gestures and sounds their parents make to comfort them when they see another infant experiencing distress

Why do babies laugh so much?

  • Developmental psychologists believe that a baby’s laughter may serve a primarily social function: it’s an invitation to adults to engage with them, and it encourages adults to keep playing even if the basic action is repetitive

How does taking their first steps change an infant’s world?

  • Once a child begins to walk, they can navigate and explore their world in a much more directed and aggressive way

  • A parent’s anxiety may increase at this stage, although they will soon learn that while babies fall often as they take their first steps, they are rarely troubled by stumbles very long

Which words does a child say first?

  • A child’s first words are heavily influenced by which words their parents use most often, as well as local cultural effects

  • Large-scale cross-cultural studies point to at least six universal first words: mommy, daddy, hello, bye, uh-oh, and woof-woof