LifespanDevelopment Chapter 3

Gross Motor Skills Development

• Infants can watch moving objects and reach for them by around 9 months, demonstrating their growing control over large muscle groups and coordination.

• Gross motor skills involve large muscle group movements such as balancing, running, and jumping. These skills are crucial for overall physical development and play.

• Skills begin to develop as follows:

  • Lifting the chin while lying on the stomach, typically seen around 2 months.

  • Moving the chest up and rocking on hands and knees around 4-6 months, indicating strength in the upper body.

  • Exploration using feet begins around 8 weeks in seated carriers, further stimulating sensory experiences.

  • Infants may attempt crawling but can initially move backward due to greater arm strength rather than leg strength, showcasing the importance of developing coordination.

Sensory Capacities of Infants

• Historically, newborns were seen as passive with minimal abilities; however, contemporary research shows organized sensory and perceptual abilities that are more sophisticated than previously thought.

Vision:

• Vision is poorly developed at birth; newborns can only see 8-10 inches away, which is the typical distance to their caregiver's face.

• Vision improves significantly by 3 months (20/200) and gets closer to adult levels by 15 months when infants can see as clearly as adults.

• Infants prefer vivid colors over pastel shades and face-like stimuli, which are crucial for social engagement and recognition. They can differentiate faces, particularly their mother’s, which fosters attachment.

• Visual tracking improves from jerky movements to smoother ones by 3-4 months, indicating better visual coordination.

Hearing:

• Infants can distinguish sounds from the seventh month of prenatal development, highlighting the significance of auditory stimulation throughout pregnancy.

• They show a preference for the mother’s voice and familiar sounds; sensitivity to speech frequencies is also noted.

• By 6-9 months, infants show a preference for their native language, reflecting the role of exposure in language acquisition.

Touch and Pain:

• Newborns are sensitive to touch and temperature immediately after birth, and their ability to sense pain is well developed.

• High sensitivity to pain is evident during procedures like circumcision, emphasizing the importance of considering pain management in infant care.

Taste and Smell:

• Newborns prefer sweet flavors and their mother's scent, indicating innate preferences that promote bonding through breastfeeding.

• They can distinguish between different tastes, further showing their developing sensory awareness.

Intermodality:

• Infants perceive the world through multiple senses simultaneously and can match sensory stimuli, which is essential for learning and interacting with their environment.

How Infants Are Tested

• Habituation Procedures:

  • These procedures measure responses to repeated stimuli to assess perceptual and memory development.

  • The rate of sucking reflects interest and memory; faster habituation correlates with better developmental outcomes, indicating cognitive processing capability.

Nutrition in Infancy

• Breast Milk:

  • Colostrum, produced soon after birth, is nutrient-rich and vital for developing the infant's immune system.

  • The transition to more dilute normal milk occurs around 3-5 days post-delivery, providing essential nutrients as the infant grows.

  • Benefits of breastfeeding include lower infection rates, decreased risks of various diseases, and maternal health benefits like reduced risk for certain cancers.

  • The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months to ensure optimal growth and development.

• Introducing Solid Foods:

  • Indicators for readiness include the ability to sit up, hold head steady, show interest in food, and exhibit coordination of mouth and tongue movements.

  • First foods are typically iron-fortified cereals to address nutritional needs, especially important as breast milk alone may not meet all of an older infant's needs.

  • New foods should be introduced one at a time, with monitoring for allergies, ensuring a safe and healthy approach to weaning.

Global Malnutrition and Child Health Issues

• Types of Malnutrition:

  • Marasmus: Starvation from inadequate calorie and protein intake, often seen in impoverished regions.

  • Kwashiorkor: Protein deficiency usually occurring after weaning, leading to severe symptoms like swelling and irritability.

  • Children breastfed are at a significantly lower risk for these issues, reinforcing the importance of breastfeeding in early childhood nutrition.

• Statistics: Approximately 50 million children under 5 were at risk of malnutrition as reported in 2014, underscoring the need for global intervention.

Piaget and Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor Stage:

  • Infants learn through reflexive actions and sensory-motor exploration, developing their understanding of the world.

  • Substages:

    • Substage 1: Reflexes (birth to 1 month).

    • Substage 2: Primary circular reactions (1-4 months) where infants repeat pleasurable actions.

    • Substage 3: Secondary circular reactions (4-8 months) where infants react to external stimuli.

    • Substage 4: Coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12 months), leading to goal-oriented behavior.

    • Substage 5: Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months) where infants experiment through trial and error.

    • Substage 6: Beginning representational thought (18-24 months) where symbolic thought emerges.

• Object Permanence: Understanding that objects still exist when out of sight develops around 8 months.

Critique of Piaget's Theory

• New evidence suggests infants understand object permanence at younger ages than Piaget proposed, challenging his timelines.

• Research shows infants possess a sense of object permanence and interaction with objects earlier than previously believed, indicating cognitive capabilities develop more rapidly than Piaget's model suggests.

Memory in Infancy

• Memory in infancy is characterized by rapid but fleeting memory; infantile amnesia is a common phenomenon where early memories are not retained in adulthood.

• Studies indicate infants can remember experiences shortly after they happen, although retention decreases quickly, highlighting the temporality of early memory formation.

Language Development

• Infants begin communication even before birth, distinguishing their mother’s voice and developing initial sounds postnatally.

• Components of Language:

  • Phonemes: The smallest units of sound that distinguish meaning.

  • Morphemes: The smallest units of meaning in a language.

  • Semantics, Syntax, and Pragmatics: These set rules govern meaning, sentence structure, and the social context of language, respectively.

• Children typically acquire their first words around 12-13 months, initially using holophrastic speech, where a single word conveys a complete thought.

• Language errors are common in this stage, reflecting the natural process of language acquisition and learning.

Theoretical Perspectives:

• Nativist Perspective (Chomsky): Proposes that a language acquisition device is hardwired in the brain, enabling children to learn language.

• Critical Period: Identifies a sensitive time frame for optimal language learning, which is before puberty, emphasizing the role of early exposure in language development.