ch. 5, 6, 7 quiz

intermodal perception general

intermodal perception: ability to use one sensory modality to identify a stimulus or pattern of stimuli that is already familiar through another modality. e.g. recognizing an object through touch when familiar through vision

perceptual learning in childhood: gibson's differentiation theory

-According to Eleanor Gibson, perceptual learning (changes in ability to extract information from sensory stimulation that occur as a result of experience.) -> occurs when we actively explore objects in our environment and detect their distinctive (or invariant) features. As we have noted, a distinctive feature is any cue that differentiates one stimulus from all others -motivation for perceptual learning is inborn; from birth, humans are active information seekers who search for order and stability (invariants) in the natural environment -ability to discriminate and categorize letters of the alphabet is a major perceptual milestone that is necessary before children can hope to decode words and become proficient readers: -preschool training in letter recognition helps children to recognize many letters and even a few written words BUT preschoolers younger than 5 to continue to confuse letters such as b, h, and d, or m and w, that have similar perceptual characteristics -> beginning to detect and appreciate subtle differences in unfamiliar letterlike forms at precisely the time (age 6) that serious reading instruction begins at school. As it turns out, learning to read is a very complex task. -Gibson is a differentiation theorist: believes young children are constantly extracting new and more subtle information from the environment and thereby discovering the properties, patterns, and distinctive features that will enable them to differentiate objects and events. As this differentiation continues, a child grows perceptually and becomes increasingly accurate at interpreting the broad array of stimuli that impinge on the sensory receptors. -critics say incomplete, children do more than just detect distinctive features: -also use their existing knowledge to enrich their sensory experiences and construct new interpretations. -unless infants used existing knowledge to impose meaning on ambiguous stimuli, it is hard to see how they could ever interpret the moving light display in Figure 7.12—a stimulus with few distinctive features—as an upright human form

operant (or instrumental) conditioning

-Operant conditioning: a form of learning in which freely emitted acts (or operants) become either more or less probable depending on the consequences they produce. -Skinner: -most human behaviours are those we emit voluntarily (i.e., operants) and become more or less probable, depending on their consequences

operant conditioning in infancy: Corporal Punishment as a Tactic for Controlling Behaviour

-When researchers first began to study the effects of punishment, they generally favoured a conditioning viewpoint. Presumably, punishment produces fear or anxiety, which becomes associated with the punished act. Once this conditioning occurs, the child should resist temptation to repeat the prohibited act, either to avoid the anxiety she has come to associate with it or to avoid further punishment -Operant theorists, however, are among the strongest critics of punitive controls. They believe that punishment merely suppresses an undesirable response without teaching anything new. They also stress that punishment may engender anger, hostility, or resentment and, at best, a temporary suppression of the behaviour it is designed to eliminate. Finally, they contend that a fear of aversive consequences can never be a totally effective deterrent because the child may simply inhibit unacceptable conduct until it is unlikely to be detected and punished. -information-processing model of punishment: -critical determinant of a child's future conduct is his interpretation of the uneasiness he is experiencing—a cognitive process that depends on the kind of rationale he has heard for modifying one's conduct -> punitive episodes provide children with a rich array of information to process, and the child's interpretation of this input, rather than the sheer amount of anxiety he or she experiences, can determine the effectiveness of punitive controls

operant conditioning in infancy: the social significance of early operant learning

-babies may come to display such sociable gestures as smiling or babbling because they discover that these responses often attract attention and affection from caregivers -babies are likely to become ever more responsive to other people, who in turn become more responsive to them

observational learning general

-bandura's social learning theory -> cognitive form of learning occurs as the observer attends carefully to the model and constructs symbolic representations (e.g., images or verbal summaries) of the model's behaviour. These mental symbols are then stored in memory and retrieved later to guide the observer's performance of what she or he has observed -successful observational learning requires not only the capacity to imitate others, but also the ability to encode a model's behaviour and rely on mental symbols to reproduce what one has witnessed

operant conditioning in infancy: can infants remember what they have learned?

-better at remember behaviours that they have performed and have been reinforcing in past -2- to 3-month-old infants can retain meaningful information for weeks, if not longer. However, they find it hard to retrieve what they have learned from memory unless they are given explicit reminders. Interestingly, these early memories are highly context-dependent: if young infants are not tested under the same conditions in which the original learning occurred (i.e., with the same or a highly similar mobile), they show little retention of previously learned responses

Advances in Imitation and Observational Learning

-capacity to imitate novel responses that are not part of his or her behavioural repertoire becomes much more obvious and more reliable between 8 and 12 months of age -deferred imitation: the ability to reproduce a modelled activity that has been witnessed at some point in the past. - develops rapidly during second year, present at 9 months -important developmental milestone—one indicating that children not only are constructing symbolic representations of their experiences, but can also retrieve this information from memory to guide their reproduction of past events. -elementary school children become even better at learning from social models because they are less likely than toddlers and preschoolers to rely solely on imagery to represent what they have witnessed. Instead, they verbally describe the model's behaviour to themselves, and these verbal codes are much easier to store and retrieve than are visual or auditory images -observational learning requires neither formal instruction nor reinforcement, it probably occurs daily, even when models are simply pursuing their own interests and not trying to teach anything in particular. -Bandura reminds us that all developing children learn from a variety of social models and that no two children are exposed to exactly the same set of modelling influences

classical conditioning general

-classical conditioning: type of learning in which an initially neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a meaningful non-neutral stimulus so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit the response originally made only to the non-neutral stimulus. -Pavlov and dog salivation: -unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - food -unconditioned response (UCR) - salivation -after bell and food paired several times, bell stimulated salivation -> conditioned response (CR): salivation -> to initially neutral/ conditioned stimulus: the bell -three phases: 1) preconditioning 2) conditioning - pairing 3) postconditioning - condition response exhibited -classically conditioned response would persist for long periods as long as the CS that elicited it was occasionally paired with the UCS to maintain their association. -> But if the CS (the bell) was presented alone enough times without being paired with the UCS (food), the CR (salivation) diminished in strength and eventually disappeared—a process known as extinction.

cultural influences on perception

-culture has subtle but important effects -some phonemic discriminations that infants better at than adults, bc we become sensitive to sounds patterns important in language, and less sensitive to distinctions that deemed irrelevant -e.g. r and l harder for japanese people to discriminate -we prefer musical beats of our culture by 4 months -> Apparently, babies are born with the potential to perceive "musicality" and to discriminate good from bad notes in a variety of musical scales. -gradual insensitivity to unfamiliar melodies likely starts around 5 years of age -illustrates wo general principles of development that are very important: 1) e growth of perceptual abilities, like so many other aspects of development, is not simply a matter of adding new skills; it is also a matter of losing unnecessary ones 2) our culture largely determines which sensory inputs are distinctive and how they should be interpreted. ->We learn not to hear certain phonemes if they are not distinctive to the language we speak -> We North Americans learn to view rats and snakes as loathsome nonfood items, whereas people in many other cultures perceive them to be tasty delicacies -The way we perceive the world depends not only on the detection of the objective aspects in our sensory inputs (perceptual learning) but also on cultural learning experiences that provide a framework for interpreting these inputs

classical conditioning of emotions

-e.g. little albert and fear of white rat -can also produce favorable attitudes: Jones: exposed child to thing scared of while eating food that liked -> paired scary rabbit with pleasurable stimuli and eliminated conditioned fear -> counterconditioning: treatment based on classical conditioning in which the goal is to extinguish an undesirable response and replace it with a new and more adaptive one.

Habituation: Early Evidence of Information Processing and Memory

-habituation—the process by which we stop attending or responding to a stimulus that is repeated - learning to become disinterested in stimuli that are recognized as old hat and nothing to get excited about -can occur even before a baby is born: 27- to 36-week-old fetuses initially become quite active when a vibrator is placed on the mother's abdomen but soon stop moving (i.e., habituate), as if they process these vibrations as a familiar sensation that is no longer worthy of attention -know that infant not just fatiqued bc when has habituated to one stimulus, he or she often dishabituates—that is, attends to or even reacts vigorously to a slightly different stimulus. Dishabituation, then, indicates that the baby's sensory receptors are not simply tired and that he or she can discriminate the familiar from the unfamiliar

four possible consequences of operant responses

-reinforcer: any consequence that strengthens a response by making it more likely to occur in the future. -positive reinforcer: any stimulus whose presentation, as the consequence of an act, increases the probability that the act will recur. -Negative reinforcers: any stimulus whose removal or termination as the consequence of an act will increase the probability that the act will recur -punishers are defined not by their pleasantness or unpleasantness but by their effects -Positive punishment: punishing consequence that involves the presentation of something unpleasant following a behaviour. -negative punishment: punishing consequence that involves the removal of something pleasant following a behaviour. -the power of reinforcement, particularly positive reinforcement -t punishment is less effective at producing desirable changes in behaviour because it merely suppresses ongoing or established responses without really teaching anything new

Habituation: Early Evidence of Information Processing and Memory: developmental trends

-improves dramatically throughout the first year. -e,g, 4 month olds need much longer than 5-12 months -10-14 months, sometimes habituate to related objects -rend toward rapid habituation is undoubtedly related to the maturation of the sensory areas of the cerebral cortex. As the brain and the senses continue to mature, infants process information faster and detect more about a stimulus during any given exposure

Between 8 and 12 months, infants can imitate novel behaviours that a model presents and continues to perform while the infant imitates. ->

-infant imitation

basic learning processes general

-learning complex -most often defined as change in behaviour or behaviour potential that meets the following 3 requirements: 1) The individual now thinks, perceives, or reacts to the environment in a new way. 2) This change is clearly the result of a person's experiences—that is, attributable to repetition, study, practice, or the observations the person has made, rather than to hereditary or maturational processes or to physiological damage resulting from injury. 3) The change is relatively permanent. Facts, thoughts, and behaviours that are acquired and immediately forgotten have not really been learned; and temporary changes caused by fatigue, illness, or drugs do not qualify as learned responses.

newborn's readiness for life general

-senses in good working order, capable of learning and remembering vivid experiences -inborn reflexes -predictable patterns/cycles of daily activity

observational learning: newborn imitation

-number of studies began to report that babies less than 7 days old were apparently able to imitate a number of adult facial gestures, including sticking out their tongues, opening and closing their mouths, protruding their lower lips (as if they were sad), and even displaying happiness -> harder to elicit over first 3-4 months of life -> reflexive scheme that disappears to be replaced by voluntary imitation? -Meltzoff: early expressive displays are voluntary imitative responses because babies will often match an adult's facial expression after a short delay although the model is no longer posing that expression. Meltzoff's view is that neonatal imitation is simply another example of intermodal perception, one in which babies match facial movements they can see in the model's face to those they can feel in their own faces -> but should get stronger with age then -topic of debate - but regardless newborn's responsiveness to facial gestures serves a useful function in that it is likely to warm the hearts of caregivers and help ensure that they and their baby get off to a good start

the baby's experience: the baby's appearance

-passage through cervix and birth canal -> flattened noses, misshapen foreheads, assortment of bumps and bruises (maybe reddish-purple or bluish blotches bc of oxygen deprivation) -wrinkled, around 50 cm long, 3-3.4 kg, covered in vernix

Corporal Punishment—Cultural Ideals and Alternatives

-some conflict regarding the acceptance of corporal punishment in Canadian society -> physical punishment was deemed inappropriate for children under 2 and adolescents -Corporal punishment has been associated with a variety of negative outcomes, including severe temper tantrums, aggression -but harsher forms of corporal punishment have been shown to have more significant negative outcomes, but context also impacts intepretation and potential for negative outcomes -important to reinforce alternative appropriate behaviours

Information Processing and Memory: individual differences

-some infants highly efficient information processors; they quickly recognize repetitive sensory inputs and are very slow to forget what they have experienced. -Others are less efficient; they require longer exposures to brand a stimulus as familiar and may soon forget what they have learned. -Infants who habituate rapidly during the first 6 to 8 months of life are quicker to understand and use language during the second year -reliably outscore their slower-habituating age-mates on standardized intelligence and language tests later in childhood -> implications bc rate of habituation measures the speed at which information is processed, attention, memory, and preferences for novelty, all of which underlie the complex mental activities and problem-solving skills normally measured on IQ tests

operant conditioning in infancy

-successful conditioning in very young infants is generally limited to the few biologically significant behaviours (e.g., sucking, head turning) that they can control -inefficient information processors who learn very slowly -older infants are quicker to associate their behaviour (in this case, head turning) with its consequences (a tasty treat) -Older infants are also easier to condition when both auditory and visual cues are used to train their behaviour

Can newborns be classically conditioned?

-yes but very difficult -Lewis Lipsitt and Herbert Kaye paired a neutral tone (the CS) with the presentation of a nipple (a UCS that elicits sucking) to infants 2 to 3 days old. After several of these conditioning trials, the infants began to make sucking motions at the sound of the tone, before the nipple was presented. Clearly, their sucking qualified as a classically conditioned response because it was now elicited by a stimulus (the tone) that does not normally elicit sucking behaviour -but limitations in first few weeks of life: -.successful only for biologically programmed reflexes, such as sucking, that have survival value -neonates process information very slowly and require more time than an older participant to associate the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli in classical conditioning experiments -but classical conditioning is one of the ways in which very young infants recognize that certain events occur together in the natural environment and learn other important lessons, such as that bottles or breasts give milk, or that some people signify warmth and comfort.

Visual perception develops rapidly in the first year. At what age do we describe infants as "stimulus seekers" who prefer to look at moderately complex, high-contrast stimuli (especially those that move)?

0-2 months

perception of three-dimensional space general

Empiricists: -poor visual acuity and an inability to bring objects into sharp focus (i.e., to accommodate) prevent the neonate from making accurate spatial inferences -infants younger than 3 months of age do not exhibit stereopsis—a convergence of the visual images of the two eyes to produce a singular, non-overlapping image that has depth Nativists: several cues to depth and distance are monocular—that is, detectable with only one eye -movement of objects toward and away from face -artists can use other pictorical/perspective cues to create illusion of three-dimensionality on 2d surface -linear perspective (making linear objects converge as they recede toward the horizon) -texture gradients (showing more detail in nearby objects than in distant ones) -sizing cues (drawing distant objects smaller than nearby ones) -interposition (drawing a near figure to partly obscure one farther away) -shading (varying the lighting across an object's surface to create the impression of depth) -> If neonates can detect these monocular depth cues, then their world may be three-dimensional from the very beginning

By 9 months of age, the infant can imitate novel responses up to 24 hours after observing a model perform the response.

deferred imitation

trends in locomotor development: dynamic systems theory

dynamical systems theory: a theory that views motor skills as active reorganizations of previously mastered capabilities undertaken to find more effective ways of exploring the environment or satisfying other objectives. -believe new skills are constructions through active reorganizations of existing capabilities into new systems (shows how get better over time), dont just unfold -infants work hard bc hope to acquire and perfect new motor skills that will help them to get to interesting objects they hope to explore or to accomplish other goals they may have in mind -> research shows: visual orientation motivates the infant to approach interesting stimuli she can't reach, reaching steers the body in the right direction, and kicking with the opposite leg propels the body forward. So, far from being a preprogrammed skill that simply unfolds according to a maturational plan, crawling (and virtually all other motor skills) actually represents an active and intricate reorganization of several existing capabilities that is undertaken by a curious, active infant who has a particular goal in mind. -proceed through same sequence of milestones bc of maturational programming ,and bc each motor skill builds on the next ->development of motor skills is far more interesting and complex than earlier theories had assumed ->goal-driven infants are constantly recombining actions, learning from previous actions, and combining their knowledge and skills to allow them to perform new and more complex actions that will help them achieve their objectives

As early as 7 days after birth, the infant can imitate facial expressions such as tongue protrusions.

newborn imitation

Rachel and Ross discover that when they sing rap music to their infant daughter, Emma, she smiles and laughs. They try other methods to get her to laugh, but she consistently laughs only when they sing rap music to her. Consequently, Rachel and Ross eventually learn to sing rap music to Emma over and over to enjoy her laughter. What type of learning is this?

operant conditioning

Researchers examined infant learning by teaching infants to kick their legs when a mobile hanging over their cribs was attached to their legs by a ribbon. What is the term for this form of learning?

operant conditioning

perception

process by which we categorize and interpret sensory input.

Newborns can hear and discriminate sounds (very poorly/very well).

very well

Gretchen is having a baby. Based on her understanding of brain lateralization, she predicted the positioning of her fetus when it was examined with ultrasound. If it was like two-thirds of all fetuses, how was her fetus positioned in her womb?

with its right ear facing outward

perinatal environment

-environment surrounding birth -includes: -medicines given to mother during delivery -delivery practices -social environment after baby born

three important birth complications that can adversely influence baby's development:

1) anoxia (oxygen deprivation) 2) low birth weight 3) premature delivery

Anoxia

-1% of babies show signs of anoxia -anoxia: a lack of sufficient oxygen to the brain; may result in neurological damage or death. -causes include umbilical cord tangles or squeezes, esp in breech position (feet or butt first) -also when placenta separates too early, interrupting food and oxygen supply -also if mucus is ingested after birth and gets stuck -brain damage, cognitive deficits, disabilities, adult heart disease can result if breathing delayed from 3-4 minutes -mild anoxia can lead to behavioural difficulties like hyperactivity, attention deficit -additional cause: genetic incompatibility between an RH-positive fetus, who has a protein called RH factor in its blood, and an RH-negative mother, who lacks this substance. -> when placenta deteriorating in labour, RH-negative mothers exposed to blood of RH-positive fetuses and produce RH antibodies, which could then attack red blood cells in fetus's bloodstream -> brain damage, heart failure, etc. -doesnt affect first-borns bc no RH antibodies until gives birth to RH positive child -> can be prevented by injecting immune globulin vaccine

secular trends - are we maturing earlier?

-1900s, average age of menarche 14-15 -By 1950, most girls were reaching menarche between and 14; norms dropped even further, to age , in the 1990s. This secular trend toward earlier maturation has slowed and is levelling off in industrialized nations but has begun to occur in the more prosperous nonindustrialized countries -better nutrition, medical care improvements, genetics explain secular trend -> more likely to reach genetic potentials for maturation and growth

fine motor development: development of manipulatory skills

-4 or 5 months, can reach inward across body -> grasp objects with both hands: now can hold with one hand, finger with other, transfer from hand to hand: best way to hold objects bc reflexive palmar grasp has already disappeared by this age, and the ulnar grasp that replaces it is itself a rather clumsy, clawlike grip that permits little tactile exploration of objects by touch. -6-12 months: fingering skills improve, better at tailoring exploration to properties of objects investigating (e.g. wheeled toys scooted) -towards end of first year develop pincer grasp: a grasp in which the thumb is used in opposition to the fingers, enabling an infant to become more dexterous at lifting and fondling objects. -Year 2: much more proficient with hands, can scribble with crayon, by end copy lines and build towers -> supports dynamic systems theory: gaining control over simple movements and then integrating these skills into increasingly complex, coordinated system

environmental influences on growth and development: illnesses

-Among children who are adequately nourished, common childhood illnesses such as measles, chicken pox, or even pneumonia have little if any effect on physical growth and development. Major illnesses that keep a child in bed for weeks may temporarily retard growth, but after recovering, the child will ordinarily show a growth spurt (catch-up growth) that makes up for the progress lost while he or she was sick

intermodal perception: are the senses integrated at birth?

-Bower et al: one month and under infants, showed virtual object that when infants reached for, felt nothing -> infants reached and became frustrated when couldnt touch -> These results suggest that vision and touch are integrated: infants expect to feel objects that they can see and reach, and an incongruity between vision and the tactile sense is discomforting. -1- to 2-month-olds often become distressed when they see their mothers talking behind a soundproof screen but hear their mothers' voices through a speaker off to the side. Their discomfort implies that vision and hearing are integrated; a baby who sees his mother expects to hear her voice coming from the general direction of her mouth -newborn's ability to recognize mother's face depends on intermodal integration - when prevented from hearing their mothers' voices, they show no preference for gazing at their mothers' faces in comparison to strangers' faces. Apparently, newborns must both see and hear Mom before they become able to recognize her

Beyond Infancy: Motor Development in Childhood

-By age 3, children can walk or run in a straight line and leap off the floor with both feet, although they can clear only very small (20 to 25 cm) objects in a single bound and cannot easily turn or stop quickly while running -4 y.o. - skip, hop, catch a ball , run further and faster -5- graceful, pump arms when run, can learn to ride bicycle bc balance better -fine tuning motor skills, older children can throw farther than younger children can, not solely because they are bigger and stronger but also because they use more refined and efficient techniques of movement -eye-hand coordination and control of small muscles improving rapidly, can make sophisticated use of hands: -e.g. 5 y.o. can cut straight line with scissors -by 8 or 9 can use household tools, skills performers and hand-eye coordination games -opportunities to engage in movement skills, such as reaching, crawling, walking, hopping, skipping, running, catching, pulling, and pushing, is important for physical, cognitive, and social development

early controversies about sensory and perceptual development: nature vs. nurture

-Empiricist philosophers believed that an infant was a tabula rasa (blank slate) who must learn to interpret sensations, James -nativist philosophers such asDescartes and Kant took the nature side of the nature/nurture issue, arguing that many basic perceptual abilities are innate. - e.g. born with understanding of spatial relations ->babies see some order in their surroundings from day 1, the perceptual world of a human neonate is rather limited and both maturational processes and experience contribute to the growth of perceptual awareness

perceptions of patterns and forms: early pattern perception (0-2 months)

-Fantz (1961) presented young infants with a face, a stimulus consisting of scrambled facial features, and a simpler stimulus that contained the same amount of light and dark shading as the facelike and scrambled face drawings, the infants were just as interested in the scrambled face as the normal one -Later research revealed that very young infants prefer to look at high-contrast patterns with many sharp boundaries between light and dark areas, and at moderately complex patterns that have curvilinear features -babies prefer to look at whatever they see well, and the things they see best are moderately complex, high-contrast targets, particularly those that capture their attention by moving. -most researchers believe that 1- to 2-month-old infants detect few if any forms because they see so poorly and they scan visual stimuli in a very limited way, unless the form is very small, they are unlikely to see all of it, much less put all this information together to perceive a unified whole

Infant Perception in Perspective—And a Look Ahead general

-advances in perception beyond the first year stem primarily from children's increasing ability to focus their attention on sensory inputs and draw meaningful inferences from them—milestones that reflect advances in information processing and might be properly labelled cognitive developments

perception of three-dimensional space: development of depth perception general

-Gibson and Walk: the visual cliff to determine whether infants can perceive depth. -visual cliff: elevated platform that creates an illusion of depth -6.5 months and older, 90% crossed shallow side but fewer than 10% crossed deep side -children too young to crawl also perceive depth - faster heart beat on deep side (at 2 months)

the social environment surrounding birth: the mother's experience - general

-Klaus and Kennell: first 6-12 hrs after birth sensitive period for emotional bonding -> research shows mothers more involved when had extended early contact -but later research has shown early contact effects not as significant or long lasting - adoptive parents can still develop strong emotional bonds -but early skin to skin and breastfeeding can help with bonding

brain differentiation and growth: myelinization

-Myelinization: the process by which neurons are enclosed in waxy myelin sheaths that will facilitate the transmission of neural impulses -follows sequence: -at birth, sense organs and brain pathways well myelinated -pathways between brain and skeletal muscles myelinate -> increasingly capable of complex motor activities -.Although myelinization proceeds very rapidly over the first few years of life, some areas of the brain are not completely myelinated until the mid to late teens or early adulthood -e.g. reticular formation and the frontal cortex—parts of the brain that allow us to concentrate on a subject for lengthy periods—are not fully myelinated until puberty -as myelinization enhances the efficiency between the more primitive, emotive subcortical areas of the brain and the more regulatory prefrontal cortical areas, an infant or child's ability to process and respond to socially important emotional input—such as the expressions of fear or disapproval on a parent's face—may improve ->ability to monitor own emotional reactions increases

perception of three-dimensional space: development of depth perception: motor development and depth perception

-One reason that many 6- to 7-month-olds come to fear dropoffs is that they are more sensitive to kinetic, binocular, and monocular depth cues than younger infants are -but may be dependent on experiences -infants who have crawled for a couple of weeks are much more afraid of dropoffs than infants of the same age who are not yet crawling. -> precrawlers quickly develop a healthy fear of heights when given special walkers that allow them to move around on their own ->So motor development provides experiences that change infants' interpretation of the meaning of depth -may also not be fear that explains why crawling infants avoid dropoff in visual cliff: may be bc increasingly aware of possibilities for balance and locomotion - may know that not possible to crawl over without falling -infants who have begun to move around on their own are better than those who haven't at solving other spatial tasks, such as finding hidden objects -> bc have discovered that the visual environment changes when they move, so that they are more inclined to use a spatial landmark to help them define where they (and hidden objects) are in relation to the larger spatial layout. -Self-produced movement also makes an infant more sensitive to optical flow—the sensation that other objects move when he or she does—which may promote the development of new neural pathways in the sensory and motor areas of the brain that underlie improvements in both motor skills and spatial perception ->>> interactive model that best explains the growth of form perception applies equally well to the development of spatial abilities -maturation of visual sense means can see better and detect depth cues, but also experience is important

infant sensory capabilities: hearing: causes and consequences of hearing loss

-Otitis media: common bacterial infection of the middle ear that produces mild to moderate hearing loss. -75% of children get once, recurrence common -antibiotics can eliminate bacteria but doesnt help fluid buildup, and often persists, which can produce mild to moderate hearing loss for months -most impact b/n 6 months and 3 years -> could those with recurring infections have difficulty understanding others' speech, could hamper their language development and other cognitive and social skills that normally emerge early in childhood -> and we do see delays in language development, have difficulties discriminating syllables, exhibit impaired auditory attention skills -chronic OM in younger: perform poorly on tasks with syllable and phoneme awareness (basic unit of sound) -chronic OM in older: more difficulty when asked to recall a series of words, as well as more difficulty comprehending syntactically complex sentences ->poor academic performance in reading as well as hyperactive and inattentive behaviour issues associated with chronic otitis media persist later into childhood and adolescence -> can lead to developmental disadvantages, otitis media needs to be detected early, treated aggressively

neural plasticity: the role of experience

-Riesen research on chimps -> neurons that arent properly stimulated degenerate "use it of lose it" -the opposite is also true, animals with lots of companions and toys have more extensive neural connections than those under standard lab conditions -head circumference of high SES children significantly larger than low-SES -early exposure allows infants to retain facial recognition beyond species only with ongoing exposure -> genes provide rough guidelines, but early experience largely determines specific architecture -Kolb - changes in dendritic length and synapse density to determine synaptic change, plastic changes can be quantitative and qualitative depending on subject

developmental changes in infant states: changes in sleep: sudden infant death syndrome

-SIDS: seemingly healthy infants die in sleep -preterm and other low-birth-weight babies who had poor Apgar scores and experienced respiratory distress as newborns are most susceptible -also, mothers more likely to smoke, use drugs, poor prenatal care, prenatal and postnatal alcohol -most likely to occur among infants who are 2 to 4 months old and who have a respiratory infection such as a cold -more likely to be sleeping on stomachs, tightly wrapped in blankets -> overheating may increase risk, esp when sleeping on stomach -> this may be bc sleeping on stomach harder for cardiovascular system -many have abnormalities in the arcuate nucleus, a portion of the brain that seems to be involved early in infancy in controlling breathing and waking during sleep, may be prevented from waking when oxygen intake inadequate -> not all SIDS victims have brain abnormalities, so far dont know how to screen for who's at risk -to prevent: dont place on stomachs, dont place on soft surfaces, keep away soft materials, lightly clothe infants, smoke-free zone around baby, breastfeed when possible

newborn reflexes: survival reflexes

-survival reflexes: inborn responses such as breathing, sucking, and swallowing that enable the newborn to adapt to the environment. -e.g. rooting allows for breastfeeding -offer protection, satisfy basic needs, and positive impact on caregivers - e.g. grasping can help endear to older companions

infant sensory capabilities: touch, temperature, and pain

-Sensitivity to touch clearly enhances infants' responsiveness to their environments: -> Premature infants show better developmental progress when they are periodically stroked and massaged in their isolettes. Touch and close contact promote developmental progress in all infants, not just premature babies. Touch lowers stress levels, calms, and promotes neural activity -touch also primary means by which infants acquire knowledge about their environment, which contributes to their early cognitive development -newborns sensitive to warmth, cold, changes in temp: refuse to suck if milk too hot, and try to maintain body heat by being active if room temp suddenly drops -very young infants show greater distress when pricked than 5-11 months, but reduced if get skin to skin with mother, and keeping in warm environment -circumcision highly stresses out babies, no anesthesia -high pitched wails - infants are not insensitive to pain

the birth process (stages of labour)

-The first stage of labour begins as the mother experiences uterine contractions spaced at 10- to 15-minute intervals, and it ends when her cervix has fully dilated so that the fetus's head can pass through. This phase lasts an average of 8 to 14 hours for firstborn children and three to eight hours for later-borns -When the head of the fetus is positioned at the cervical opening, the second phase of labour is about to begin. The second stage of labour, or delivery, begins as the fetus's head passes through the cervix into the vagina and ends when the baby emerges from the mother's body. This is the time when the mother may be told to bear down (push) with each contraction to assist her child through the birth canal: quick is .5 hrs, long may last more than an hour and a half -The third stage of labour, or afterbirth, takes only 5 to 10 minutes as the uterus once again contracts and expels the placenta from the mother's body.

infant sensory capabilities: hearing: reactions to speech

-Using the high-amplitude sucking method, newborns have been shown to demonstrate a preference for speech that was modified to mimic speech they heard in utero instead of nonspeech sounds -3 months: infants will turn their heads to hear non-native speech but not other nonspeech -4.5 months: will reliably turn their heads to hear their own name but not to hear other names, even when these other names share the same stress pattern as their own - are able to recognize such frequently heard words very early in life - 5 months, if the speaker is loud enough, infants are able to detect their own names against a background of babbling voices

perception of three-dimensional space: use of pictoral cues

-Yonas studied infants' rxns to monocular depth cues (as used by artists to display dimensionality on 2d surface) -> between 5 and 7 months of age, infants are sensitive to pictorial cues such as interposition, relative size, and other two-dimensional pictorial cues -From a limited capacity for size constancy at birth, babies extract spatial information from kinetic cues (i.e., from looming and other moving objects) between 1 and 3 months, binocular cues at 3 to 5 months, and monocular (pictorial cues) by age 6 to 7 months

infant sensory capabilities: hearing: reactions to voices

-Young infants are particularly attentive to voices, especially high-pitched feminine voice -newborns suck faster on a nipple to hear a recording of their mother's voice than a recording of another woman -when recited passage many times during last 6 weeks of pregnancy, newborns sucked faster and harder to hear those particular passages than to hear other samples of their mother's speech -> clear indication that the fetuses were learning sound patterns before birth -> special responsiveness to mother's voice after birth may even be highly adaptive if it encourages a mother to talk to her infant and to provide the attention and affection that foster healthy social, emotional, and intellectual development -fetal recognition of the mother's voice may be based on prosodic cues (pitch, juncture, stress, etc.), as has been suggested for infants, fetuses learn prosodic information specific to mothers due to repeated exposure -Fetal recognition of the mother's voice also provides evidence that prenatal learning influences neonatal preferences, it supports the speculation that the prenatal learning of the mother's voice is responsible for the newborn's preference for the maternal voice

perception of three-dimensional space: size constancy

-a 1-month-old reacts defensively by blinking his or her eyes as a looming object approaches the face—an effect called visual looming -Three- to 5-month-olds react differently to looming objects than to looming openings. Along with pressing the head backward and throwing the arms outward, infants' heightened blinking response has been interpreted as anticipation of an impending collision -> as an aperture—that is, an opening—approaches, more and more of what is behind the opening becomes visible while room for seeing what is in front of or beside the opening decreases -> lower frequencies of blinking -size constancy: tendency to perceive an object as the same size from different distances despite changes in the size of its retinal image. -> displayed by young infants? -> used to think developed around 3-5 months, but actually present at birth ->binocular vision does contribute to its development, for the 4-month-olds who show greater evidence of size constancy are those whose binocular capabilities are most mature -> Movement cues also contribute; inferences about real size among -month-olds are more likely to be accurate if the infants have watched an object approach and recede -> Size constancy steadily improves throughout the first year; however, this ability is not fully mature until 9 to 10 years of age

Individual differences and sexual maturation: early onset

-a lot of differences in timing and tempo -some finish before others start in all genders -The definition of "early" puberty indicates puberty beginning before 8 years of age for girls and 9 years of age for boys

applying developmental themes to physical development

-active child: early experiences direct the synaptic pruning that occurs in the first few years of life, dynamic skills theory -nature and nurture impact growth rates and eventual statures -quantitiative: middle childhood slow and stead continuous growth -qualitative: physical proportional changes -holistic: motor skills development impact by lots of factos

applying developmental themes to birth

-active-child: before birth, infant needs to have systems functioning independent of mother -nature/nurture: biological determinism throughout birth process, but environments impact baby and mother -qualitative: birth process divided into 3 stages: labour, birth, after birth -holistic: emotional, social, and physical support important in birth and after birth

developmental changes in infant states: changes in sleep

-as develop, less time sleeping, more alert -2 weeks before born, 1/2 sleeping hours in REM sleep: state of active or irregular sleep in which the eyes move rapidly beneath the eyelids and brain wave activity is similar to the pattern displayed when awake. -> declines after birth, 25-30% for 6 month old -2-6 weeks: 15-16 hrs a day -3-7 months: sleep through the night straight -REM sleep explanation: -autostimulation theory: theory proposing that REM sleep in infancy is a form of self-stimulation that helps the central nervous system develop. -fetuses and very young infants -> provides with enough internal stimulation to develop nervous systems -> aligns with babies given visual stimulation while awake less time in REM (bc need less)

changes in height and weight

-assessing growth, height, weight against a standard supposedly important to ensure healthy development -WHO child growth standards -babies grow super fast first two years, triple birth weight by end of first year, uneven growth -by age 2, half eventual adult height, quadrupled birth weight -2-puberty, 5-8cm and 3 kg per year -middle childhood may seem to grow little, hard to detect when 1.2-1.4 m tall and 27-36 kg -growth obvious again at puberty, with 2-3 yr growth spurt where gain 4.5-7 kg and 5-10 cm -> after, small increases in height until attain full adult height

brain differentiation and growth general

-at birth, the most highly developed areas are the lower (subcortical) brain centres, which control states of consciousness, inborn reflexes, and vital biological functions such as digestion, respiration, and elimination -The first areas of the cerebrum to mature are the primary motor areas (which control simple motor activities such as waving the arms) and the primary sensory areas (which control sensory processes such as vision, hearing, smelling, and tasting) -> neonates reflexive bc only sensory and motor areas of cortex functioning well at birth -by 6 months, primary motor areas of cerebral cortex now direct most movements, "primitive" reflexes more gone

development of intermodal perception

-babies only 1 month old have the ability to recognize by sight at least some of the objects they have previously sucked. (but had experience with spongy objects- nipples and rigid ones thumbs) -> 1) oral-to-visual perception is the only cross-modal skill that has ever been observed in infants this young, and (2) this ability is weak, at best, in very young infants and improves dramatically over the first year -ability to match tactile sensations (from grasping) with visual ones does not appear until 4 to 6 months of age - cant grasp well until then -Intermodal matching between vision and hearing emerges at about 4 months—precisely the time that infants begin to voluntarily turn their heads in the direction of sounds -> our ability in auditory-visual matching of faces and speech sounds is present at birth -infants as young as 1 year may demonstrate a stronger response to stimuli perceived by more than one sense. During a visual cliff procedure, 12-month-olds crossed the cliff more quickly when they received both visual and auditory cues from their mothers.

the social environment surrounding birth: the mother's experience - postpartum depression

-baby blues/maternity blues/postpartum blues: w/n first 10 days after birth, moodiness, irritability, confusion, tiredness, tearfulness -15-85% -mild depression passing within two weeks -previous experience of depression predictive, but not fully understood -postpartum depression: strong feelings of sadness, resentment, and despair that may appear shortly after childbirth and can linger for months. -experienced by 6.5-12.9 % -contributed to by previous experiences with depression, hormonal changes, and parental stress -esp influenced by lack of social support and poor relationship with father -interact less with babies, may be ambivalent or hostile towards them -can lead to insecure attachment -Treatment for postpartum: -medication is sometimes required -talking therapies desirable -internet based support networks

sexual maturation in girls

-begins at about age 9 to 11 as fatty tissue accumulates around their nipples, forming small "breast buds" -Full breast development, which takes about three to four years, finishes around age 14 -sually, pubic hair begins to appear a little later, although as many as one-third of all girls develop some pubic hair before their breasts begin to develop -vagina larger, walls of uterus develop muscles, mons pubis, labia, and clitoris increase in size and more sensitive -12.5 average age of menarche in western contexts -often menstruate without ovulating and may be unable to reproduce for 12-18 months after -year following menarche, female sexual development concludes as the breasts complete their development and axillary (underarm) hair appears -Hair also appears on the arms, legs, and, to a lesser degree, face

Exercise: the key to a healthy childhood

-benefits of physically active play: moderate to vigorous play activities such as running, jumping, climbing, play fighting, or game playing that raise a child's metabolic rate far above resting levels. -> builds muscle strength and endurance -"obesity spiel" -when infants and children are provided with opportunities to develop fundamental motor skills early in life, they are more likely to engage in physical activities later in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood -role of early childhood educators and daycare providers: -integrating physical activities that target motor skill development into ongoing indoor and outdoor activities in the daycare setting -> higher general motor skills and physical activity -elementary and middle school teachers: -active play during recess was associated with both higher levels of self-regulation and academic achievement in reading and math when very young children were engaged in physically active play. -research assessing the impact of physical exercise on cognitive outcomes among children 5 years of age and younger identified gains related to both language and executive function

muscular development

-born with muscle fibres that we have -> grow as cellular fluid in muscle tissue bolstered by protein and salts -muscular development proceeds in cephalocaudal and proximodistal directions, with muscles in the head and neck maturing before those in the trunk and limbs -muscular maturation gradual over childhood, accelerates in adolescence --> muscular growth spurt -> all stronger, muscle mass and strength increases more dramatic for boys -> but upper limb strength most gender differences, not as noticeable in lower limb strength

motor development general

-by end of first month, the brain and neck muscles have matured enough to permit most infants to reach the first milestone in locomotor development: lifting their chins while lying flat on their stomachs. -> lift chests, reach for objects, roll over, sit up if supported -a child's rate of motor development really tells us very little about future developmental outcomes.

psychological implications of early motor development

-can require child-proofing once can explore, but positive for parents -> pleasurable interactions -cognitive and social consequences: -feel bolder meeting people -fosters perceptial development -movements make them more aware of optical flow, the perceived movement of objects in the visual field as well as the perceived movements of the foreground and background in which the objects are imbedded. -As infants mature and begin to add crawling and walking to their array of motor skills, their adeptness in using optic flow to distinguish between self-locomotion and other-locomotion improves. -They also learn to use optic flow to detect smaller and smaller changes in locomotion trajectories and velocities, thereby improving at avoiding collisions and correcting balance miscalculations -> optic flow displays must simulate 22 degrees at least change in direction before notice (adults can detect one degree change) -optic flow and gradual understanding of it helps: -> child to orient self in space -> improves posture -> helps walk or crawl more efficiently -> crawling and walking also both contribute to an understanding of distance relationships and fear of heights

brain differentiation and growth: cerebral lateralization

-cerebrum: the highest brain centre; includes both hemispheres of the brain and the fibres that connect them. -corpus callosum: the bundle of neural fibres that connect the two hemispheres of the brain and transmit information from one hemisphere to the other. -cerebral cortex: the outer layer of the brain's cerebrum, which is involved involuntary body movements, perception, and higher intellectual functions such as learning, thinking, and speaking. - gray matter -left cerebral hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and it contains centres for speech, hearing, verbal memory, decision making, language processing, and expression of positive emotions -right cerebral hemisphere controls the left side of the body and contains centres for processing visual-spatial information, nonlinguistic sounds such as music, tactile (touch) sensations, and expression of negative emotions -> Cerebral lateralization: the specialization of brain functions in the left and the right cerebral hemispheres. -90% people right handed, rely on left hemisphere -when does lateralization occur? -> originates during prenatal period, biologically programmed for different functions, begins to differentiate by birth -but brain not completely specialized at birth, we rely on one hemisphere for certain functions more and more throughout childhood - lateral preferences stronger as we age -bc not completely specialized, young children can bounce back from traumatic brain injuries- neural circuits assume functions of dead ones, restore function quicker and more completely than older people

the social environment surrounding birth: the father's experience

-childbirth mix of + and - emotions, fear and stress, but ultimately satisfying -engrossment: paternal analogue of maternal emotional bonding; term used to describe fathers' fascination with their neonates, including their desire to touch, hold, caress, and talk to the newborn baby. -paternal interactions important to establish bond and secure attachments -responsive interactions may contribute to developing foundational social skills related to emotion and sense of self -Ann Bigelow: mirroring in infants, foundational for understanding that can change social environment through engagement

environmental influences on growth and development: nutrition general

-children who are inadequately nourished grow very slowly, if at all -secular trend was clearly reversed during World War II, when it was not always possible to satisfy children's nutritional needs -

infant sensory capabilities: taste and smell

-come equipped with something of a sweet tooth, because both full-term and premature babies suck faster and longer for sweet liquids than for bitter, sour, salty, or neutral (water) solutions -different tastes elicit different facial expressions: sweets reduce crying, smiles, and lip smacking, sour- wrinkled nose and pursed lips, bitter- disguist- tongue protrusion, spitting -> and more pronounced as become more of those characteristics -react vigorously by turning away and displaying expressions of disgust in response to unpleasant smells such as vinegar, ammonia, or rotten eggs -In the first 4 days after birth, babies already prefer the odour of milk to that of amniotic fluid -a 1- to 2-week-old breastfed infant can already recognize her or his mother (and discriminate her from other women) by the smell of her breasts and underarms -> learn mother's olfactory signature

developmental changes in infant states: the functions and course of crying - developmental changes

-cry most during first 3 months, related to brain and nervous system maturation like REM -Ainsworth: babies of mothers who respond quickly cry very little, why?: -soothing hypothesis - esp good at soothing infants, but unlikely -more likely, responsive parenting prevents distress -shrill, nonrythmic cries can impact that there is brain damage, malnourishment, or addiction -> cry as diagnostic tool

perceptions of patterns and forms: explaining form perception

-development of face perception follows the same general course as the perception of other forms: -> Newborns are biologically prepared to seek visual stimulation and make visual discriminations -> 2 to 3 months of age, maturation has progressed to the point of allowing an infant to see more detail, scan more systematically, and begin to construct visual forms, including one for faces in general as well as more specific configurations that represent the faces of familiar companions, continue to visually explore and gain knowledge that allows them to make distinctions -children treated for cataracts developed normal skills in differentiating the shapes of faces (e.g., jaw line) and individual features (e.g., mouth), but they showed deficits in their ability to discriminate among faces that differed in the spacing of features (e.g., eye spacing) and orientation =growth of form perception results from a continuous interplay, or interaction, among the baby's inborn equipment (a working but immature visual sense), biological maturation, and visual experiences (or learning)

possible impacts of timing and tempo of puberty for girls

-disadvantages: less outgoing and less popular than their prepubertal classmates -more symptoms of anxiety and depression -> bc looks older and may be teased by peers -> seek older companions, boys who are ore interested in sex -> can lead to risky activities -advantages: -early breast development is associated with a favourable body image and increased self-confidence -often admired in late elementary school once the female peer group discovers that early-maturing girls tend to be popular with boys, but as young adults, women who matured early are no less well-adjusted than their later-maturing peers -parents can help all genders adjust by: maintaining close relationships, being patient, and helping their children accept themselves and all the physical and social changes they are experiencing

labour and delivery medication general

-drugs include: anagesics and anesthetics (reduce pain), sedatives (for relaxation), stimulants (to amplify contractions) -many anagelsics and anesthetics used in epidurals (injected into spine to reduce below waist) dont lead to negative outcomes -drug use monitored, but still should be limited when possible -> -e.g. if receive large amounts of anaesthesia or have epidurals dont push effectively during delivery bc less sensitive to contractions -> babies may have to be pulled using obstetrical forceps or vacuum extractor

labour: natural and prepared childbirth

-each involve a delivery in which physical and psychological preparations for the birth are stressed and medical assistance is minimized. -natural movement originated from Grantly Dick-Read, prepared popularized by Fernand Lamaze, originated in Russia -idea that could give birth without medication if taught to associate childbirth with pleasant feelings and to prep with learning: exercises, breathing methods, relaxation techniques -less likely to have medication and interventions like c-sections, shorted labour -classes can do this in modern setting -natural and prepared childbirth helpful also bc of social support from partners and/or close companions -> when in delivery room with close companion, less pain, less medication, more positive attitudes

developmental changes in infant states: the functions and course of crying general

-earliest cries unlearned and involuntary responses to discomfort—distress signals, provoked by such physical discomforts as hunger, pain, or a wet diaper, although chills, loud noises, and even sudden changes in illumination -complex vocal signal that may vary from a soft whimper to piercing shrieks and wails -> women more responsive to infants' hunger cries than men, more related to amount of distress than kind from the cry

early controversies about sensory and perceptual development: enrichment vs. differentiation

-enrichment theory: (piaget) theory specifying that we must add to sensory stimulation by drawing on stored knowledge (schemes) in order to perceive a meaningful world, sensory stimulation often fragmented or confusing -the enrichment position is that cognition enriches sensory experience. Our knowledge helps us construct meaning from the sensory stimulation we receive -differentiation theory: (Eleanor Gibson) theory specifying that perception involves detecting distinctive features or cues that are contained in the sensory stimulation we receive. -we just detect differentiating info = distinctive features = characteristics of a stimulus that remain constant; dimensions on which two or more objects differ and can be discriminated (sometimes called invariances or invariant features). -the information needed to make these finer distinctions was always there, and that the children's perceptual capabilities blossom as they detect these distinctive features. -> both: objective reality we respond to -> this chapter mostly supports Gibson's: children do get better at detecting information already contained in their sensory inputs, but Piaget's also well-documented

infant sensory capabilities: hearing

-evoked potentials method -> soft sounds that adults can hear must be made noticeably louder before can be detected by neonate -first few hours of life: can hear as well as adult with a cold, may be bc of fluids in inner ear from birth -habituation studies - neonates can discriminate sounds differing in loudness, duration, direction, frequency -to be detected: intensity has to be about 40 to 55 decibels for 1-month-olds but only about 10 to 30 decibels for 6- to 12-month-olds -4 to 6 months, infants react to a rapidly approaching auditory stimulus in the same way that they react to approaching visual stimuli: they blink in anticipation of a collision -first 6 months - infants not consistent in responding to noises -> U-shaped curve where infants presented sounds and see if turn to sound (e.g. if rattle on left side, turn that way) -> by 1 month, stop turning reliably -> by 3-4 months orient successfully again -> by 5 months use sound to localize objects in environment -> why U-shape? neural maturation - auditory localization may start out like a reflex and eventually come under the control of the mid- and forebrain structures as they mature -Trehub et al: although hearing improves over first 4-6 months, newborns well prepared for significant achievements like using voices to identify and discriminate their companions

trends in locomotor development: experiential (or practice) hypothesis

-experience viewpoint - opportunities to practice also important -Dennis -> maturation necessary but not sufficient to develop motor skills -lack of practice inhibits motor development, and enriching experiences can accelerate -> in a Kenyan context prepared to sit up and walk, and do so earlier than western context -Research in England comparing white infants and black Jamaican infants - only displayed motor skills earlier only if mothers followed jamaican routines for nurturing motor development -limb stretching and being held in upright position hasten motor development bc develop strength in neck, trunk, and legs -> helps stand and walk -> gains function of greater trunk strength: to-down fashion

the baby's experience general

-fetuses stressed out by birth, but production of activating hormones adaptive, helping withstand oxygen deprivation -these hormones help ensure babies born awake and ready to breathe -newborns quiet down and begin to adapt to new surroundings within minutes of that first cry -> birth stressful for babies, but prepared for it

neural development and plasticity general

-glia: supportive nerve cells that serve supporting functions -neuron production, synaptic transmission -nourish neurons, manage debris -oligodendrocytes encase neurons in myelin -neurons produced in neural tube of developing embryo ->migrates along pathways built by astrocytes (subtype of glial cells) to form major parts of brain -majority of neurons we will have (100s of billions) formed by end of second trimester, before brain growth spurt has even started -new neurons are formed :neurogenesis, throughout life in specific areas of brain like hippocampus (learning and memory) -brain growth spurt caused by: -glial cells more numerous than neurons, form and function throughout life

development of the brain general

-grows very fast early on, increases from 25% to 75% of adult weight by age 2 -brain growth spurt: the period between the seventh prenatal month and 2 years of age when more than half of the child's eventual brain weight is added, in this period, increase of 1.7 g per day -MRI and fMRI, EEG show how specific regions of brain mature and how impacts development

effects of individual genotypes on growth

-height is heritable, as is rate of sexual maturation -genetics also influence skeletal growth, infant teeth appearance -How does genotype influence growth? We are not completely certain, although it appears that our genes regulate the production of hormones, which have major effects on physical growth and development.

labour: birthing environments

-hospitals: "medical model" and alternatives like labour/birth/recovery rooms, birthing centres - with homelike environment and medical technology (some attached to hospitals, some independent) -> allow for family supports there, infants remain with parents until leave -home delivery with certified midwife: -> can reduce fear -> maximizes social support -> relies less on potentially harmful medications -> home deliveries have shorter labours and use less medicine -> reports show that home births just as safe, but if at risk for birth complications advised to deliver in hospital -doulas: provide support and advice, can be present in any settings -> less maternal pain, greater satisfaction, shorter births, fewer medical interventions

methods of soothing a fussy baby

-humming, stroking, rocking -swaddling -picking them up, causes them to be visually alert, rather than relaxing like previous two, but can help learn more about environment -caucasian babies more likely to be hard to calm - genetics? -but also asian, south american, Indigenous mother can improve dispositions of irritable babies through swaddling, carrying them around, nursing when needed -> kangarooing -NBAS training to show that: even irritable baby can respond positively, and teaches how to elicit positive responses

environmental influences on growth: nutrition: problems of undernutrition

-if undernutrition isnt prolonged or severe: catch-up growth: a period of accelerated growth in which children who have experienced growth deficits grow very rapidly to "catch up to" the growth trajectory that they are genetically programmed to follow. -prolonged undernutrition has a more serious impact, especially during the first five years of life; brain growth may impaired and children may remain relatively small in stature -Marasmus: a growth-retarding disease affecting infants who receive insufficient protein and too few calories, can occur if mother is malnourished and does not have the resources to provide her child with a nutritious commercial substitute for mother's milk -frail and wrinkled in appearance, small in stature, impaired physical, social intellectual development -Kwashiorkor: a growth-retarding disease affecting children who receive enough calories but little if any protein. -hair thins, the face, legs, and abdomen swell with water, and severe skin lesions may develop -may develop when weaned from breast milk and dont have that source of protein -our context: poorer children get vitamin and mineral deficiencies: a form of malnutrition in which the diet provides sufficient protein and calories but is lacking in one or more substances that promote normal growth - esp iron and zinc defificencies -> iron-deficiency anemia: a listlessness caused by too little iron in the diet; makes children inattentive and may retard physical and intellectual development.

research methods used to study infant's sensory and perceptual experiences general

-in the early 1900s, many medical texts claimed that human infants were functionally blind, deaf, and impervious to pain for several days after birth. Babies were believed to be unprepared to extract any "meaning" from the world around them -> we know this isnt true, bc we have better research methods for understanding what nonverbal infants can sense and perceive

infant states

-infant states: levels of sleep and wakefulness that young infants display. -6 states, predictable -first month: move rapidly from one to another -neonates 70% of time sleeping, 2-3 hours in alert, attentive state (when most receptive to stimulation), sleep cycles 45 minutes to 2 hours, separated by drowsiness, alert/inalert activity, crying 6 stages: regular sleep, irregular sleep, drowsiness, alert inactivity, alert activity, crying - see table for more info, only difference is drowsiness for 1/2-3 hrs day -these stages show internal regulatory mechanisms well organized -but also a lot of individual differences: e.g. alertness for some infants 15 minutes a day, others 8 hrs -> averages

explaining intermodal perception

-intersensory redundancy hypothesis: suggests that the amodal detection of a stimulus aids in the development and differentiation of individual senses -> the multiple sensory modalities of a stimulus object draw an infant's attention, and as the infant attends to and interacts with that object, the infant gathers comparative input that refines individual sensory modalities -> percpetual system advances from amodal state (sensory inputs received as a whole, to intermodal state - where can separate senses) -> attending to multimodal stimuli actually promotes perceptual differentiation -the intermodal sensory perception of a newborn may be viewed as quite different from the intermodal sensory perception of a 6-month-old infant. At birth, sensory perception is amodal—or undifferentiated—and as infants experience multimodal sensory stimuli, they develop true intermodal perception. That is, as infants learn to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel, they are able to distinguish and then reintegrate sensory modalities that are becoming more and more differentiated

basic trends in locomotor development general

-laws of cephalocaudal (head dowward) and proximodistal (centre-outward) developmental also apply to motor development -> how to explain kicking in first few months according to cephalocaudality? -> Galloway and Thelen found that infants alter pattern of leg kicking when rewarded, kick toys intentionally -> may be bc hip joint more stable and constrained than shoulder joint 3 perspectives on timing and sequence of early motor development: maturational viewpoint, the experiential (or practice) hypothesis, and a newer dynamical systems theory

infant sensory capabilities: vision

-least mature of newborn's sensory capabilities -changes in brightness -> subcortical pupillary reflect: indicates that sensitive to light -can detect movement in visual field, tracks if slow -track faces and face-like the most (but preference dissapears within 1-2 months) -newborns prefer mother's face to female stranger -> may be evolutionary adaptation/reflex -habituation method -> see world in colour, but trouble discriminating blues, greens, yellows from whites -> but improves by 2-3 months, and by 4 months more complex, same categories as adults -newborns cant resolve fine detail - legally blind, visual acuity 20/400 - see at 6 m what adult sees at 120 m -> objects blurry, trouble accommodating: hanging the shape of the lens of the eye to bring visual stimuli into focus -infants simply require sharper visual contrasts (light/dark) to "see" them than adults do- but improves, much better by 6 months, by 12 as good as adults -the young infant's visual system is not operating at peak efficiency, but it certainly is working. Even newborns can sense movement, colours, changes in brightness, and a variety of visual patterns—as long as these patterned stimuli are not too finely detailed and have a sufficient amount of light/dark contrast. Visual functions evident in newborns are largely experience-independent. As infants explore the world with their eyes, experience-dependent mechanisms—such as synaptic reinforcement—begin to contribute to the development of visual acuity. Thus, both experience-independent and experience-dependent mechanisms promote the development of the infant's visual systems

research methods used to study infant's sensory and perceptual experiences: brain imaging techniques

-magnetoencephalography (MEG)—a neuroimaging technique—records the magnetic fields generated by the brain's electric activity a few milliseconds after the neural firing. Unlike the evoked potentials method -Unlike the evoked potentials method, this technique tells us when and where the brain's activity is occurring when the newborn or infant detects particular stimuli, such as speech versus nonspeech, or native vs. nonnative speech -most common neuroimaging technique is the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): measures the amount of oxygen-rich blood flow to specific brain areas to replace the deoxygenated blood used by these areas to detect a particular stimulus -tells us where the brain activity has occurred when an infant detects a particular stimulus, but not when the brain activity occurs, as it measures brain activity at the level of seconds (not ms) -also modification: resting-state fMRI to allow us to know more about how brain areas are functionally organized in neonates and infants as they develop

Hormonal influences on growth: the endocrinology of growth

-male fetuses assumemale-like appearance bc of Y-chromosome gene triggering testes development, testosterone secretion necessary for reproductive system development -by the fourth prenatal month, the thyroid gland has formed and begins to produce thyroxine, a hormone that is essential if the brain and nervous system are to develop properly, and necessary for normal growth -> screening measures to determine if thyroid deficiency and treat -pituitary: a "master gland" located at the base of the brain that regulates the endocrine glands and produces growth hormone. -growth hormone (GH): the pituitary hormone that stimulates the rapid growth and development of body cells; primarily responsible for the adolescent growth spurt. -released in small amounts several times a day, during sleep as well -if lack GH wont grow as tall -During infancy and childhood, physical growth seems to be regulated by thyroxine and the pituitary growth hormone -puberty triggered by: pituitary secretions stimulate a girl's ovaries to produce more estrogen and a boy's testes to produce more testosterone. The female hormone estrogen triggers the growth of a girl's breasts, uterus, vagina, and pubic and underarm hair and the widening of her hips. In boys, testosterone is responsible for growth of the penis and prostate, voice changes, and the development of facial and body hair.

long-term consequences of low birth weight

-more learning difficulties later in childhood, score lower on IQ tests, and suffer more emotional problems than normal-birth-weight infants -low-birth-weight girls may progress through puberty more quickly and attain a final height that is smaller than normal-weight girls -type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease in adults ->>> long-term prognosis depends largely on environment: postnatal environment: - especially good outcomes when parents know what promotes healthy development, stimulation, involvement -when in less economically advantaged home, may remain smaller in stature, more emotional problems, some deficits in intellectual performance academics

research methods used to study infant's sensory and perceptual experiences: the high-amplitude sucking method

-most infants can exert enough control over sucking to use it to show what can sense and give idea of likes and dislikes -high-amplitude sucking method: a method of assessing infants' perceptual capabilities that capitalizes on the ability of infants to make interesting events last by varying the rate at which they suck on a special pacifier. -appropriate between birth and 4 months -special pacifier with electrical circuitry, can exert control over sensory environment steps: 1) establish baseline sucking rate 2) when sucks faster or harder than baseline (high amplitude sucking), activates slide projector or tape recorder that introduces sensory stimuli 3) if detect stimulation, and find it interesting, can make it last by displaying bursts of high-amplitude sucking 4) once the infant's interest wanes and sucking returns to the baseline level, the stimulation stops. 5) If the investigator then introduces a second stimulus that elicits a dramatic increase in high-amplitude sucking, could conclude that the infant has discriminated the second stimulus from the first -> can be modified to let infant tell us which of two stimuli is preferred -if wanted to determine if prefer mother's voice or female stranger's - adjust circuitry so high-amplitude sucking activates the mother's voice and low-amplitude (or no) sucking activates the other -> By then noting what the baby does, we could draw some inferences about which of these voices is preferred.

research methods used to study infant's sensory and perceptual experiences: the habituation method

-most popular method aka familiarization-novelty procedure -Habituation: decrease in response to a stimulus that has become familiar through repetition, simple form of learning -infant's ability to discriminate two stimuli that differ in some way -as infants stop responding to familiar stimuli, telling us they recognize stimuli steps: 1) present one of the stimuli until the infant stops attending or otherwise responding to it (habituates) 2) second stimulus is presented 3) If the infant discriminates this second stimulus from the first, will dishabituate—that is, attend closely to it while showing a change in respiration or heart rate (change in responsiveness). -If the infant fails to react, it is assumed that the differences between the two stimuli were too subtle to detect -Shortcomings: -distinguishing between habituation and preference effects can be tricky, display preference when they are familiar with—but not too familiar with—a stimulus: -> When one stimulus captures attention, they begin to look at it more often and, for a short time, when presented with this partially familiar stimulus and an unfamiliar stimulus, they spend more time looking at the partially familiar stimulus. When they become familiar with the original stimulus, ready to move on and will spend less time looking at the familiar stimulus than its unfamiliar partner -> to deal with this, pay attention to familiarization time line of infants being tested

trends in locomotor development: the maturational viewpoint

-motor development = genetically programmed sequence where nerves and muscles mature in downward and outward manner -infants worldwide progress through roughly same sequence of motor milestones -early studies with identical twins saw that practice didnt impact motor development too much

neural development and plasticity: cell differentiation and synaptogenesis

-neurons assume specialized functions depending on where they migrate - have potential to serve any function -synaptogenesis: formation of connections (synapses) among neurons, proceeds rapidly during brain growth spurt -average infant has far more neurons and neural connections than do adults, bc successful ones crowd out unsuccessful, so half die early in life -synapses produced also disappear if neuron not properly stimulated -> synaptic pruning - starts near birth and completed near end of sexual maturation -plasticity of brain - cells responsive to effects of experience -> most stimulated neurons and synapses continue to function - development of brain early in life due to biology and experience

changes in body proportions

-newborns all head - head 70% of adult size, 1/4 of body length, same as legs -development is cephalocaudal: a sequence of physical maturation and growth that proceeds from the head (cephalic region) to the tail (or caudal region). -> trunk grows fastest in first year, and from 1st-puberty, legs grow fast -in adolescence, trunk fastest again, but legs too -by adulthood, heads 12% of total height -children grow upward as they grow outward: proximodistal: a sequence of physical maturation and growth that proceeds from the centre of the body (the proximal region) to the extremities (distal regions) -> prenatal development: chest and internal organs first, then arms and legs, then hands and feet -infancy and childhood, arms and legs faster than hands and feet -> switches in adolescence when hands an feet reach adult proportions first, then arms and legs, then trunk

fine motor development: development of voluntary reaching

-newborns have grasping reflex, can reach for things (prereaches), as swipes at objects in visual field - not accurate -2 months: regressions in reaching - palmar disapears and fewer prereaches -> bc set stage for voluntary reaching -3 months: voluntary reaching, make in-flight corrections, improve accuracy until can grasp objects -babies reach in different ways, take own pathways to refine this skill -may not need visual guidance - 3 month infants can grasp objects can only hear in the dark -5 months can reach and touch: stationary illuminated objects that darken as reach begins & glowing objects that move in the dark -> early reaches also dependent on proprioceptive information: sensory information from the muscles, tendons, and joints that help one to locate the position of one's body (or body parts) in space, not just visual -proprioceptive info esp important for younger infants, facilitated by vision, which becomes increasingly important

perceptions of patterns and forms: later form perception (2 months to 2 year)

-now sees better and is capable of making increasingly complex visual discriminations, eventually being able to discriminate temporal movement sequencing -also organizing what she or he sees to perceive visual forms and sets of separate forms -By 5 months old, the infant is able to form an accurate image of an object in three-dimensional form after seeing a series of two-dimensional images of the object from multiple perspectives -ability to use object movement to perceive form is apparently not present at birth, but has developed by 2 months -3-4 months can even perceive form in some stationary scenes that capture their attention -later in the first year infants come to detect more and more about structural configurations from the barest of cues -Twelve-month-old infants are even better at constructing form from limited information. After seeing a single point of light move so as to trace a complex shape such as an exclamation mark (!), 12-month-olds (but not 8- or 10-month-olds) prefer to look at actual objects with different shapes. This preference for novelty on the part of the 12-month-olds indicates that they have perceived the form traced earlier by the light and now find it less interesting than other novel forms -some aspects of face recognition not developed until mid teens or later: spacing set of eyes and mouth takes a while to develop, discriminating faces complex, develops over time -adults with ASD eventually able to learn, discriminate, and recognize faces as their typically developing peers using the same perceptual face coding processes

environmental influences on growth: "overnutrition"

-obesity impacts ability to make friends (bc culture sucks!!!) -only slight correlation bc chubbiness in infancy and being fat -identical twins even raised apart have similar body weights -dietary intake, physical activity, and sedentary behaviours -food as a reward can create weird relationship -harder to burn calories when fat -television impacts -"intensive family therapy interventions, requires systematic contributions" - frick

individual and typical variations in physical development

-organs grow at different rates, lymph tissues overshoots adult levels late in childhood, declines in adolescence -brain and head grower faster, reach adult proportions first -reproductive organs slow in childhood rapid in adolescence -individual differences present in physical features (e.g. height), as well as other areas like cognition

environmental influences on growth and development: quality of care

-otherwise healthy children who experience too much stress and too little affection are likely to lag far behind their age-mates in physical growth and motor development -Nonorganic failure to thrive: an infant growth disorder, caused by lack of attention and affection, that causes growth to slow dramatically or stop. -stop growing and appear to be wasting away, in much the same way that malnourished infants with marasmus do -apathetic and withdrawn, and will often watch their caregivers closely, but are unlikely to smile or cuddle when they are picked up. Why? Because their caregivers are typically cool and aloof, impatient with them, and sometimes even physically abusive -nsufficient availability of food due to poverty can contribute to the infant and child's feeding poorly and displaying few if any positive social responses -Deprivation dwarfism: a childhood growth disorder that is triggered by emotional deprivation and characterized by decreased production of GH, slow growth, and small stature. -> appears later, usually between 2 and 15 years of age, and is characterized by small stature and dramatically reduced rates of growth, even though children who display this disorder do not look especially malnourished and usually receive adequate nutrition and physical care -> lack of positive involvement with caregivers, who may be depressed -> emotional deprivation depresses the endocrine system and inhibits the production of growth hormone -> when receive attention and affection, secretion of GH quickly resumes and they display catch-up growth -early interventions can help long term impacts

low birth weight babies: interventions for preterm infants

-parents now encouraged to visit often in hospital, touch, caress, talk to baby -> positive outcomes -programs teaching parents how to provide with sensitive care: -e.g. kangaroo-ing, carried on mother's chest 24 hrs a day, encouragement to breast feed -with daycare interventions, can improve cogntive growth and decrease behavioural disturbances

the baby's experience: assessing baby's condition

-physician check's the infant's physical condition by looking at five standard characteristics (heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, colour, and reflex irritability) each of which is rated from 0 to 2, recorded on a chart, and totalled -A baby's score on this Apgar test (named for its developer, Dr. Virginia Apgar) can range from 0 to 10, with higher scores indicating a better condition. The test is usually repeated five minutes later to measure improvements in the baby's condition. Infants who score 7 or higher on this second assessment are in good physical condition, whereas those who score 4 or lower are in distress and often require immediate medical attention to survive. -A second test, T. Berry Brazelton's Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), is a more subtle measure of a baby's behavioural repertoire and neurological well-being -given a few days after birth -strength of 20 inborn reflexes, and changes in infant's state and rxns to comforting and other social stimuli -> identifies early babies who are slow to react -if really unresponsive, low NBAS score may indicate brain damage or other neurological problems -low NVAS score warning that problems could arise, can also learn about baby's behavioural capacities and how might quiet fussy infant or elicit pleasing responses as smiles and gazes

research methods used to study infant's sensory and perceptual experiences : the preference method

-preference method: method used to gain information about infants' perceptual abilities by presenting two (or more) stimuli and observing which stimulus the infant prefers. -popularized in 1960s when Fantz used to tell if infants could discriminate visual patterns: 1) placed on backs in looking chamber, shown 2+ stimuli 2) observer above recorded amount of time gazed at each visual pattern 3) if looked at one target longer than other, assumed they preferred that pattern -> Newborns could easily discriminate (or tell the difference between) visual forms, and they preferred to look at patterned stimuli such as faces or concentric circles rather than at unpatterned disks. Apparently, the ability to detect and discriminate patterns is innate -still use today to study abilities like numeracy main shortcoming: if infant shows no preferences among the target stimuli, it is not clear whether they failed to discriminate them or simply found them equally interesting

newborn reflexes: "primitive" reflexes

-primitive reflexes: reflexes controlled by subcortical areas of the brain that gradually disappear over the first year of life. -why? for some dont know: Babinski: fan toes out when bottoms of feet stroked -for some do: -swimming reflex - can help save infant -grasping: can hold on when carried by mom -these reflexes dissapear bc controlled by subcortical areas and lost when higher centres of cerebral cortex mature and guide voluntary behaviours -but regardless of what they do, can help diagnose if there's a problem with nervous system if not presen

sensation

-process by which sensory receptor neurons detect information and transmit it to the brain

possible impacts of timing and tempo of puberty for boys

-reduction in depression across puberty, except not for early maturing boys and those who go through quickly- more depressed -> may be bc of changes in quality of peer relationships -s some early-maturing boys to be poised and confident in social settings and more likely to win athletic honours and election to student offices -> more ca[able athletes, which means more social recognition, may also have competencies overestimated bc of size -parents hold higher educational and achievement aspirations for early-maturing than for late-maturing sons, fewer conflicts with early maturers about issues such as acceptable curfews and choice of friends

newborn reflexes: general

-reflex: unlearned and automatic response to a stimulus or class of stimuli. Survival reflexes: breathing, eye-blink, pupillary (constriction with bright light, dilation in dark), rooting (disappears over first weeks then voluntary head turning) Primitive: -babinski, palmar (curling fingers around what touches palm), moro (loud noise/change, throw arms up and brings arms together), swimming (can stay afloat for some time bc of movements and holding breath), stepping (will step as if to walk if held up)

sexual maturation in boys

-sexual maturation begins at about age 11 to 12 (but may range between and ) with an enlargement of the testes -growth of testes accompanied or followed by unpigmented pubic hair -As the testes grow, the scrotum also grows; it thins and darkens, and descends to its pendulous adult position -13 to 14.5, sperm production begins -spermarche: onset of production of permatozoa, evident by first ejaculation -by time fully developed at 14.5-15, now capable of fathering child -later sprout facial and body hair -lowering of voice as larynx grows, vocal cords lengthen

skeletal development

-skeletal structures first soft cartilage that ossifies (hardens) into bony material -at birth most bones source of blood cells, later production of blood cells a few specific bones -> one reason that neonates cant sit up or balance is that bones too small and flexible -skull: soft bones compressed to allow child to pass through cervix and birth canal, skull bones separated by 6 fontanelles (soft spots), gradually filled in to form single skull by 2, with seams where bones join -> seams = sutures -> allow skull to expand as age -ankles, feet, wrists, hands develop more bones as child matures -> can estimate physical maturation by x-raying wrist and hand -> skeletal age: a measure of physical maturation based on the child's level of skeletal development. - determined by number of bones and ossification-> found that girls mature faster than boys -rates: kull and hands mature first, whereas the leg bones continue to develop until the mid- to late teens. For all practical purposes, skeletal development is complete by age 18, although the widths (or thicknesses) of the skull, leg bones, and hands increase slightly throughout life.

cultural variations in physical development

-some areas of the world people are shorter than others -differences in rate of physical growth: asian and african american children mature faster than european -> heredity + environmental factors (e.g. nutrition, diseases, emotional climate) -> rates of growth and adult heights

reproductive risk and capacity for recovery

-some damaging risks irreversible (e.g. blindness from rubella) -but not all embryos, fetuses, newborns exposed to teratogens/hazards affected by them -but: severity impacts likelihood of recovery, as does postnatal environment -> severe birth complications in highly supportive homes led to slightly below average outcomes -> but in low supportive homes, became far below average -> in adolescence and adulthood, only home environments impact intellectual performance, not early complications -> Werner and Smith noted that long-term problems related to the effects of poor environments outnumbered those attributable to birth complications by a ratio of 10 to 1. -in supportive environment, most children will display "self-righting" tendency and overcome handicaps

low birth weight: short-term consequences

-surviving: 40-50% under 100 grams die -preterms may experience additional problems bc not fully developed, e.g. discriminating b/n sounds and maternal voice recognition, slower processing speeds -brain development and neural pattern formation in preterm infants differs from that of full-term infants: grey and white matter distribution in the brain differs for very-low-birth-weight individuals when compared to their normal-birth-weight age-mates -most serious difficulty: breathing: -little surfactin: substance coating lungs during last weeks of pregnancy to prevent from collapsing -respiratory distress syndrome (RDS): a serious condition (also called hyaline membrane disease) in which a preterm infant breathes very irregularly and is at risk of dying, may be caused by surfactin deficiency -but also, maturation of the brain, lungs, heart, and other organs is accelerated in fetuses that are at high risk for preterm delivery -Preterm infants often spend their first few weeks of life in heated isolettes/incubators that maintain their body temperature and protect them from infection, dont allow for parental cuddling, slow to initiate social interactions, "hard to read", at risk of securing emotional ties in same ways -severity of abnormality: may determine long-term effects -less severe growth restriction -> may catch up quickly

low birth weight general

-two kinds of low-weight: preterm infants: infants born more than three weeks before their normal due date. -body weights appropriate for time spent in womb, but small & small-for-date or small-for-gestational-age babies: infants whose birth weight is far below normal, even when born close to their normal due date. -> at greater risk of serious complication, e.g. more likely to die in first year or show signs or brain damage, remain small in stature, experience learning or behavioural problems, perform poorly on IQ tests -low birth weight caused by: -smoking, drinking, drugs in pregnancy, low income women at risk (stress and inadequate nutrition) -may not have access to medical care and good nutrition -illnesses or accidents impairing functioning of placenta -multiple fetuses gain less weight, triplets and quadruplets rarely develop to term

research methods used to study infant's sensory and perceptual experiences: the evoked potentials method

evoked potentials: a change in patterning of the brain waves that indicates that an individual detects (senses) a stimulus. - tells us when brain activity occurring after stimulus detected, can tell if infants discriminate sights or sounds bc two stimuli that are sensed as "different" produce different temporal patterns of electrical activity -present them with a stimulus and record their brain waves. -Electrodes are placed on the infant's scalp above those brain centres that process the kind of sensory information that the investigator is presenting -responses to visual stimuli are recorded from the back of the head, at a site above the occipital lobe, whereas responses to sounds are recorded from the side of the head, above the temporal lobe -If the infant senses the particular stimulus present, will show a change in the patterning of her brain waves, or evoked potential triggered by the neural firing of cells. Stimuli that are not detected will produce no changes in the brain's electrical activity

onset of puberty

puberty: the point at which a person reaches sexual maturity and is physically capable of fathering or conceiving a child. -onset marks beginning of transition to sexual maturity -beginning of puberty typically occurs in the later years of childhood and maturation of the reproductive system follows a predictable sequence for girls and boys.

the newborn's sensory capabilities - summary table

see table

milestones in infant visual perception

see table 7.2 in text and study