Chapter 5: Study Questions

16 to 18 hours

In general, newborn babies sleep a total of_________per day.

Ulnar grasp

A clumsy motion in which the fingers close against the palm

Conditioned response (CR)

A learned response exhibited toward a previously neutral stimulus

Punishment

Removing a desirable stimulus or presenting an unpleasant one to decrease the occurrence of a response. A sour-tasting fluid punishes newborn babies' sucking response. It causes them to purse their lips and stop sucking entirely.

marasmus

Usually appears in the first year of life Caused by a diet low in all essential Causes the body to become painfully thin

cephalocaudal

growth from head to tail.

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

A stimulus that automatically leads to a reflexive response

Baby fat

Helps the infant maintain a constant body temperature.

Imitation

Primitive ability to learn through__________ By copying the behavior of another person.

Nutritional and health benefit of breast milk: Ensures nutritional completeness

A mother who breastfeeds need not add other foods to her infant's diet until the baby is 6 months old. The milks of all mammals are low in iron, but the iron contained in breast milk is much more easily absorbed by the baby's system. Consequently, bottle-fed infants need iron-fortified formula.

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

A neutral stimulus that leads to a new response once learning has occurred (UCR)

Unconditioned response

A reflexive response Before learning takes place, an __________ must consistently produce a reflexive, or unconditioned, response (UCR). In Caitlin's case, sweet breast milk (UCS) resulted in sucking (UCR).

Method of measuring brain functioning: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

A scanner magnetically detects increased blood flow and oxygen metabolism in areas of the brain as the individual processes particular stimuli. The result is a computerized moving picture of activity anywhere in the brain.

Reinforcer

A stimulus that increases the occurrence of a response. For example, sweet liquid reinforces the sucking response in newborns

Pincer grasp

A well-coordinated movement in which infants use the thumb and index finger opposably

glial cells

About half the brain's volume is made up of _________, which are responsible for myelination.

The principle of contrast sensitivity

Accounts for early pattern preferences, states that if infants can detect a difference in contrast between two or more patterns, they will prefer the one with more contrast.

Method of measuring brain functioning: Positron emission tomography (PET)

After injection or inhalation of a radioactive substance, the individual lies inside a tunnel-shaped apparatus with a scanner that emits fine streams of X-rays, which detect increased blood flow and oxygen metabolism in the brain as the person processes particular stimuli.

development of face perception - birth-1 month

Although newborns respond to facelike structures, they cannot discriminate a complex facial pattern from other, equally complex patterns. But from repeated exposures to their mother's face, they quickly learn to prefer her face to that of an unfamiliar woman, although they mostly attend to its broad outlines.

Functions are usually controlled by right hemisphere.

Anger Reading maps Recognizing geometric shapes Specialized for processing information in a holistic, integrative manner, ideal for making sense of spatial information and regulating negative emotion.

Binocular depth cues

Arise because our two eyes have slightly different views of the visual field. The brain blends these two images, resulting in perception of depth.

Under what circumstances are children and adolescents who suffer from illness or poor nutrition likely to show catch-up growth?

As long as negative environmental influences such as poor nutrition or illness are not severe, children and adolescents typically show this —a return to a genetically determined growth path—once conditions improve. . Twin studies reveal that genetic makeup also contributes considerably to body weight. Environment—in particular, nutrition and eating habits—plays a powerful role.

Describe how operant conditioning contributes to the development of social relationships.

As the baby gazes into the adult's eyes, the adult looks and smiles back, and then the infant looks and smiles again. As the behavior of each partner reinforces the other, both continue their pleasurable interaction. Contingent responsiveness contributes to the development of infant-caregiver attachment.

Changes in the ability to perceive familiar speech over the first year of life.

At first babies are sensitive to virtually all speech sounds but, around six months, they narrow their focus, limiting the distinctions they make to the language they hear and will soon learn.

Two reasons why children with visual impairments reach motor milestones later than their sighted counterparts

Attain gross- and fine-motor milestones many months later than their sighted counterparts. Must rely on sound to identify the whereabouts of objects. But sound does not function as a precise clue to object location until much later than vision—around the middle of the first year. Difficulty engaging their caregivers, adults may not provide them with rich, early exposure to sounding objects. As a result, the baby comes to understand relatively late that there is a world of interesting objects to explore. Until "reaching on sound" is achieved, they are not motivated to move independently. Because of their own uncertainty and their parents' protection and restraint to prevent injury, blind infants are typically tentative in their movements. Inability to imitate the motor actions of others presents additional challenges as these children get older, contributing to declines in motor and cognitive progress relative to peers with better vision

Explain what infants learn from crawling that promotes sensitivity to depth information.

Babies gradually figure out how to use depth cues to detect the danger of falling. Promotes other aspects of three-dimensional understanding. For example, seasoned crawlers are better than their inexperienced agemates at remembering object locations and finding hidden objects.

amodal sensory properties

Babies perceive input from different sensory systems in a unified way. That is information that is not specific to a single modality but that overlaps two or more sensory systems, such as rate, rhythm, duration, intensity, temporal synchrony (for vision and hearing), and texture and shape (for vision and touch). Consider the sight and sound of a bouncing ball or the face and voice of a speaking person. In each event, visual and auditory information are conveyed simultaneously and with the same rate, rhythm, duration, and intensity.

What is the greatest change in hearing that takes place over the first year of life?

Babies start to organize sounds into complex patterns.

Explain why heavy enrichment lead to advanced motor development in infancy.

Babies' visual surroundings are influential. In a well-known study, institutionalized infants given a moderate amount of visual stimulation—at first, simple designs and, later, a mobile hung over their crib—reached for objects six weeks earlier than infants given nothing to look at. A third group given massive stimulation—patterned crib bumpers and mobiles at an early age—also reached sooner than unstimulated babies. This took it's toll. These infants looked away and cried a great deal, and they were less advanced in reaching than the moderately stimulated group.

Nutritional and health benefit of breast milk: Ensures digestibility

Because breastfed babies have a different kind of bacteria growing in their intestines than do bottle-fed infants, they rarely suffer from constipation or other gastrointestinal problems.

Pictorial depth cues

Between 5 and 7 months, infants display sensitivity to_______. The ones artists often use to make a painting look three-dimensional. Examples include receding lines that create the illusion of perspective, changes in texture (nearby textures are more detailed than faraway ones), overlapping objects (an object partially hidden by another object is perceived to be more distant), height-in-the-picture-plane (objects closer to the horizon appear further away), and shadows cast on surfaces (indicating a separation in space between the object and the surface)

Nutritional and health benefit of breast milk: Smooths the transition to solid foods

Breastfed infants accept new solid foods more easily than do bottle-fed infants, perhaps because of their greater experience with a variety of flavors, which pass from the maternal diet into the mother's milk.

Three ways in which parents can prevent infants and toddlers from becoming overweight at later ages.

Breastfeed for the first six months - associated with slower weight gain. Avoid giving them foods loaded with sugar, salt, and saturated fats. Once toddlers learn to walk, climb, and run, parents can also provide plenty of opportunities for energetic play. Limit the time very young children spend in front of the TV.

Nutritional and health benefit of breast milk: Protects against many diseases

Breastfeeding transfers antibodies and other infection-fighting agents from mother to baby and enhances functioning of the immune system. Compared with bottle-fed infants, breastfed babies have far fewer allergic reactions and respiratory and intestinal illnesses. Breast milk also has anti-inflammatory effects, which reduce the severity of illness symptoms. Breastfeeding in the first four months (especially when exclusive) is linked to lower blood cholesterol levels in adulthood and, thereby, may help prevent cardiovascular disease.

Skeletal age - Explain how this estimate is obtained.

By X-raying the bones and seeing the number of epiphyses and the extent to which they are fused. Just before birth, special growth centers, called epiphyses appear at the two extreme ends of each of the long bones of the body.

Research shows that infants are impressive statistical analyzers of sound patterns. Explain what this means.

By analyzing the speech stream for patterns—repeatedly occurring sequences of sounds—they acquire a stock of speech structures for which they will later learn meanings, long before they start to talk around age 12 months. For example, when presented with controlled sequences of nonsense syllables, babies listened for statistical regularities: They locate words by discriminating syllables that often occur together (indicating that they belong to the same word) from syllables that seldom occur together (indicating a word boundary). Consider the English word sequence pretty#baby. After listening to the speech stream for just one minute (about 60 words), babies can distinguish a word-internal syllable pair(pretty) from a word-external syllable pair (ty#ba). They prefer to listen to new speech that preserves the word-internal pattern.

kwashiorkor

Caused by an unbalanced diet very low in protein Causes a swollen abdomen nutrients Usually strikes after weaning

List four factors that contribute to the development of each new motor skill.

Central nervous system development Body's movement capacities Goals the child has in mind Environmental supports for the skill.

Learning

Changes in behavior as the result of experience. Babies come into the world with built-in learning capacities that permit them to profit from experience immediately.

Describe the impact of brain injury on childhood language development.

Children showed delays in _________ that persisted until about 3½ years of age. That damage to either hemisphere affected early language competence indicates that at first, language functioning is broadly distributed in the brain. But by age 5, the children caught up in vocabulary and grammatical skills. Undamaged areas—in either the left or the right hemisphere—had taken over these language functions

At what age should parents begin toilet training their children?

Children whose parents postpone intensive training until the beginning or middle of the third year are generally fully trained within four months. Starting before 27 months simply prolongs the process.

Describe the impact of brain injury on spatial skills.

Compared with language, _______ were more impaired after early brain injury. When preschool through adolescent-age youngsters were asked to copy designs, those with early right-hemispheric damage had trouble with holistic processing—accurately representing the overall shape. Children with left-hemispheric damage captured the basic shape but omitted fine-grained details. Children showed improvements in their drawings with age—gains that did not occur in brain-injured adults.

Nutritional and health benefit of breast milk: Provides the correct balance of fat and protein

Compared with the milk of other mammals, human milk is higher in fat and lower in protein. This balance, as well as the unique proteins and fats contained in human milk, is ideal for a rapidly myelinating nervous system.

Cite three possible consequences of girls' greater physical maturity during infancy and childhood.

Contribute to girls' greater resistance to harmful environmental influences. Girls experience fewer developmental problems than boys. Girls have lower infant and childhood mortality rates.

Gross-motor development

Control over actions that help infants get around in the environment: Sitting upright Walking Crawling Standing.

Explain how intermodal perception helps broaden the infant's social world.

Crucial for perceptual development. In the first few months, when much stimulation is unfamiliar and confusing, it enables babies to notice meaningful correlations between sensory inputs and rapidly make sense of their surroundings. As a result, inexperienced perceivers notice a unitary event, such as a hammer's tapping, without being distracted by momentarily irrelevant aspects of the situation, such as the hammer's color or orientation.

idence (does / does not) exist for a sensitive period in the first few years of life for mastering skills that depend on extensive training, such as musical performance or gymnastics.

Does Not

Method of measuring brain functioning: Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Electrodes are taped to the scalp to record the stability and organization of electrical brain-wave activity in the brain's outer layers—the cerebral cortex.

Name three effective toilet training techniques.

Establishing regular toileting routines (for example, after getting up, after eating, before going to bed) Using gentle encouragement Praising children for their efforts

Two ways that breastfeeding can benefit mothers and infants in poverty-stricken regions of the world.

Even doing this for just a few weeks offers some protection against respiratory and intestinal infections, which are devastating to young children in developing countries. Less likely to get pregnant, ________ helps increase spacing among siblings, a major factor in reducing infant and childhood deaths in nations with widespread poverty.

development of face perception - 3- to 6-month-olds

Exposed mostly to members of their own race prefer to look at the faces of members of that race and more easily detect differences among those faces—perceptual narrowing that increases in the next few months This own-race preference is absent in babies who have frequent contact with members of other races, and it can be reversed through exposure to racial diversity/

sensory deprivation

Extreme ________ results in permanent brain damage, confirming the existence of sensitive periods in brain development.

True or False: African-American children tend to be slightly behind Caucasian-American children in skeletal age. (p. 164) *Tend to be slightly ahead:).

False African-American children tend to be slightly behind Caucasian-American children in skeletal age. (p. 164) *Tend to be slightly ahead:).

True or False: Dynamic systems theory regards motor development as a genetically determined process.

False Because it is motivated by exploration and the desire to master new tasks, heredity can map it out only at a general level. Rather than being hardwired into the nervous system, behaviors are softly assembled, allowing for different paths to the same motor skill.

True or False: Cosleeping reduces mothers' total sleep time.

False Cosleeping reduces mothers' total sleep time.

True or False: Exposure to concurrent sights, sounds, and touches is often too overwhelming for infants, hindering cognitive development. Explain your answer.

False In addition to easing perception of the physical world, intermodal perception facilitates processing of the social world. Only later do infants discriminate positive from negative emotion in each sensory modality—first in voices (around 4 to 5 months), later (from 5 months on) in faces . Communication is often intermodal (simultaneously verbal, visual, and tactile), infants receive much support from other senses in detecting units of speech. When parents speak to infants, they often provide temporal synchrony between words, object motions, and touch—for example, saying "doll" while moving a doll and occasionally having the doll touch the infant. In doing so, caregivers greatly increase the chances that babies will remember the association between the word and the object. Intermodal stimulation fosters all aspects of psychological development. When caregivers provide many concurrent sights, sounds, and touches, babies process more information and learn faster. IIntermodal perception is yet another fundamental capacity that assists infants in their active efforts to build an orderly, predictable world.

True or False: Inadequate nutrition is largely confined to developing countries, and recent surveys indicate that it is almost nonexistent in the United States and Canada.

False Inadequate nutrition is largely confined to developing countries, and recent surveys indicate that it is almost nonexistent in the United States and Canada

True or False: Size and shape constancy emerge gradually over time as infants acquire more advanced knowledge of objects in the environment.

False It is evident in the first week of life.

True or False: Ninety percent of North American parents cosleep with their babies.

False Ninety percent of North American parents cosleep with their babies.

parent-infant cosleeping, indicate if it is true (T) or false (F). (p. 173)

False Parent-child cosleeping is a significant risk factor for SIDS. (actually a safe gaurd).

True or False: Parent-child cosleeping is more common in collectivist than individualistic societies.

False Parent-child cosleeping is more common in collectivist than individualistic societies.

True or False: Brain plasticity is restricted to early childhood and is no longer evident by the time individuals reach adulthood.

False Although far more limited, reorganization in the brain can occur later, even in adulthood. For example, adult stroke victims often display considerable recovery, especially in response to stimulation of language and motor skills. Brain-imaging techniques reveal that structures adjacent to the permanently damaged area or in the opposite cerebral hemisphere reorganize to support the impaired ability .

True or False: Over the past two decades, cosleeping has decreased in Western nations.

False Over the past two decades, cosleeping has decreased in Western nations.

True or False: Research consistently shows that cosleeping children are significantly more likely than their peers to have emotional problems

False Research consistently shows that cosleeping children are significantly more likely than their peers to have emotional problems

Adults who suffered brain injuries in infancy and early childhood show (fewer / more) cognitive impairments than adults with later-occurring injuries.

Fewer

Why is depth perception important in infant development?

For understanding the layout of the environment and for guiding motor activity.

Method of measuring brain functioning: Event-related potentials (ERPs)

Frequency and amplitude of brain waves in response to particular stimuli are recorded in specific areas of the cerebral cortex.

Describe sex differences in body size and muscle-fat makeup during infancy.

Girls are slightly shorter and lighter than boys, with a higher ratio of fat to muscle. These small sex differences persist throughout early and middle childhood and are greatly magnified at adolescence. Ethnic differences in body size are apparent as well.

Describe ethnic differences in body size and muscle-fat makeup during infancy.

Grace was below the growth norms (height and weight averages for children her age). Early malnutrition played a part, but even after substantial catch-up, Grace—as is typical for Asian children—remained below North American norms. In contrast, Timmy is slightly above average in size, as African-American children tend to be.

Habituation

Gradual reduction in the strength of a response due to repetitive stimulation. Looking, heart rate, and respiration rate may all decline, indicating a loss of interest.

Intervention techniques that can help infants with severe visual impairments become aware of their physical and social surroundings.

Heightened sensory input through combining sound and touch (holding, touching, or bringing the baby's hands to the adult's face while talking or singing) Engaging in many repetitions Consistently reinforcing the infant's efforts to make contact. Manipulative play with objects that make sounds is also vital. Rich language stimulation

Why is classical conditioning of great value to infants?

Helps infants recognize which events usually occur together in the everyday world, so they can anticipate what is about to happen next. Environment becomes more orderly and predictable.

Extinction.

If the Conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented alone enough times, without being paired with the Unconditioned stimulus (UCS), the Conditioned Response (CR) will no longer occur. This is referred to as extinction.

operant conditioning. (p. 180)

Infants act, or operate, on the environment, and stimuli that follow their behavior change the probability that the behavior will occur again.

Changes in auditory perception - around 5 months

Infants display a sense of musical phrasing. They prefer Mozart minutes with pauses between phrases to those with awkward breaks.

development of face perception - 5-12 months

Infants perceive emotional expressions as meaningful wholes. hey treat positive faces (happy and surprised) as different from negative ones (sad and fearful) Clearly, extensive face-to-face interaction with caregivers contributes to infants' refinement of face perception. Recognize and respond to the expressive behavior of others, face perception supports their earliest social relationships.

development of face perception - 3 months

Infants readily make fine distinctions among the features of different face For example, between photographs of two strangers, even when the faces are moderately similar. Experience influences face processing, leading babies to form group biases at a tender age. As early as this age, infants prefer and more easily discriminate among female faces than among male faces, probably because they typically spend much more time with female adults.

Growth faltering

Infants whose weight, height and head circumference are substantially below age-related growth norms. who are withdrawn and apathetic. A disturbed parent-infant relationship contributes to this failure to grow normally.

Describe Gibson and Walk's visual cliff.

It consists of a Plexiglas-covered table with a platform at the center, a "shallow" side with a checkerboard pattern just under the glass, and a "deep" side with a checkerboard several feet below the glass. The researchers found that crawling babies readily crossed the shallow side, but most avoided the deep side. They concluded that around the time infants crawl, most distinguish deep from shallow surfaces and avoid drop-offs.

Food insecurity

It is uncertain access to enough food for a healthy, active life.

Cerebral Cortex

Largest, most complex brain structure, accounting for 85 percent of the brain's weight and containing the greatest number of neurons and synapses.

Consequences of extreme malnutrition.

Low basal metabolism rate Permanent loss in brain weight Difficulty paying attention Withdrawal and listlessness Poor fine motor skills Increased stress response

Changes in auditory perception - 7-9 months

Make comparable discriminations in human speech: They readily detect sound regularities that will facilitate later language learning.

How do brain plasticity help the brain learn and adapt?

Many areas of the cerebral cortex are not yet committed to specific functions, has a high capacity for learning. And if a part of the cortex is damaged, other parts can take over the tasks it would have handled. But once the hemispheres lateralize, damage to a specific region means that the abilities it controls cannot be recovered to the same extent.

dynamic systems theory of motor development

Mastery of motor skills involves acquiring increasingly complex systems of action. When motor skills work as a system, separate abilities blend together, each cooperating with others to produce more effective ways of exploring and controlling the environment. For example, control of the head and upper chest combine into sitting with support. Kicking, rocking on all fours, and reaching combine to become crawling. Then crawling, standing, and stepping are united into walking .

The brain is (more / less) plastic during the first few years than at any later time in life.

More

synaptic pruning

Neurons that are seldom stimulated soon lose their synapses. This process returns neurons not needed at the moment to an uncommitted state so they can support future development. 40 percent of synapses are pruned during childhood and adolescence. For this process to go forward, appropriate stimulation of the child's brain is vital during periods in which the formation of synapses is at its peak.

Type of brain development - Experience-dependent

Occurs throughout our lives. It consists of additional growth and the refinement of established brain structures as a result of specific learning experiences that vary widely across individuals and cultures. Reading and writing, playing computer games, weaving an intricate rug, and practicing the violin are examples.

Recovery

Once habituation has occurred, a new stimulus—a change in the environment—causes responsiveness to return to a high level.

Nutritional and health benefit of breast milk: Helps ensure healthy physical growth

One-year-old breastfed babies are leaner (have a higher percentage of muscle to fat), a growth pattern that persists through the preschool years and that may help prevent later overweight and obesity.

Groups of parents who should probably not cosleep with their babies.

Parents who are obese Who use alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs do pose a serious risk to their sleeping babies,. Use of quilts and comforters or an overly soft mattress

Prereaching

Poorly coordinated swipes or swings toward an object

Explain how reaching and depth perception are related.

Reaching improves as depth perception advances and as infants gain greater control of body posture and arm and hand movements. Four-month-olds aim their reaches ahead of a moving object so they can catch it . Around 5 months, babies reduce their efforts when an object is moved beyond their reach By 7 months, the arms become more independent: Infants reach for an object by extending one arm rather than both During the next few months, infants become more efficient at reaching for moving objects—ones that spin, change direction, and move sideways, closer, or farther away/ Between 8 and 11 months, reaching and grasping are well-practiced. As a result, attention is released from the motor skill to events that occur before and after obtaining the object. Infants begin to solve simple problems that involve reaching, such as searching for and finding a hidden toy. Increases infants' attention to the way an adult reaches for and plays with that same object. As babies watch what others do, they broaden their understanding of others' behaviors and of the range of actions that can be performed on various objects. Gradually incorporating those possibilities into their own object-related behaviors.

Wayne Dennis's orphanage research, what effects did lying on their backs have on babies' motor development?

Researcher observed infants in Iranian orphanages who were deprived of the tantalizing surroundings that induce infants to acquire motor skills. These babies spent their days lying on their backs in cribs, without toys to play with. As a result, most did not move on their own until after 2 years of age. When they finally did move, the constant experience of lying on their backs led them to scoot in a sitting position rather than crawl on their hands and knees. Because babies who scoot come up against furniture with their feet, not their hands, they are far less likely to pull themselves to a standing position in preparation for walking. Indeed, by 3 to 4 years of age, only 15 percent of the Iranian orphans were walking alone.

prefrontal cortex

Responsible for thought, including consciousness, memory, reasoning, and problem solving.

Examples of how cultural variations in infant-rearing practices affect motor development.

Should sitting, crawling, and walking be deliberately encouraged? Japanese mothers, for example, believe such efforts are unnecessary (Seymour, 1999). Among the Zinacanteco Indians of southern Mexico and the Gusii of Kenya, rapid motor progress is actively discouraged. Babies who walk before they know enough to keep away from cooking fires and weaving looms are viewed as dangerous to themselves and disruptive to others. Kipsigis of Kenya and the West Indians of Jamaica, babies hold their heads up, sit alone, and walk considerably earlier than North American infants. Kipsigi parents deliberately teach these motor skills. In the first few months, babies are seated in holes dug in the ground, with rolled blankets to keep them upright. Walking is promoted by frequently standing babies in adults' laps and bouncing them on their feet. Infants respond with stepping movements, often "walking" up the adult's body. And as parents in these cultures support babies in upright postures and rarely put them down on the floor, their infants usually skip crawling—a motor skill regarded as crucial in Western nations! Finally, because it decreases exposure to "tummy time," the current Western practice of having babies sleep on their backs to protect them from SIDS delays gross-motor milestones of rolling, sitting, and crawling. To prevent these delays, caregivers can regularly expose babies to the tummy-lying position during waking hours.

Explain what Gibson and Walk's visual cliff studies reveal about infant depth perception.

Shows that crawling and avoidance of drop-offs are linked, but not how they are related or when depth perception first appears. Recent research has looked at babies' ability to detect specific depth cues, using methods that do not require that they crawl.

The total sleep time of an infant declines (quickly / slowly); the average 2-year-old sleeps 12 to 13 hours per day.

Slowly

Fine-motor development

Smaller movements: Reaching for objects Grasping Scribbling with crayons

mirror neurons

Specialized cells in many areas of the cerebral cortex of primates that underlie these capacities.

Functions are usually controlled by the left hemisphere.

Spoken language Written language Joy This side is better at processing information in a sequential, analytic (piece-by-piece) way, a good approach for dealing with communicative information—both verbal (language) and emotional (a joyful smile).

What does research on orphanage children reveal about cognitive catch-up?

Studies of infants placed in orphanages who were later exposed to ordinary family rearing confirm the importance of a generally stimulating environment for psychological development. In one investigation, researchers followed the progress of a large sample of children transferred between birth and 3½ years from extremely deprived Romanian orphanages to adoptive families in Great Britain (Beckett et al., 2006; O'Connor et al., 2000; Rutter et al., 1998, 2004, 2010). On arrival, most were impaired in all domains of development. Cognitive catch-up was impressive for children adopted before 6 months, who consistently attained average mental test scores in childhood and adolescence, performing as well as a comparison group of early-adopted British-born children. Romanian children who had been institutionalized for more than the first six months showed serious intellectual deficits. Although they improved in test scores during middle childhood and adolescence, they remained substantially below average. And most displayed at least three serious mental health problems, such as inattention, overactivity, unruly behavior, and autistic-like symptoms (social disinterest, stereotyped behavior). A major correlate of both time spent in the institution and poor cognitive and emotional functioning was below-average head size, suggesting that early lack of stimulation permanently damaged the brain. The longer the children spent in orphanage care, the higher their cortisol levels—even 6½ years after adoption. Orphanage children displayed abnormally low cortisol—a blunted physiological stress response that may be the central nervous system's adaptation to earlier, frequent cortisol elevations. Finally, early deprived rearing may also disrupt the brain's typical response to pleasurable social experiences Neurophysiological findings indicate that early, prolonged institutionalization leads to a generalized reduction in brainwave and metabolic activity in the cerebral cortex—especially the prefrontal cortex, which governs complex cognition and impulse control. Neural fibers connecting the prefrontal cortex with other brain structures involved in control of emotion are also reduced.

Nutritional and health benefit of breast milk: Protects against faulty jaw development and tooth decay

Sucking the mother's nipple instead of an artificial nipple helps avoid malocclusion, a condition in which the upper and lower jaws do not meet properly. It also protects against tooth decay due to sweet liquid remaining in the mouths of infants who fall asleep while sucking on a bottle.

depth perceptio

The ability to judge the distance of objects from one another and from ourselves.

Changes in the ability to perceive familiar faces over the first year of life.

The ability to perceive faces shows a similar path of development. After habituating to one member of each pair of faces in Figure 5.15, 6-month-olds were shown the familiar and novel faces side by side. For both pairs, they recovered to (looked longer at) the novel face, indicating that they could discriminate the individual faces of both humans and monkeys equally well. But at 9 months, infants no longer showed a novelty preference when viewing the monkey pair. Like adults, they could distinguish only the human faces.

Skeletal age

The best way of estimating a child's physical maturity is to use _________ a measure of development of the bones of the body.

melatonin

The brain hormone that promotes drowsiness

neurons

The human brain has 100 to 200 billion __________, or nerve cells.

how does imitation contribute to early learning?

The newborn's capacity to _______ extends to certain gestures, such as head and index-finger movements, and has been demonstrated in many ethnic groups and cultures . Even newborn chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary ancestors, ______ some behaviors

development of face perception - 2 months

They can combine pattern elements into an organized whole, babies prefer a complex drawing of the human face to other equally complex stimulus arrangements . And they clearly prefer their mother's detailed facial features to those of another woman.

Changes in auditory perception - 6-8 months

They can distinguish musical tunes on the basis of variations in rhythmic patterns, including beat structure (duple or triple) and accent structure (emphasis on the first note of every beat unit or at other positions). By the end of the first year, infants recognize the same melody when it is played in different keys

Role of mirror neurons in relation to imitation and learning.

They fire identically when a primate hears or sees an action and when it carries out that action on its own Enable humans to observe another person's behavior (such as smiling or throwing a ball) while simulating the behavior in our own brain. Biological basis of a variety of interrelated, complex social abilities, including imitation, empathic sharing of emotions, and understanding others' intentions. Possibly functional at birth, undergo an extended period of development.

How do severe visual impairments affect the caregiver-infant relationship?

They have great difficulty evoking stimulating caregiver interaction. They cannot make eye contact, imitate, or pick up nonverbal social cues. Their emotional expressions are muted; for example, their smile is fleeting and unpredictable. They cannot gaze in the same direction as a partner, they are greatly delayed in establishing a shared focus of attention on objects as the basis for play. May receive little adult attention and other stimulation vital for all aspects of development.

At birth, the bones of the skull are separated by six gaps, or soft spots, called fontanels. Explain their function.

They permit the bones to overlap as the large head of the baby passes through the mother's narrow birth canal.

As infants get older, they habituate to stimuli more quickly. What does this indicate about their cognitive development?

They process information more efficiently. _______ used to assess a wide range of infant perceptual and cognitive capacities—speech perception, musical and visual pattern perception, object perception, categorization, and knowledge of the social world.

Method of measuring brain functioning: Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS)

Thin, flexible optical fibers are attached to the scalp and infrared light is beamed at the brain. Absorption by areas of the cerebral cortex varies with changes in blood flow and oxygen metabolism.

How do lateralization help the brain learn and adapt?

This may have evolved because it enabled humans to cope more successfully with changing environmental demands. It permits a wider array of functions to be carried out effectively than if both sides processed information in exactly the same way. However, the popular notion of a "right-brained" or "left-brained" person is an oversimplification. The two hemispheres communicate and work together, doing so more rapidly and effectively with age.

What did Galloway and Thelen's microgenetic studies reveal about infant motor development?

To find out how infants acquire motor capacities, researchers conduct microgenetic studies. Following babies from their first attempts at a skill until it becomes smooth and effortless. Using this strategy, the researchers held sounding toys alternately in front of infants' hands and feet, from the time they first showed interest until they engaged in well-coordinated reaching and grasping. They first explored the toys with their feet—as early as 8 weeks of age, at least a month before reaching with their hands! Why did babies reach "feet first"? Because the hip joint constrains the legs to move less freely than the shoulder joint constrains the arms, infants could more easily control their leg movements. Consequently, foot reaching required far less practice than hand reaching. As these findings confirm, the order in which motor skills develop depends on the anatomy of the body part being used, the surrounding environment, and the baby's efforts.

True or False: From birth, infants are capable of combining information from multiple sensory systems. Cite research to support your answer.

True After touching an object (such as a cylinder) placed in their palms, they recognize it visually, distinguishing it from a different-shaped object. And they require just one exposure to learn the association between the sight and sound of a toy, such as a rhythmically jangling rattle. Their detection of amodal relations—for example, the common tempo and rhythm in sights and sounds—precedes and seems to provide the basis for detecting more specific intermodal matches, such as the relation between a particular person's face and the sound of her voice or between an object and its verbal label.

True or False: Children with severe visual impairments show delays in motor, cognitive, and social development.

True Children with severe visual impairments show delays in motor, cognitive, and social development.

True or False: Compared to Caucasian-American families, African-American families are more likely to cosleep with their children.

True Compared to Caucasian-American families, African-American families are more likely to cosleep with their children.

True or False: During the night, cosleeping babies breastfeed three times longer than infants who sleep alone.

True During the night, cosleeping babies breastfeed three times longer than infants who sleep alone.

True or False: Good parenting can protect the young brain from the potentially damaging effects of both excessive and inadequate stress-hormone exposure.

True Good parenting can protect the young brain from the potentially damaging effects of both excessive and inadequate stress-hormone exposure.

True or False: Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) works well in infancy and early childhood because the child can sit on the parent's lap and move during testing, unlike other methods of measuring brain functioning.

True Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) works well in infancy and early childhood because the child can sit on the parent's lap and move during testing, unlike other methods of measuring brain functioning.

True or False: Recovery after early brain injury is greater for language than for spatial skills.

True Researchers speculate that spatial processing is the older of the two capacities in our evolutionary history and, therefore, more lateralized at birth. But early brain injury has far less impact than later injury on both language and spatial skills. In sum, the young brain is remarkably plastic.

True or False: When diet and health are adequate, height and rate of physical growth are largely determined by heredity.

True When diet and health are adequate, height and rate of physical growth are largely determined by heredity.

True or False: Although the sequence of motor development is fairly uniform, large individual differences exist in the rate of development.

True Although the sequence of motor development is fairly uniform, large individual differences exist in the rate of development.

True or False: Among the Maya, mother-infant cosleeping is interrupted only by the birth of a new baby.

True Among the Maya, mother-infant cosleeping is interrupted only by the birth of a new baby.

True or False: By the end of the first year, a suggestive image of a pattern is all that babies need to recognize a familiar form.

True Engage in engage in boundary extension

True or False: When two objects are touching, whether moving in unison or standing still, infants younger than 4 months of age do not perceive the boundary between the two objects, and therefore, cannot distinguish them.

True When two objects are touching, whether moving in unison or standing still, infants younger than 4 months of age do not perceive the boundary between the two objects, and therefore, cannot distinguish them.

Two basic forms of learning in which infants are equipped.

Two basic forms of ______: classical and operant conditioning. Through their natural preference for novel stimulation. By observing others; they can imitate the facial expressions and gestures of adults.

Discuss the family circumstances that often surround growth faltering.

Unhappy marriage Parental psychological disturbance. The baby is irritable and displays abnormal feeding behaviors, such as poor sucking or vomiting, that both disrupt growth and lead parents to feel anxious and helpless, which stress the parent-infant relationship further

Explain why fear difficult to classically condition in young babies.

Until infants have the motor skills to escape unpleasant events, they have no biological need to form these associations. After age 6 months, however, it is easy to condition.

How do research findings on musical rhythm perception support the notion of a sensitive period for culture-specific learning?

Western adults are accustomed to the even-beat pattern of Western music—repetition of the same rhythmic structure in every measure of a tune—and easily notice rhythmic changes that disrupt this familiar beat. But present them with music that does not follow this typical Western rhythmic form—Baltic folk tunes, for example—and they fail to pick up on rhythmic-pattern deviations. Six-month-olds, however, can detect such disruptions in both Western and non-Western melodies. But by 12 months, after added exposure to Western music, babies are no longer aware of deviations in foreign musical rhythms, although their sensitivity to Western rhythmic structure remains unchanged. Several weeks of regular interaction with a foreign-language speaker and of daily opportunities to listen to non-Western music fully restore 12-month-olds' sensitivity to wide-ranging speech sounds and music rhythms. Adults given similar extensive experiences, by contrast, show little improvement in perceptual sensitivity. Fndings suggest a heightened capacity—or sensitive period—in the second half of the first year, when babies are biologically prepared to "zero in" on socially meaningful perceptual distinctions. Between 6 and 12 months, learning is especially rapid across several domains (speech, faces, and music) and is easily modified by experience. This suggests a broad neurological change—perhaps a special time of experience-expectant brain growth in which babies analyze everyday stimulation of all kinds similarly, in ways that prepare them to participate in their cultural community.

Describe the negative consequences of high brain plasticity.

When healthy brain regions take over the functions of damaged areas, a "crowding effect" occurs: Multiple tasks must be done by a smaller-than-usual volume of brain tissue. The brain processes information less quickly and accurately than it would if it were intact. Complex mental abilities of all kinds suffer into middle childhood, and often longer, because performing them well requires considerable space in the cerebral cortex

Type of brain development - Experience-expectant

Young brain's rapidly developing organization, which depends on ordinary experiences—opportunities to see and touch objects, to hear language and other sounds, and to move about and explore the environment. As a result of millions of years of evolution, the brains of all infants, toddlers, and young children expect to encounter these experiences and, if they do, grow normally.

proximodistal

growth from the center of the body outward.

Motion depth cues

is the first towhich infants are sensitive. Babies 3 to 4 weeks old blink their eyes defensively when an object moves toward their face as though it is going to hit. As they are carried about and people and things turn and move before their eyes, infants learn more about depth. By the time they are 3 months old, motion has helped them figure out that objects are not flat but three-dimensional.

Infant and toddler growth is marked by (steady gains / little spurts)

little spurts

Gibsons' differentiation theory.

means "analyze" or "break down". Because over time the baby detects finer and finer invariant features among stimuli. In addition to pattern perception and intermodal perception, __________ applies to depth and object perception. Think of it as a built-in tendency to seek order and consistency—a capacity that becomes increasingly fine-tuned with age. Acting on the environment is vital in perceptual differentiation. Perception is guided by the discovery of affordances—the action possibilities that a situation offers an organism with certain motor capabilities. By moving about and exploring the environment, babies figure out which objects can be grasped, squeezed, bounced, or stroked and whether a surface is safe to cross or presents the possibility of falling. Sensitivity to these affordances means that we spend far less time correcting ineffective actions than we would otherwise: It makes our actions future-oriented and largely successful rather than reactive and blundering.

synapses

neurons store and transmit information by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters across tiny gaps called ________.

classical conditioning

neutral stimuli is paired with a stimulus that leads to a reflexive response. Babies build expectations about stimulus events in the environment, but they do not influence the stimuli that occur.

intermodal perception

simultaneous input from more than one modality, or sensory system. In __________ we make sense of these running streams of light, sound, tactile, odor, and taste information, perceiving them as integrated wholes. We know, for example, that an object's shape is the same whether we see it or touch it, that lip movements are closely coordinated with the sound of a voice, and that dropping a rigid object on a hard surface will cause a sharp, banging sound

Two populations is food insecurity especially high

single-parent families (35 percent) low-income ethnic minority families for example, Hispanics and African Americans (26 and 27 percent, respectively) Few of these children have marasmus or kwashiorkor. Physical growth and ability to learn are still affected.

myelination

the coating of neural fibers with an insulating fatty sheath(called myelin) that improves the efficiency of message transfer.