Infancy and Toddlerhood

Physical Growth

  • Growth spurts
    • up to 1/2 inch in a day
  • Height doubles in 1 yr
  • "Baby fat" for temperature regulation
  • Cephalocaudal trend
    • head growth
  • Proximodistal trend
    • center-out growth

Neurons

  • 100-200 billion neurons in the brain, many with thousands of connections
  • Connections called a synapse
  • Communicate with neurotransmitters, e.g. dopamine.
  • Glial cells responsible for fatty sheath known as myelin

Synaptic pruning

  • Prenatal development creates more neurons than needed
  • Overabundance of synapses
  • Unused neurons dies to make space
  • Unused synapses are pruned to be used later
    • Improves connections --sensitive periods
  • ~86 billion neurons as an adult

Molding a living sculpture

"Mature" brains

To keep in mind all semester:

  • Debated, when is a brain "fully developed" (if ever?)
    • End of motor development? (~16 yrs old)
    • End of synaptic pruning? (mid-20s)
    • End of myelination (~ age 32)
    • End of plasticity?

Cerebral Cortex Regions

Text

Breast v. Bottle

Breastfeeding

  • Correct balance of macro/micro nutrients
  • protects against disease
  • short-term health benefits
  • Digestable
  • Easier transition to solid food
  • Less reliant on economic/political factors (e.g. more accessible, no contaminants)
  • Not everyone can do it

Bottle feeding

  • Can supplement breast milk with formula
  • Same attachment and emotional adjustment
  • little long-term impact (esp after 1st year)
  • More freedom for parents
  • More & less social stigma

Motor Development

Gross-motor Development

  • Using large muscles, allows movement
  • Crawling, standing, walking jumping, running
  • Assessed by Physical Therapists (PT)

 

Fine-motor Development

  • Small precise movements
  • Milestones
    • Ulnar Grasp (3-4mo)- whole hand
    • Hand-to-hand Transfer (4-5mo)
    • Pincer Grasp (8-11mo) - finger & thumb
  • Assess with Occupational Therapists (OT)

Culture and Motor Development

Kipsigis of Kenya

  • Children are almost always kept upright
  • Children skip crawling, much faster gross motor development
  •  

In the west

  • Move from tummy-time to laying on back (SIDS)
  • Slower gross-motor development

Central Asia

 

  • Gahvora craddle (Karasik, 2016)

Early Perception

Hearing

  • Music (4-7mo)
  • Speech (~5mo)

Statistical learning- listen for patterns, will learn meaning later

Vision

  • 3 days: basic face perception
  • 2-3 wks: Movement
  • 2 mos: focus and color perception.                             complex face perception
  • 3 mo: facial recognition
  • 5 mo onward: facial expressions
  • 7 mo: full depth perception

differentiation theory-- Infants look for stable reference points

Classical Conditioning

Remember Pavlov's Dogs?

  • UCS +NS = UCR
  • NS becomes CS
  • CS = CR

Infants are receptive to classical conditioning

  • Little Albert Experiment - John B. Watson (1920)

Operant Conditioning

Reinforcer

  • Increases probability that  behavior will occur again by
    • presenting desirable stimulus
    • removing unpleasant stimulus

Punishment

  • Reduces probability that behavior will occur again by
    • presenting unpleasant stimulus
    • removing desirable stimulus

 

Theory of Attatchment

  • John Bowlby (1969)- theory rooted in psychoanalysis
    • Infant attatchment is basis of future relationships
    • Form "Internal working model" of expectations
      • Preattachment Phase - 0 to 6wks
      • Attatchment in the making - 6wk to ~7mo
      • Clear-cut attachment- ~7mo to ~21 mo
      • Formation of reciprocal relationship- onward
  • Attachment - A long-term affectionate relationship
  • Harlow (1959) - Rhesus monkey attachment study

The Strange Situation

  • Ainsworth (1978)- measurement of infant attachment

 

Initially, yield 4 types of Attachment:

• Secure

• Anxious/Avoidant

• Ambivalent/Resistant

• Disorganized/Disoriented

Attatchment Theory

  • Impact of SES
    • Poverty and life stressors promote insecure attatchment
  • Impact o Culture
    • Individualistic (eg US) vs Collectivist (eg Japanese)

Big Moods

  • Self-conscious emotions- around 1.5 - 3yrs old
    • Shame
    • Embarrassment
    • Guilt
    • Pride
    • Envy
  • Need to understand adult instructions on when/how to feel emotions
  • Need a sense of "self"
  • "Categorical Self"

Development of "Self"

  • What is the "self" again? Is there such a thing as an individual?
  • self-recognition & self-awareness
    • Mirror/rouge study (Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979)

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Self-control; self-regulation
    • Delay of gratification – Stanford Marshmallow Experiment (Mischel 1970)

Structure of Temperament

  • Thomas and Chess (1991) study
    • Easy: 40%
      • Good mood and quick to adapt. More social.
    • Difficult: 10%
      • Irregular routines and frequent crying
    • Slow-to-warm-up: 15%
      • low activity, somewhat negative
    • Unclassified: 35%
  • Mix of Emotionality, Socialibility, and Activity level
  • Stability is low in infancy and toddlerhood

 

Facial Expressions

  • Still face Experiment (Tronick et al 1975)
    • Infants connect facial expressions /w emotions, social building block
  • Newborn babies imitate some expressions? Inconsistent findings
  • A study by Meltzoff & Moore (1977)
  • Mirror neurons- in primates
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