Chapter 3

Patterns of Growth

Cephalocaudal Pattern is the growth sequence beginning with the top and going to bottom

Proximodistal Pattern is the sequence of growth from the center of the body outward.

Height & Weight

By age 2, children weigh 26-32 pounds & are 32-36 inches tall (or half their adult height).

The Brain

Shaken baby syndrome is an injury resulting in brain swelling and hemorrhaging

At birth, a baby's brain is 25% its adult weight. By 2, it is at 75%!

Changes in neurons:

• myelination (speeds processing)
• connectivity increases (facilitates spreading of neural pathways)

Changes in regions of the brain:

• "blooming & pruning"
• differs in various areas of the brain...

Sleep

Newborns sleep an average of 16-17 hours per day!

The most common infant-related sleep problem is NIGHTTIME WAKING!

REM sleep in infants

Infants spend half their time in REM sleep...& may provide added self-stimulation or promotion of brain development.

SIDS

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is a condition that occurs when an infant stops breathing without an apparent cause.

Risk of SIDS is highest from 2-4 months.

Nutrition

Generally, infants need 50 calories/day per pound!

Malnutrition

Kwashiorkor a form of malnutrition that happens with a severe lack of protein

Marasmus a form of malnutrition resulting from a severe lack of caloric intake.

Newborn Reflexes

Some newborn reflexes:

• rooting & sucking
• Moro reflex
• grasping
• stepping
• swimming

Gross Motor Skills involve large-muscle activities (moving arms; walking)

Fine Motor Skills involve finely tuned movements (holding a spoon)

The average child learns to walk @ 12-18 months!

Pincer vs Palmar Grasp

Palmar is less coordinated & the whole hand grasps an object.

Pincer involves coordination of the thumb and forefinger.

Sensory Development

A newborn's visual capacity is not well developed at birth. They can only see about 20/600!

Depth Perception develops around 6-9 months.

Visual cliff is an experiment demonstrating that infants perceive depth.

Cognitive Development

Piaget's Theory

Schemes are actions or mental representati-ons that organize knowledge.

Accommodation and assimilation helps children adapt their schemes.

Assimilation is using existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences.

Accommodation is adjusting schemes for new information or experiences.

Children seek equilibration by shifting thoughts as they learn to understand the world.

The Sensorimotor Stage of Development

Sensorimotor lasts from birth to age 2. During this stage, infants construct their knowledge of the world through coordinating sensory experiences & motor actions.

Object permanence is an important accomplishment---understanding that objects exist even when they can't be seen.

How to tell? Watch a child's reaction when a toy disappears.

Piaget's Theory Reviewed

• Some skills develop earlier than Piaget thought-object permanence, for example.

Learning

Attention is the focusing of mental resources on select information.

Infant's attention is related to novelty & habituation. Infants get distracted when an object becomes familiar.

Joint Attention

• ability to track each other's behavior
• one person directing another's attention
• reciprocal interaction

Deferred imitation occurs after a delay of hours or days.

Memory, or the retention of information over time, has two components.

Implicit memory refers to memory without conscious recollection (automatically performed).

Explicit memory refers to conscious memory of facts & experiences.

Infants show evidence of explicit memory by the 2nd half of the 1st year!

Concepts are cognitive groupings of similar objects, events, people & ideas.

Language Development

Language:

• is spoken, written or signed
• based on a system of symbols
• follows particular rules
• infinite generativity

Infants can understand phonemes from any language in the world from birth to 6 months.

Stages of Language Development

• crying
• cooing
• babbling
• gestures
• holophrases
• telegraphic speech

Cooing (2-4 months) are gurgling vowel sounds

Babbling (6 months) is repetitive consonant sounds, like "ba ba..."

A lack of gesturing by 12 months can be a red flag for Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Receptive vocabulary is words a child understands; spoken vocabulary is words the child uses.

Underextension is applying a word too narrowly.

Overextension is applying a word too broadly.

Telegraphic speech is short utterances, such as "mommy look doggie"

Two regions in the brain involved in language: Broca's area & Wernicke's area

Broca's area produces speech. Wernicke's area comprehends speech.

Child-directed speech is language spoken in a higher pitch than normal, using simple words and sentences.