chapter 3 hg+d

• unlearned responses triggered by specific stimuli
• Reflexes reflect the health of the child’s nervous system

• 1. Heart rate
• 2. Respiration
• 3. Muscle tone
• 4. Reflexes
• 5. Skin tone

• Includes 28 behavioral and 18 reflex items
• Assesses four systems
• Autonomic: body regulation (e.g., breathing)
• Motor: activity level and control of body
• State: maintaining states (e.g., alertness)
• Social: interacting with people

• Alert inactivity:
• calm, eyes open and attentive; deliberately inspecting environment
• Waking activity:
• open but unfocused eyes; uncoordinated motions
• Crying: cries vigorously; motion is agitated and uncoordinated
• Sleeping: eyes closed; degree of activity and quality of breathing alternate

• Starts softly and builds in volume and intensity
• Often seen when the child is hungry

More intense and louder

Starts with a loud wail, followed by a long pause, then gasping

16-18 hours/day

• Newborns: 4-hour cycle; 3 hours sleep and 1 hour awake
• By 3 to 4 months: 5-to-6-hour cycle
• By 6 months: sleep 10 to 12 hours at night

• 50% of newborn sleep
• 25% by 12 months

The practice of sleeping in the same room or bed with the child

• Risk factors
• Premature birth and low birth weight
• Parental smoking
• Child overheating and sleeping on stomach
• African-American infants (often sleep on stomach)

• (surgency/extroversion) generally happy, active, vocal, and seeks stimulation
• (negative affect) angry, fearful, frustrated, shy, and not easily soothed
• (effortful control) focuses attention, is not easily distracted, and can inhibit impulses

• Identical twins are more similar in temperament than are fraternal twins
• Heredity influences negative affect more than other temperament dimensions
• Heredity contributes more to temperament in childhood than during infancy
• addition expressions of temperament

• Parental responsiveness reduces infant emotionality
• Depressed mothers have more fearful infants

• Infants double their weight by three months
• Infants triple their weight by one year
• Height depends largely on heredity

• to determine allergy
• consistency of swallowing reflex

• Malnourished children develop more slowly
• Malnutrition is most damaging during infancy due to rapid growth rate
• brain, body, all developing
• Giving malnourished children adequate diets is challenging because they are listless, quiet, and inactive

soma, dendrites, the axon (mylen sheath coating maturing), and terminal buttons

the wrinkled surface of the brain

the two halves of the brain

the thick band of fibers connecting the two hemispheres

• At 3 weeks after conception, the neural plate, a flat structure of cells, forms
• By 28 weeks after conception, the brain has all the neurons it will ever have
• In the 4th month of prenatal development myelinated sheaths form
• Number of synapses peaks at 12 months

certain unnecessary synapses soon begin to disappear'

• 1Specialization is early in development
• 2Specialization takes two specific forms (areas become more focused, less diffuse: stimuli specific rather than general)
• 3Different brain systems specialize at different rates
• 4Environmental stimulation is necessary for successful specialization
• 5Plasticity is a benefit of the immature brain’ s lack of specialization

brain is very flexible, allowing recovery of function, especially in young children

All human brains require exposure to experiences common to all individuals (e.g., exposure to faces) to fine-tune their circuits and to have different regions specialize

Brain circuits and regions also are fine-tuned according to each person’s unique experiences (e.g., learning to play the violin vs. learning to play soccer)

• By 7 months, infants can sit alone
• Toddling: at around 14 months, toddlers may stand alone briefly and walk without assistance

Instead of simple maturation, motor development involves many distinct skills that are organized and reorganized over time to meet specific task demands

• Infants are “top-heavy” and easily lose their balance
• Within a few months, infants use inner ear and visual cues to adjust posture
• Infants must relearn balance each time they achieve new postures

• Many infants move their legs alternately in a stepping-like motion as early as 6-7 months
• Infants use environmental cues to judge whether a surface is suited to walking (e.g., flat vs. bumpy)

mastery of component skills

combining components into the sequence needed to accomplish the task

about 12 to 15 months, once children have mastered and coordinated its component skills

• Fine motor skills are associated with grasping, holding, and manipulating objects
• At 4 months, infants clumsily reach for objects
• By 5 months, they coordinate movement of the two hands
• By 2-3 years, children can use zippers but not buttons
• Tying shoes is a skill that develops around age 6 years

• About 90% of children prefer to use their right hand
• Most children grasp with their right hand by age 12 months, with a clear preference seen by preschool age

brain processes receiving, selecting, modifying, and organizing sensory inputs

they distinguish pleasant from unpleasant, or familiar from unfamiliar (e.g., mother’s breast or perfume)

they differentiate among salty, sour, bitter, sweet, and changes in mother’s breast milk

4 months

(clarity of vision) is the smallest pattern that can be distinguished dependably

• 200-400 feet
• By 1 year, infants’ visual acuity is the same as adults

sets of neurons located along the retina at the back of the eye, each specialized to one of the three light wavelengths

3- to 4-months

6-week-olds react with interest to differences in depth (heart rate deceleration)

• By 7 months, they show more fear than interest to the cliff’ s deep end (heart rate acceleration and refusal to cross the deep side)
• Fear of depth seems to develop around the time babies can crawl

• closer objects appear larger while moving
• begin using at few weeks old

• closer objects fill more of the retina
• begin using at few weeks old

• closer objects move faster
• begin using at few weeks old

• closer objects yield greater disparity between eyes
• begin using 4-6 months

• closer objects sound louder
• begin using in infancy

• closer objects have wider parallel lines
• begin using at 7 months

• closer objects are coarser and distinctly textured
• begin using at 7 months

• elements that move together
• similar colors and textures
• aligned edges

• Newborns prefer to look at moving faces, suggesting an innate attraction to them
• By 4 weeks, infants track all moving stimuli, including faces and nonfaces
• Before 6 months, infants have a prototype of a face that includes both human and nonhuman faces
• Between 6 to 12 months, the prototype is fine-tuned to reflect familiar faces, which they prefer viewing
• By 7 to 8 months, infants process faces similarly to adults, as a unique arrangement of features

• simultaneously available multimodal sensory information (e.g., sight, sound, touch)
• Infants perceive best when sensory information is redundant

• 9-month-old infants smile at the image in the mirror but do not seem to recognize it as themselves
• By 15-24 months, infants see the image in the mirror and touch their own nose, suggesting they know the image is theirs

• look more at photographs of themselves than other children
• refer to themselves by name and use personal pronouns “ I ” or “ me ”
• self’s continuity over time
• “mine” in reference to possessions

possessions, physical characteristics, preferences, and competencies

naïve understanding of the relationship between mind and behavior

• by 2 years, aware of desires; speak of wants and likes
• Understand that people have desires and that desires cause behavior (e.g., “Ew peas; I not eat.”)

• by 3 years, distinguish the mental from physical world
• Use mental verbs (“think”, “believe”, “forget”), but still emphasize desires as main causes of behavior

by 4 years, know that behavior can be based on beliefs about events, even if belief is false