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InfancyCognitive, Physical, Language

Development

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Neonates

• States of Arousal

• Reflexes

• Neonatal Assessment

• Learning and Habituation

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States of ArousalPeter Wolff (1966)

• Waking activity

• Crying

• Alert inactivity

• Drowsiness

• Regular sleep

• Irregular sleep

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Survival Reflexes

• Breathing

• Rooting

• Sucking

• Pupillary

• Eye-blink

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Primitive Reflexes

• Moro (startle)

• Palmar

• Plantar

• Babinski

• Stepping

• Swimming

• Tonic neck

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Swimming Startle (Moro)

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Tonic Neck

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Babinski

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Plantar

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Stepping Palmar

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Brazelton’s Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (BNBAS)

• An assessment measure that hospitals use the first few days of a baby’s life.

• 28 measures are grouped into 7 clusters

• Includes– Neurological examination– Assessment of social responsiveness– Assessment of behavioral capabilities

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Clusters of Brazelton’s Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale

• Habituation

• Orientation

• Motor tone and activity

• Range of State

• Regulation of state

• Autonomic stability

• Reflexes

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Habituation and LearningHabituation Method

• To study infant perceptual abilities, researchers habituate infants to certain stimuli and then change the stimuli.

• Examples– Habituating neonates to turn their heads to

the left to obtain milk whenever a bell was rung

– Neonates learned to turn on a light by turning their heads to the left.

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Erich Fromm

Man is the only animal that can be

bored

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Physical and Motor Development

• Erik Erikson

• First Psychosocial Stage

Trust vs. Mistrust

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First 4 Months doubled in weighteyes have begun to focusthe 1st tooth is about to eruptmost reflexes have disappeared

From 5 to Eight Monthsincreasing competence in fine and gross motor skillsplaying gamescrawling, bearwalking, scooting

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From 9 to 12 Months

about three times heavier than they

were at birth

may be walking

can manipulate the environment

using a pincer grasp

From 13 to 18 Months

are walking on their own

can stack blocks

can feed themselves

May be able to undress partially

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From 19 to 24 Months

are called toddlers

can pedal a tricycle

can jump in place

can climb stairs

can scribble

can dress and undress without

assistance

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Sensory and Perceptual Development

• Sensation

The translation of a stimulus by a sense organ

• Perception

The complex process by which the mind interprets and gives meaning to sensory information

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Studying Infant Perceptual Capabilities

• The novelty ParadigmClosely related to habituation method• The Preference MethodGives a choice of stimuli to look at or listen to• The Surprise MethodRelies on the fact that infants react with surprise

when their expectations are violated• Event-Related Potential MethodProvides the equivalent of a complex

electroencephalograph

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Vision and Visual Perception• Infants are born with a full intact set of visual

structures.• Newborns’ eyes are sensitive to brightness• They have some control over eye movement• Newborns focus optimally on objects at a range

of 7 to 10 inches• They look primarily at the edges and contours of

objects• Are responsive to human face and are able to

imitate facial expressions• By the first 4 to 6 months, infants can focus

almost as well as adults, acuity sharpens, and they can discriminate between most colors

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Visual Cliff

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Depth and Distance Perception

• Because the newborn eyes are not well coordinated and the infant has not yet learned to interpret all of the information transmitted by the eyes.

• Early depth perception is probably not very sophisticated.

• Even when coaxed by their mothers, infants 6 months or over will not crawl over the edge of the visual cliff.

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Auditory Perception

• Neonates can hear. They are startled by loud sounds

• Newborns are soothed by low-pitched sounds such as lullabies

• Infants seem able to localize sounds, and prefer human voices

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Taste, Touch, and Smell

• They are fully operating at birth, and the sense of touch is well developed.

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Sensory Integration and Intermodal Perception

• Research generally indicates that either the senses are integrated at birth or integration occurs early and rapidly.

• Behavior and emotion become integrated over time as a result of the interaction of experience and maturation

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Cognitive Development

• The Active Mind

Infants take an active role in their cognitive development.

This was the basic position of Jean Piaget.

Infants possess mental structures called schemes that process and organize information.

This occurs in a series of stages.

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Jean Piaget

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Jean Piaget

1- Knowledge = motor behavior2- Universal stages in a fixed order3- Qualitative and quantitative acquisition

of knowledge4- Mental Structures or schemes5- Two Principles:

AssimilationAccommodation

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1- Acquisition of Knowledge

• Action = Knowledge

• Infants attain understanding of the world by doing.

• Knowledge is a product of direct motor behavior

• Children don’t learn:– Through sensation and perception– From facts communicated by others

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2- Piaget’s Stages ofCognitive Development

• Sensorimotor Stage(birth – 2)• Preoperational Stage(2 – 7)• Concrete Stage(7 – 11)• Formal Operations Stage(12 – adulthood)

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Piaget’s Cognitive Stages

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Sensorimotor StageSubstages

1- Simple Reflexes (first month)

Reflexes determine the infant’s interaction with world

2- First Habits & Primary Circular Reactions (1 – 4 months)

Coordination of actions

Repeating enjoyable actions on the infant’s own body

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Sensorimotor StageSubstages

3- Secondary Circular Reactions (4 – 8)

Repeated actions meant to bring about desirable consequence on the outside world

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Sensorimotor StageSubstages

4- Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (8 – 12)

Goal Directed BehaviorSeveral schemes are combined and

coordinated to generate a single act to solve a problem

Object PermanenceThe realization that people and objects exist

even when they cannot be seen

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Object Permenence

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Sensorimotor StageSubstages

5- Tertiary Circular Reactions (12 – 18)The deliberate variation of actions to bring

desirable consequences6- Beginning of Thought (18 – 24) Symbolic RepresentationThe use of a word, picture, gesture or other sign to

represent past & present events, experiences, and concepts.

a. Understanding Causalityb. Deferred Imitation

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3- Quality and Quantity

• Until the 1930s, children were considered like miniature adults as far as intelligence was concerned.

• They were supposed to differ from adults in the quantity of knowledge they had managed to acquire.

• According to Piaget, children acquire knowledge in a qualitative and quantitative manner.

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Constructivism

• All we know is based on our mental construction or ideas.

• We don’t passively discover knowledge ready-made.

• We actively construct knowledge.

How?

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4- Schemes/Mental Structures

• Infants have mental structures or schemes:

(organized patterns of sensorimotor functioning)

Sensorimotor Functioning

Physical activity that changes with mental development

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5- Principles for Children’s Schemes

• 1- Assimilation

• 2- Accommodation

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5- Principles for Children’s Schemes

1- Assimilation is when people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development or way of thinking.

Example:

A flying squirrel = a bird

The child is assimilating his existing scheme of a bird.

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5- Principles for Children’s Schemes

2- Accommodation is change in existing ways of thinking that occur in response to encounters with new stimuli or events.

Example:

A flying squirrel = a bird with a tail

The child is accommodating to new knowledge, modifying her scheme of “bird”

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Criticism on Piaget’s Theory

• Piaget constructed his view by mainly observing his three children (not a representative population)

• A stable and differentiated perceptual world is established much earlier in infancy than Piaget envisioned

• Memory and other forms of symbolic activity occur by at least the second half of the first year.

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Memory in Infancy

Infants as young as 3 months old show memory skills.

• The Large Black Boxes StudyInfants predicted a four-step sequence and most

could remember it up to 2 weeks later.• Carolyn Rovee-CollierInfants can remember intricate material.• Nancy Myers An infant’s experience at 6 months can be

remembered 2 years later.

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Infants’ Memory

• Infantile AmnesiaThe lack of memory for experiences that

occurred prior to three years of ageAlthough memories are stored from early

infancy, they cannot be easily retrieved.Early memories are susceptible to

interference from later events.Memories are sensitive to environmental

context.

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Infants’ Intelligence

1- Development Quotient

Arnold Gesell

2- Bayley Scales of Infant Development

Nancy Bayley

Are useful in identifying infants who are significantly behind their peers

Are not good for predicting future behavior

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Development QuotientArnold Gesell

• An overall developmental score that relates to performance in 4 areas:

1- Motor Skills (balance and sitting)

2- Language Use

3- Adaptive Behavior (alertness & exploration)

4- Personal-Social (feeding and dressing)

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Bayley’s Scales of Infant DevelopmentNancy Bayley

• A measure that evaluates an infant’s development from 2 to 3 months

• It focuses on 2 areas:

1- Mental Scale

Senses, perception, memory, learning, problem solving, language

2- Motor Scale

Gross motor skills

Fine motor skills

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Contemporary Approaches to Assess Infant Intelligence

• Visual-recognition Memory

• Cross-modal Transference

Measure how quickly infants process information

These measures correlate moderately well with later measures of intelligence

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Visual-Recognition Memory

Measures how quickly an infant can retrieve previous experiences of a stimulus from memory

1- Measures how quickly infants lose interest in stimuli that have already been seen

2- Measures their responsiveness to new stimuli.

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Cross-Modal Transference

• Measures the ability to identify a stimulus that has previously only been experienced through one sense by using another sense.

Example

Identifying a screw driver that she has only previously touched, but not seen

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Other Criteria in Determining Adult Intelligence

• The degree of environmental stimulation• Intelligence measured by IQ tests relates

to a particular type of intelligence, one that emphasizes abilities that lead to academic success but not artistic or professional success.

• So, predicting that a child will do well on IQ tests does not necessarily indicate success in life.

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Linguistic CompetencePhonemes Basic sounds of language

Morphemes words, suffixes, prefixes

Semantics Rules that govern the meaning of words

Syntax How words are combined into meaningful statements

Pragmatics The use of language in context

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12 weeks cooing, smiles when talked to

16 weeks turns head in response to human voice

20 weeks makes vowels and consonant sounds

6 months babbling (all sounds)

8 months repeat certain syllables (ma-ma)

12 months understands and says some words

18 months can produce up to 50 words

24 months more than 50 words, two-word phrases

30 months about 100 words, phrases of 3-5 words

36 months vocabulary of about 1,000 words

48 months most basic aspects of language are well established

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Terms

Holographic Speech the use of single words to convey complete thoughts

Overextensions the tendency to overgeneralize words

Telegraphic Speech omitting the less significant words and including the words that carry the most meaning

Pivot Grammar action words + nouns (see Daddy)

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A Different Language for Boys and Girls

• Girls

Hear twice as many diminutives

Parents respond with a soft answer

Are exposed to warmer phrases

• Boys• Don’t hear as many

diminutives• Parents respond

with a firm “no”• Hear clearer

language • As adults they tend

to be more assertive

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Language AcquisitionCognitive

Piaget

Rationalist

Chomsky

Social

Learning

Behaviorist

Skinner

-Mental schemes that child can apply a linguistic label to it

-Innate tendency to acquire language

-Innate acquisition device

-learned

-imitation

-Acquired by consequen-

ces or by reinforce-ment

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Information Processing Approaches

• Encoding Recorded in memory (Keyboard)

• Storage Saved in memory (on hard drive)

• Retrieved Brought into awareness (on screen)

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Information-Processing Automatization

1- Knowledge acquisition is automatic when processes require little attention

Children are automatically aware of how often they have encountered people.

Automatically, children develop an understanding of concepts, categorizations of objects, events, or people.

2- Knowledge is deliberate and controlled when processes require large amounts of attention.

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Information Processing Approaches

Cognitive ArchitectureDetermines the specific steps through

which material is processed as it travels through the human mind.

Assume that the basic architecture of information-processing systems is constant over the course of development, although the speed and capacity of the system are thought to grow.

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Prelinguistic Communication

2 – 3 months to 1 yr. babbling

10 – 14 months holophrases

15 months 15 words

16 – 24 months 100 words

18 months telegraphic speech

19 months first sentence