Infant Capacities and the Process of Change

Chapter 4

The Development of Children (5th ed.)

Cole, Cole & Lightfoot

What does this mean?

““Babies control and Babies control and bring up their bring up their families as much as families as much as they are controlled they are controlled by them; in fact, we by them; in fact, we may say that the may say that the family brings up a family brings up a baby by being baby by being brought up by him.”brought up by him.”

““Babies control and Babies control and bring up their bring up their families as much as families as much as they are controlled they are controlled by them; in fact, we by them; in fact, we may say that the may say that the family brings up a family brings up a baby by being baby by being brought up by him.”brought up by him.” Erik Erikson in

Childhood and Society

Why is this the case?

Compared with many animals that are able to negotiate their environments at birth almost as well as their parents, human beings are born in a state of marked immaturity…. For many years, human offspring must depend on their parents and other adults for their survival.”

Compared with many animals that are able to negotiate their environments at birth almost as well as their parents, human beings are born in a state of marked immaturity…. For many years, human offspring must depend on their parents and other adults for their survival.”

Cole, Cole & Lightfoot, p. 114

Overview of the Journey Tuesday:

Brain development

Earliest capacities

Coordination with the social world

Thursday: Mechanisms of

development

First postnatal BSB shift

Tuesday: Brain development

Earliest capacities

Coordination with the social world

Thursday: Mechanisms of

development

First postnatal BSB shift

At birth, the brain has all the cells it will have, yet it is ¼ the size of an adult brain. Why?

At birth, the brain has all the cells it will have, yet it is ¼ the size of an adult brain. Why?

Infant Brain Development

Because Experience Matters!

Rats Raised in Enriched Environments have…

Increased rates of learning in standard laboratory tasks, such as learning a maze

Increased overall weight of the cerebral cortex (the part of the brain that integrates sensory information)

Increased amounts of acetylcholinesterase, a brain enzyme that enhances learning

Larger neuronal cell bodies and glial cells (which provide insulation, support and nutrients to neuronal cells)

More synaptic connections

Rosenzweig, 1984

Active Interaction with the Environment

Rats were raised in an enriched environment but were housed alone in small cages so they could only observe what was going on around them The learning capacity of these rats differed in no

way from that of the animals that were housed in individual cages away from the enriched environment

What might this imply for child-rearing? For teaching?

Brain Elements and Functions

Six Mammalian Species

Why the difference?

Why the difference?

Earliest Infant Capacities

Sensory Processes

Response Processes

Early Sensory Capacities

Sense Capacity

Hearing Ability to distinguish phonemesPreference for native language

Vision Slightly blurred at birthColor vision by 2 months

Distinguish patterned stimuli from plainPreference for face-like stimuli

Smell Ability to differentiate odors well at birth

Taste Ability to differentiate tastes well at birth

Touch Response to touch at birth

Temperature Sensitivity to temperature changes at birth

Position Sensitivity to changes in position at birth

Sensory Processes

Normal full-term newborns enter the world with all sensory systems functioning, but not all of these systems have fully developed

Indications of sensation Turning the head, changes in brain waves,

changes in rate of sucking on a nipple Habituation: Baby becomes bored so s/he stops

attending Dishabituation: Interest is renewed after the

infant perceives a change in the stimulus

Hearing Infants only minutes old will startle or cry when

they hear a loud noise Infants will turn their heads toward the source

of a sound

Baby Scotty at 5 minutes old

Infants can distinguish the sound of the human voice from other kinds of sounds, and seem to prefer it Babies are very interested in

high pitch speech with slower, exaggerated pronunciation (i.e., “baby talk”)

Evidence that by 2 days old, some babies would rather hear the language that has been spoken around them than a foreign language

Infants’ Visual Capacity

Based on studies of infant eye movement when a striped visual field passes in front of the eyes, it is evident that visual capacity increases dramatically over the first few months of life.

Fantz Looking Chamber (1960s)

Demonstrated that babies less than 2 days old can distinguish among visual forms

They tend, however, to focus on areas of high contrast, such as lines and angles

Development of Visual

Scanning

Due to brain maturationDue to brain maturation

Perception of Faces

Infants show a preference for patterned stimuli over plain stimuli

Babies as young as 9 minutes old will look longer at a schematic moving face than a scrambled one

Visual Preferences

of Infants

Expressions of Various Tastes

Neutral stimulus (water)

Sweet stimulus

Sour stimulus

Bitter stimulus

Three Kinds of Response Processes

Reflexes Automatic (involuntary)

responses to specific types of stimulation…

Emotions Two basic emotions,

contentment (+) & distress (-), split into primary emotions (e.g., joy, anger, fear) at 3-6 months…

Temperament Individual modes of responding to the environment

that appear to be consistent across situations and stable over time…

Reflexes: involuntary movements that are present at birth, then some fade into voluntary movements over time

Grasping Reflex: When a finger or some other object is pressed against the baby’s palm, the baby’s fingers close around it

Stepping Reflex: When the baby is held upright over a flat surface, he makes rhythmic leg movements

Moro Reflex: Baby startles when s/he hears a loud sound

Babinski reflex: Toes fan outward when foot is stroked from heel to toe

Infant Expression of Emotions

Joy Anger Sadness Disgust

Distress Interest Fear Surprise

Infant Expression of Emotions

Joy Anger Sadness Disgust

Distress Interest Fear Surprise

Joy Anger Sadness Disgust

Distress Interest Fear Surprise

Temperaments Easy babies (flexible): Playful,

regular, adaptable Difficult babies (feisty): Irritable,

irregular, often respond intensely or negatively to new situations

Slow-to-warm-up babies (fearful): Low activity level, mild responses, tend to withdraw from new situations, require time to adapt to change

Temperament is stable over first 8 years of life, due to both genetic (nature) and environmental (nurture) elements

Coordination with the Social World

Sleeping

Feeding

Crying

Pattern of Sleep/Wake CyclesNewborns sleep ~16½ hours /day, but the longest period of sleep is only 3-4 hours.

Newborns sleep ~16½ hours /day, but the longest period of sleep is only 3-4 hours.

Feeding

When fed “on demand” most newborns preferred a 3-hour schedule

Interval gradually increased to 4-hour schedule by 2 ½ months

By 7 or 8 months, babies needed to nurse or eat 4 times a day

Allison and nursing

Crying

Increases from birth to about 6 weeks and then starts to decrease

At a few months of age, infants begin to cry to communicate as the cerebral cortex becomes developed

Crying is helped by nursing, holding baby to shoulder, rocking, patting, cuddling, swaddling

Thursday:Mechanisms (Theories) of

Developmental Change

Biological-Maturation Perspective

Environmental-Learning Perspective

Constructivist Perspective

Cultural-Context Perspective

Biological-Maturation Examples

Physical Development Roll over, push up on all fours, crawl, walk, run

Language Development Single-sounds, single-words, multiple words, sentences

Play Development Solo play, parallel play, associative play, cooperative play

Emotional Development Trust the parent, interact with others, contribute to the group

Development occurs over time, in a set sequence of events, and is directly related to brain growth and maturation

Environmental Learning Perspective

BF Skinner, J Watson

Children grow on a schedule, and developmental shifts happen when

the child’s brain is ready

Environmental Learning

Sight of a light (CS) elicits no particular response

Loud sound of gong (UCS) causes baby to blink (UCR)

Sight of light (CS) is paired with sound of gong (UCS), which evokes an eyeblink (UCR)

Sight of light (CD) is sufficient to cause the baby to blink (CR), evidence that learning has occurred

The child learns as a result of interacting with the environment. Behaviors that are reinforced will increase

and behaviors that are punished will decrease.

Classical and Operant Conditioning

After only 25 occasions in which head turning was reinforced with a pacifier, most of the babies had tripled the rate at which they turned their heads.

Conversely, those infants

who were rewarded with a pacifier for holding their heads still, learned to move their heads less during the course of the experiment.

Research on Head Turning Behavior:

Constructivist Perspective

Jean Piaget

Children grow predictably, and developmental shifts happen

when the child is interested and adds new information to what

s/he already knows

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Age (Yrs) Stage Description

Birth – 2 Sensori-motor

Achievements consist largely of coordinating sensory perceptions and simple motor behaviors. Come to recognize the existence of a world outside themselves and begin to interact with it in deliberate ways.

2 – 6 Preopera-tional

Can use symbols, including mental images, words, and gestures. Often fail to distinguish their point of view from that of others, become easily captured by surface appearances, and are often confused about causal relationships.

6 – 12 Concrete Operational

Become capable of mental operations that allow them to combine, separate, order, and transform objects and actions. There are still carried out, however, in the presence of the objects and events being thought about.

12 – 19 Formal Operational

Acquire the ability to think systematically about all logical relations within a problem. Display keen interest in abstract ideas and in the process of thinking itself.

Sensorimotor Substages

Sub Age (M) Description

1 0 – 1 ½ Reflex schemas exercised: Involuntary rooting, sucking, grasping, looking

2 1 ½ – 4 Primary circular reactions: Repetition of actions that are pleasurable in themselves

3 4 – 8 Secondary circular reactions: Dawning awareness of the effects of one’s own actions on the environment, and that extended actions can produce interesting change in the environment

4 8 – 12 Coordination of secondary circular reactions: Combining schemas to achieve a desired effect (earliest form of problem solving)

5 12 – 18 Tertiary circular reactions: Deliberate variation of problem-solving means, with experimentation to see what the consequences will be

6 18 – 24 Beginning of symbolic representation: Images and words come to stand for familiar objects, accompanied by the invention of new means of problem solving through symbolic combinations

Schemas: a mental representation

EquilibrationEquilibration

AssimilationAssimilation(new information (new information

added into anadded into anexisting schema)existing schema)

AccommodationAccommodation(Modification of a(Modification of a

prior schema to include prior schema to include the new information)the new information)

Adding new knowledge and skills leads to development

Cultural-Context Perspective

Vygotsky

Children’s growth is impacted by their culture and environment,

and developmental shifts happen when the child is engaged in

social and cultural experiences

Reciprocal Relationships

Presence of milk stimulates infant sucking, which in turn triggers the release of hormones that increase milk production and release

Developmental Change Incorporates Cultural Variations

Developmental change depends on The Active

contributions of other people in the child’s community

Cultural messages are accumulated over time in the larger social group and provide messages about behavior

Case in PointBottle-feeding vs. Breast-feeding

Case in PointBottle-feeding vs. Breast-feeding

First PostnatalBio-Social-Behavioral Shift

Occurs at 2½ Months

Social Smiling!

Bio-Social-Behavioral Shift:When Social Smiling Happens

Shift Point Developmental Period

Conception Prenatal period

Birth Early infancy

2 ½ months Middle infancy

7-9 months Late infancy

24-30 months Early childhood

5-7 years Middle childhood

11-12 years Adolescence

19-21 years Adulthood

Characteristics of the Shift

Biological Myelination of cortical and subcortical neural pathways Increased cortical control of subcortical activity Increased diversity of brain cells Increase in amount of wakefulness Decrease in proportion of active (REM) sleep Quiet (NREM) sleep begins to come first

Social New quality of coordination and emotional contact between infants and caretakers

Beginning of “crying on purpose” to communicate

Behavioral Better retention of learning Increased visual acuity and better visual scanning Onset of social smiling Decreased fussiness and crying Visually initiated reaching visually guided reaching

Purposes of Social SmilingBiological Increased brain capacity increases ability to

control facial movements Increased brain functioning increases ability to

make decisions and use their body

Social Initiate and respond to interactions with parents, siblings, family members

Behavioral Reinforces interactions with others Shows engagement with others