Educational Resources in Infancy
Dia 
DEP2004-Chapter3.1Powerpoint.pptx2
Explain: These are the questions we will consider as we begin our journey into the field of lifespan development.
Growth and Stability
Motor Development
The Development of the Senses
Growth and Stability
Height and Weight Growth
Although the greatest increase in height and weight occurs during the first year of life, children continue to grow throughout infancy and toddlerhood.
Source: Adapted from Cratty, B. J. (1979). Perceptual and Motor Development in Infants and Children, 2e, pg. 222. © Copyright © 1979 Pearson Education, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Reprinted and Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
4
Are there gender and ethnic differences in infant weight and length?
?
?
?
5
There are gender and ethnic differences in weight and length.
Girls generally are slightly shorter and weigh slightly less than boys, and these differences remain throughout childhood (disparities become considerably greater during adolescence).
Asian infants tend to be slightly smaller than North American Caucasian infants, and African-American infants tend to be slightly bigger than North American Caucasian infants.
Decreasing Proportions
At birth, the head represents one-quarter of the neonate’s body. By adulthood, the head is only one-eighth the size of the body.
Why is the neonate’s head so large?
6
Not all parts of an infant’s body grow at the same rate.
At birth the head accounts for one-quarter of the newborn’s entire body size.
During the first 2 years of life, the rest of the body begins to catch up.
By the age of 2 the baby’s head is only one-fifth of body length, and by adulthood it is only one-eighth.
Principles of Growth
Cephalocaudal principle
Proximodistal principle
Principle of hierarchical integration
Principle of independence of systems
Can you give an example of each of these?
7
Define:
Cephalocaudal principle states that growth follows a direction and pattern that begins with the head and upper body parts and then proceeds to the rest of the body.
Proximodistal principle states that development proceeds from the center of the body outward. See Table 3.1.
Principle of hierarchical integration states that simple skills typically develop separately and independently. Later these simple skills are integrated into more complex ones.
Principle of the independence of systems, which suggests that different body systems grow at different rates.
Nervous System and Brain: Foundations of Development
Nervous system comprises the brain and the nerves that extend throughout the body.
Neurons are the basic cells of the nervous system.
The Neuron
8
The basic element of the nervous system, the neuron is comprised of a number of components.
Source: From Kent Van De Graff, Human Anatomy, 5e. Copyright © 2000 The McGraw-Hill Companies. Reprinted with permission.
Quick Check
9
Like all cells in the body, neurons have a cell body containing a nucleus.
But unlike other cells, neurons have a distinctive ability: They can communicate with other cells, using a cluster of fibers called dendrites at one end.
Dendrites receive messages from other cells.
At their opposite end, neurons have a long extension called an axon, the part of the neuron that carries messages destined for other neurons.
Neurons do not actually touch one another. Rather, they communicate with other neurons by means of chemical messengers, neurotransmitters, that travel across the small gaps, known as synapses, between neurons.
Neurons
Dendrites
Axons
Neurotransmitters
Synapses
How great brains grow!
Birth:
100-200 billion neurons
Relatively few neuron-neuron connections
During first two years:
Billions of new connections established and become more complex
10
Birth: Neurons multiply at an amazing rate prior to birth. At some points in prenatal development, cell division creates some 250,000 additional neurons every minute.
By year 2: The intricacy of neural connections continues to increase throughout life. In fact, in adulthood a single neuron is likely to have a minimum of 5,000 connections to other neurons or other body parts.
NEURON NETWORKS
Over the first 2 years of life, networks of neurons become increasingly complex and interconnected. Why are these connections important?
Source: From The Postnatal Development of the Human Cerebral Cortex, Vol I–VIII by Jesse LeRoy Conel, Camevebridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1939, 1975 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Use it or lose it!
12
Synaptic pruning: elimination of unused neurons that allows established neurons to build more elaborate communication networks with other neurons. Unlike most other aspects of growth, then, the development of the nervous system proceeds most effectively through the loss of cells.
Neurons that do not become interconnected with other neurons as the infant’s experience of the world increases become unnecessary.
They eventually die out, increasing the efficiency of the nervous system.
Myelin: Axons of neurons become coated with myelin, a fatty substance that, like the insulation on an electric wire, provides protection and speeds the transmission of nerve impulses.
Contributes to increased weight of brain
Even though many neurons are lost, the increasing size and complexity of the remaining ones contribute to impressive brain growth.
A baby’s brain triples its weight during his or her first 2 years of life, and it reaches more than three-quarters of its adult weight and size by the age of 2.
Synaptic pruning
Involves elimination of unused neurons
Development of nervous system proceeds most effectively through loss of cells
Myelin
Allows established neurons to build more elaborate communication networks with other neurons
Includes fatty substance that provides protection and speeds transmission of nerve impulses
Is an outgrowth of a glial cel.
Form and Function: Brain Growth
Neurons reposition themselves with growth, becoming arranged by function
Cerebral cortex
Subcortical levels
13
Some move into the cerebral cortex, the upper layer of the brain, while others move to subcortical levels, which are below the cerebral cortex.
As time passes, however, the cells in the cerebral cortex, which are responsible for higher-order processes such as thinking and reasoning, become more developed and interconnected.
The subcortical levels, which regulate such fundamental activities as breathing and heart rate, are the most fully developed at birth.
Shaken Baby
This CAT scan shows severe brain injury in an infant suspected of being abused by caretaker shaking.
Source: Malung, Bilo, Kuba & van Rijn, 2011.
Environmental Influences on Brain Development
15
Define:
Plasticity: the degree to which a developing structure or behavior is modifiable due to experience
Sensitive period is a specific, but limited, time, usually early in an organism’s life, during which the organism is particularly susceptible to environmental influences relating to some particular facet of development.
Plasticity
Sensitive period
Do you know?
What are some cultural or subcultural influences that might affect parents’ childrearing practices?
What do babies do all day?
Life Cycles of Infancy
17
These most basic activities are controlled by a variety of bodily systems.
Although each of these individual behavioral patterns probably is functioning quite effectively, it takes some time and effort for infants to integrate the separate behaviors. In fact, one of the neonate’s major missions is to make its individual behaviors work in harmony, helping it, for example, to sleep through the night.
Wake
Sleep
Eat
Defecate
Rhythms and States
Rhythms
Repetitive, cyclical patterns of behavior
State
One of major body rhythms
Degree of awareness infant displays to both internal and external stimulation
Change in state alters amount of stimulation required to get infant’s attention
18
Some of the different states that infants experience produce changes in electrical activity in the brain.
These changes are reflected in different patterns of electrical brain waves, which can be measured by a device called an electroencephalogram, or EEG.
Starting at three months before birth, these brain wave patterns are relatively irregular.
By the time an infant reaches the age of 3 months, a more mature pattern emerges and the brain waves become more regular.
Sleep: Perchance to Dream
Sleep is major state
16-17 hours daily (average); wide variations
Different than adult sleep
2 hour spurts; periods of wakefulness
Cyclic pattern
By 16 weeks sleep about 6 continuous hours; by 1 year sleep through night
(See table 3-2)
Infants sleep in spurts, often making them out of sync with the rest of the world.
19
By 1 year need about 15 hours sleep
Cyclic pattern: During periods of sleep, infants’ heart rates increase and become irregular, their blood pressure rises, and they begin to breathe more rapidly
Primary Behavioral States
Source: Adapted from Thoman & Whitney, 1990.
Primary Behavioral States
Source: Adapted from Thoman & Whitney, 1990.
REM Sleep
Involves period of active sleep
Occurs when closed eyes begin to move in a back-and-forth pattern
Takes up around one-half of infant sleep
May provide means for brain to stimulate itself through autostimulation
As we age, the proportion of REM sleep increases as the proportion of non-REM
sleep declines. In addition, the total amount of sleep falls as we get older.
Source: Adapted from Roffwarg, Muzio, & Dement, 1966.
22
Sometimes, although not always, their closed eyes begin to move in a back-and-forth pattern, as if they were viewing an action-packed scene. This period of active sleep is similar, although not identical, to the rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, that is found in older children and adults and is associated with dreaming.
At first, this active, REM-like sleep takes up around one-half of an infant’s sleep, compared with just 20 percent of an adult’s sleep (see Figure 3-5). However, the quantity of active sleep quickly declines, and by the age of 6 months, amounts to just one-third of total sleep time.
Some researchers think it provides a means for the brain to stimulate itself—a process called autostimulation.
Stimulation of the nervous system would be particularly important in infants, who spend so much time sleeping and relatively little in alert states.
Do babies dream?
?
?
?
23
Appearance of active sleep periods that are similar to REM sleep in adults raises the intriguing question of whether infants dream during those periods. No one knows the answer, although it seems unlikely.
Young infants do not have much to dream about, given their relatively limited experiences.
Brain waves of sleeping infants appear to be qualitatively different from those of adults who are dreaming.
It is not until the baby reaches 3 or 4 months of age that the wave patterns become similar to those of dreaming adults, suggesting that young infants are not dreaming during active sleep—or at least are not doing so in the same way as adults do.
Did you find examples in the text that suggest that cultural practices affect infants’ sleep patterns?
?
?
?
24
Cultural practices also affect infants’ sleep patterns.
Among the Kipsigis of Africa, infants sleep with their mothers at night and are allowed to nurse whenever they wake. In the daytime, they accompany their mothers during daily chores, often napping while strapped to their mothers’ backs. Because they are often out and on the go, Kipsigis infants do not sleep through the night until much later than babies in Western societies, and for the first 8 months of life, they seldom sleep longer than 3 hours at a stretch.
In comparison, 8-month-old infants in the United States may sleep as long as 8 hours at a time.
SIDS
Sudden infant death syndrome
Leading cause of death in children under 1 year of age
Back-to-sleep guidelines (AAP)
Hypotheses about cause
Undiagnosed sleep disorders
Suffocation
Nutritional deficiencies
Problems with reflexes
Brainstem abnormalities
Undiagnosed illness
Actual cause of SIDS remains elusive!
25
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is a disorder in which seemingly healthy infants die in their sleep
SIDS strikes about 2500 infants in the United States each year.
Although it seems to occur when the normal patterns of breathing during sleep are interrupted, scientists have been unable to discover why that might happen.
American Academy of Pediatrics now suggests that babies sleep on their backs rather than on their sides or stomachs—called the back-to-sleep guideline. In addition, they suggest that parents consider giving their babies a pacifier during naps and bedtime.
Declining Rates of SIDS
In the United States, SIDS rates have dropped dramatically as parents have become more informed and put babies to sleep on their backs instead of their stomachs.
Source: American SIDS Institute, based on data from the Center for Disease Control and the National Center for Health Statistics, 2004.
SIDS is found in children of every race and socioeconomic group and in children who have had no apparent health problems.
Back-to-sleep is important!
The major principles of growth are the cephalocaudal principle, the proximodistal principle, the principle of hierarchical integration, and the principle of the independence of systems.
The development of the nervous system first entails the development of billions of neurons and interconnections among them. Later, the numbers of both neurons and connections decrease as a result of the infant’s experiences.
Infants integrate their individual behaviors by developing rhythms—repetitive, cyclical patterns of behavior.
The sleep of infants often comes in fits and starts initially coming in spurts of about two hours, followed by periods of wakefulness. Because of this, infants are “out of sync” with the rest of the world, for whom sleep comes at night and wakefulness during the day.
The __________ principle states that growth begins with the head and proceeds down to the rest of the body; the __________ principle states that development proceeds from the center of the
body outward.
a. cephalocaudal; proximodistal
b. proximodistal; cephalocaudal
c. hierarchical integration; independence of systems
d. independence of systems; hierarchical integration
The process of synaptic pruning allows established neurons to build stronger networks and reduces unnecessary neurons during the first 2 years of life.
True
False
Although brain development is largely genetically predetermined, it is also susceptible to environmental experiences; the ability of the brain to be modifiable by the environment is called (a) __________.
a. plasticity
b. synaptic pruning
c. sensitive period
d. critical period
What evolutionary advantage could there be for infants to be born with more nerve cells than they actually need or use?
How might our understanding of synaptic “pruning” affect the way we treat infants?
Motor Development
34
Reflexes: Inborn Physical Skills
35
Reflexes:
learned, organized involuntary responses that occur automatically in presence of certain stimuli
?
?
?
Why do reflexes come and go?
36
Evolutionary explanations of development attribute the gradual disappearance of reflexes to the increase in voluntary control over behavior that occurs as infants become more able to control their muscles.
It may be that reflexes form the foundation for future, more complex behaviors. As these more intricate behaviors become well learned, they encompass the earlier reflexes.
Perhaps reflexes stimulate parts of the brain responsible for more complex behaviors, helping them develop.
Although the evidence shows that intensive practice (especially of reflex behaviors) may produce an earlier appearance of certain motor activities, there is no evidence that the activities are performed qualitatively any better in practiced infants than in unpracticed infants.
Even when early gains are found, they do not seem to produce an adult who is more proficient in motor skills.
Some Basic Reflexes in Infants
Can you identify the approximate age of disappearance and describe each of these reflexes?
Rooting reflex
Stepping reflex
Swimming reflex
Moro reflex
Babinski reflex
Startle reflex
Eye-blink reflex
Sucking reflex
Gag reflex
HINT: Check Table 3-3!
Ethnic and Cultural Differences and Similarities in Reflexes
Reflexes are:
Genetically determined
Universal
Cultural variations in ways displayed
Example: Moro reflex
Serve as:
Diagnostic tool
Social function
Survival function
38
Moro Reflex: Some differences reflect cultural and ethnic variations.
Caucasian infants show a pronounced response to situations that produce the Moro reflex. Not only do they fling out their arms, but they also cry and respond in a generally agitated manner.
Navajo babies react to the same situation much more calmly. Their arms do not flail out as much, and they cry only rarely.
Diagnostic tools for pediatricians. Because reflexes emerge and disappear on a regular timetable, their absence—or presence—at a given point of infancy can provide a clue that something may be amiss in an infant’s development.
INFANT REFLEXES
Rooting reflex
Startle reflex
Moro reflex
Motor Development in Infancy
Gross motor skills
Young infants accomplish some kinds of movements.
Fine motor skills
As infants are perfecting their gross motor skills, such as sitting upright and walking, they are also making advances in their fine motor skills.
Young infants still are able to accomplish some kinds of movement.
When placed on their stomachs they wiggle their arms and legs and may try to lift their heavy heads.
As their strength increases, they are able to push hard enough against the surface on which they are resting to propel their bodies in different directions.
They often end up moving backwards rather than forwards, but by the age of 6 months they become rather accomplished at moving themselves in particular directions.
These initial efforts are the forerunners of crawling, in which babies coordinate the motions of their arms and legs and propel themselves forward.
Crawling appears typically between 8 and 10 months.
Walking comes around the age of 9 months; most infants are able to walk by supporting themselves on furniture, and half of all infants can walk well by the end of their first year of life.
Most are able to sit without support by the age of 6 months.
40
Milestones of Motor Development
41
Fifty percent of children are able to perform each skill at the month indicated in the figure.
However, the specific timing at which each skill appears varies widely. For example, one-quarter of children are able to walk well at 11.1 months; by 14.9 months, 90 percent of children are walking well. Is knowledge of such average benchmarks helpful or harmful to parents?
Source: Adapted from Frankenburg et al., 1992.
Developmental Norms
Group norms
Represent the average performance of a large sample of children of a given age.
Permit comparisons between a particular child’s performance on a particular behavior and the average performance of the children in the norm sample.
Must be interpreted with caution.
Brazelton Neonatal Behavior Assessment Scale (NBAS)
42
Brazelton Neonatal Behavior Assessment Scale (NBAS): one of the most widely used techniques to determine infants’ normative standing; measure designed to determine infants’ neurological and behavioral responses to their environment; provides a supplement to the traditional Apgar test.
Cultural Influences
Norms are useful only to the extent that they are based on data from a large, heterogeneous, culturally diverse sample of children.
Many of the norms are based on groups of infants who are predominantly Caucasian and from the middle and upper socioeconomic strata
Cultural influences affect the rate of the development of motor skills.
Nutrition in Infancy
Fueling Motor Development
44
Rapid physical growth that occurs during infancy is fueled by the nutrients that infants receive. Without proper nutrition, infants cannot reach their physical potential, and they may suffer cognitive and social consequences.
Without proper nutrition, infants cannot reach physical potential and may suffer cognitive and social consequences
Infants differ in growth rates, body composition, metabolism, and activity levels
So what is a healthy caloric allotment for infants?
About 50 calories per day for each pound of weight
Most infants regulate caloric intake quite effectively on their own
If allowed consume as much they seem to want and not pressured to eat more, they will be healthy
Malnutrition
More common in children living in many developing countries
Characterized by lower growth rate
Chronically malnourished during infancy = lower IQ score later
46
Malnutrition, the condition of having an improper amount and balance of nutrients, produces several results, none good.
More common among children living in many developing countries
Slower growth rate apparent by the age 6 months
By 2 years, height and weight are only 95 percent the height and weight of children in more industrialized countries.
Children chronically malnourished during infancy later score lower on IQ tests and tend to do less well in school. These effects may linger even after diet has improved substantially.
What might be some of the reasons that
malnourishment, which slows physical growth, harms IQ scores and school performance?
How might malnourishment affect education in third-world countries?
?
?
?
47
When Malnutrition Is Severe
48
Malnutrition during the first year can produce marasmus, a disease in which infants stop growing. Marasmus, attributable to a severe deficiency in proteins and calories, causes the body to waste away and ultimately results in death. Older children are susceptible to kwashiorkor, a disease in which a child’s stomach, limbs, and face swell with water.
Marasmus
Kwashiorkor
Nonorganic Failure to Thrive
49
Infants receive sufficient nutrition but are deprived of attention and stimulation.
Symptoms include underdevelopment, listlessness, and apathy and usually occurs by age 18 months.
Reversal possible through intensive parent training or removal to emotionally supportive environment.
Sufficient nutrition
Symptoms
Reversal
?
?
?
“A fat baby is a healthy baby”?
50
Not necessarily.
While there is no clear correlation between obesity during infancy and obesity at the age of 16 years, some research suggests that overfeeding during infancy may lead to the creation of an excess of fat cells, which remain in the body throughout life and may predispose a person to be overweight.
Weight gain during infancy associate with weight at 6 weight at 6 associated with weight gains at age 16.
Association between obesity after the age of 6 and adult obesity, suggesting that obesity in babies ultimately may be found to be associated with adult weight problems.
Other factors are related to obesity in infants. For example, infants delivered via Cesarean section are twice as likely to become obese as infants born vaginally.
?
?
?
Is breast best?
51
Starting around the 1940s, the general belief among child care experts was that breast-feeding was an obsolete method that put children unnecessarily at risk.
Bottle-feeding argument: parents could keep track of amount of milk their baby was receiving and could ensure that child was taking in sufficient nutrients. Use of the bottle was also supposed to help mothers keep their feedings to rigid schedule of one bottle every 4 hours, the recommended procedure at that time.
Mothers who breast-fed their babies could never be certain just how much milk their infants were getting.
Today
Breast-feeding argument: For first 12 months of life, there is no better food for an infant than breast milk.
Breast milk not only contains all the nutrients necessary for growth, but it also seems to offer some degree of immunity to a variety of childhood diseases, such as respiratory illnesses, ear infections, diarrhea, and allergies.
Breast milk is more easily digested than cow’s milk or formula, and it is sterile, warm, and convenient for the mother to dispense.
There is even some evidence that breast milk may enhance cognitive growth, leading to high adult intelligence. Babies are more responsive to touch.
For mother, may have lower rates of ovarian cancer and breast cancer prior to menopause. Hormones produced during breast-feeding help shrink uteruses of women following birth, enabling their bodies to return more quickly to a prepregnancy state. Hormones also may inhibit ovulation, reducing (but not eliminating!) chance of becoming pregnant, and thereby helping to space birth of additional children.
Introducing Solid Foods: When and What?
Solids can be started at 6 months but are not needed until 9 to 12 months (AAFP)
Introduced gradually, one at a time
Cereal strained fruits
Among the Ache people of South America, infants spend nearly all their time in direct physical contact with mothers.
Study found that differences between cultures that restrict early motor movement and Western cultures fade by age six.
Cultural factors help determine the time at which specific motor skills appear.
Reflexes are universal, genetically acquired physical behaviors.
Among the major reflexes are the rooting reflex, the Moro reflex, and the startle reflex.
During infancy children reach a series of milestones in their physical development on a fairly consistent schedule, with some individual and cultural variations.
Goss motor skills include rolling over, sitting, and walking. Later, fine motor skills appear, such as grasping.
Nutrition strongly affects physical development.
Without proper nutrition infants cannot reach their physical potential, and may suffer cognitive and social consequences as well.
The advantages of breast-feeding are numerous.
Behavior becomes integrated through the development of ________, which are repetitive, cyclical patterns of behaviors.
a. states
b. rhythms
c. REM sleep
d. reflexes
Which of the following is NOT one of the consequences of malnutrition during infancy?
a. Malnourished children sleep, on average, 6 to 8 hours less than nonmalnourished children of the same age.
b. Malnourished children show a slower growth rate by the age of 6 months.
c. Malnourished children score lower on IQ tests
later in life.
d. Malnourished children have a lower height
and weight by age 2 than nonmalnourished
children.
Breastfeeding has been associated with enhanced cognitive growth.
True
False
What advice might you give a friend who is concerned that her infant is still not walking at 14 months, when every other baby she knows started walking by the first birthday?
The Development of the Senses
Learning the World
62
Sensation is the physical stimulation of the sense organs, and perception is the mental process of sorting out, interpreting, analyzing, and integrating stimuli from the sense organs and brain.
Sensation
Perception
Visual Perception: Seeing the World
Newborn’s distance vision ranges from 20/200 to 20/600
By 6 months, average infant’s vision is already 20/20
Other visual abilities grow rapidly
Binocular vision
Depth perception
While an infant’s distant vision is 10 to
30 times poorer than the average adult’s, the vision of newborns provides the same degree of distance acuity as the uncorrected vision of many adults who wear eyeglasses or contact lenses.
63
Infant can only see with accuracy visual material up to 20 feet that an adult with normal vision is able to see with similar accuracy from a distance of between 200 and 600 feet. Distance vision is 1/10 to 1/3 that of an average adult.
Visual Cliff
The “visual cliff” experiment examines the depth perception of infants.
Most infants in the age range of 6 to 14 months cannot be coaxed to cross the cliff, apparently patterned area drops several feet.
Depth perception is a particularly useful ability, helping babies acknowledge heights and avoid falls.
Infant Visual Preference
Preferences that are present from birth
Genetically preprogrammed to prefer particular kinds of stimuli
Fantz
2- and 3-month-old infants preferred to look at more complex stimuli than simple ones.
65
They prefer curved over straight lines, three-dimensional figures to two-dimensional ones, and human faces to non-faces. Such capabilities may be a reflection of the existence of highly specialized cells in the brain that react to stimuli of a particular pattern, orientation, shape, and direction of movement.
Prefer their own mother’s face to other faces; distinguish between male and female faces
Ask: How would you use this information to explain how heredity and environmental experiences are integrated to determine infant capabilities?
Auditory Perception: The World of Sound
Infants
Hear before birth and have good auditory perception after they are born
Are more sensitive to certain frequencies
Reach adult accuracy in sound localization by age 1
Can discriminate between groups of different sounds
React to changes in musical key and rhythm
Can recognize many language-related sounds
Smell and Taste in a Small World
Infants
Well developed at birth
Helps in recognition of mother early in life
Infants
Have innate sweet tooth
Show facial disgust at bitter tastes
Develop preferences based on what mother ate during pregnancy
Infants’ sense of smell is so well developed hey can distinguish their mothers on the basis of smell alone.
Sensitivity to Pain and Touch
Pain
Infants are born with the capacity to experience pain.
Signs
Heartbeat increase, sweating, facial expressions of discomfort, and change the intensity and tone of crying when hurt
Developmental progression in reactions
The Power of Touch
69
Several theorists have suggested that one of the ways children gain information about the world is through touching.
Touch is one of most highly developed sensory systems in a newborn
Even youngest infants respond to gentle touches
Several of the basic reflexes present at birth require touch sensitivity to operate
Multimodal Perception: Combining Individual Sensory Inputs
New area of study in infant research
Some researchers argue that sensations are initially integrated with one another in the infant.
Others maintain that the infant’s sensory systems are initially separate and that brain development leads to increasing integration.
Which view is correct?
70
Multimodal approach to perception considers how information that is collected by various individual sensory systems is integrated and coordinated.
What can professionals do?
Persons who are born without the use of one sense often develop unusual abilities in one or more other senses.
What can health care professionals do to help infants who are lacking in a particular sense?
Exercising Your Infant’s Body and Senses
Attempts to accelerate physical and sensory-perceptual development yield little success (yet).
Infants need sufficient physical and sensory stimulation.
72
Exercising Your Infant’s Body and Senses
Carry a baby in different positions.
Let infants explore their environment.
Engage in “rough-and-tumble’ play.
Let infants touch their food.
Provide toys that stimulate the senses
Attempts to accelerate physical and sensory-perceptual development yield little success (yet).
Infants need sufficient physical and sensory stimulation.
73
What are affordances?
Perceptible affordances
Exist where information on actions that are afforded are perceptible
Are dependent on language, culture, context, and experience and vary for different individuals
74
Bring a small collection of found object to lecture. Have students work in groups to brainstorm about the affordances of the objects. Encourage rapid, spontaneous responses.
Ask students to equate this experience with that of an infant. What is different? What is the same?
Infants’ sensory abilities are surprisingly well developed at or shortly after birth. Their perceptions help them explore and begin to make sense of the world.
Very early, infants can see depth and motion, distinguish colors and patterns, localize and discriminate sounds, and recognize the sound and smell of their mothers.
Infants are sensitive to pain and touch, and most medical authorities now subscribe to procedures, including anesthesia, that minimize infants’ pain.
The multimodal approach to perception considers how information that is collected by individual sensory systems is integrated and coordinated.
______________ is the physical stimulation of
the sense organs.
a. Perception
b. Crying
c. Crawling
d. Sensation
We know that infants experience pain because
their heartbeat increases, they sweat, they show
discomfort, and their crying changes tone.
True
False
The ______________ considers how information
that is collected by various individual sensory
systems is integrated and coordinated.
a. multimodal approach to perception
b. affordance theory
c. multidisciplinary motor development cycle
d. macrosystem
If you were selecting a mobile as a gift for a young infant, what features would you look for to make the mobile as interesting as possible for the baby?
