LESSON 3

INFANCY
Physical, Sensory, and Perceptual
Development In Infancy
 Physical Changes
The Brain and Nervous System

Brain
Rapid development during the first 2 years
Midbrain and medulla most fully developed
at birth
The cortex is the least developed.
Figure 4.1 Parts of the Brain
 The Brain and Nervous System
Physical Changes: Synaptic Development
 The Brain and Nervous System
Plasticity

Neural plasticity: Brain’s ability to change in

response to experience

Use it or lose it

Changes in psychological functioning

 The Brain and the Nervous System
Myelinization

Myelin: Insulating layer of proteins and fatty

substances
Description
Timing
 Reflexes and Behavioral States
Adaptive Reflexes

Adaptive reflexes: Reflexes that help survival

Warn of possible neuronal development
problems when weak or absent
Some persist throughout life.
 Reflexes and Behavioral States
Primitive Reflexes

Primitive reflexes: Reflexes controlled by less

sophisticated parts of brain
Should appear at birth and disappear by 6 to
8 months.
May indicate neurological problems if
persistent.
 Reflexes and Behavioral States
States of Consciousness

Sleep, Baby, sleep

Patterns of sleep and wakefulness stabilize
with age.
Neonates sleep 80 percent of the time.
By 8 weeks, babies begin to sleep through
the night.
By 6 months, babies average 14 hours of
sleep per day.
 Reflexes and Behavioral States
Five States of Sleep and Wakefulness

Most infants move through these states in the same

sequence every 2 hours
 Growth, Motor Skills, and Developing
Body Systems
Physical Changes: Growth
By age one
10 to 12 inches of growth
Infants triple body weight

Around age two

Toddlers reach half their adult height.
Proportionately much larger heads than
adults
Growth, Motor Skills, and Developing
Body Systems
Growth and Motor Skills: Overview

Inborn timetable of motor skills interacts with

other aspects of physical development
(Thelen, 1995).
Muscles, bones, weight—all work together.
Opportunities to practice motor skills are
important.
 Developing Body Systems and
Motor Skills
Bones

Ossification: Process of hardening of bones

Begins during prenatal development
Continues through puberty
Motor development depends to a large
extent on ossification.
Changes in number and density of bones
are responsible for improved coordination.
 Developing Body Systems
and Motor Skills
Muscles
Full complement of muscle fibers present at
birth
Decline in muscle tissue to fat ratio
occurs by age 1.
Change in muscle composition leads to
increase in strength.
 Developing Body Systems
and Motor Skills
Lungs and Heart

Rapid growth during the first 2 years leads to

stamina.

Ability to sustain motor activity without rest

by end of infancy.
 Sensory Skills
Vision

Rapid development of visual acuity

20/200 at birth; 20/20 at 2 years

Color vision
Red, blue, green at 1 month

Tracking
Tracking slow-moving object before 2
months and skilled at 6–10 weeks
 Sensory Skills

Hearing
Adult voices heard well and some
directional loud-sound location
Smelling and tasting
Newborns react differently to each basic
taste as early as birth.
Touch and motion
Best developed of all senses
Taste Responses in Newborns
 Perceptual Skills
Studying Perceptual Development

Preference technique
Study how long baby attends to a
particular stimulus.
Habituation/dishabituation
Study loss of interest in particular
stimulus after repeated exposures.
Operant conditioning
Vary the stimulus and study the learned
responses.
 Looking Skills
Depth Perception

Depth perception can be judged by:

Binocular cues
Monocular cues
Kinetic cues
 Perceptual Skills
What Babies Look At: Scanning

Visual
attention:
guided by
search for
meaningf
ul pattern
 What Babies Look At
What Babies Look At: Faces

Face NOT Attractive

uniquely faces and
interesting mother’s
to infants face
preferred

Before 2 2–3 months:

months: Scan internal
Scan edges facial
(hairline, features,
chin) especially
eyes
 Listening
What Babies Hear: Discriminating Speech Sounds

1 month: discriminate between “pa” and “ba”

3 months: respond to male, female, and
children’s voices similarly
6 months: discriminate between 2-syllable
words
6 months: distinguish sound contrasts in
any language; fades by 1 year
 Perceptual Systems
Combining Information from Several Senses

Intermodal perception: Formation of single

perception of stimulus that is based on
information from 2 or more senses
Possible by 1 month
Common by 6 months
Important in infant learning
 Perceptual Systems
Explaining Perceptual Development

Nativists Empiricists
Most perceptual abilities Most perceptual abilities
inborn learned

Many of these abilities Experience needed to

present at birth develop perceptual
systems

A compromise position: Perceptual skill

development is the result of interaction between
inborn and experiential factors.
Cognitive Development
in Infancy
 Cognitive Changes
Piaget’s Views

A quick review
Assimilation
Accommodation
Sensorimotor intelligence
 Cognitive Changes
Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage

Sensorimotor stage
Basic reflexes
Primary circular reaction
Secondary circular reaction
Coordination of secondary schemas
(means-end behavior)
Tertiary circular reaction
Transition to symbolic thought
Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage by Age
 Cognitive Changes
Piaget: Object Permanence

Object permanence: Realization that objects

still exist when hidden from sight
• 2 months: surprise when an object
disappears
• 6–8 months: looking for missing object
• 8–12 months: reaching for or searching for
completely hidden toy
 Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage
Piaget: Imitation
Imitation: Performance of act whose stimulus is
observation of act performed by another person
Figure 5.1 Facial Gesture Imitation in
Newborns
 Cognitive Changes
Spelke’s Alternative Approach

Assumption: Babies have inborn assumptions

about objects and their movement.

Method: Violation of expectations method

Researchers move an object the opposite
way from that which the infant comes to
expect.

Let’s look at the next slide for an example.

Figure 5.2 Spelke’s Classic Study of Object
Perception

Figure 5.2
 Learning, Categorizing, and
Remembering
Conditioning and Modeling

Learning: Permanent changes in behavior that

result from experience
 Learning, Categorizing, and
Remembering
Schematic Learning

Schematic learning: Organization of

experiences into expectancies or “known”
combinations (schemas)
7 months: Infants actively use categories,
but not levels, to process information.
2 years: Hierarchical or superordinate
categories appear.
What do data from sequential learning
studies suggest?
Infancy: respond to superordinate before basic
level categories
12 months: understand basic and
superordinate categories
2 years: partially understand smaller
categories nested in larger categories
5 years: fully understand categories
 Learning, Categorizing, and
Remembering
Memory

Carolyn Rovee-Collier’s research

Babies as young as 3 months old can
remember specific objects and their own
actions for as long as a week.
Young infants are more cognitively
sophisticated than was previously assumed.
Figure 5.5 Rovee-Collier’s Study of Infant
Memory
The Beginnings of Language
Theoretical Perspectives
 The Beginnings of Language
The Behaviorist View: B. F. Skinner

Parent-reinforced babbling and grammar

use
Correct grammar reinforced, becomes more
frequent
Non-grammatical words not reinforced

Is this what you observe when parents

interact with very young children?
 The Beginnings of Language
The Nativist View Noam Chomsky

Grammar rules acquired before exception

mastery
Rule-governed errors made (overregulation)
Comprehension and production guided by
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
 The Beginnings of Language
More about the LAD

Language Acquisition Device

Basic grammatical structure for all human
language
Tells babies there are 2 types of sounds
(consonants and vowels)
Enables infants to divide, analyze, and learn
sounds of the specific language they are
learning
 The Beginnings of Language
Slobin

Importance of “soundness”
Infants are preprogrammed to attend to
beginnings and endings of sounds and to
stressed sounds.

Programming is not attached to verbs or

nouns, but to attention to sounds.
 The Beginnings of Language
The Interactionist View
Four key ideas
1. Language follows rules as part of cognition.
2. Language includes internal and external factors.
3. Infants are born with biological preparedness to
pay more attention to language than other
information.
4. The infant brain has generalized tools used
across all cognitive domains—NOT language-
specific neurological model.
 The Beginnings of Language
Bowerman and Bloom

Language does not initially introduce new

meaning, but expresses meaning already
formulated, independent of language.

Children attempt to communicate and learn

new words when these aid in the
communication of thoughts and ideas.
 The Beginnings of Language
Influences on Language Development

Infant-directed speech
Higher pitch
Repetitions with variations
Infant preferred
 The Beginnings of Language
Early Milestones of Language Development
 Word Recognition
Receptive Language

Receptive language: Ability to understand

words
8 months: begin to store words in
memory
9–10 months: understands 20–30 words
13 months: 100 words
 The Beginnings of Language
Expressive Language

Expressive language: Ability to produce words

12-13 months: Babies begin to say first

words.
Words learned slowly in context with
specific situations and cues
 The Beginnings of Language
First Words

Now let’s take a look at vocabulary growth

during the toddler years.
Figure 5.6 Vocabulary Growth in the Second Year
 The Beginnings of Language
First Sentences

Short, simple sentences appear at 18–24

months.

Threshold vocabulary reaches around 100–

200 words.

Sentences: Following rules created

 The Beginning of Language
Individual Differences in Language
Development: Rate

Differences in rate of language development

A wide range of normal variations exists in
sentence structures.
Most children catch up.
Those who don’t catch up have poor
receptive language.
 The Beginning of Language
Individual Differences in Language
Development: Style

Differences in style
Expressive style
Early vocabulary linked to social
relationships rather than objects
Referential style
Early vocabulary made up of names of
things or people
 Measuring Intelligence in Infancy
What Is Intelligence?

Intelligence: Ability to take in information

and use it to adapt to environment
Although each infant develops at a different
pace, both genetic and environmental
factors influence infant intelligence.

So how can infant intelligence be

measured?
Measuring Intelligence in Infancy

Bailey Scales of Infant Development

Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence

Social and Personality Development
in Infancy
 Theories of Social and Personality
Development
Psychoanalytic Perspectives: Freud and Erikson

Freud: psychosexual Erikson: psychosocial

stage related to infant stage in which
attempts at needs attending to infant
satisfaction needs and social
 Oral stage development important
 Mother-child  Trust versus
symbiotic mistrust
relationship  Relationship goes
 Nursing; fixation beyond feeding
 Theories of Social and Personality
Development
Ethological Perspectives: John Bowlby

Attachment: Emotional bond in which a

person’s sense of security is bound up in the
relationship
 Strong emotional bond-making is innate
 Bonds maintained by instinctive behaviors
that create and sustain proximity
 Attachment
The Parent’s Attachment to the Infant

Synchrony: Opportunity for parent-infant

development of mutual, interlocking pattern
of attachment behaviors
 Takes practice to develop
 Provides developmental benefits
 Attachment
The Parent’s Attachment to the Infant
Mother’s bond with infant
 Bond dependent on synchrony
 Mothers provide more routine caregiving
than fathers.
 After first few weeks, mothers talk to and
smile more at baby.
 Attachment
The Parent’s Attachment to the Infant
Father’s bond with infant
 The relationship depends on synchrony.
 Fathers have same repertoire as mothers.
 After first few weeks, fathers begin to spend
more time playing with baby.
 Attachment
The Infant’s Attachment to the Parents
Characteristics of attachment
 Safe haven
 Secure base
 Proximity maintenance
 Separation distress

Now let’s look at how several theorists

operationalize this construct.
 Attachment
The Infant’s Attachment to the Parents

Establishing attachment: Bowlby’s 4 phases

 Nonfocused orienting and signaling
(0–3 months)
 Focus on one or more figures
(3–6 months)
 Secure base behavior (6–24 months)
 Internal model (24 months and beyond)
Attachment behaviors

Attachment
The Infant’s Attachment to the Parents
 Attachment
Secure and Insecure Attachments
Mary Ainsworth
Protocol: The Strange Situation
Attachment styles:
 Secure attachment
 Insecure/avoidant attachment
 Insecure/ambivalent attachment
 Insecure/disorganized attachment
 Attachment
Secure and Insecure Attachments
Insecure attachments

 Avoidant attachment

 Ambivalent attachment

 Disorganized attachment
 Attachment
Stability of Attachment Quality
Attachment stability
 Dependent on consistency of child’s life
circumstances
 Influenced by major upheavals
 Internal models elaborated from year 1 until
the age of 4 or 5
 Attachment
Caregiver Characteristics and Attachment

Caregivers and attachment

Several characteristics influence the attachment
process:
 Emotional availability
 Contingent responsiveness
 Attachment
Caregiver Characteristics and Attachment

Other caregiver characteristics influencing

secure attachment

 Marital status
 Education
 Age
 SES
 Mental health
 Attachment
Attachment Quality: Long Term
Consequences
The securely attached:
 More sociable
 More positive in relationships with friends
 Less clingy and dependent on teachers
 Less aggressive and disruptive
 More emotionally mature

Continues into adolescence

 More likely to be leaders
 Have higher self-esteem
 Attachment
Attachment Quality: Long-Term
Consequences

Attachment quality and consequences

 Increased sociability throughout early,
middle, and late adulthood
 Influence on parenting behaviors
 Foundation for future social relationships
 Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Definitions
Personality: Stable patterns in how people
relate to those around them

Temperament: Basic behavioral and emotional

predispositions
 Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Dimensions of Temperament

Dimensions of temperament: How are these

theorist alike? Different?
 Alexander Thomas
 Stella Chess
 Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Origins and Stability of Temperament

Heredity
 Identical twins more alike in temperament
than fraternal twins

Long-term Stability
 Stable across long periods of time
 Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Neurological Processes
Heredity
 Basic differences in behaviors related to
underlying neurological processes
 Neurotransmitters regulate brain
responses to new information and
unusual situations.
 Still difficult to demonstrate conclusively
that neurological differences are cause or
effect
 Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Origins and Stability of Temperament
Environment
Sandra Scarr
 Niche-picking
Thomas and Chess
 Goodness of fit

Synchronous relationships
 Parental influence with children at
temperamental extremes
Personality, Temperament, and
Self-Concept
Understanding Infant Sense of Self
 Personality, Temperament, and Self-
Concept
Self-concept
The subjective self The objective self
 Awareness by the  Toddler comes to
child that he is understand he is an
separate from others object in the world.
and endures over time The self has
 Appears by 8–12  properties, such as
months at the same gender.
time as object
permanence
Personality, Temperament, and Self-
Concept
The Emotional Self
 First, babies learn to identify changes in
emotional expression.

 Gradually they learn to “read” and respond

to facial expressions.

 With age and experience, infants learn to

interpret emotional perceptions of others to
anticipate actions and guide own behavior.
 Effects of Nonparental Care
Effects on Cognitive Development
 High-quality daycare has beneficial effects,
especially for children from poor families.

 Later scores in reading and math related to

daycare entry age and poverty
 Effects of Nonparental Care
Effects on Social Development

 Infant daycare has negative effects on

attachment if started under 1 year.

 Parents whose behaviors are associated

with insecure attachment have children who
are negatively affected by early daycare.

 Early day care associated with greater risks

for social problems in school-age children
References:

 Boyd, D., & Bee, H. (2015). Lifespan Development 7th

Edition. Philippines: Pearson Education South Asia PTE.
LTD.
 https://www.slideshare.net/cjosek/boyd-ppt-ch4f
 https://www.slideshare.net/cjosek/boyd-ppt-ch5f
 https://www.slideshare.net/cjosek/boyd-ppt-ch6f
Thank you for
listening! 