Chapter 4

Physical Development in Infancy

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 Chapter Outline
• Physical Growth and Development in Infancy.
• Motor Development.
• Sensory and Perceptual Development.

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 Physical Growth and Development in
Infancy: Topics
• Patterns of growth.
• Height and weight.
• The brain.
• Sleep.
• Nutrition.

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 Patterns of Growth 1

Cephalocaudal pattern: developmental sequence in which the

earliest growth always occurs at the top—the head.
• Physical growth and differentiation of features gradually work
their way down from top to bottom.

Proximodistal pattern: sequence in which growth starts at the

center of the body and moves toward the extremities.

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 Height and Weight 1

The average American newborn is 20 inches long and weighs 7.6

pounds.

Most newborns are 18 to 22 inches long and weigh between 5 and

10 pounds.

Babies grow about 1 inch per month during the first year.

By 2 years of age:
• Infants weigh approximately 26 to 32 pounds.
• They average 32 to 35 inches in height.

Growth is episodic.

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 Sleep 1

Sleep restores, replenishes, and rebuilds our brains and bodies.

Why do we sleep?
From an evolutionary perspective, sleep is necessary for survival.
Sleep replenishes and rebuilds the brain and body.
• Allows for increased production and reduced breakdowns of
proteins, and for the clearing out waste in neural tissues.

Sleep is critical for brain plasticity.

• Increases synaptic connections between neurons.

Sleep deprivation has a negative impact on memory, attention,

reasoning, and decision making.

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 Sleep 2

Infant sleep:

The typical newborn sleeps approximately 18 hours a day.

Sleep-related problems affect 15 to 25% of infants.

• Especially, night-time waking.
• Factors include maternal depression, early solid foods, screen
time, and child care attendance.

Cultural variations influence infant sleeping patterns.

• Infants sleep with their mothers and nurse on demand in the
Kipsigis culture in Kenya.

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 Nutrition 1

From birth to 1 year of age, infants nearly triple their weight and
increase their length by 50 percent.
• Infants should consume approximately 50 calories per day for
each pound they weigh.

As motor skills improve, infants’ eating changes:

• From suck-and-swallow to chew-and-swallow movements.
• As they can, they eat semisolid and then complex foods.

A varied diet is important.

• Introduce fruits and vegetables early.
• The most common “vegetable” fed to 15-month-olds is French
fries.
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 Nutrition 2

Breast versus bottle feeding:

Breast feeding is better for the baby’s health.

Outcomes for the child include:

• Fewer gastrointestinal infections.
• Fewer respiratory tract infections.
• Protection against wheezing, though the effect on the incidence
of asthma remains unclear.
• Fewer ear, throat, and sinus infections.
• Reduced infant hospitalizations for various infections.

Breast feeding is not linked to a reduced risk of allergies.

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 Nutrition 3

The breast-fed infant is less likely to:

• Develop a middle ear infection.
• Become overweight or obese in childhood,
adolescence, and adulthood.
• Develop type 1 diabetes in childhood or
adult type 2.
• Die from SIDS.

Maternal benefits of breast feeding:

• Lower incidence of breast cancer and
ovarian cancer.
• Reduced rate of type 2 diabetes.
• Lower rates of hospitalization.
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 Nutrition 4

The mother should not breast feed:

• When infected with HIV or other infectious disease.
• If she has active tuberculosis.
• If she is taking any drug.

Additional issues:
• Breast feeding can be physically difficult.
• Not all studies imply causality between health benefits and
breast feeding; most studies are correlational.
• Evidence of psychological differences between breast-fed and
bottle-fed infants is inconclusive.

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 Reflexes 1

Reflexes: built-in reactions to stimuli that govern the newborn’s

movements.
• Generally seen as automatic and beyond the newborn’s control.

Rooting reflex: occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked, or the

side of the mouth is touched.
• The infant turns his or her head to find something to suck.

Sucking reflex: occurs when newborns automatically suck an

object placed in their mouth.
• Enables them to get nourishment before they have associated a
nipple with food.
• Serves as a self-soothing mechanism.
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 Gross Motor Skills 3

Motor development milestones and variations in the first year:

• Developmental milestones include grasping, rolling, sitting, and
crawling, as well as standing and walking.
• Larger size at birth shows the strongest link to reaching motor
milestones earlier.
• The timing of reaching milestones varies by 2 to 4 months.

• Experiences can modify the onset of these accomplishments.

• Caregiver participation enhances all new skill development in a

real-world environment with objects, surfaces, and planes.

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 Gross Motor Skills 5

Development in the second year:

Toddlers become more skilled and mobile.

By 13 to 18 months, they can pull a toy and climb steps.

By 18 to 24 months:
• Walk quickly and run short distances.
• Balance on their feet while squatting.
• Walk backward and stand and kick a ball.
• Stand and throw a ball.
• Jump.

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 Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills: involve more finely tuned movements, such as
finger dexterity.

Types of grasps:
• Palmer grasp: grasping with the whole hand.
• Pincer grip: grasping small objects with thumb and forefinger.

Perceptual-motor coupling is necessary for the infant to coordinate

grasping.

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 What Are Sensation and Perception?
Sensation: the product of the interaction between information and
the sensory receptors—the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin.

Perception: the interpretation of what is sensed.

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 Visual Perception 2

FIGURE 19: VISUAL ACUITY DURING THE FIRST MONTHS OF LIFE

The four photographs represent a computer estimation of what a picture of a face looks like to a 1-
month-old, 2-month-old, 3-month-old, and 1-year-old (which approximates the visual acuity of an adult).

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 Visual Perception 3

By 3 months of age, infants:

• Match voices to faces.
• Distinguish between male and female faces.
• Discriminate between faces of their own ethnic group and those
of other ethnic groups.

Experience plays an important role in face processing.

• Perceptual narrowing: infants are more likely to distinguish
between faces to which they have been exposed.

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 Visual Perception 5

Color vision:
• By 8 weeks, infants can discriminate between some colors.
• By 4 months, they have color preferences.

Perceptual constancy:

Development of perceptual constancy allows infants to perceive

world as stable.
• Size constancy: recognition that an object remains the same
even though the retinal image of the object changes as you
move toward or away from the object.
• Shape constancy: recognition that an object’s shape remains
the same even though its orientation changes.

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 Other Senses 1

Hearing:

The fetus can hear sounds in the mother’s womb during the last
two months of pregnancy.

Changes in hearing during infancy involve perception of:

• Loudness;
• Pitch; and
• Localization.

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 Other Senses 2

Newborns respond to touch.

Newborns can also feel pain.

• A brain activity network, the “pain network,” underlies pain.

Newborns can differentiate odor.

Sensitivity to taste is present even before birth.

• At about 4 months of age, infants begin to prefer salty tastes,
which as newborns they had avoided.

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 Intermodal Perception
Intermodal perception: the ability to relate and integrate
information from two or more sensory modalities, such as vision
and hearing.

In the first 6 months, infants have difficulty connecting sensory

input from different modes, but in the second half of the first year,
they show an increased ability to make this connection mentally.

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