Infants

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Story

This is a confusing world I’ve just discovered.

Infants are amazing. Their heads are big, their brains are making thousands of connections per second, and their bodies are trying to catch up.

Here’s what is included in this lesson:

• Attention & arousal
• Infant intelligence
• Consciousness
• Hallmarks
• Reflexes

Mind Map

Notes

• Consciousness includes:
  • Perception
  • Reflexes
  • Imprinting
  • Attention
  • Habituation
• Infant Perception
  • Sensory systems are not fully developed at birth
  • Infant Abilities
  • Vision
    • Acuity
      • Can see about 9 inches away
    • Color
      • Neonates do not see blue well
      • By 2 months: normal color vision
  • Infants prefer:
    • Curves
    • Patterns over plain
  • Infants somewhat prefer:
    • High contrast
    • Larger patterns
    • Many objects
    • Moderate complexity
  • Infants strongly prefer:
    • Faces
      • 5-day old want face parts
      • 2 month old want parts in right places
• Infants
  • 1st 2 years of life
  • before speech develops
  • cognition is not linguistic
• Hallmarks
  • Newborn: sleep, eat & poop
    • sleep 16 hr day; eat 6-8 per day
  • 2 months: rollover and coo
    • laugh out loud
  • 3 months: sleep thru night
    • 12 pounds
  • 6 months: sit up & babble
    • baby food
    • “prune” sounds not in language
  • 9 months: crawl & say “dada”
    • maybe “mama”
    • small finely cut table food
  • 1 year: stand up & single words
    • drink from a cup
    • 50% can walk
  • 2 years old: 200 words & walk
    • telegraphic speech
  • 1st grade: 4000 words & share
    • understand 8000 words
• Reflexes
  • Life-long Reflexes
    • Blink
    • Sneeze
    • Gag
    • Yawn
    • Cough
  • Infantile Reflexes; Not a full list
    • Moro Reflex
      • Startle response
        • to sudden or loud noise
      • Protective reaction
        • fear of falling
      • Arch back
      • Fling out arms-legs
      • Stiffen neck
      • First 4-5 months
    • Babinski’s reflex
      • Stroke foot sole to ball of foot
      • Big toe curls up, others spread out
    • Bauer’s reflex
      • Newborn lying face-down
      • Pressure to soles of feet
      • Crawling movements
      • Until six weeks of age
      • Returns when the baby is learning to crawl
    • Stepping reflex
      • Hold firmly under arms
      • Let one foot touch surface
      • Baby will lift up that foot and bring the other down
      • like walking
      • Lasts about 2 months
      • Doesn’t predict walking
    • Doll eyes (first 2 month)
      • Vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR)
      • Stabilizes images on retina
      • Eyes move opposite of head
      • Keeps image centered
    • Rooting Reflex (Until 3-6 months)
      • Stroke cheek, turn toward it
      • Open mouth
      • Make sucking motions
      • Feeding reflex
    • Sucking Reflex (1 month)
      • Suck when touch their mouths
    • Grasping Reflex (3-6 months)
      • Finger against palm, will grab:
      • Quite strong
      • Works on toes too
    • Fencing Reflex (tonic neck)
      • Put baby on back, turn head
      • Baby extends arm & leg on that side
      • Bends opposite arm up
    • Parachute Reflex
      • Starts about 8-10 months
      • Rotating vertical body quickly
      • face forward (as if falling)
      • Arms reach out to break fall
  • Imprinting
    • Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989)
• Attention
  • Attention & Arousal
  • Reticular formation
    • Regulates sleep-wake
    • Filters incoming irrelevant $
    • Damage decrease arousal
    • Involved in
      • 1. eyes-ears to cerebellum
      • 2. Cardiovascular Control
      • 3. Pain Modulation
      • 4. Sleep & Consciousness
      • 5. Habituation
    • Steady state information
      • Ignore repetitive $
    • Damage
      • Irreversible coma
• Consciousness is about the same as attention
  • All or nothing
    • At least reporting is
    • Don’t say “partially see that”
  • Reporting
    • Present two $
    • Report A = conscious of it
    • Not report B = unconscious of it
  • Impacted by:
    • $ brightness
    • Motion
    • Relative size
    • “Top-down” processes
• Inattention blindness
  • Don’t notice change
  • Person behind counter, giant mirror
  • Basketball & gorilla
• Habituation
  • Consistent stimulation
  • Reticular formation, revisited

Terms

• 200 words  & walking
• 4000 words & share
• accommodation = Piaget, adding to schema categories
• adaptation = adjusting to environment
• all-nothing
• arousal
• assimilation = Piaget, adding information to current schema
• attention
• autobiographical memory = episodic memory, what you did on summer vacation
• babbling = repetitive consonant sounds, goes with sitting up, 6 months
• Babinski’s reflex
• Bauer’s reflex
• central executive = cognitive process that coordinates all mental activity
• child-directed speech (CDS) = parents give clear, exaggerated speech, helps learn language
• circular reaction = repeat event on purpose, drop bottle accidently, do again on purpose
• cognition
• color vision
• consciousness
• contrast & complexity
• cooing = first language-like sounds, goes with rolling over, 3 months old
• core knowledge perspective = hypothetical innate knowledge systems
• crawl & say “dada”
• curves & patterns
• deferred imitation = can recall & model behavior of model not there
• developmental quotient (DQ) = infant intelligence tests, unreliable
• developmentally appropriate practice = guidelines of proper child care services
• doll eyes
• expressive style of language = use language to talk about feelings
• faces
• fencing reflex
• grasping reflex
• habituation
• hallmarks
• Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) = checklist for home eval.
• imprinting
• inattention blindness
• infant perception
• infantile amnesia = inability to recall pre-verbal phase of life
• infantile reflexes
• intelligence quotient (IQ) = widely used predictor of school success
• intentional behavior (goal-directed) = reaching-touching, solving simple problems
• irreversible coma
• joint attention = child & parent attend to same object
• language acquisition device (LAD) = hypothetical innate language processor
• laugh out loud
• life-long reflexes
• long-term memory = unknown capacity, less permanent than thought
• Lorenz, Konrad
• make-believe play = act out scenes, dress up, pretend cooking, being a monkey
• mental representation = internal symbols that can be manipulated
• mental strategies = well-practiced plans of how to achieve goals
• Moro reflex
• normal distribution = symmetrical distribution of population scores, chance
• object permanence = Piaget, learning out of sight is not out of existence
• organization = Piaget, development of cognitive representations
• overextension = using Dog for all animals
• parachute reflex
• perception
• prune sounds
• recall = recollection from a cue; listing items
• recognition = selecting from available choices; multiple choice items
• referential style of language = use language to get objects
• reflexes
• reticular formation
• rollover & coo
• rooting reflex
• scheme = Piaget, mental representation
• sensorimotor stage = Piaget’s 1st stage of development, coordination of motor skills
• sensory register = separate buffers for vision and hearing, disappears if not attended to
• sit up & babble
• sleep thru night
• stand up & single words
• standardization = basing test interpretation on the normal curve
• startle response
• stepping reflex
• sucking reflex
• telegraphic speech
• underextension = use Dog for family pet but not other dogs
• vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR)
• violation-of-expectation method = facial expressions as dependent variable to surprise stimuli
• visual acuity
• working memory (short-term) = things currently focused on, keep active with rehearsal
• zone of proximal development = Vygotsky, what can do without help & what can do with help

Quiz

• 1. Which is an infantile reflexes:
  • a.           coughing reflex
  • b.           sneezing reflex
  • c.           stepping reflex
  • d.           yawning reflex
• 2. At 6 months old, an infant can:
  • a.           use single words
  • b.           say “Dadda”
  • c.           babble
  • d.           all of the above
• 3. The ability to ignore steady state information is called:
  • a.           recollection
  • b.           habituation
  • c.           imprinting
  • d.           symmetry
• 4. Which color do neonates not see well?
  • a.           green
  • b.           black
  • c.           blue
  • d.           red
• 5. Severe damage to the reticular formation can cause:
  • a.           irreversible coma
  • b.           underextension
  • c.           overextension
  • d.           consolidation

Answers

• 1. Which is an infantile reflexes:
  • a.           coughing reflex
  • b.           sneezing reflex
  • c.           stepping reflex
  • d.           yawning reflex
• 2. At 6 months old, an infant can:
  • a.           use single words
  • b.           say “Dadda”
  • c.           babble
  • d.           all of the above
• 3. The ability to ignore steady state information is called:
  • a.           recollection
  • b.           habituation
  • c.           imprinting
  • d.           symmetry
• 4. Which color do neonates not see well?
  • a.           green
  • b.           black
  • c.           blue
  • d.           red
• 5. Severe damage to the reticular formation can cause:
  • a.           irreversible coma
  • b.           underextension
  • c.           overextension
  • d.           consolidation

Summary

Bonus

Photo credit

Dave, our fictional character, does not exist…yet. When he does, there are a lot of things we are going to want to know about him. All of the following characteristics will be a part of understanding Dave.

Before we get to Dave, let’s discuss development itself. There are five things you should know.

Five Things To Remember

There are five major things we are going to look at:

• Mendel
• Dominant & Recessive Genes
• Autosomal Traits

 

Foto von Dylan Gillis auf Unsplash

 

Foto von Carlo Navarro auf Unsplash

 

Photo by Jimmy Conover on Unsplash