Infant Sensory Development

• Pacifiers can help to prevent SIDS/Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which occurs in low birth weight infants

Sensory Development

• Newborns have 20/400 vision and are legally blind in many states
• A one-year-old infant's vision is similar to an adult's
• Babies understand object constancy without prior experience
• Babies respond to new objects each time and lose interest eventually due to habituation
• Habituation refers to the predictable loss of interest in objects
• Preferential looking paradigm tests infant's object constancy by measuring the time they look at photos
• The visual cortex matures quickly by age 1

Focus on Faces

• Babies prefer faces to other stimuli, especially their mother's face over a stranger's
• Attractive faces are preferred over unattractive ones
• Symmetrical faces may indicate healthier adults and better caregivers from an evolutionary perspective
• Babies like faces looking at them
• Babies are more attracted to females 61% of the time
• Infants imitate adult facial expressions as early as 6-12 months, such as smiling
• Face perception studies explore babies' knowledge about faces using preference looking and habituation

Seeing Depth and Fearing Heights

• The visual cliff experiment demonstrates the beginning of crawling
• Elinor Gibson designed the visual cliff
• Babies develop the ability to perceive and preserve height around two months
• Depth perception is traditionally seen by eight months; fear of heights develops around six months

Growth and Motor Activity

• From infancy to adulthood, body size expands 21 times
• Infancy experiences rapid growth, which slows during childhood and accelerates again during adolescence

Mastering Motor Milestones

• Motor skills develop from mass to specific movements
• Stages include lifting head, pivoting upper body, sitting with support, and standing with assistance
• Proximodistal process involves the control of shoulders, arms, and fingers, moving from interior to the body parts
• Initial movements are big and uncoordinated, progressing to wobbly walking
• Movements are then perfected and refined; adults walk without thinking
• The sequence of motor skills is crawling, then pulling up, then walking
• Neurons internally change movements into a more defined form

Infant Mobility

• Fears and exhilaration develop as a child appears behind or ahead in development, respectively
• Milestones are not connected to intelligence
• The rate at which babies master motor milestones has no relation to their future intelligence
• Different areas of the cortex develop at different times, with visual being first
• Progressing helps infants identify as healthy

Travel & Cognition

• Rapid habituation and memory correlate to future intellect
• Mobility begins with crawling or walking, changing the parent-child relationship
• Parents see their children as more independent and see a person with a mind of their own
• Parents begin to discipline and the child checks on the parent for security
• Children develop size constancy, fear of heights, and show more mature relationship behaviors
• Baby proofing ensures home safety for the newly mobile infant
• Children will test things around the house by tasting and feeling
• Primary circular reactions occur at 2-4 months
• Secondary circular reactions occur at 4 months-1 year
• Tertiary circular reactions occur at 1-2 years
• The cortex blossoms, causing direct coordination
• Behaviors start to make sense

Sensory-Motor Stage Overview

• The sensory-motor stage, the first stage of cognitive development, lasts from birth to around two years
• Infants progress through different behaviors and reactions as their cognitive abilities develop

Circular Reactions

• Circular reactions are repetitive actions that infants engage in for learning
• Primary Circular Reactions focus on the infant's own body, like sucking on toes or fingers
• Secondary Circular Reactions involve interaction with the external environment, starting at 4-12 months
• Infants recognizing and reaching for toys indicates purposeful movement and increased brain cortex coordination
• Tertiary Circular Reactions occur between 1-2 years, with movements becoming purposeful and exploratory
• Example behavior is throwing objects from a high chair and understanding object permanence

Object Permanence

• Object permanence is the understanding that objects exist even when out of sight
• Developed at around 2 years old when children will look for items out of sight
• Piaget suggests infants initially experience life as appearances and disappearances of objects, stabilizing later

Deferred Imitation and Make-Believe Play

• Deferred Imitation: Infants can repeat observed actions later, indicating cognitive ability to recall and recreate behaviors
• Make-Believe Play involves engaging in pretend scenarios and reflect cognitive development
• Examples include pretending to vacuum or imitate adult behaviors

Means to an End

• Engaging in actions to achieve a desired outcome
• Emerges around 12-14 months
• Infants perform actions, like flushing the toilet, to observe consequences

Criticisms of Piaget's Theory

• Piaget may have underestimated infants' cognitive abilities
• Technology provides new insights, leading to different development timeline interpretations

Information Processing Theory

• Compares cognitive development to computer processing by breaking complex skills into smaller components
• Highlights separate steps in learning and memory development rather than a holistic approach
• Contrasts with Piaget's observations by suggesting a more gradual and nuanced understanding of cognitive abilities

Conclusion of Sensory-Motor Stage

• Piaget posits that language acquisition indicates the end of the sensory-motor stage
• Sign language enhances communication, reducing frustrations

Language

• The word infant derives from the Latin word in-fans, meaning unable to speak
• Ability to speak, not just the acquisition of language skills, ends infancy
• Children can communicate with sign language before they can speak
• Noam Chomsky hypothesized that humans have a language acquisition device (LAD)

Tracing Emerging Speech

• The babbling stage involves repetitive sounds like "da-da" and "ma-ma"
• By 11 months, the first words emerge
• Holophrases: Single labels using much gesturing
• Rules of grammar are starting to develop at this stage
• Experiments show that children understand more than they can say
• Telegraphic speech involves short combos of words without all grammatical essentials

Infant Directed Speech (IDS)

• Infant directed speech is called "motherese”
• "Motherese” is the exaggeration of the language and higher pitch of voice
• Infants learn from this exaggerated speech, helping them repeat and understand

Attachment

• Attachment consists of powerful bonds of love between an infant and caregiver during the infant's first year
• Attachment is seen between any two individuals who have a strong emotional bond
• Adults are more likely to respond to infants rather than a teenager in danger

Slowly Getting Attached to Attachment

• 20th century behaviorism despised attachment but European Psychoanalysts felt attachment was crucial to thrive
• Lack of relationship or care can cause a huge difference in growing motor skills, gaining weight, and even could lead to death
• Behaviorism was big in the United States as they rejected nurture
• Europeans thrived once they realized nurture is important.

Attachment Milestones

• Proximity-seeking behavior is activated at any age
• The attachment genetic code that lets people survive
• The pre-attachment phase is from birth to three months
• Infants do not show signs of preference or attachment and has to do with new development and lack of recognizing
• The Social smile- at 2 months
• The attachment in making - 4 to 7 months, when infants start to show preference for their primary caregivers
• Clear cut (focused) attachment - 7 months and on and is signaled by separation anxiety and strangers
• Object permanence shows cognitive skills necessary for a clear-cut attachment
• Reading facial expressions is needed for approval