1. Infant Capacities and the Process of Change
The Development of Children (5th ed.)
Cole, Cole & Lightfoot
Chapter 4

2. What does this mean?
“Babies control and bring up their families as much as they are controlled by them; in fact, we may say that the family brings up a baby by being brought up by him.”
Erik Erikson in Childhood and Society

3. Why is this the case?
Compared with many animals that are able to negotiate their environments at birth almost as well as their parents, human beings are born in a state of marked immaturity…. For many years, human offspring must depend on their parents and other adults for their survival.”
Cole, Cole & Lightfoot, p. 114

4. Overview of the Journey
Brain development
Earliest capacities
Coordination with the social world
Mechanisms of development
First postnatal BSB shift

5. Brain Development Neurons and Neural Networks
Experience and Development
The CNS and the Brain

6. At birth, the brain has all the cells it will have, yet it is ¼ the size of an adult brain. Why?
Dendrite size and branching
Axon branching and myelination (speed)

7. Neural Networks in Postnatal Life

8. Experience and Development
Synaptic pruning
Exuberant synapto-genesis

9. Rats Raised in Enriched Environments
Increased rates of learning in standard laboratory tasks, such as learning a maze
Increased overall weight of the cerebral cortex (the part of the brain that integrates sensory information)
Increased amounts of acetylcholinesterase, a brain enzyme that enhances learning
Larger neuronal cell bodies and glial cells (which provide insulation, support and nutrients to neuronal cells)
More synaptic connections
Rosenzweig, 1984

10. Active Interaction with the Environment
Rats were raised with an enriched environment but were housed singly in small cages so that could do no more than observe what was going on around them
The learning capacity of these rats differed in no way from that of the animals that were housed in individual cages away from the enriched environment
What might this imply for child-rearing? For teaching?

11. Brain Elements and Functions

12. Six Mammalian Species
Why the difference?

13. Cortex Development
Matures later than the lower-lying areas of the CNS, spinal cord, brain stem
Primary motor area
First area of the cortex to develop
Responsible for voluntary (nonreflexive) movement
Begins with raising head (1 month), control of arms and trunk (3 months); leg control is last to develop
Primary sensory areas
Begins with touch, then visual, then auditory
By 3 months, all primary sensory areas are relatively mature
Frontal cortex (e.g., planning, decision-making)
Begins to function in infancy but continues to develop throughout childhood

14. Sensory Processes Response Processes
Earliest Capacities
Sensory Processes
Response Processes

15. Sensory Processes
Normal full-term newborns enter the world with all sensory systems functioning, but not all of these systems have developed to the same level due to different developmental rates (i.e., heterochrony)
Indications of sensation
Turning of the head, variation in brain waves, changes in rate of sucking on a nipple
Habituation: Becomes bored and stops attending
Dishabituation: Interest is renewed after the infant perceives a change in the stimulus

16. Hearing
Infants only minutes old will startle with a loud noise and may even cry
Will also turn their heads toward the source of a noise

17. Hearing
Infants can distinguish the sound of the human voice from other kinds of sounds, and seem to prefer it
Are particularly interested in speech with the high pitch and slow, exaggerated pronun- ciation (i.e., “baby talk”)
Evidence that by 2 days old, some babies would rather hear the language that has been spoken around them than a foreign language

18. Hearing Capacity At 2 months of age: Present phoneme (e.g., /pa/)
Habituate (i.e., return to baseline sucking rate)
New phoneme (e.b., /ba/)
Dishabituate (i.e., sucking rate increases)

19. New Consonant Both groups hear a consonant sound Habituate
Experimental group hears a new consonant sound at time marked 0
Infants are able to distinguish consonant sounds

20. Auditory Discrimination and Culture
Infants can distinguish among language sounds that do not occur in their native language, but this capacity diminishes during the first year of life.

21. Infants’ Visual Capacity
Based on studies of infant eye movement when a striped visual field passes in front of the eyes, it is evident that visual capacity increases dramatically over the first few months of life.

22. Fantz Looking Chamber (1960s)
Demonstrated that babies less than 2 days old can distinguish among visual forms
Tend, however, to focus on areas of high contrast, such as lines and angles

23. Development of Visual Scanning
Due to brain maturation

24. Perception of Faces
Infants show a preference for patterned stimuli over plain stimuli
Babies as young as 9 minutes old will look longer at a schematic moving face than a scrambled one

25. Visual Preferences of Infants

26. Expressions of Various Tastes
Neutral stimulus (water)
Sweet stimulus
Sour stimulus
Bitter stimulus

27. Early Sensory Capacities
Sense
Capacity
Hearing
Ability to distinguish phonemes
Preference for native language
Vision
Slightly blurred at birth
Color vision by 2 months
Distinguish patterned stimuli from plain
Preference for facelike stimuli
Smell
Ability to differentiate odors well at birth
Taste
Ability to differentiate tastes well at birth
Touch
Response to touch at birth
Temperature
Sensitivity to temperature changes at birth
Position
Sensitivity to changes in position at birth

28. Response Processes Reflexes Emotions Temperament
Automatic (involuntary) responses to specific types of stimulation…
Emotions
Two basic emotions, contentment (+) & distress (-), split into primary emotions (e.g., joy, anger, fear) at 3-6 months…
Temperament
Individual modes of responding to the environment that appear to be consistent across situations and stable over time…

29. Reflexes Present at Birth
Description
Babinski
When the bottom of the baby’s foot is stroked, the toes fan out and then curl
Crawling
When the baby is placed on his stomach and pressure is applied to the soles of his feet, his arms and legs move rhythmically
Moro
If the baby is allowed to drop unexpectedly while being held or if there is a loud noise, she will throw her arms outward while arching her back and then bring her arms together as if grasping something
Rooting
The baby turns his head and opens his mouth when he is touched on the cheek
Sucking
The baby sucks when something is put in her mouth

30. Grasping Reflex
When a finger or some other object is pressed against the baby’s palm, the baby’s fingers close around it
Disappears in 3-4 months; replaced by voluntary grasping

31. Stepping Reflex
When the baby is held upright over a flat surface, he makes rhythmic leg movements
Disappears in first 2 months, but can be reinstated in special contexts (e.g., when partially submerged in water)

32. Infant Expression of Emotions
Joy
Anger
Sadness
Disgust
Distress
Interest
Fear
Surprise

33. Infant Expression of Emotions
Joy
Joy
Anger
Anger
Sadness
Sadness
Disgust
Disgust
Distress
Distress
Interest
Interest
Fear
Fear
Surprise
Surprise

34. Temperaments Three broad categories
Easy babies: Playful, regular in their biological functions, adapt readily to new circumstances
Difficult babies: Irritable, irregular in their biological functions, often respond intensely and negatively to new situations or try to withdraw from them
Slow-to-warm-up babies: Low in activity level, responses are typically mild, tend to withdraw from new situations, require more time than easy babies to adapt to change
Moderate temperamental stability over first 8 years of childhood
Impact of both genetic and environmental components

35. Coordination with the Social World
Sleeping
Feeding
Crying

36. Sleep Patterns in Infants
NREM Sleep
REM Sleep
During first 2-3 months of life, infants begin their sleep with active (REM) sleep and then fall into quiet (NREM) sleep. Subsequently, the sequence reverses and shifts toward the adult pattern.

37. Pattern of Sleep/Wake Cycles
Newborns sleep ~16½ hours /day, but the longest period of sleep is only 3-4 hours.

38. Feeding
When fed “on demand”, majority of newborns preferred a 3-hour schedule
Interval gradually increased to 4-hour schedule by 2 ½ months
By 7 or 8 months, 4x/day

39. Early feeding attempts are rather uncoordinated
Nursing Behavior
Early feeding attempts are rather uncoordinated
Infant’s nostrils are blocked while he/she is attempting to feed
This elicits a head-withdrawal reflex that interferes with feeding
Later attempts become much more coordinated resulting in nursing – an evidence of learning.

40. Crying
Increases from birth to about 6 weeks and then starts to decrease
At a few months of age, infants begin to cry voluntarily (“crying on purpose”) as the cerebral cortex becomes involved
Crying helped by nursing, holding baby to shoulder, rocking, patting, cuddling, swaddling (reduces over-stimulation from uncontrolled limb movements)

41. Mechanisms of Developmental Change
Biological-Maturation Perspective
Environmental-Learning Perspective
Constructivist Perspective
Cultural-Context Perspective

42. Mechanisms of Developmental Change
Biological-Maturation Perspective

43. Reflex Coordination Early, simple reflexes arise from the brain stem
More complex, coordinated reflexes result from the maturation of the cerebral cortex

44. Early Attention to Human Speech
In 1-month-old baby born without a cerebral cortex
On first exposure to sound of human speech, there is a marked decrease in heart rate, indicating attention
After 5 additional presentations of the sound, the infant has habituated

45. Mechanisms of Developmental Change
Environmental-Learning Perspective

46. Classical Conditioning
Sight of a light (CS) elicits no particular response
Loud sound of gong (UCS) causes baby to blink (UCR)
Sight of light (CS) is paired with sound of gong (UCS), which evokes an eyeblink (UCR)
Sight of light (CD) is sufficient to cause the baby to blink (CR), evidence that learning has occurred

47. Operant Conditioning
An organism will tend to repeat behaviors that lead to rewards and will tend to give up behaviors that fail to produce rewards or lead to punishment
Requirement: Behavior must occur before it can be reinforced

48. Operant Conditioning
After only 25 occasions on which the head turning was reinforced with the pacifier, most of the babies had tripled the rate at which they turned their heads.
Conversely, those infants who were rewarded with a pacifier for holding their heads still, learned to move their heads less during the course of the experiment.

49. Mechanisms of Developmental Change
Constructivist Perspective (Piaget)

50. Piaget’s Theory of Developmental Change via Schemas
Assimilation (Incorporated into an existing schema)
Accommodation (Modification of a prior schema)
Equilibration
Leads to developmental stages…

51. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Age (Yrs)
Stage
Description
Birth – 2
Sensori- motor
Achievements consist largely of coordinating sensory perceptions and simple motor behaviors. Come to recognize the existence of a world outside themselves and begin to interact with it in deliberate ways.
2 – 6
Preopera- tional
Can use symbols, including mental images, words, and gestures. Often fail to distinguish their point of view from that of others, become easily captured by surface appearances, and are often confused about causal relationships.
6 – 12
Concrete Operational
Become capable of mental operations that allow them to combine, separate, order, and transform objects and actions. There are still carried out, however, in the presence of the objects and events being thought about.
12 – 19
Formal Operational
Acquire the ability to think systematically about all logical relations within a problem. Display keen interest in abstract ideas and in the process of thinking itself.

52. Sensorimotor Substages
Age (M)
Description 1
0 – 1 ½
Reflex schemas exercised: Involuntary rooting, sucking, grasping, looking 2
1 ½ – 4
Primary circular reactions: Repetition of actions that are pleasurable in themselves 3
4 – 8
Secondary circular reactions: Dawning awareness of the effects of one’s own actions on the environment, and that extended actions can produce interesting change in the environment 4
8 – 12
Coordination of secondary circular reactions: Combining schemas to achieve a desired effect (earliest form of problem solving) 5
12 – 18
Tertiary circular reactions: Deliberate variation of problem-solving means, with experimentation to see what the consequences will be 6
18 – 24
Beginning of symbolic representation: Images and words come to stand for familiar objects, accompanied by the invention of new means of problem solving through symbolic combinations

53. Mechanisms of Developmental Change
Cultural-Context Perspective

54. Reciprocal Relationships
Presence of milk stimulates infant sucking, which in turn triggers the release of hormones that increase milk production and release

55. Developmental Change Incorporates Cultural Variations
Additional sources of developmental change
Active contribution of other people in the child’s community
Cultural “designs for living” accumulated over the history of the larger social group
Case in Point Bottle-feeding vs. Breast-feeding

56. First Postnatal Bio-Social-Behavioral Shift
Occurs at 2½ Months Social Smiling!

57. BSB Shifts & Subsequent Periods
Shift Point
Developmental Period
Conception
Prenatal period
Birth
Early infancy
2 ½ months
Middle infancy
7-9 months
Late infancy
24-30 months
Early childhood
5-7 years
Middle childhood
11-12 years
Adolescence
19-21 years
Adulthood

58. Characteristics of the Shift
Biological
Myelination of cortical and subcortical neural pathways
Increased cortical control of subcortical activity
Increased diversity of brain cells
Increase in amount of wakefulness
Decrease in proportion of active (REM) sleep
Quiet (NREM) sleep begins to come first
Social
New quality of coordination and emotional contact between infants and caretakers
Beginning of “crying on purpose”
Behavioral
Better retention of learning
Increased visual acuity and better visual scanning
Onset of social smiling
Decreased fussiness and crying
Visually initiated reaching  visually guided reaching