Infants and Children in Context. Tara L. Kuther

do motor skills unfold during infancy? Should Theo’s parents worry about his progress? Why or why not?

      3 Theo’s mother worries about how his early experiences of deprivation might influence Theo’s brain development. Discuss processes of brain development and the role of experience in development. Should Theo’s mother worry? What can she do to help Theo?

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      Key Terms

       Growth norm 96

       Cephalocaudal development 96

       Proximodistal development 96

       Growth stunting 98

       Marasmus 98

       Kwashiorkor 98

       Growth faltering 99

       Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) 100

       Vaccine 101

       Neuron 104

       Synapse 104

       Myelin 104

       Neurogenesis 104

       Glial cell 104

       Synaptogenesis 105

       Synaptic pruning 105

       Myelination 105

       Cortex 105

       Prefrontal cortex 105

       Lateralization 106

       Experience-expectant brain development 107

       Habituation 110

       Sensation 113

       Perception 113

       Visual acuity 113

       Perceptual narrowing 114

       Externality effect 114

       Depth perception 115

       Intermodal perception 118

       Affordance 118

       Reflex 120

       Gross motor development 120

       Fine motor development 121

      Summary

       4.1 Discuss growth and influences and threats to growth during infancy and toddlerhood.Growth proceeds from the head downward (cephalocaudal) and from the center of the body outward (proximodistal). Breastfeeding is associated with many benefits for mothers and infants. Malnourishment is associated with growth stunting and impaired learning, concentration, and language skills throughout childhood and adolescence. Severely malnourished children may suffer from diseases such as marasmus and kwashiorkor or, more common in the United States, growth faltering. Other threats to infants’ health include SIDS and underimmunization.

       4.2 Summarize brain development during infancy and toddlerhood.The brain develops through several processes: neurogenesis (the creation of neurons), synaptogenesis (the creation of synapses), pruning (reducing unused neural connections), and myelination (coating the axons with myelin to increase the speed of transmission). Experience shapes the brain structure through pruning. Sleep also plays a role in brain development. Although infancy is a particularly important time for the formation and strengthening of synapses, experience shapes the brain structure at all ages of life.

       4.3 Compare infants’ early learning capacities for habituation, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and imitation.Innate learning capacities permit young infants to quickly adapt to the world. Habituation is a type of innate learning in which repeated exposure to a stimulus results in the gradual decline in the intensity, frequency, or duration of a response. In classical conditioning, an association is formed between a neutral stimulus and one that triggers an innate reaction. Infants also learn based on the consequences of their behaviors, whether they are followed by reinforcement or punishment, known as operant conditioning. Neonates mimic simple facial and finger expressions but do so without control. The regulatory mechanisms to inhibit imitative responding develop during infancy.

       4.4 Describe infants’ developing sensory abilities.Visual acuity, pattern perception, visual tracking, and color vision improve over the first few months of life. Neonates are sensitive to depth cues and young infants can distinguish depth, but crawling stimulates the perception of depth and the association of fear with sharp drops. Newborns can perceive and discriminate nearly all sounds in human languages, but from birth, they prefer to hear their native language. Intermodal perception is evident at birth as infants can combine information from more than one sensory system.

       4.5 Analyze the roles of maturation and contextual factors in infant and toddler motor development.Infants are born with reflexes, each with its own developmental course. Gross and fine motor skills develop systematically and build on each other, with each new skill preparing the infant to tackle the next. Much of motor development is influenced by maturation, but infants benefit from opportunities to practice motor skills. Different cultures provide infants with different experiences and opportunities for practice, contributing to cross-cultural differences in motor development. Viewing motor development as dynamic systems of action produced by an infant’s abilities, goal-directed behavior, and environmental supports and opportunities accounts for the individual differences that we see in motor development.

      Review Questions

       4.1 What are two patterns that describe growth in infancy and childhood?What are two types of malnutrition found primarily in developing nations?What is failure to thrive?

       4.2 Describe processes of neural development in infancy and toddlerhood.What is the cerebral cortex?What are examples of experience-expectant brain development and experience-dependent brain development?

       4.3 Provide examples of how babies learn throughhabituationclassical conditioningoperant conditioningimitation

       4.4 How does vision develop during infancy?Describe infants’ abilities to smell and hear.What is intermodal perception?How does intermodal perception contribute to early learning?

       4.5 How do gross and fine motor development proceed in infancy and toddlerhood?What are examples of biological and contextual influences on motor development?What is dynamic systems theory?

      Descriptions of Images and Figures

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      The details of the figure are presented here in a table.

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      The diagram explains “cephalocaudal” as the height between the ear and ankle of an infant, and “proximodistal” as the length between the outer part of the arms when placed against the sides of the body.

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      The image on the left shows the typical brain cells of a well-nourished infant marked by extensive and clear branching.

      The image on the right shows the impaired brain cells of an undernourished infant, marked by limited branching, and abnormal, shorter