Infancy and Toddlerhood: Physical, Cognitive, and Language Development

New Perspectives on Infancy

• Early research
• In the early 1970’s
• In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s
• 1980’s the Family Systems Model
• In the 1990’s
• Now we know that Infant Behavior and Development, Parent Behavior and Development, the Marital Relationship, and Social Networks all have an effect on each other

Brain Growth

For a website on preschool brain growth and development, click on the book

  For an article on the importance of early brain development, click on the book

For a website on the brain, click on the book

Another good website on brain development in infants and toddlers
 

Locomotion
 

Physical Development

• Infant States
• P.H. Wolff
• 1) Regular sleep
• 2) Irregular sleep
• 3) Drowsiness
• 4) Alert activity
• 5) Alert inactivity
• 6) Crying (6-7% of the time)

• Thomas & Chess (1977)
•   1) Easy
•   2) Difficult
•   3) Slow-to-warm-up

• These reflexes fall into two categories
• 1) Those that are critical for survival and become stronger as the baby matures
• 2) Reflexes that are present at birth but disappear some  weeks later
•          Babinski reflex
•          Stepping reflex
•          Swimming reflex
•          Grasping reflex
•          Moro reflex

Breast Vs. Bottle Feeding

• Which is better?
• Advantages vs. Disadvantages?

•  1) Loss weight quicker, uterus flattens quicker
•  2) Cheaper - no expensive formulas
•  3) Less work - easier to travel - less equipment
•  4) Delays period and therefore protects against breast and uterus cancer
•  5) Nighttime feedings are easier
•  6) Promotes closeness - skin-to-skin contact
•  7) Easier to comfort a fussy baby
•  8) Smells good - does not stain
•  9) Produces hormones that helps in bonding - relaxing - almost like a drug
• 10) Great in a national disaster!

• 1) Perfect nutrition and always there
• 2) Safe nutrition - can have a sever or deadly reaction to formulas
• 3) Less colic, less spitting up, never constipated
• 4) Less sickness, asthma, allergies, diabetes, heart disease, ear infections, and less broken
•      bones
• 5) Stimulates babies own immune system and every immunity that the mother has is passed
•     on to the child
• 6) Less weight problems, probably for rest of life
• 7) When changing breasts, development of eye and hand coordination
• 8) Better teeth and fewer braces
• 9) 10-15% higher IQ’s

• The best guide is - "When you are ready."
• The following are growth spurts and therefore the baby will nurse more:
•    - 8-14 days
•    - 4-6 weeks
•    - 3 months
•    - 6 months
• Check with your doctor or poison control if you are taking any medication

Malnutrition
 
 

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

• SIDS occurs when an apparently healthy baby dies suddenly and inexplicably
• Correlations

  Another good website on SIDS

Language Development in Infancy

Theories of Language Development

• Piaget - Sensorimotor stage

•  B.F. Skinner

•  Noam Chomsky 

• 1) Content
• 2) Form
• 3) Use

• Phonemes
• Morphemes
• Syntax

• Babble
• First words
• First sentences
• Telegraphic speech
• Overgeneralizations
• Underextensions

• Motherese

      John Watson - behaviorist from U.S.

      Jean Piaget - Switzerland

Lev Vygotsky - Russia

      Lawrence Kohlberg - 1960’s at Univ. of Chicago

      Kohlberg’s findings:

Varieties of Private Speech

• 1) Wordplay, repetition
• 2) Fantasy play
• 3) Emotional release and expression
• 4) Egocentric communication
• 5) Describing or guiding one’s activity
• 6) Reading aloud, sounding out words
• 7) Inaudible muttering

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