4

Infancy and Toddlerhood

Physical, Cognitive,
and Language Development

Chapter 4

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 Infancy and Toddlerhood
Physical, Cognitive, and Language Development

• The Developing Brain

• The Neonatal Period
• Physical and Motor Development
• Sensory and Perceptual Development
• Cognitive Development
• Language Development

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 Physical Development
• During first two yeas of life—the periods
known as infancy and toddlerhood—
developmental change is more rapid and
more dramatic than during any other 2-
year period in the lifespan
• Neurological functioning underlies much of
infant development

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 The Developing Brain
• The brain governs every aspect of our existence
• We are born with most of the neurons we will have for
the rest of our lives
• Neurons get dedicated to certain functions and make
connections with other neurons in order for development
to occur
• Brain experiences a growth spurt between birth and age
3
• By age 3, the brain is 90% of its adult weight

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 Video Clip
Shaken baby syndrome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulLr3RZb9gY

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 Video Clip
Sudden Infant Death awareness video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oORfiQSjxw

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 Brain Development
• The infant brain has plasticity
– Functions can be reassigned to other brain
areas
– But plasticity makes brain vulnerable to
environmental assaults
– Early experiences have profound
consequences on brain and thus later
cognitive development

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 The Neonatal Period
• The first month of life is referred to as the
neonatal period
• Babies must recover from the birth process and
adjust to the functioning of their bodies’ organ
systems
• Neonates experience 6 behavioral states:
– waking
– crying
– alert inactivity
– drowsiness
– regular sleep
– irregular sleep
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 Neonatal Stage
• Learning and Habituation
– Learning is readily observable from birth
– Infants habituate to their surroundings
– Habituation is also used as a research technique
• Neonatal Assessment
– Hospitals perform evaluations to assess neurological
and behavioral functioning
– The Newborn Behavioral Observation system (NBO)
– Parents who observe the assessment become more
aware of their newborn’s individuality
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 Physical and Motor
Development
• The Gesell Scales summarize the physical
and motor capabilities of average children at
different ages
• Environmental influences can impact on the
timing and rate of development
• Physical growth and motor development are
linked to brain, cognitive, and social
development

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Growth in Height and Weight

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 Growth Trends

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 Physical and Motor
Development
• First Four Months
– Physical growth is rapid
– Weight doubles
– Bodies begin to length
– By 4 months, skin has lost its newborn look
– Vision and hearing have improved
– Teeth begin to emerge at 4 months

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 Physical and Motor
Development
• From 5 months to 8 months
– Development of fine motor skills, used to
perform tasks that require coordination and
dexterity (grasping, for instance)
– Gross motor skills develop, as large muscles
develop and strengthen
– Most 8-month-olds can sit without support and
can stand with support

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 Physical and Motor
Development
• From 9 months to 12 months
– By 12 months, they are 3 times heavier
than at birth
– They begin to walk
– Cognitive and perceptual development progresses
– They are leaning to play social games, like “hiding”
– They can manipulate their environment, getting into
things like cabinets

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 Physical and Motor
Development
• From 13 to 18 months
– At 18 months, they weigh up to four times
their birth rate
– They are not yet able to climb stairs or kick a
ball
– They begin to feed themselves and can partly
undress themselves
– They try to repeat what they see others doing,
like reading, talking on phone, even sweeping
the floor
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 Physical and Motor
Development
• From 19 to 24 months
– They weigh over four times their birth rate
– By 24 months, then can pedal a tricycle, jump,
climb steps, throw a ball
– They can dress or undress with assistance.
– They can begin to scribble

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 Physical Development: Overview
of the First Two Years
• 0-4 Months
– Activities: Eyes can focus, reflexes become
voluntary
– Milestones: Discovery of hands and fingers,
beginning of social smiling
• 5-8 Months
– Activities: First tooth, fine and gross motor
skill development, social games
– Milestones: Visually guided reach, sitting up,
creeping/crawling

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 Physical Development: Overview
of the First Two Years
• 9-12 Months
– Activities: Self-feeding, drinking from cup
– Milestones: Standing and walking,
development of “pincer grasp”
• 13-18 Months
– Activities: Stacking blocks, dress self, uses
crayons, “imitation” games
– Milestones: Walk without support, climbing
stairs

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 Physical Development: Overview
of the First Two Years
• 19-24 months
– Activities: pedal tricycle, can jump, can throw
a ball
– Milestones: High interest in exploring
environment

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 Nutrition and Malnutrition
• For being a wealthy and obese nation, it is hard to
believe that 20 to 24% of U.S. children suffer from
nutritional deficiencies, a lot of it the result of eating
empty calories
• Nearly 1/3 of the world’s children suffer growth stunting
as a result of malnutrition
• Half of the deaths of children under the age of 5 are due
to malnutrition
• The effects of malnutrition in early years are long-lasting
• Brain size suffers, leading to deficits in attention and
information processing

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Nutrient Deficiencies
and Their Effects

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 Nutrition and Malnutrition
• Kwashiorkor is a condition caused by protein
insufficiency, especially common in famine-
plagued Africa
• Marasmus is a condition of wasting away of the
muscles caused by insufficient quantity of food
• Breast feeding is encouraged because it
provides children the proper blend of nutrients, is
sterile, and provides better immunity
• Culture determines when children are weaned:
as early as 3 or 4 months or as late as 2 to 3
years

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 Video Clip
Describes research findings on the benefit of
breastfeeding just after birth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvR0a0WQ8TY

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 Video Clip
UNICEF video on the promotion of
breastfeeding in Tajikistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeq2zB2Puh4

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 Percentage of Babies Being
Breastfed in Developing Nations

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 Sensory and Perceptual
Development
• Vision and Visual Perception
– Born with blurry vision
– Focusing ability develops by 3 to 4 months
– Ability to discriminate between colors improves by 6 months
– Infants engage in selective visual attention, and are especially
drawn to pictures of their mothers and other human faces
– Depth perception develops by about 6 months, according to the
visual cliff research paradigm

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 Sensory and Perceptual
Development
• Hearing and Auditory Perception
– Acuity of hearing improves so that by 6 months they
have well-developed auditory perception
– Infants can localize the sources of sounds within the
first days of life
– Infants are especially attentive to human speech,
preferring their mother’s voice

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 Sensory and Perceptual
Development

• Touch, taste and smell are fully operational at

birth
• They discriminate among sweet, salty, sour, and
bitter tastes
• They can distinguish the smell of their mother by
4 months
• Touch is well developed, even in newborns
• Newborns also feel pain

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 Sensory and Perceptual
Development
• Infants gradually integrate sensory
perceptions—sensory integration
• They can match a film to its matching
soundtrack by 4 months
• Sensory integration becomes better refined as
development proceeds
• For instance, they can recognize something
risky and avoid the danger

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 Cognitive Development
• Cognitive development refers to the growth
and refinement of the intellectual processes of
thinking, learning, perceiving, remembering,
and understanding
• Infants may be born with the ability to perceive
the world in categories
• Piaget believed that infants construct their
world through schemes

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 Piaget’s Sensorimotor Period
• Ages 0 to 24 months
• Children adapt to their environment and adjust
their mental schemes by assimilation and
accommodation. Together, they represent what
Piaget called adaptation to the environment
• They learn about the world through their senses
and bodies and through the manipulation of
objects
• By 8 months, they develop object permanence,
the ability to have a mental conception of an
object when it is not present
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 Cognitive Development
• Children begin to imitate behavior or others by 6 or 7
months
• Any earlier than that, their seeming imitation may be
reflexive
• Only at 18 months did Piaget believe children could
engage in deferred imitation
• By 11 or 12 months, children can begin to engage in
symbolic representation—thinking about something
that is not present, pretending

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An Overview of Sensorimotor
Development

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 Language Development
• Language development includes learning to
speak or produce oral language, learning the
meaning of words, the rules of language, and
learning to read and write
• Receptive language – understanding spoken
or written words
• Productive language – producing language
through speech and writing

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Linguistic Terminology

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 Words and Sentences
• Most children speak their first words at the
end of their first year
• Their vocabulary rapidly grows
• They employ overextensions, referring to
all animals as dogs, for instance
• Before they use several words at a time,
they use one word—holophrases—to
convey complex ideas

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Examples of Overextensions
of Words

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 Language Development
• By 21 months, children begin to acquire vocabulary at a
fast rate
• They become sensitive to the ways words are used
• They begin to put words together into short sentences,
known as telegraphic speech
• Language development is a complex interaction between
biology and environment

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 Summary
• During the first two years of life, change is more
rapid than at any other period during the life
span
• One of the most important developmental
changes in infancy and toddlerhood is the brain
• The brain develops by adding new connections
among neurons and pruning away connections
that are not needed
• At this early age, the brain is very plastic and
can adapt to the environment. This poses great
opportunity as well as risk
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 Summary
• During the first month of life—the neonatal period—the
child has to adjust from the birth process
• During the first four months of life, physical growth is
rapid
• Fine motor skills begin to develop at 5 to 8 months of
age
• At about 12 months, 50% of infants are standing and
taking their first steps, and beginning to feed themselves
and play social games
• By the age of 2 years, they can pedal a tricycle, throw a
ball, and begin to dress themselves

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 Summary
• Sensory and perceptual development at this
stage involve attainment of binocular vision,
improvement of their hearing, and the integration
of several sensory perceptions at one time.
• Cognitive development is closely linked to the
development of sensation and perception.
• Piaget believed that infants possess mental
structures (schemes) that function like
categories of thought.
• Their schemes are bases on their sensations
and perceptions, in what Piaget called the
sensorimotor stage.
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 Summary
• Language development is an important part of
infancy and toddlerhood. Babies learn language,
and learn to use language, in stages.
• The stages begin with babbling, proceed to the
one-word stage, and then to telegraphic speech.
• It is believed that humans are born with the
neurological capacity for language, but language
must develop in the context of communication
with others.
• As in most important aspects of human
development, language development involves
biological, environmental, and cultural factors.
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