Test 2 Chapter 5 10 CHAPTER 5 Cephalocaudal proximodistal trends Cephalocaudal head to tail During the prenatal period the head develops more rapidly than the lower part of the body Proximodistal growth proceeds near to far from the center of the body outward In the prenatal period the head chest and trunk grow first then arms and legs and finally hands and feet During childhood the arms and legs continue to grow somewhat ahead of the hands and feet 163 164 skeletal growth Cultural differences in physical development Brain development in infancy toddlerhood Brain is nearer to adult size than any other physical structure Brain has neurons transmit info Neurons aren t tightly packed together instead have tiny gaps synapses where fibers come close but do not touch Neurons send messages to one another by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters During infancy and toddlerhood neural fibers and synapses increase at a fast pace Neurons that are not stimulated often lose their synapses through synaptic pruning Since half of the brain volume is made up of glial cells responsible for myelination the coating of neural fibers with an insulating fatty sheath called myelin that improves efficiency of message transfer Infants advance mostly all of their senses within the first few months of life Deprivation of healthy family like environments lead them to have both cognitive social and developmental disabilities Ex Book mentions how the children in the Romanian orphanages were extremely deprived and how those children who were there less than 6 months of their life showed higher cognitive catch up than those children who spent more than their 6 months of life at the orphanage o Sensitive periods o Brain plasticity Researchers study when brain lateralization occurs to learn more about brain plasticity A highly plastic cerebral cortex in which many areas are not yet committed to specific functions has a high capacity for learning If part of a cortex is damaged other parts can take over the tasks it would have handled Pg 170 examples Experience expectant experience dependent Both are ways to characterize appropriate stimulation during the early years Experience expectant brain growth young brains rapidly developing organization which depends on ordinary experiences opportunities to see and touch things to hear language and other sounds and to move about and explore the environment Experience dependent brain growth occurs throughout our lives It consists of additional growth and the refinement of established brain structures as a result of specific learning experiences that vary widely across individuals and cultures Examples reading writing computer games violin Breastfeeding benefits Breast milk is suited to meet a babies needs and formula imitates it Benefits from notes online fewer gastrointestinal respiratory tract infections less likely to develop allergies asthma middle ear infections less likely to be overweight obese even as ADULTS less likely to die of SIDS Other reasons from book correct balance of fat and protein ensures nutritional completeness helps ensure healthy physical growth protects against diseases faulty jaw development and tooth decay ensures digestibility and smooths transition to solid foods Partly as a result of the natural childbirth movement breastfeeding has become more popular in industrialized nations 74 of American women breastfeed but half of them stop after the first few months Since breast milk is so easily digestible infants who are breastfed are hungry every 1 to 2 hours compared to a baby who is bottle fed only needing to eat every 3 to 4 hours Growth falterin Falls under emotional well being of the baby This term is applied to infants whose weight height and head circumference are substantially below age related growth norms and who are withdrawn and apathetic In as many as half of these cases a disturbed parent infant relationship contributes to this failure to grow An unhappy marriage between the parents or a parental psychological disturbance can contribute to this Operant conditioning habituation recovery In operant conditioning infants act or operate on the environment and the stimuli that follow their behavior change that probability that the behavior will occur again A stimulus that increases the occurrence of a response is called a reinforcer Removing this desirable stimulus or presenting an unpleasant one to decrease the occurrence of a response is called punishment Ex Sweet liquid reinforces sucking for infants Sour tastes serve infants as a punisher Newborns suck faster on a nipple that produces interesting sights and sounds Habituation refers to a gradual reduction in the strength of a response due to repetitive stimulation Recovery is when a new stimulus or change in the environment causes responsiveness to return to a high level Ex walking through a place you have been to before and noticing things are new and or different Both habituation and learning promote learning by focusing our attention on those aspects of the environment we know least about Recovery to a new stimulus assesses infants memory With age babies habituate and recover to stimuli more quickly indicating they are processing information more efficiently Dynamic systems theory of motor development According to this mastery of motor skills involves acquiring increasingly complex systems of action When these motor skills work as a system separate abilities blend together each cooperating with others to produce more effective ways of exploring and controlling Ex control of the head and upper chest combine into sitting with support and kicking rocking on all fours and reaching combine to become crawling then crawling standing and stepping are united into walking Each new skill is a joint product of the following factors 1 central nervous system development 2 the body s movement capacities 3 the goals the child has in mind 4 environmental supports of the skill Change in any of these elements makes the system less stable and the child starts to explore and select new more effective motor patterns Bowel and bladder control Toilet training is best delayed until the months following the second birthday when children can consistently identify the signals from a full bladder or rectum and wait for the right place to open these muscles psychological developments essential for the child to cooperate with training A toddler who is dry for several hours at a time stops playing during
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