Child development: Prenatal, Motor, Emotional, Memory development, Temperament and perception skills of newborns

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  • Created by: Amy
  • Created on: 15-12-21 17:27
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  • Child development: Part 1
    • Stages of pre-natal development
      • 1, Zygote- 1-2 weeks. multiplies into blastocyst which burrows into uterus
      • 2. Embryo- 3-8 weeks, primitive brain and spinal cord, major internal organs develop, external structures form
      • 3. Fetus (1st tri)- 9-12 weeks, nervous system, organs and muscles become organised and connected
      • 4. Fetus (2nd tri))- 13-24 weeks, all neurons present by 24 weeks, eyes sensitive to light, reacts to sound
      • 5. Fetus (3rd tri)- 25-38 weeks, lungs begin to mature, brain develops rapidly, fat added under skin to regulate temp
    • Influences on pre-natal  development
      • Drugs (prescription and illegal)- thalidomide (causes limb deformities), aspirin, heroine/crack (infant will suffer withdrawal)
      • Smoking- low birth wight and possible behavioural issues
      • Alcohol- fetal alcohol syndrome, interferes with cell duplication and migration and deprives fetus of oxygen
      • Maternal illness- poor nutrition, chronic stress
    • Birth complications
      • Preterm and low birth weight- more at risk for infection and cognitive impairments
      • Problems for caregiving- irratable unresponsive baby
    • Motor development
      • Fine motor skills= smaller movements like reaching, grasping etc
      • Gross motor skills= aka locomotor skills eg crawlig, standing, walking
      • Maturation theory (Gessell 1940)- Cephalocaudal trend (head, arms/trunks, legs), Proximodistal (head/trunk/arms then hands and fingers)
      • Cultural  variations- some communities promote behaviour where infants reach milestones earlier than US-centric model or vice versa, WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic)
      • Enables exploration of objects, surroundings and social interactions
      • Reflexes- innate automatic responses to stimuli, reflex function reveals health of nervous system, some have survival value (eg rooting reflex)others form basis of later motor skills (eg stepping), most innate reflexes have disappeared after 6 months but some are permanent (eye blink)
    • Perceptual  skills of newborns
      • Touch(well developed eg rooting reflex), Taste(can distinguish sweet, sour, bitter), Smell preferences, Hearing (prefer complex sounds), Vision (least developed sense)
      • Depth perception- necessary for reaching, survival function, visual cliff (Gibson &Walk 1960), cues (kinetic, binocular, pictorial)
      • Face recognition- they prefer face-like stimuli, features natural not scrambled, track face like patterns more, look longer at attractive faces, prefer mothers face by 2 months, differentiate emotions (7-10 months)
      • Pattern perception- at borth prefer patterned stimuli to plain, with age prefer more complex patterns (contrast sensitivity
        • 4 months- can detect shapes from subjective boundaries, 12 months- can detect objects from partial outlines
    • Memory development
      • Operant conditioning (eg Rovee-Collier 1999 learned association between kicking and mobile moving, 3 months remember for 1 week, 6 months remember for 2 weeks)
        • Memory highly context specific
    • Emotional Development
      • Infancy
        • Happiness- 6-10 weeks social smile appears, 3-4 months can laugh, during 2nd year smiling becomes deliberate
        • Anger- newborns show distress to hunger and pain, 4-6 months onwards angry expressions increase, 2 years onwards react to wider range of situations
        • Fear - increases from 6 months, most frequently seen as stranger anxiety, dependent on context and temperament, motivation to keep close to caregiver, adapts with experience and coping strategies
        • Social referencing- from 1 year actively seek emotional info from others
        • Self-conscious emotions- linked to sense of self, need adult input  'when', 18 months- shame & embarrassment, 3 years- envy gulit &pride
        • Self regulation- 4 moths- can shift attention, 1 y- can crawl/walk towards/away from stimuli, 2 y language allows expression of feelings
      • Middle childhood
        • Increased cog understanding- experiencing two emotions at once, facial expressions may not match emotion felt
        • Perspective taking- same event can be interpreted with different emotions , imagining how someone else feels
    • Temperament
      • Individual differences in emotional reaction, activity level, attention and emotional self regulation, linked to risk of behavioural problems
      • Thomas & Chess (1977)- study of infants, 9 dimensions of behaviour discovered (tend to cluster), clusters form 3 general types of temperament
        • Easy 40%, difficult 10%, slow to warm up 15%, unclassified 35%
        • Infants highly active become preschoolers who are more sociable but tend to be involved in conflict

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