Infant Sensation and Perception

• Stepping 

• Sucking 

• Grasping

• Rooting 

• Moro reflex

• Swallowing

• Stepping - precursor to walking 

• Rooting - turn of the head in response to stroking the cheek

• Grasping - instigated by pressure on the palm 

• Moro reflex - throwing arms out to a sudden stimulus 

• Sucking - when roof of the mouth is touched

• Swallowing - placing liquid in the mouth 

• Capable of organised sensation, perception, attention, memory and learning

• Voluntary responses as well as reflexes e.g. orienting towards sound

• Some coordination for reacting to the world

• This provides a vital platform for further development 

• Well developed in neonates 

• It is possibly a survival mechanism 

• Can identify smell of mother's milk by 4-6 days

• Can differentiate between different smells

• Positive/negative facial expressions depending on the smell 

• Linked to early survival

• React to the basic tastes, salty, bitter, sour and sweet 

• Newborns prefer sweet tastes

• Measured through expression, swallowing and sucking rate

• At 4 months, infants will have a salty preference 

• Prenatal hearing by the 5th month 

• Some sounds trigger reflexes without conscious perception - foetus could have heard these in the womb in first 3 months 

• Orients head towards sounds 

• Preferences for certain sounds e.g. mothers voice and native language 

• Can discriminate more basic sounds than adults e.g. phonemes 

• Sudden sounds startle them and make them cry

• Vision is blurry but can detect large objects

• Object constancy - ability to see an object stays the same size despite its distance away

• Binocular depth perception isn't present until 3 months

• Infant depth perception demonstrated by Gibson and Walk (1960) on their visual cliff apparatus 

• Colour vision is middle to long wavelength (green/yellow/red) 

• Patterns to plain 

• Horizontal stripes to vertical 

• Moving to stationary stimuli 

• Curved to straight

• High contrast to low contrast

• Attractive faces to plain 

• Face like stimuli to non-face

• Each development skill builds on the previous and contributes on the next

• Cephalo-caudal development 

• Proximal-distal development 

• Development depends on stimulation 

• Stimulaton depends on the perceptual, cognitive and motivational states of the infant

Gross motor skills

• Emerge directly from reflexes
• Physical activities involving large muscle groups e.g. walking
• Involves movement of whole body 

Fine motor skills 

• Uses small muscle groups e.g. writing
• This develops later than gross

• At birth, can turn their heads from side to side when on their backs

• By 2-3 months, can lift their heads while lying on their stomachs

• By 4 months, can hold their head up whilst in a sitting position 

• At around 6-8 months, infants capable of self-locomotion 

• To master walking at 12-14 months, must be able to stand, balance, step and perceive surfaces