Intellectual Development of the Infant

1. Intellectual Development of the Infant Chapter 8

2. Intellectual development – how people learn, what they learn, and how they express what they know through language • Stimuli – an agent, such as a light or sound, that directly influences the activity of the sense organs

3. Brain Development Supports Learning • Different parts of the brain get priority at different times • Windows of opportunity – certain experiences are especially helpful to brain development

4. 3 Factors affect the rate of Mental Developmental • The baby’s physical development • Baby’s environment • Interaction of the first two factors; that is, using the windows of opportunity

5. Baby’s brain and sense organs mature a lot during the first year • Motor skills develop • Research provides support for areas of brain development that have long been recognized as a major mental learning of infancy

6. Motor Skills • As reflexes wane, activity occurs in the motor center • Wiring begins at 2 months • Learning voluntary gross motor movement

7. Vision Center • Need quite early in life • Very active in early infancy • Ability to see through each eye clearly • By 2 – 3 months can see objects at many distances • By 1 – 3 mths can look at objects with both eyes • Eyes may not work together (drifting) • Eyes fuse image at 3 months

8. Binocular vision – type of vision that involves fusing an image so it appears as one image using both eyes • Necessary to recognize how far away an object is • Highly important to learning other things

9. Thinking and Memory Centers • Babies try to make sense of people, objects, sounds and events • Try to figure out what is happening • Also try to make things happen • Like bouncing cradle gym or bake a ball roll • Babies like to repeat and vary these events

10. Brain Research • Brain research suggests that wiring in thinking/memory centers of the brain begins at 6 months • Wiring continues for 10 years • Need a good mental diet • Interesting things to see, hear and touch

11. Perception • Organizing information that comes through the senses • Major step in learning • Noting how things are alike and different in size, color, shape, texture • Comes through senses about form, space, weight and numbers

12. Perception • Involves how fast the brain organizes information • Mature reader can distinguish between a b and a d faster than a beginner reader • Involves the way a person reacts to different sensory experiences • Some children run to mom in a crowded room of strangers

13. Perceptual Learning • Process of developing perception • Happens because sense organs mature and preferences for certain stimuli change

14. Changes in Preferences • See page 223 figure 8-3 • See why some babies pick out or prefer certain objects • See page 224 – 225 figure 8-6

15. Cognition • Act or process of knowing or understanding • Gives meaning to perceptions • Jean Piaget – learn by exploring on your own in a stimulating environment

16. Sensorimotor Stage • First of Piaget’s stages of cognitive (intellectual) development in which children use their senses and motor skills to learn and communicate with others • Begins at birth and complete in 2 year • Infants use their sense and motor skills to learn and communicate • Work through problems by working through a certain order

17. Practicing Reflexes and Repeating New Learnings • Infants go from stage of practicing reflexes they already know (sucking, grasping, crying) to changing some of their reflex skills • Suck their thumbs and open/close their hands

18. Beginning to Control • Begin to control their world by making a mental connection between what they do and what happens • When they cry, a parent comes • Also realize objects exist even when they can’t see them

19. Solving Problems • Piaget believed by age one, babies apply all their learnings to solve other kinds of problems • By combining several actions, they discover new ways to solve problems

20. Imitating • Coping the actions of someone else • Important way to learn for many years • Imitate simple actions • As they mature, imitate more complex actions

21. What Infants Learn • Concept – an idea formed by combining what is known about a person, object, place, quality, or event • Thinking is organized through concepts • When you see a cat you think of all you know about cats

22. Concepts change as the child’s brain matures and experiences increase • Change from simple to complex • Change from concrete to abstract • Draw parents and themselves rather than strangers

23. Concepts change from incorrect to correct • Concepts different for each person • Concepts involve emotions

24. Perception Concepts • Object constancy or sameness – ability to learn that objects remain the same even if they appear different • Plane on ground is colorful and in the air was small and silver

25. Object Concept • Ability to understand that an object, person, or event is separate from one’s interaction with it • Parents are often first “objects” • Learn that parents are separate from them

26. Object Concept has 2 parts: • 1. object identity • Ability to learn that an object stays the same from one time to the next • 2. object permanence • Ability to learn that people, objects, and places still exist even when they are no longer see, felt, or heard • Develops with many experiences over time • Will star for a second in the place where the object/person was

27. Depth Perception • Ability to tell how far away something is • Needed for safety purposes • Keeps person from stepping off an object far from the ground • Well developed by 7 – 9 months

28. Beginnings of Language; Brain Development Research • Language closely related to mental development • Language wiring begins at birth if not before

29. Wiring Sequence: • 1. during the first half year, babies distinguish small differences in sounds. • Prepared to learn any language • 2. because there are so many connections, pruning begins at 6 months • Only notice major differences in sounds in languages they hear from caring adults

30. 3. by 12 months babies complete auditory maps needed for their own language • Learning to speak another language without an “accent” becomes more difficult if wiring for the sounds have been pruned away

31. By 9 – 12 months brain’s speech center begins the wiring process • Vocabulary – words a person understands and uses • Vocab increases when a person learns more concepts • Vocab may lag behind what a person really understands

32. Relationship between language and social and emotional growth • Language used to express feelings or emotions • Even young children express feelings physically • Temper tantrums, snatching toys etc

33. Crying & Cooing – 1st month they cry By 6th – 8th week they begin to coo (light, happy sound babies begin to use to communicate) Babbling – make a series of vowel sounds with consonant sounds slowly added to form syllables How Babies Communicate

34. Babbling • Important pretalking skill • Not monotone ( sounds all in a single pitch) • Inflections (changes of pitch)

35. First Words • Begin talking during the last 3 months of the first year • Some talk later

36. Before talking babies must: • Understand object permanence • Understand that people, objects, places, and event have names • Remember words that go with people, objects, places, and events • Have the ability to make the sounds • Realize that talking is important

37. Reduplication Babbling • Repeating the same syllable over and over again • Da-da-da-da • Number of words a baby learns varies • Studies show babies say about 3 words by end of first year • Vocab increases at the end of the 2nd year

38. Passive – words a person understands but does not say Infants have far greater passive Active – words a person uses in talking or writing Passive VS Active Vocab