INFANCY

Newborn Baby

Newborn babies are helpless, but they can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel. They cry to let people know
they need food or comfort.

Infancy, period from birth to about 2 years of age. This first stage of life is an important time,
characterized by physical and emotional growth and development.

Infancy or the period of a newborn, is, according to standard dictionaries, the beginning of
existence as an individual rather than as a parasite in the mother’s body. Infancy is also referred to as
babyhood.

Newborn babies or infants, spend most of their time sleeping. They are not strong enough to do
anything for themselves. Parents or other grown-ups must feed newborns. The infants eat by sucking liquids.
Many infants drink their mother’s milk. Older infants drink milk or baby formula from a bottle.

Infants wear diapers. They cannot control when they poop or wet themselves. Grown-ups must change
their soiled diapers and give them baths. Newborn babies cannot talk, so they cry when they need something.
They cry when they are hungry or their diapers are wet. They cry when they are too hot or too cold. Parents or
big brothers and sisters have to figure out what a crying baby needs.

Sensory acuity develops rapidly during the first three months of life. Research shows that newborns are
capable of visual and auditory discrimination. By two days after birth infants can discriminate odors. Infants
react to loud noises, and they probably possess taste discrimination. Within three months they can distinguish
color and form; they show a preference for complex and novel stimuli as opposed to simple and familiar stimuli.

Most children learn to walk by 15 months of age, although some normal children do not begin to walk
until 18 months. Mastery of walking soon leads to running and jumping.

Newborns perform motor movements, many of which are reflexive. Soon after birth they gain voluntary
control of movements. The major stages of locomotion are crawling (propulsion using arms only), creeping
(propulsion on hands and knees), and walking. The average infant walks between 13 and 15 months of age.

Babies grow very fast in their first two years. They get bigger and taller. They grow teeth, and their
muscles get stronger.

First they get strong enough to lift their heads, roll over, and sit up. Then they can stand, crawl, and
walk. Every baby learns to do these things at a slightly different age. You probably learned to walk when you
were between 13 and 18 months old.
 You probably could talk a little bit by the time you were two years old. At first, babies just babble.
They say “goo” and make other sounds that don’t mean anything. Then they learn to say words such as “mama”
or “dada.” Babies can usually say simple sentences by the time they are two.

Babyhood is over at about age two. The next stage of growing and learning, childhood, begins.
Characteristics of Infancy

a. Infancy is the Shortest of all developmental periods – infancy begins with birth and ends when the
infant is approximately two weeks old. It is the time when the fetus must adjust to life outside the
uterine walls of the mother where it has lived for approximately nine months.
Medical criteria – adjustment is completed with the fall of the umbilical cord from the navel
Physiological criteria – it is completed when the infant has regained the weight lost after
birth
Psychological criteria – it is completed when the infant begins to show signs of
developmental progress in behavior.

Subdivisions of Infancy
• Period of the Partunate (from birth to fifteen to thirty minutes after birth) – this period
begins when the fetal body has emerged from the mother’s body and lasts until the umbilical
cord has been cut and tied. Until this is done, the infant continues to be a parasite and makes
no adjustments to the postnatal environment – the environment outside the mother’s body.
• Period of the Neonate (from the cutting and tying of the umbilical cord to approximately
the end of the second week of postnatal life.) – the infant is now a separate, independent
individual and is no longer a parasite. During this period, the infant must make adjustments to
the new environment outside the mother’s body.

b. Infancy is a Time of Radical Adjustments – human life span legally begins at the moment of birth,
birth is merely an interruption of the developmental pattern that started at the moment of conception. It
is the graduation from an internal to an external environment. It requires adjustments on the
individual’s part. It may be easy for some infants to make these adjustments but so difficult for others
that they will fail to do so.
c. Infancy is a Plateau in Development – the rapid grow and development which took place during the
prenatal period suddenly come to a stop with birth. The halt in growth and development, characteristic
of this plateau, is due to the necessity for making radical adjustments to the postnatal environment.
d. Infancy is a Preview of Later Development – it is not possible to predict with even reasonable
accuracy what the individual’s future development will be on the basis of the development apparent at
birth. However, the newborn’s development provides a clue as to what to expect later on.
e. Infancy is a Hazardous Period – hazardous period, both physically and psychologically.
Physically – because of the difficulties of making necessary radical adjustments to the totally
new and different environment.
Psychologically – it is the time when attitudes of significant people toward the infant are
crystallized. Many of these attitudes were established during prenatal period and may change
radically after the infant is born

Adjustments of Infancy
1. Temperature Changes – there is a constant temperature of 100° F in the uterine sac, while
temperatures in the hospital or home may vary from 60 to 70° F.
2. Breathing – when the umbilical cord is cut, infants must begin to breathe on their own.

3. Sucking and swallowing – the infant must now get nourishment by sucking and swallowing, instead
of receiving it through the umbilical cord. These reflexes are imperfectly developed at birth, and the
infant often gets less nourishment than is needed and thus loses weight.
 4. Elimination – the infant’s organ of elimination begin to work soon after birth; formerly waste products
were eliminated through the umbilical cord.

Kinds of Birth
a. Natural or Spontaneous Birth
In a natural birth, the position of the fetus and its size in
relation to the mother’s reproductive organs allow it to emerge in
the normal, head first position.

b. Breech Birth - The buttocks appear first, followed by the legs

and finally the head

c. Transverse Birth - The fetus is positioned crosswise in the

mother’s uterus. Instruments must be used for delivery unless the
position can be changed before the birth process begins.

d. Instrument Birth - When the fetus is too large to emerge

spontaneously or when the its position makes normal birth
impossible, instruments must be used to aid in delivery.

e. Caesarian Section - If the X-rays taken during the latter part

of pregnancy indicate that complications may result if the
infant emerges through the birth canal, the baby is brought into
the world through a slit made surgically in the mother’s
abdominal wall.

Physical Development.
a. Size – at birth, the average infant weights 7 ½ pounds and measures 19 ½ inches in length. Weight in
relation to height is less at birth, on the average, in the more active fetuses than in those who have been
less active during the latter part of the fetal period.
b. Infantile features – muscles of the newborn infant are soft, small and uncontrolled
- bones are soft and flexible because the are composed chiefly of cartilage or
gristle
- skin is soft and often blotchy
- flesh is firm and elastic, skin of white infants becomes lighter as they grow older
while that of nonwhites becomes darker.
- Frequently, soft downy hair is found in the head and back
- Eyes of white newborns are usually a bluish gray and gradually change to
whatever their permanent color will be; infants with dark skin have dark brown
eyes but they also change, becoming darker in time.
c. Physical Proportions – head is approximately one-fourth of the body length;
- Cranial region, the area over the eyes, is proportionally much larger than the rest
of the head, while the chin is proportionally much too small
- Eyes are almost mature is size
- Nose is very small and almost flat on the face
- Mouth may look like a slit if the lips are narrow
- Neck is so short that it is almost invisible
 - Shoulders are narrow while abdomen is large and bulging.
- The arms and the legs are much too short for the head and trunk. The hands and
feet are miniature.
d. Physiological Function – with birth cry, the lungs are inflated and respiration begins. The respiration
rate at first ranges from 40-45 breathing movements per minute. By the end of the first week in life, it
normally drops to approximately 35 per minute and is more stable than it was at first.
- Neonatal heartbeat is more rapid than that of the adult because the infant’s heart
is small compared with the arteries
- Reflex sucking movements occur when the infant is hungry or when the lips are
touched.
- Elimination of waste products begins a few hours after birth. Many voidings
occur during periods of wakefulness and when the infant is quiet, usually within
an hour after feeding. Defecations likewise occur when the infant is awake and
quite, shortly after feeding.

Categories of Infant Activity

Mass Activity – occurs throughout the entire body when any area is stimulated, though the activity is most
pronounced in the stimulated area.

Specific Activities – involve certain limited areas of the body. They include reflexes, which are definite
responses to specific sensory stimuli and which remain unchanged with repetition of the same stimulus, and
generalized responses, which use larger groups of muscles than are involved reflexes and which may be aroused
by either external or internal stimuli.
(reflexes – pupillary reflexes, reflexes of the lips and tongue, sucking flexion, knee jerk, sneezing /
Generalized Responses – visual fixation on light, spontaneous eye movements, shedding of tears,
feeding
feeding responses such as tongue, cheek and lip movements, sucking of the fingers, yawning,
hiccupping;
rhythmic mouthing movements; frowning and wrinkling of the brow; turning and lifting the head,
turning
trunk; body jerk; hand and arm movements; prancing and kicking and leg and foot movements.)

HAZARDS OF INFANCY
A. Physical Hazards
1. Unfavorable Prenatal Environment – as a result of unfavorable conditions in the prenatal
environment, the infant may have difficulty adjusting to postnatal life.
2. Difficult and complicated birth – frequently results in temporary or permanent brain damage. If
the birth requires the use of instruments, as in the case where the fetus is so large that it has to be
aided in its passage down the birth canal or if the fetus lies in a foot-first or transverse position, the
chances of brain damage from the use of instruments to aid delivery are always present.
Caesarian section or a precipitate birth- likely to cause anoxia, a temporary loss of oxygen
to the brain.
3. Multiple birth – children of multiple births are usually smaller and weaker than singletons as a
result of crowding during the prenatal period, which inhibits fetal movements. These babies tend to
develop prematurely, which add to their adjustment problems.
4. Postmaturity – is hazardous when the fetus becomes so large that the birth requires the use of
instruments or surgery, in which case the hazards are due to the conditions associated with birth
rather than to postmaturity per se.
5. Prematurity – cause more neonatal deaths than any other condition.
 Long term effects of prematurity.
a. Physical development and health – usually smaller than infants born at full term, and they
tend to remain smaller than their age-mates even after the growth spurt of puberty.
b. Developmental Lag – until they are two or three years old, prematures often experience a lag
in their development as compared with full-term infants.
c. Sensory Behavior – highly sensitive to noises of all types, to colors and moving objects.
Because of this, as they grow older they are more easily distracted than are full-term infants.
d. Motor Control – prematures are frequently awkward and have poor posture. Cerebral palsy is
also common, a result of brain damage.
e. Speech Development – speech is slower to develop, baby talk persist longer, and they have
more speech defects, especially stuttering. They also tend to have smaller vocabularies and to
make more mistakes in sentence structure.
f. Intelligence – prematures as a group have lower IQs and they have more serious mental
defects due to brain injury. Their scores on reading and arithmetic tests tend to be lower, and
their grade placement below that which would be normal for their age.
g. Socialization – tend to make poorer social adjustments, this persists into adolescence and may
be due in part to parental overprotectiveness. They also have more behavior problems at all
ages.
h. Emotional Behavior – tend to be emotionally apathetic, but more often they are petulant,
irascible and negativistic. Emotional disorders are common, as are nervousness traits, such as
irritability, temper outbursts, and thumb sucking.
i. Deviant Behavior – infants who have suffered brain damage at birth show, as they grow
older, such deviant behavior as accident-proneness, nervous mannerisms, and hyperkinetic,
disorganized behavior. If the brain damage is slight and transitory, they may show deviant
behavior, especially immature and egocentric behavior. This is due mainly to the
overprotectiveness they have been subjected to by anxious parents.

6. Infant Mortality – the most serious of the physical hazards of infancy

B. Psychological Hazards
1. Traditional beliefs about birth – they have a profound influence on the way people treat infants.
2. Helplessness – the helplessness of the newborn infant is appealing, to most, it is frightening, to
assume the responsibility for their care – reason for this is that parents wonder if they are capable
of assuming the care of their newborn babies an this, in turn makes them nervous and anxious.
3. Individuality of the infant – most people interpret individuality to mean that the infant as being
inferior.
4. Developmental Lag – some infants lag behind the norm in their development during the infancy
period. Instead of regaining lost birth weight by the end of the first week or sooner, they continue
to lose weight or rest on a plateau with no improvement at all.
5. Plateau in Development – is normal immediately after birth, many first time parents are not
aware of this. As a result they are concerned when their baby seems to be making no progress.
6. Lack of Stimulation – there is an increasing scientific evidence that newborn infants needs
stimulation of different areas of their bodies and of different sense organs if they are to develop as
they should.
7. New-parent blues – also often called “States of Depression” – more pronounced in mothers than
in fathers
8. Unfavorable Attitudes on the part of Significant People – even though parents, siblings, and
grandparents may have favorable attitudes toward the unborn baby during most of the pregnancy ,
their feelings may change as the birth draws nearer and they become increasingly aware of the new
responsibilities they will have to face.
 • Example of which are: disappointment about the infants sex and its appearance, its
excessive crying and difficulties in taking nourishment, and its extreme helplessness;
birth complications, the unexpected arrival of twins or triplets and the new-parent
blues as stated above.
9. Names – are potential hazards to good personal and social adjustments because, as they grow
older, children may dislike and be embarrassed by their names.
Names that are Potential psychological Hazards
• Names that are common that the individual feels a lack of personal identity
• Names that are so unusual that the individual feels conspicuous
• Names that are used for both sexes and thus are sex-inappropriate
• Names that are associated with comic-strip characters or unpopular characters in
television series
• Names that identify the individual with a racial, religious, or ethnic group against which
there is prejudice
• Names that are difficult to pronounce or spell
• Names that lend themselves to embarrassing nicknames
• Old-fashioned names

BABYHOOD

Physical Development.

Physical Growth, Birth to 2 Years

Human beings grow faster in infancy than at any other time of life. On average, infant boys are slightly taller
and heavier than infant girls. Growth charts like these help health-care providers assess whether physical growth
is proceeding normally. Percentiles indicate the percentage of the population a specific individual would equal
or exceed. For example, a one-year-old girl whose weight is at the 10th percentile weighs the same or more than
only 10 percent of girls the same age.
A. Weight. At the age of four months, the baby’s weight has normally doubled. At one year, babies weight, on
the average, three times as much as they did at birth, or approximately 21 pounds. At the age of two, the
typical American baby weighs 25 pounds. Increase in weight during babyhood comes mainly from an
increase in fat tissue.

B. Height. At four months, the baby measures between 23 and 24 inches; at one year, between 28 and 30
inches; and at two years, between 32 and 34 inches.

Normal Filipino

• Ideal birth weight is 3000g

• Ideal birth length is 50cm (20 in)
• Head Circumference is 35cm

C. Physical proportions. Head growth slows down in babyhood, while trunk and limb growth increases. Thus
the baby gradually becomes less top-heavy and appears more slender and less chunky by the end of
babyhood.

Cephalocaudal Pattern- is a sequence in which the earliest growth always occur at the top – the head- with
physical growth and differentiation of features gradually working their way down from top to bottom.

Proximodistal pattern – the sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the
extremities. For example, infants control muscles of their trunk and arms before they control their hands and
fingers, and they use their whole hands before they control several fingers.

D. Bones. The number of bones increases during babyhood. Ossification begins in the early part of the first
year, but is not completed until puberty. The fontanel, or soft spot on the skull, has closed in approximately
50 percent of all babies by the age of eighteen months, and in almost all babies by the age of two.

E. Muscles and Fats. Muscle fibers are present at birth but in very undeveloped forms. They grow slowly
during babyhood and are weak. By contrast, fat tissue develops rapidly during babyhood, due partly to the
high fat content of milk, the main ingredient in a baby’s diet.
F. Body Built. During the second year of life, as body proportions change, babies begin to show tendencies
toward characteristic body builds. The three most common forms : ectomorphic, which tends to be long and
slender, endomorphic, which tends to be round and fat, and mesomorphic which tends to be heavy hard and
rectangular.

G. Teeth. The average baby has four to six of the twenty temporary teeth by the age of one and sixteen by the
age of two. The first teeth to cut through are those in the front, the last to appear are the molars. The last
four of the temporary teeth usually erupt during the first year of early childhood.

H. Nervous system. At birth, brain weight is one-eighth of the baby’s total weight. Gain brain weight is
greatest during the first two years of life, thus accounting for the baby’s top-heavy appearance. The
cerebellum which plays an important role in body balance and postural control, triples in weight during the
first year of postnatal life. This is true also for the cerebrum. Immature cells, present at birth, continue to
develop after birth but relatively few new cells are formed.

I. Sense Organ Development. By the age of three months, the eye muscles are well-enough coordinated to
enable babies to see things clearly and distinctly and the cones are well-enough developed to enable them to
see colors. Hearing develops rapidly during this time. Smell and taste, which re well developed at birth,
continue to improve during babyhood. Babies are highly responsive to all skin stimuli because of the thin
texture of their skin and because all sense organs relating to touch, pressure, pain, and temperature are
present in well-developed forms.

Developmental Tasks of Children:

Developmental Milestones in Infancy

Infants develop motor skills in a highly predictable sequence, but they differ in the age at which they
achieve these skills.
Physiological Functions:

• Sleep patterns. Newborn sleeps 16 to 17 hours a day. Recent research review concluded that infants 0
to 2 years of age slept an average of 12.8 hours out of the 24, within a range of 9.7 to 15.9 hours
(Galland & others, 2012).

During the first year of babyhood, the mean duration of night sleep increases from 8 ½ hours at three
weeks to 10 hours at twelve weeks and then remains constant during the rest of that year. During the
first three months, the decline in day sleep is balanced by an increase in night sleep. Throughout the
first year, wakefulness-sleep cycles of approximately one hour in length occur in both day and night
sleep, with deep sleep lasting only about twenty-three minutes.

• Eating Patterns. From birth until four of five months of age, all eating is in the infantile form of sucking
and swallowing. Food, as a result, must be in liquid form. Chewing generally appears in the
developmental pattern a month later than biting. But, like biting, it is in an infantile form and requires
much practice before it becomes serviceable.

• Patterns of Elimination. Bowel control begins, on the average, at six months, and bladder control
begins between the ages of fifteen and sixteen months. In the case of the former, habits of control re-
established by the end of babyhood, though temporary lapses may be expected when the baby is tired,
ill, or emotionally excited. Bladder control, on the other hand, is in rudimentary state at the close of
babyhood. Dryness during the daytime can be expected for a major part of the time except when
deviations from the scheduled routine of the day, illness, fatigue, or emotional tension interfere.
Dryness at night cannot be achieved in the average child until several years later.

Muscle Control:

A. Eye Control. Optic nystagmus, or the response of the eyes to a succession of moving objects, begins about
twelve hours after birth; ocular pursuit movements, between the third and fourth weeks; horizontal eye
movements, between the second and third months; vertical eye movements, between the third and fourth
months; and circular eye movements, several months later.

Vision
Two weeks old – 20/800
One month old – red and grey
Two to four months – depth & convergence (3D/4D)
Five months old – 20/70
Six months old – 20/20

B. Smiling. Reflex smiling, or smiling in response to a tactual stimulus, appears during the first week of life;
social smiling, or smiling in response to the smile of another person, begins between the third and fourth
months.

C. Head Holding. In a prone position, babies can hold their heads erect at one month; when lying on their
backs, at five months; and when held in a sitting position, between four and six months.

D. Rolling. Babies can roll from side to side at two months and from back to side at four months; at six
months, they can roll over completely.

E. Sitting. The baby can pull to a sitting position at four months, sit with support at five months, sit without
support momentarily at seven months, and sit up without support for ten or more minutes at nine months.
F. Hands. The working of the thumb in opposition to the fingers – appears in grasping between three and four
months and in picking up objects between eight and ten months. The baby can reach for objects by six or
seven months and can pick up a small object without random movements by one year. During the early
months of life, a baby is ambidextrous, with no preference for either hand.

G. Leg Region. Shifting of the body by kicking occurs by the end of the second week. Hitching, or moving in a
sitting position, appears by six months. Crawling and creeping appear between eight and ten months, and at
eleven months babies walk on “all fours”. Babies can pull themselves to a standing position at about ten
months, stand with support at eleven months, stand without support at one year, walk with support at eleven
months or one year, and walk without support at fourteen months.

Speech Development:

A. Comprehension. The first task in learning to communicate with others is learning to comprehend what they
say. At every age children comprehend the meaning of what others say to them more readily then they can put
their own thoughts and feelings into words. This is even truer of babyhood than of the childhood years. The
speaker’s facial expression, tone of voice, and gestures help babies to understand what is being said to them.
Pleasure, anger, and fear, it has been found, can be comprehended as early as third month of life.

B. Learning to Speak. The second task in learning to communicate with others is learning to speak. Because
learning to speak is a long and difficult task and because babies are not mature enough for such difficult and
complicated learning during the first year of life, nature provides substitute forms of communication to be used
until they are ready to speak. Many babies during the first and into the second years of their lives, try to make
known their needs and wants by these means. These substitute forms of communication are known as “pre-
speech forms”.

C. Pre-speech forms of communication. Four pre-speech forms normally appear in the developmental pattern
of learning to talk: crying, babbling, gesturing, and the use of emotional expressions. Crying is the most
frequently used form. Pain for example, is expressed by shrill, loud cries, interrupted by groaning and
whimpering. Hunger cries are loud and interrupted by sucking movements.

Babbling begins during the second or third month of life, reaches its peak by the eight month, and then
gradually gives way to real speech. Most babies can, by the time they are six months old, combine certain vowel
and consonant sounds such as “ma-ma”, “da-da” and “na-na”.

Babies use gestures as substitute for speech, not as a supplement to speech, as do most older children,
adolescents and adults. Even after they are able to say a few words, many babies continue to use gestures,
combining them with words to make their sentences.

Emotional expressions are a useful pre-speech form of communication for two reasons. First, because
babies have not yet learned to control their emotions, it is easy for others to know, by their facial and bodily
expressions, what emotions they are experiencing. Second, babies find it easier to understand what others are
trying to communicate to them by their facial expressions than from their words.

Normal infants possess neurological systems that detect and store speech sounds, permit reproduction of
these sounds, and eventually produce language. Infants utter all known speech sounds, but retain only those
heard regularly. Word-like sounds occur at 12 months and have meaning at about 18 months. One- and two-
word sentences are used to convey meaning. Early words generally include naming objects and
describing actions, for example, “fall floor.” Acquisition of complex language after 18 months is very rapid.
Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

Jean Piaget was a Swiss Psychologists known for his pioneering work
in child development. Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development and
epistemological view are together called “genetic epistemology.” The one who
studies the origins of human knowledge - and his theories led to more advanced
work in child psychology. His work involves both experimental and
observational methods and, in accounting for behavior, integrates biological and environmental variables.

Jean Piaget was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland on August 9, 1896. He died in Geneva on September
16, 1980. He was the oldest child of Arthur Piaget, professor of medieval literature at the University, and of
Rebecca Jackson. At age 11, while he was a pupil at Neuchatel Latin high school, he wrote a short notice on an
albino sparrow. This short paper is generally considered as the start of a brilliant scientific career made of over
sixty books and several hundred articles.

His interest for mollusks was developed during his late adolescence to the point that he became well-
known malacologist by finishing school. He published many papers in the field that remained of interest for him
all along his life.

In 1923, he and Valentine Chatenay were married. The couple had three children, Jacqueline,
Lucienne, and Laurent whose intellectual development from infancy to language was studied by Piaget.

In the early 1960s attention was focused on the work of the Swiss psychologists Jean Piaget, who since
the 1920s has been writing about children’s cognitive development. Piaget called himself a genetic
epistemologist-one who studies the origins of human knowledge-and his theories led to more advanced work in
child psychology. This work involves both experimental and observational methods and, in accounting for
behaviour, integrates biological and environmental variables. Thus, current studies have their origins in
Darwin’s theory of evolution but also incorporate Watson’s concern for the influence of the environment.

Jean Piaget became internationally known for his pioneering studies of the mental development of
children. Piaget defined four discrete stages of development through which a child passes.

After many years of observing children of all age, Piaget concluded that cognitive development has
four stages, each of which build on the previous one. Cognitive functioning begins in the form of responses to
concrete phenomena: babies know only what they can touch, see or taste. The ability to use symbols and to think
abstractly increases with each subsequent stage, until adults are able to manipulate abstract and consider
hypothetical alternatives.

Key concepts of Piaget’s Theory:

❖ Schema (pl. Schemata) – possibly one of the most important concepts put forward by Piaget.
Schemata help individuals understand the world they inhibit. Schemata are cognitive structures that
represent a certain aspect of the world, and can be seen as categories which have certain pre-conceived
ideas in them.
Example: My schema for Birthday Party includes : Gifts, balloons, cake, clowns, etc.. There are
schemata for all kinds of things – yourself (self schemata); other people (people schemata);
events/situations (event schemata) and roles/occupations (role schemata).
 ❖ Assimilation – the process of incorporating new information into a pre-existing schema. Assimilation
is simply fitting new information into the schemata we already have in place. Assimilation is normally
a simple process, as new information already fits the pre-existing categories.
Example: with regards to Piaget’s theory, a child might have a pre-conceived schema for a dog. If a
family has a small Maltese as a dog, the schema might be “small, furry, four legs, white.” When a child
sees or interacts with a new dog – perhaps a Golden Retriever, it will change to incorporate the new
information, such as “big, golden, smooth, etc.

❖ Accommodation – when coming across a new object for the first time, a child will attempt to apply an
old schema to the object.
Example: we’ll use the dog example again, the child have a “four legs, furry” dog schema. When
coming across another similar animal, such as a cat, the child might say “Look, a dog!” – that’s
assimilation. However, when told that its actually a cat – not a dog - they will accommodate the new
information into another schema. They will form a “cat” schema that not all “four legged furry animals
are dogs – some are cats too. They have accommodated the new information.

❖ Adaptation – assimilation and accommodation are the two parts of adaptation – which is simply what
it says – adapting our schemata to make accurate model of the world we live in.

❖ Equilibrium – a balance between applying prior knowledge (assimilation) and changing schemata to
account for new information (accommodation). Piaget suggested that when a child has a schema which
doesn’t fit reality, there is a tension in the mind. By balancing the use of assimilation and
accommodation, this tension is reduced and we can proceed to a higher levels of thought and learning
(equilibration)

There are four stages of Cognitive Development:

Sensori-motor (Birth – 2 years)
Pre-operational (2 to 7 years)
Concrete operational (7 to 11 years)
Formal operational (11 years and up)

For this report we will only take up the Sensori-motor stage from Birth to 2 years of age.

THE SENSORI-MOTOR PERIOD.

Extends from birth to about two years. The cognitive development of infants and toddlers comes mainly through
their use of their bodies and their senses as they explore the environment hence the label, sensori-motor. Infants
“know” in the sense of recognizing or anticipating familiar, recurring objects and happenings, and they think in
the sense of behaving towards these objects and events with mouth, hand, eye and other sensory-motor
instruments in predictable, organized and often adaptive ways. A good example can be seen in the way a baby
follows his/her mother with their eyes, and how it often smiles at his/her mother’s face, expecting pleasant
consequences.

Piaget felt that there were several sensorimotor stages within his broader Theory of cognitive development.

Simple Reflexes. The first sub-stage occurs from birth to six weeks and is associated primarily with the
development of reflexes. Three primary reflexes are described by Piaget: sucking of objects in the mouth,
following moving or interesting objects with the eyes, and closing of the hand when an object makes contact
with the palm (palmar grasp). Over these first six weeks of life, these reflexes begin to become voluntary
actions; for example, the palmar reflex becomes intentional grasping. (Gruber and Vaneche, 1977).
First habits and primary circular reactions. The second sub-stage occurs from six weeks to four months and
is associated primarily with the development of habits. In this sub stage, the infant coordinates sensation and
two types of schemes: habits and primary circular reactions. A habit is a scheme based on a reflex that has
become completely separated from its eliciting stimulus. For example, infants in sub stage 1 suck when bottles
are put to their lips ow when they see a bottle. Infants in sub stage 2 might suck even when no bottle is present.
A circular reaction is a repetitive is a repetitive action.
Primary circular reactions or repeating of an action involving only ones own body begin. An example
of this type of reaction would involve something like an infant repeating the motion of passing their hand before
their face. Also at this phase, passive reactions, caused by classical or operant conditioning, can begin (Gruber et
al., 1977). For example, suppose an infant accidentally sucks his fingers when they are placed near his mouth.
Later, he searches for his fingers to suck them again, but the fingers do not cooperate because the infant cannot
coordinate visual and manual actions.
Habits and circular reactions are stereotyped – that is, the infant repeats them the same way each time.
During this sub stage, the infant’s own body remains the infant’s center of attention. There is no outward pull by
environmental events.

Secondary circular reactions. The third sub-stage occurs from four to nine months and is associated primarily
with the development of coordination between vision and comprehension. Three new abilities occur at this
stage: intentional grasping for a desired object, secondary circular reactions, and differentiations between ends
and means. At this stage, infants will intentionally grasp the air in the direction of a desired object, often to the
amusement of friends and family. Secondary circular reactions, or the repetition of an action involving an
external object occur begin; for example, moving a switch to turn on a light repeatedly. The differentiation
between means also occurs. This is perhaps one of the most important stages of a child's growth as it signifies
the dawn of logic (Gruber et al., 1977). Towards the late part of this sub-stage infants begin to have a sense of
object permanence, passing the A-not-B error test.

Coordination of secondary circular reactions. The fourth sub-stage occurs from nine to twelve months and is
associated primarily with the development of logic and the coordination between means and ends. This is an
extremely important stage of development, holding what Piaget calls the "first proper intelligence." Also, this
stage marks the beginning of goal orientation, the deliberate planning of steps to meet an objective (Gruber et al.
1977).
To progress into this substage the infant must coordinate vision and touch, eye and hand. Actions
become more outwardly directed. Significant changes during this substage involve the coordination of schemes
and intentionality. Infants readily combine and recombine previously learned schemes in a coordinated way.
They might look at an object and grasp it simultaneously, or they might visually inspect a toy, such as rattle, and
finger it simultaneously, exploring it tactilely. Actions are even more outwardly directed than before. Related to
this coordination is the second achievement – presence of intentionality. For example, infants might manipulate
a stick in order to bring a desired toy within reach, or they might knock over one block to reach and play with
another one.

Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity. The fifth sub-stage occurs from twelve to eighteen months
and is associated primarily with the discovery of new means to meet goals. Piaget describes the child at this
juncture as the "young scientist," conducting pseudo-experiments to discover new methods of meeting
challenges (Gruber et al. 1977). In this sub-stage, infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects
and by the many things that they can make happen to objects. A block can be made to fall, spin, hit another
object, and slide across the ground. Tertiary circular reactions are schemes in which the infant purposely
explores new possibilities with objects, continually doing new things to them and exploring the results. Piaget
says that this stage marks the starting point for human curiosity and interest on novelty.

Internalization of Schemes. The sixth sub-stage is associated primarily with the beginnings of insight, or true
creativity. This marks the passage into the preoperational stage. In this sub-stage, the infant develops the ability
to use primitive symbols. For Piaget, a symbol is an internalized sensory image or word that represents an event.
Primitive symbols permit the infant to think about concrete events without directly acting them out or perceiving
them. Moreover, symbols allow the infant to manipulate and transform the represented events in simple ways. In
a favorite Piagetian example, Piaget’s young daughter saw a matchbox being opened and closed. Later she
mimicked the event by opening and closing her mouth. This was an obvious expression of her image of the
event.

There are several characteristics of Sensorimotor Period:

• Egocentrism – The child’s universe is initially egocentric, entirely on self. Very young children lack
social orientation: they speak at rather than to each other, and two children in conversation will discuss
utterly unrelated topics. Through cognitive development in the sensorimotor period, they begin to learn
that others exist, that there is a world beyond themselves.
• Object permanence. An infant initially does not have a sense of object permanence. This means that
an object or person removed from an infant’s field of vision ceases to exist for the infant.
• Concept of space and time. Gradually, children begin to crawl and walk, they realized that there is
distance between the objects that they are using to steady themselves. Think of how many times you
have seen infants pull themselves up to the chair, drop to the floor, crawl some distance, and then pull
themselves up to the table. By moving from one object to another, they learn about space and the time
it takes to move from one object to another.
• Causality. As children use their growing sensorimotor intelligence, they begin to find order in the
universe. They begin to distinguish their own actions as causes, and they begin to discover events that
have their causes elsewhere, either in other objects or in various relationships between objects.

Emotional Development

Attachment is a psychological bond between an infant and her or his primary care giver, usually the mother.
Crying and smiling bring infants in contact with care givers and are called attachment behaviors. Attachment
provides a secure emotional base from which mature relationships develop. Research shows that inadequate
attachment impedes social and emotional development throughout life. For example, when an infant is subjected
to maternal deprivation, and thus does not form a secure attachment, subsequent development is often severely
atypical.

Traumatic events such as physical abuse or malnutrition that occur during infancy will affect development
and behavior, usually in a negative way. Less extreme experiences are also influential, but their effects may be
temporary and less apparent. All early experiences are known to influence attitudes toward the learning process,
the self-concept, and the ability to form and maintain social and emotional relationships in later life.

Patterns of Development of Social Behavior.

• Social responses to Adults:

Two to three months. Babies can distinguish people from inanimate objects and they discover that
people supply their needs. They are content to be with people but discontented when left alone. At this age,
babies show no preference for any one person.

Four to Five months. Babies want to be picked up by anyone who approaches them. They react
differently to scolding and to smiling faces and to friendly and to angry voices.

Six to Seven months. Babies differentiate between “friends” and “strangers” by smiling at the former
and showing fear in the presence of the latter. This is the beginning of the “shy age”. It is also the beginning of
the “attachment age” – the time when babies become strongly attached to their mothers or mother-substitutes
and show a waning of indiscriminate friendliness.

Eight to Nine months. The baby attempts to imitate the speech, gestures, and simple acts of others.

Twelve months. The baby reacts to the warning “no-no”.

Sixteen to Eighteen months. Negativism, in the form of stubborn resistance to requests or demands
from adults, is manifested in physical withdrawal or angry outbursts.

Twenty-two to Twenty-four months. The baby cooperates in a number of routine activities, such as
being dressed, fed, and bathed.

Social Responses to other babies:

Four to five months. The babies tries to attract the attention of another baby or child by bouncing up
and down, kicking, laughing or blowing bubbles.

Six to seven months.The baby smiles at other babies and shows an interest in their crying.

Nine to Thirteen months. Babies attempt to explore the clothes and hair of other babies, imitate their
behavior and vocalizations, and cooperate in the use of toys- although they tend to become upset when other
babies take one of their toys.

Thirteen to Eighteen months. Fighting over toys decreases, and the baby shows more cooperation
during play and a willingness to share.

Eighteen to Twenty-four months. The baby shows more interest in playing with other babies and uses
play materials to establish social relationships with them.

Play Development in Babyhood

COMMON PLAY PATTERNS:

a. Sensorimotor Play. This is the earliest form of play and consists of such things as kicking, bouncing,
wiggling, moving fingers and toes, climbing, babbling, and rolling.

b. Exploratory Play. As hand and arm coordination develop, babies begin to explore their bodies by pulling
their hair, sucking their fingers and toes, pushing their fingers in their navels, and manipulating their sex organs.
They shake, throw, bang, suck and pull their toys and explore by pulling, banging, and tearing any object within
their reach.

c. Imitative play. During the second year, babies try to imitate the actions of those around them, such as
reading a magazine, sweeping the floor, or writing with pencil or crayon.

d. Make-believe Play. During the second year, most babies endow their toys with the qualities they find they
have in real life. Stuffed animals are endowed with qualities of real animals just as dolls and trucks are treated
by the baby as if they were real people or real trucks.

e. Games. Before babies are a year old, they play such traditional games s peekaboo, pat-a-cake, pigs to market,
and hide-and-seek. These are usually played with parents, grandparents, or older siblings.
f. Amusements. Babies like to be sung to, talked to, and read to. Most are fascinated by radio and television
and enjoy looking at pictures.

HAZARDS IN BABYHOOD.

1. Physical Hazards.

A. Mortality. Greater mortality occurs during the first three months of babyhood than later – with
approximately two-thirds of all deaths during the first year of life occurring during the first month.
During the first year of babyhood, death is usually caused by serious illness while, during the second
year, death is more often due to accidents. Throughout babyhood, more boys die than girls.

B. Crib death. Apparently normal, healthy babies are sometimes victims of sudden and unexpected death
– referred to in medical circles as “crib death”. Usually crib death occurs after a long period of sleep.
To date, medical science has been unable to find the exact causes of crib death. There is some evidence
that it is common in babies who experience abnormalities in breathing or who have had some abnormal
condition at birth, such as jaundice. It is also more common in babies who have had oxygen therapy
during the newborn period.

C. Illnesses. While it is true that many deaths during the first few months of postnatal life are due to such
illnesses as gastrointestinal or respiratory complications, the number of deaths due to serious illness
then declines rapidly because most babies today are given inoculations and vaccinations to immunize
them against diseases which, in the past, often proved to be fatal.

D. Accidents. Although accidents are infrequent during the first year of life, owing the fact that babies are
carefully protected in their cribs, play pens, and carriages, they are far more frequent during the second
year, when babies can move about more freely and are not as well protected. Some babyhood accidents
such as bruises, scratches, are minor and have no permanent effects. Others, such as blow in the head
or cuts, may be serious enough to leave permanent scars or may even be fatal.

E. Malnutrition. Malnutrition, which may come from inadequate food intake or from an unbalanced diet,
can play havoc not only with physical growth but also with mental development. It not only causes
stunted growth but also leads to physical defects such as carious teeth, bowed legs, and a tendency to
suffer from more or less constant illnesses.

F. Foundations of obesity. Many parents equate health in babyhood with plumpness and do all they can
to see that their babies are chubby. There is evidence that fat babies tend to have obesity problems as
they grow older while thin babies do not. This is because the number and size of the fat cells of the
body are established early in life.

G. Physiological Habits. The foundations of the important physiological habits – eating, sleeping, and
eliminating – are established during babyhood, and thus a common physical hazard of this period is the
establishment of unfavorable attitudes on the babies’ part toward these habits.

2. Psychological Hazards.

A. Hazards in Motor Development. When motor development is delayed, babies will be at a great
disadvantage when they begin to play with age-mates. The more they lag behind the group in motor
control, the slower they are likely to be in acquiring the skills other children possess.
 B. Speech Hazards. Delayed speech, like delayed motor control , is serious in babyhood because, at this age,
the foundations are being laid for development of the tools of communication that will be needed later as
social horizons broaden.

C. Emotional Hazards. There are four common psychological hazards that frequently arise in relation to
emotional development during the babyhood years:

1. Emotional deprivation. Babies who are not given the opportunity to experience the normal emotions of
babyhood – especially affection, curiosity, and joy – do not thrive physically.

2. Stress – prolonged unpleasant emotional state, such as fear or anger – can cause endocrine changes which
upset body homeostasis. This then is reflected in eating and sleeping difficulties, in nervous mannerisms such as
thumb sucking and in excessive crying. There are many causes of stress – poor health, parental neglect, and poor
environmental conditions that interfere with proper sleeping and eating – but constant and close association with
a nervous, tense mother is a particular important factor.

3. Too much affection. Parents who are over-solicitous or over-demonstrative encourage their babies to
focus their attention on themselves and to become self-bound and selfish. Babies thus expect others to show
affection for them but they do not reciprocate.

4. Dominant Emotions. Conditions in the baby’s environment encourage the development of certain
emotions to the exclusion of others, and these eventually become dominant unless conditions change and the
development of other emotions is encouraged. Timidity may persists long after babyhood if a shy or fearful
child is exposed to too many strangers or too many frightening situations.

D. Hazards in Understanding. Even though understanding is a rudimentary stage of development, it presents

one serious psychological hazard. In the development of concepts, it is relatively easy to replace wrong
meanings associated with people, objects, or situation with correct meanings. However, all concepts have some
emotional weighting, and this is where the potential hazard lies. If, for example, the baby learns to associate
sweets with rewards for good behavior and to think of vegetables as a form of punishment, the emotional
weighting of these concepts may lead to persistent food likes and dislikes.

E. Hazards in Morality. No one expects babies to be moral in the sense that their behavior conforms to the
moral standards of the social group or that they will feel guilt and shame if they fail to do so. However a serious
psychological hazard to future moral development occurs when babies discover that they get more attention
when they do things to annoy and antagonize others than when they behave in a more socially approved way.
During babyhood, the patterns of behavior that present the greatest problems for caretakers are dawdling,
defiance, and disobedience – the three D’s of morality.

F. Family relationship hazards. Because the family constitutes the main social environment, any
unfavorable condition in the family relationships or in the baby’s relationships with different family
members lead to psychological hazards:

1. Separation from the mother – unless a stable and satisfactory substitute is provided, babies who are separated
from their mothers develop feelings of insecurity which are expressed in personality disturbances that may lay
the foundation for later maladjustments.

2. Failure to develop attachment behavior – babies just like those separated from their mothers may not
experience the pleasures that come from close, personal relationships. This handicaps them in
establishing friendships as they grow older.
 3. Deterioration in family relationships – occurs during the second year of life when babies notice that
family members have changed attitudes toward them and treat them differently. As a result, they
usually feel unloved and rejected – feelings which lead to resentment and insecurity.

4. Over-protectiveness – babies who are overprotected and prevented from doing what they are capable of
doing become over-dependent and afraid to do what other babies of their ages do. This, in time, is
likely to lead to abnormal fear of school – school phobia – and excessive shyness in the presence of
strangers.

5. Child-abuse – when parents are unhappy in their parental roles or when a frictional relationship exists,
some babies become the targets of anger and resentment. The babies are either neglected or abused.
The second year of life is a more common time for child abuse than the first because babies are more
troublesome to their parents and this triggers the outlet of anger, resentment, and other unpleasant
emotions engendered in the relationship of the parents.

G. Names. Names become real psychological hazards only if they cause the children embarrassment, or
sometimes humiliation – if their friends think their names are “funny” or regard them as sex-inappropriate.
Names that are potential psychological hazards:

1. Names that are so common that the individual feels a lack of personal identity.

2. Names that are so unusual that the individual; feels conspicuous.

3. Names that are used for both sexes and thus are sex-inappropriate.

4. Names that are associated with comic-strip characters or unpopular characters in television series.

5. Names that identify the individual with a racial, religious, or ethnic group against which there is prejudice.

6. Names that are difficult to pronounce or spell.

7. Names that leads to embarrassing nicknames.

8. Old-fashioned names.