1. LEARNING OBJECTIVE
 Learning Objective:
Students will understand how a baby develops
physically in the first year. Also identify what influences
development and care that babies need in the first year of
life.

2. THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF A CHILD DURING
THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE IS DRAMATIC.
WHAT CHANGES ARE OBVIOUS FROM THESE PHOTOS?

3. GROWTH DURING THE FIRST YEAR
 From birth to age one, babies typically triple their
birth weight and increase their length by 50%.
 Doctors judge this by using growth charts: shows
the average weight and height of girls and boys at
various stages.
 Doctors are more concerned that a baby is steadily
growing, versus meeting a certain weight or height at a
certain time.

4. AVERAGE LENGTHS AND WEIGHTS
0-12 MONTHS

5. WEIGHT
 One of the best signs of good health.
 Initially a newborn loses about 10% of their weight,
however after that they begin to gain rapidly.
 Weight should triple by the end of year one.
 One-year-olds usually weigh 20-22 lbs.
 Boys usually weigh more than girls.

6. LENGTH
 Bone growth is rapid during the first year.
 The average newborn is 20 inches. A year later,
they are about 30 inches.
 Not all babies grow at the same rate and boys are
usually slightly longer than girls.
 Heredity plays a bigger part in height than weight.

7. BODY SHAPE
 Babies change from holding their extremities close
to their bodies and in a curled up position to
stretching out. Legs and feet straighten out.
 They look chubby by 3 months, but will lose some
of this as they become more active.
 When babies begin to practice standing, they lean
forward slightly and have a protruding belly.

8. GROWTH AND STABILITY
 Neurons - Basic unit of nervous system; receive
and transmit messages
 Dendrites – receive messages
 Axons – transmit messages
 Neurotransmitters – chemical messengers
 Myelin – insulation of axon; enables efficient rapid
transmission of messages
 Myelination is part of the maturation process
 Interconnections among neurons form:
 Knowledge
 Memory
 Physical abilities
 Senses

9. ANATOMY OF THE NEURON

10. GROWTH AND STABILITY:
NERVOUS SYSTEM AND BRAIN GROWTH
 At birth:
◦ Infants are born with between 100 and 200 billion neurons
◦ Most neurons have relatively few connections to other neurons
◦ As you grow the neurons form new connections.
◦ Stronger connections equal more skill at a particular activity.
◦ After birth, neurons increase in size
◦ Pruning Down: Severing of unnecessary/unused connections.
◦ Born with many more neurons than you will need.

11. DEVELOPMENT OF NEURAL CONNECTIONS

12. DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRAIN
 Brain: Command center of developing organism
 Structures of the Brain
◦ Medulla: control of vital functions (heartbeat & respiration)
◦ Cerebellum: control of balance and equilibrium
◦ Cerebrum: depth of human learning, thought, memory,
and reasoning
 Cerebral Cortex: upper layer of the brain (wrinkled surface
of the cerebrum)

13. STRUCTURES OF THE BRAIN

14. GROWTH AND STABILITY:
BRAIN LATERALIZATION
 Brain will begin to become more differentiated and specialized.
 Certain functions are located more in one hemisphere than the other.
 Becomes more pronounced during the preschool years.
________________________________________________________
 Left Hemisphere:
◦ Verbal-
 Speaking
 Reading
 Thinking
 Reasoning
◦ Processes information sequentially.
 One piece of information at a time.
 Right Hemisphere:
◦ Nonverbal-
 Spatial relationships
 Patterns/Drawing recognition
 Music
 Emotional expression
◦ Processes information holistically

15. SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME
Shaken baby
syndrome: a condition
that occurs when
someone severely
shakes a baby, usually in
an effort to make them
stop crying.
 Can lead to serious brain
damage, cerebral palsy,
blindness, fractures,
neck or spine injuries, or
even death.

16. SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME
 What to do if you are
close to the breaking
point:
 Put the baby down and go
to another room to calm
down.
 Ask a friend or relative to
care for the baby for a
while.
 Talk to someone.
 Call a parenting hotline.

17. CHARACTERISTIC INJURIES OF SHAKEN BABY
SYNDROME
 Subdural hemorrhages (bleeding in the brain)
 Retinal hemorrhages (bleeding in the retina)
 Damage to the spinal cord and neck
 Fractures of the ribs and bones
 Shaken baby syndrome often causes irreversible damage.
 In the worst cases, children die due to their injuries.

18. CHILDREN WHO SURVIVE MAY HAVE:
 partial or total blindness
 hearing loss
 seizures
 developmental delays
 impaired intellect
 speech and learning difficulties
 problems with memory and attention
 severe mental retardation
 cerebral palsy

19. PRIMARY BEHAVIOR STATES
 State - refers to degree of awareness infants display to both internal
and external stimulation.
 Wakeful states - infants may be:
◦ alert and attentive
◦ fussing
◦ crying
 Sleep states include:
◦ Quiet sleep (infants’ eyes are closed and respiration is slow and
regular)
◦ Active sleep (infants eyes are closed, but move intermittently,
respiration is uneven, they may smile, frown, suck, sob, sigh etc).
 Transition states between sleep and wakefulness and between sleep
states.
 In the months following birth, the active sleep state accounts for about
½ of infants’ total sleep
 This gradually declines and by 6 months, only about 1/3.
 Different states produce different brain wave patterns, which can be
measured by an electroencephalogram (EEG)
 Newborns have highly irregular brain wave patterns, although they
start to become more regular by approximately 3 months old

20. ENSURING ADEQUATE SLEEP
 Sleep safety
 Choose a safe bed
 No fluffy blankets,
pillows, or stuffed
animals.
 Place baby face up
 Don’t allow baby to
sleep in bed with
adults.

22. FEEDING BABIES
 birth to 6 months-breast milk or formula
 6 months-solid foods can be introduced
 12 months-most calories should come from solid
foods, still drinking breast milk or milk.
 Babies will eat through the night-about every 3
hours. When a baby weighs about 12 lbs., they no
longer need a late-night feeding, as their stomachs
are big enough to get them through the night.

23. BABY’S HEALTH
 Teething: the process
of the teeth pushing
their way through the
gums.
 When teeth start to
appear, they should be
cleaned with a moist
cloth.

24. MOTOR DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY
 Reflexes – unlearned, organized, involuntary responses that occur
automatically in the presence of certain stimuli.
 Most infant reflexes have survival value, or evolved because they
had survival value at some point in history.
 Some reflexes remain throughout the lifespan, others disappear.
 Reflexes serve as good diagnostic tools for pediatricians because
they appear and disappear according to a timetable.

25. REFLEXES
 Rooting reflex
 Swimming reflex
 Eye-blink reflex
 Moro reflex
 Startle reflex
 Sucking reflex
 Stepping reflex
 Babinski reflex

26. INFANT REFLEXES
 Asymmetric Tonic Neck
 Place an infant on their back
 Baby’s head turns to one side, the limbs on the face side
extend while the limbs on the opposite side flex (fencer
position)
 Disappears at 2 months

27. LANDMARKS OF PHYSICAL ACHIEVEMENT:
GROSS AND FINE MOTOR SKILLS
 Fine Motor Skills
 Skills involving small muscles used in manipulation
 Development of Hand Control
 At birth: grasping is reflexive
 3 months: grasping becomes voluntary
 Ulnar Grasp: 4 fingers and palm
 9 to 12 months
 Pincer grasp: use of oppositional thumb

28. LOCOMOTION: USE OF GROSS MOTOR
SKILLS
 Locomotion
 Movement from one place to another
 Requires gross motor skills
 Skills using large muscles involved in locomotion
 Predictable sequence of activities
 Roll over − Crawl − Walk
 Sit up − Stand − Run
 Timing of milestones varies among infants
 Normal “range” versus exact age

29. MOTOR DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES IN
LOCOMOTION

30. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES
Sensation and Perception
 Sensation: stimulation of sensory organs & transmission to brain
 Perception: organization of sensations
I. Development of Vision
 Visual Acuity and Peripheral Vision
◦ Neonates are nearsighted and have poor peripheral vision
◦ Visual acuity improves at 6 months are reaches adult levels by 3 – 5 yrs.
◦ Peripheral vision reaches adult levels by 6 months
 Visual Preference
◦ At 2 months, show preference for human faces (especially attractive)
◦ By 3 – 5 months: differentiated reactions to emotional faces
 Depth Perception
◦ Respond to depth cues by 6 – 8 months (coincides with crawling)

31. THE VISUAL CLIFF

32. DEVELOPMENT DURING THE FIRST YEAR
VISION
How far can an infant see?
At birth: 7-10 inches
1 month: 3 feet
6 months: eyesight is almost fully
developed, clarity and sharpness
close to an adult
Babies first see the world two-
dimensionally, but by the second
month, the infant develops depth
perception: the ability to perceive
objects that are three-dimensional.
How would this change affect how
they interact with the world?

33. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES
II. Auditory Perception
 The ability to hear begins prenatally
 Infants can differentiate changes in melodies
and sounds (skill required to learn language)
 Can differentiate their mother’s voice from
others
 Infants are more sensitive than adults to high
and low frequencies, but not to the middle
ranges

34. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES
III. Smell and Taste
 Infants react to unpleasant smells and tastes from birth
 Newborns can detect their mother’s scent (if breastfed)
 Infants have an innate sweet tooth (they will suck harder on a
bottle with milk that is sweetened)

35. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES
IV. Sensitivity to Pain and Touch
 Infants are born with the capacity to feel pain
 Some of the basic reflexes require tough (e.g. rooting)
 Children gain information regarding the world around them by
touching (e.g. babies 6 months old put everything in their mouth)

36. JEAN PIAGET’S APPROACH TO COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Cognitive development - an orderly sequence of stages.
Focus is on the change in understanding that occurs as a
child moves through each stage.
◦ Four stages of cognitive development
 Sensorimotor
 Preoperational
 Concrete operational
 Formal operational

37. THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE
 Sensorimotor Stage ( 0 to 2 years)
 Developments demonstrated by sensory and motor activity.
 Infants progress from responding to reflexes to goal oriented behavior.
 Mental representations and problem solving
6 Stages of Sensorimotor Development
 Stage 1: Simple Reflexes (0 – 1 mo)
 Assimilation of new objects into reflexive responses.
 Accommodation can serve to modify inborn reflexes through experience.
 Stage 2: Primary Circular Reactions (1 – 4 mo)
 Coordination of certain sensory and motor schemes.
 Repeat stimuli that first occurred by chance.
 The focus is on infants own body.
 Goal directed behavior begins to emerge
 Transition from “look and see” to “look in order to see”

38. THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE
 Stage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions (4 – 8 mo)
 Repeated actions meant to bring about a desirable
consequence on the outside world.
 Infant begins to act on the world (“rattles” or shakes a rattle).
 Shift in focus and initial cognitive awareness of external
world.
 Stage 4: Coordination of Secondary Schemes (8 – 12 mo)
 Coordination of secondary schemes to achieve certain goals.
 Emergence of mental representations – object permanence
develops
 Object Permanence:
 Recognition that objects continue to exist even when they are not
seen.
 First six months
 Out of sight, out of mind
 By 8 – 12 months
 Will begin to look for objects that have been hidden.
 Gain ability to imitate actions of others

39. DEVELOPMENT OF OBJECT PERMANENCE
 Stage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions (12 – 18 mo)
 Purposeful adaptations of established schemes to specific
situations.
 Overt trial and error in problem solving.
 Experimental quality to behavior (child conducting “miniature
experiments”.
 Stage 6: New Means Through Mental Combinations (18 –
24 mo)
 The capacity for mental representation, or symbolic thought.
 A mental representation is an internal image of a past
event or object.
 Mental trial and error in problem solving.
 Child gains the ability to pretend and to imitate someone who
is not currently present

40. INFORMATION PROCESSING / INTELLIGENCE
 Information Processing
◦ How children take in, use and store information
◦ Development is dependent on memory
◦ Three basic aspects of memory: encoding, storage and retrieval
 Encoding – the process by which information is initially recorded in a form
usable to memory
 Storage – placement of material into memory
 Retrieval – the process by which information is located and brought into
awareness
◦ Infantile amnesia – the lack of memory for experiences that occurred prior to 3
years of age
 Intelligence
◦ Individual differences in cognitive development can be measured.
◦ Bayley Scales of Infant Development (evaluates infants development from 2-
42 months)
 Mental Scale
 Motor Scale
 Behavioral Rating Scale
◦ Measurement of infant’s intelligence is difficult and unreliable – association
between most measures of infancy and adult intelligence is minimal.
◦ Can detect sensory and neurological problems and handicaps

41. BAYLEY SCALES OF INFANT DEVELOPMENT

42. THE ROOTS OF LANGUAGE
 Language is the systematic, meaningful
arrangement of symbols which provides the basis
for communication
 Language includes several formal characteristics:
◦ Phonology – the basic sounds of language (phonemes)
that can be combined to form words or sentences.
 Ex: “a” in “mat” and “mate” are two different phonemes
 English language - 40 phonemes to make up the entire language
◦ Morphemes – the smallest language unit that has
meaning.
 “s” for plural or “-ed” for past tense
◦ Semantics – rules that govern the meaning of words and
sentences.

43. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
 Language Development in Infancy
◦ Infants display prelinguistic communication through sounds, facial
expressions, gestures and other nonlinguistic means
 Early Vocalizations
◦ Pre-linguistic vocalizations (babbling)
◦ Babbling – making speech-like, but meaningless sounds
◦ Starts at 2-3 months of age and continues until about 1 year
◦ Even deaf children “babble” – infants exposed to sign language will
“babble” with their hands (vocal babbling and hand “babbling” activate
similar areas of the brain – Broca’s Area)
 Development of Vocabulary
◦ Receptive vocabulary grows faster than expressive vocabulary.
 Understand many more words than they can produce
◦ First words are generally spoken between 10-14 months of age
◦ First words are typically holophrases, one-word utterances that stand for
an entire phrase
 “ma” might mean “Where’s Mommy”, “get me out of my crib Mommy”
or “Mommy, give me back the remote!!”

44. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
 By 15 months of age, the average child has a vocabulary of 15
words
 Overextension
◦ Using words too broadly, generalizing their meaning
◦ Ex: “doggie” for dogs, cats, rabbits, squirrels, etc (anything
with fur and four legs)
 Underextension
◦ Using words too restrictively
◦ “blankie” describes baby’s blanket, but refuses to call other
blankets “blankies”