Chapter Three

Tools for Exploring the World:

Physical, Perceptual, and Motor
Development
 3.1 The Newborn:
Learning Objectives

• How do reflexes help newborns interact with

the world?
• How do we determine whether a baby is
healthy and adjusting to life outside the
uterus?
• What behavioral states are common among
newborns?
• What are the different features of
temperament? Do they change as children
grow?
 The Newborn’s Reflexes

• Reflexes 反射動作 : the newborn is born with

unlearned responses triggered by specific
stimuli
– Certain reflexes have survival value
• Rooting 尋乳 , sucking 吸吮 , eye blinks 眨
眼
– Other reflexes are developmental precursors
to later voluntary motor behaviors
• stepping a precursor to walking
• Reflexes reflect the health of the child’s
nervous system
 The Newborn’s Reflexes (cont’d)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyVLD0hl
0XY&feature=related
 Assessing the Newborn

• The five Apgar scores 亞培格指數

1. Heart rate 2. Respiration
3. Muscle tone 4. Reflexes
5. Skin tone

• Each scored from 0 to 2; then summed

– Good physical condition: total of 7+

– Needs special attention: total of 4-6
– Life-threatening: total of 3 or less
 Assessing the Newborn (cont’d)
• Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) 新生
兒行為量表
– Includes 28 behavioral and 18 reflex items
– Assesses four systems
1. Autonomic 自律 : body regulation (e.g.,
breathing)
2. Motor 動作 : activity level and control of body
3. State 狀態 : maintaining states (e.g., alertness)
4. Social 社交 : interacting with people
 The Newborn’s States

• Alert inactivity 警覺不活動 : calm, eyes open and

attentive; deliberately inspecting environment
• Waking activity 清醒有活動 : open but unfocused
eyes; uncoordinated motions
• Crying 哭鬧 : cries vigorously; motion is agitated
and uncoordinated
• Sleeping 睡眠 : eyes closed; degree of activity
and quality of breathing alternate
 Crying

• Basic cry 基本哭

– Starts softly and builds in volume and
intensity
– Often seen when the child is hungry
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=OMaV10b6-CU
• Mad cry 生氣哭
– More intense and louder
• Pain cry 痛哭
– Starts with a loud wail, followed by a long
pause, then gasping
嬰語翻譯機
 Sleeping

• Newborns sleep an average of 16-18 hours/day

• Sleep cycles
– Newborns: 4-hour cycle; 3 hours sleep and 1
hour awake
– By 3 to 4 months: 5-to-6-hour cycle
– By 6 months: sleep 10 to 12 hours at night
• REM sleep 快速眼動睡眠
– 50% of newborn sleep
– 25% by 12 months
 Co-sleeping

• The practice of sleeping in the same room or

bed with the child
• Much more common in cultures valuing
interdependence than independence
• Research shows no evidence of increased
dependence
• Co-sleeping has the advantage of avoiding
elaborate sleep-time rituals
 Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
嬰兒猝死症

• SIDS: sudden, inexplicable death of a healthy

baby
• Risk factors
– Premature birth and low birth weight
– Parental smoking
– Child overheating and sleeping on stomach
– African-American infants (often sleep on
stomach)
• Reducing risk? Sleeping on back or sides
 Dimensions of Temperament

• Temperament 氣質 : consistent styles or

patterns of infant behavior
• Number of temperament dimensions still
debated (ranging from 2 to 9)
• Video of behavioral inhibited( Jerome Kagan)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT3XzYNgt4E&ab_channel=KatherineNapali
nga
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAmyt5gRd3k&ab_channel=RobinSuitt
 Rothbart’s Dimensions of
Temperament

• Rothbart’s (2007) three dimensions

indicate how much a child
– is generally happy, active, vocal, and seeks
stimulation (surgency/extroversion 外向 )
– is angry, fearful, frustrated, shy, and not
easily soothed (negative affect 負向情緒 )
– focuses attention, is not easily distracted,
and can inhibit impulses (effortful control 主
動控制 )
 Rothbart’s Dimensions of
Temperament (cont’d)

• Three dimensions are not independent

– High effortful control predicts high
surgency/extroversion, but low negative
affect
• Scores during infancy predict personality in
adolescents and adults
 Hereditary and Environmental
Contributions to Temperament

• Heredity and twin studies

– Identical twins are more similar in
temperament than are fraternal twins
– Heredity influences negative affect more
than other temperament dimensions
• Heredity contributes more to temperament in
childhood than during infancy
 Hereditary and Environmental
Contributions to Temperament (cont’d)

Environment
• Asian babies are less emotional, whereas
Russian babies show more fear and negative
affect compared to Euro-American babies
• Parental characteristics influence
temperament
– Parental responsiveness 反應性 reduces infant
emotionality
– Depressed mothers have more fearful infants
 父母患抑鬱症可能波及子女

• https://cn.nytimes.com/health/20121027/c27d
epression/zh-hant/
 Hereditary and Environmental
Contributions to Temperament (cont’d)

Heredity and environment interact

• Temperament influences environment’s effect
on children
– Fearful children cheated more if disciplined
with power assertion, but less if parents
were nurturing and supportive
• Temperament influences how others treat the
child and his or her experiences
 Stability of Temperament

• Studies suggest that temperament tends to

be somewhat stable from infancy through
adulthood
• Temperament predisposes 傾向 , but does not
always guarantee, later personality
characteristics
• Parents can nurture children to behave in
ways somewhat different from their
temperament
 The Emerging Nervous System

• The brain and the rest of the nervous system

consist of cells known as neurons 神經元
• Neurons consist of a soma, dendrites, the
axon, and terminal buttons
• Terminal buttons 終點扣 release chemicals
called neurotransmitters 神經傳導分子
 The Brain

• The brain has 50 to 100 billion neurons

• Cerebral cortex 皮質 : the wrinkled surface of
the brain
• Hemispheres 腦半球 : the two halves of the
brain
• Corpus callosum 胼胝體 : the thick band of
fibers connecting the two hemispheres
 The Making of the Working Brain

• The brain weighs about three-quarters of a

pound at birth – about 25% of an adult brain
• At around three years of age, the child’s brain
is about 80% of an adult’s brain weight
 Emerging Brain Structures

• At 3 weeks after conception, the neural

plate 神經板 , a flat structure of cells,
forms
• By 28 weeks after conception, the brain
has all the neurons it will ever have
 Emerging Brain Structures (cont’d)

• In the 4th month of prenatal

development, axons begin to form the
fatty sheath, myelin 髓鞘
– Helps speed neural transmission
– Improves coordination and reaction times
• Number of synapses 突觸 peaks at 12
months
– Synaptic pruning: certain unnecessary synapses
soon begin to disappear
– BBC video
 Growth of a Specialized Brain:
Brain-Mapping Methods

Methods to study origins and time course of

brain specialization 腦特化
• Studying children with brain damage
• Measuring the brain’s electrical activity
through electrodes place on scalp (EEG 腦電
圖 or electroencephalogram)
• Using magnetic fields to track brain blood
flow (fMRI 功能性磁共振成像 , functional
magnetic resonance imaging)
 Five General Principles of
Brain Specialization

1. Specialization is early in development

Ex.: newborns’ left hemisphere generates
higher electricity in response to speech
2. Specialization takes two specific forms
A. Specialized areas become more
focused and less diffuse
B. Stimuli triggering brain activity
become more specific than general
 Five General Principles of
Brain Specialization (cont’d)

3. Different brain systems specialize at different

rates
Ex.: systems for sensory and perceptual
processes specialize before those for
higher-order processes
4. Environmental stimulation is necessary for
successful specialization
A. experience-expectant growth 經驗預
期成長
B. experience-dependent growth 經驗依
賴成長
 Brain Specialization Principle:
Experience-Expectant vs.
Dependent-Growth

Experience-expectant growth
• All human brains require exposure to
experiences common to all individuals (e.g.,
exposure to faces) to fine-tune their circuits and
to have different regions specialize
Experience-dependent growth
• Brain circuits and regions also are fine-tuned
according to each person’s unique experiences
(e.g., learning to play the violin vs. learning to
play soccer)
 Five General Principles of
Brain Specialization (cont’d)

5. Plasticity 可塑性 is a benefit of the immature

brain’s lack of specialization
• Atypical experiences may disrupt normal
course of development (e.g., brain
damage disrupting speech)
• Plasticity: brain is very flexible, allowing
recovery of function, especially in young
children
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fCY_M7Vms
 3.3 Early Motor Skills:
Learning Objectives

• What are the component skills involved in

learning to walk? At what age do infants
master them?
• How do infants learn to coordinate the use of
their hands?
 Locomotion

• By 7 months, infants can sit alone

• Toddling: at around 14 months, toddlers may
stand alone briefly and walk without
assistance
• Dynamic systems theory 動態系統論
– Instead of simple maturation, motor
development involves many distinct skills
that are organized and reorganized over
time to meet specific task demands
 Posture and Balance

• Infants are “top-heavy” and easily lose their

balance
• Within a few months, infants use inner ear
and visual cues to adjust posture
• Infants must relearn balance each time they
achieve new postures
 Stepping

• Many infants move their legs alternately in a

stepping-like motion as early as 6-7 months

• Infants use environmental cues to judge

whether a surface is suited to walking (e.g.,
flat vs. bumpy)
 Coordinating Skills

• Walking skills must be learned separately and

then integrated with others
• Differentiation 分化 : mastery of component
skills
• Integration 整合 : combining components into
the sequence needed to accomplish the task
• Unsupported, independent walking occurs at
about 12 to 15 months, once children have
mastered and coordinated its component
skills
stepping
 Motor Development Video

• The gap
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MIyjUo-z
F0&feature=endscreen&NR=1
• The hand rail
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBkqDqV
ge_c&feature=relmfu
• slope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYW68c
P55ak
 Cultural Impact on Motor Development

• Some cultural practices encourage certain

skills early and others discourage them
– Ex.: parents in Africa carry children
piggyback style, which promotes walking at
earlier ages than in the U.S.
– Ex.: in Paraguay, mothers constantly carry
toddlers, delaying motor skills
• Despite cultural differences in average age of
skill development, children acquire skills
within a normal range
 Fine Motor Skills

• Fine motor skills are associated with

grasping, holding, and manipulating objects
• At 4 months, infants clumsily reach for
objects
• By 5 months, they coordinate movement of
the two hands
• By 2-3 years, children can use zippers but not
buttons
• Tying shoes is a skill that develops around
age 6 years
 Handedness 慣用手

• About 90% of children prefer to use their right

hand
• Most children grasp with their right hand by
age 12 months, with a clear preference seen
by preschool age
• Preference is affected by heredity, but
environmental factors also influences it
• Left-handedness has increased since U.S.
teachers stopped urging right-handedness