Infant Toddler Learning & Development Foundations

THE EARLY MONTHS
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child’s brain and stimulate the onset
of self-regulation (Emde 1988). Reading
and understanding babies’ gazes
and showing interest and warmth by
gazing in return benefit the children
greatly.
Babies develop quickly by extending
their abilities in all domains and by
creating more complex ways of relating
to people and things. They send
messages to adults in various ways
and come to expect responses from
adults. For example, when looking into
the faces of adults, infants may see
enlarged dilated pupils—a common
sign of interest and pleasure—and, in
response, they smile more (Hess 1975).
Spitz and Wolfe (1946) observed that
newborns exhibit three distinct reactions
to internal and external stimuli:
• Quiescence (a calm state)
• Undifferentiated excitement (a
general response to pleasurable
stimuli)
• “Unpleasure”
By the end of the first month the
“unpleasure” differentiates or branches
out into signs of displeasure and signs
of distress. 1 One-month-olds show
signs of displeasure when they dislike
an experience and signs of distress
when they experience discomfort or
pain. By the second or third month,
undifferentiated excitement also differentiates
or branches out into two
types of distinct responses: (1) clear
1 When a reference is made to a specific age, the
following qualifying statements always apply: The reference
is to developmental age, rather than chronological
age. The phrase “at around” always either
explicitly or implicitly precedes the stated age, to
recognize variation in individual development.
A behavior stated for an age is not strictly based
on maturation, but also stems from experience and
practice.
signs of pleasure and (2) positive social
responses to people, including the
above-mentioned smiling, increased
vocalizations, and bodily activity.
The Three- to Four-Month-
Old Infant
By three months of age, pathways
of hearing and sight are actively shaping
in the brain. The developing brain
adapts to the messages it receives from
the eyes and the ears by either pruning
(weakening) or making robust
synaptic connections for future functioning.
Pruning of some synaptic connections
and strengthening of others can
be seen in early language development.
Newborns are responsive to the sounds
of all human languages. By the age
of three to four months, babies are
increasingly sensitive and alert to the
sounds of the language(s) spoken by
adults who care for them and become
less attuned to the sounds of other
languages.
As infants approach four months,
they become increasingly skilled at
using a variety of ways to understand
and relate to the world around them.
They create basic categories, such
as things that move and things that
do not (Mandler 2004), and start to
treat things differently according to
attributes such as “hard,” “soft,” or
“sticky.” For example, they may change
how they hold and grasp things based
on the attributes of the objects held.
Young infants also try to prolong interesting
experiences; then, after doing
the same activity for a while and mastering
it, they experiment in search of
novelty.
Children in the three- to four-month
range also show highly differentiated