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