Learning Targets Module 46 Infancy and Childhood Physical

Learning Targets Module 46 Infancy and Childhood: Physical Development 46 -1 Describe some developmental changes in brain and motor skills during infancy and childhood. 46 -2 Discuss how an infant’s brain begins processing memories.

What is maturation? biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience

How does the brain develop during infancy? In humans, the brain is immature at birth. As the child matures, the neural networks grow increasingly complex.

What does the research show about brain development in infancy and childhood? This rapid development helps explain why infant brain size increases rapidly in the early days after birth. (Holland et al. , 2014) From ages 3 to 6, the most rapid growth was in frontal lobes, which enable rational planning. During those years, the child brain requires vast amounts of energy (Kuzawa et al. , 2014) This energy-intensive process caused rapid progress in your ability to control your attention and behavior. (Garon et al. , 2008; Thompson-Schill et al. , 2009)

association areas The brain’s association areas—those linked with thinking, memory, and language— were the last cortical areas to develop and mental abilities surged (Chugani & Phelps, 1986; Thatcher et al. , 1987)

How do we form and prune neural connections? Fiber pathways supporting agility, language, and self-control proliferate into puberty. Under the influence of adrenal hormones, tens of billions of synapses form and organize, while a use-itor-lose-it pruning process shuts down unused links. (Paus et al. , 1999; Thompson et al. , 2000)

1. What Would You Answer? Which of the following is true of the early formation of brain cells? A. They form at a constant rate throughout the prenatal period. B. They begin forming slowly, and then the rate increases throughout prenatal development. C. They form slowly during the prenatal period, and then the rate increases after birth. D. They form at a constantly increasing rate prenatally and in early childhood. E. They are overproduced early in the prenatal period, and then the rate decreases and stabilizes.

AP® Exam Tip Note that maturation, to developmental psychologists, is a biological sequence. This is much more precise than the general notion that maturation means to become more adult-like.

2. What Would You Answer? Maturation explains why A. we stand before we walk. B. we understand gestures. C. we learn to tie our shoes before we learn to tell time. D. some people are good at sports and others are not. E. mathematical ability peaks in the 20 s.

What is the sequence of motor development? Sit, crawl, walk, run—the sequence of these motor development milestones is the same the world around, though babies reach them at varying ages.

Is age of walking guided by nature or nurture? Genes guide motor development. In the United States, 25% of all babies walk by 11 months of age, 50% within a week after their first birthday, and 90% by age 15 months. (Frankenburg et al. , 1992)

Does nurture also play a role in learning to walk? Nurture may amend what nature intends. In some regions of Africa, the Caribbean, and India, caregivers often massage and exercise babies, which can accelerate the process of learning to walk. (Karasik et al. , 2010)

What does research show about our ability to retain early memories? Studies suggest that we consciously recall little from before age 4. Mice and monkeys also forget their early life, as rapid neuron growth disrupts the circuits that stored old memories. (Akers et al. , 2014) But as children mature, infantile amnesia wanes, and they become increasingly capable of remembering experiences, even for a year or more. (Bauer & Larkina, 2014; Morris et al. , 2010) The brain areas underlying memory, such as the hippocampus and frontal lobes, continue to mature during and after adolescence. (Luby et al. , 2016; Murty et al. , 2016)

What do you remember? What do you tend to regard as your earliest memory? Now that you know about infantile amnesia, has your opinion changed about the accuracy of that memory? Talk with a partner.

Do infants have nonverbal memory? Researcher Carolyn Rovee. Collier observed nonverbal infant memory in action. Her colicky 2 month-old, Benjamin, could be calmed by moving a crib mobile. Weary of hitting the mobile, she strung a cloth ribbon connecting the mobile to Benjamin’s foot. Soon, he was kicking his foot to move the mobile.

So, can babies learn? Rovee-Collier realized that, contrary to popular opinion in the 1960 s, babies can learn. To know for sure that her son wasn’t just a whiz kid, she repeated the experiment with other infants. Sure enough, they, too, soon kicked more when hitched to a mobile, both on the day of the experiment and the day after.

How does Rovee-Collier’s research demonstrate infant learning? If, however, Rovee-Collier hitched them to a different mobile the next day, the infants showed no learning, indicating that they remembered the original mobile and recognized the difference. Moreover, when tethered to the familiar mobile a month later, they remembered the association and again began kicking.

What additional evidence demonstrates learning in infants? One study tested English-speaking British adults who had no conscious memory of the Hindi or Zulu they had spoken as children. Yet, up to age 40, they could relearn subtle sound contrasts in these languages that other English speakers could not learn. (Bowers et al. , 2009)

Learning Target 46 -1 Review Describe some developmental changes in brain and motor skills during infancy and childhood. § The brain’s nerve cells are sculpted by heredity and experience. Their interconnections multiply rapidly after birth, a process that continues until puberty, when a pruning process begins shutting down unused connections. § Complex motor skills—sitting, standing, walking—develop in a predictable sequence, though the timing of that sequence is a function of individual maturation and culture.

Learning Target 46 -2 Review Discuss how an infant’s brain begins processing memories. § We have few or no conscious memories of events occurring before about age 4, in part because major brain areas have not yet matured. § Despite the lack of conscious recall, our brains were still processing and storing information. This is evident in those who spoke different languages as young children and are able to relearn their sounds more easily as adults.