Reflexes
- involuntary stereotyped movement responses to a particular stimuli
- not conscious
- primitive reflexes critical for human survival
- evolutionary based
palmar
- a baby grasps an object placed in the palm of its hand
rooting
when a baby’s cheek is stroked, it turns its head toward the stroking and opens its mouth to help find nipple
Four states of Newborn
- alert inactivity - calm with eyes open
- waking activity - bursts of uncoordinated motions
- crying
- sleeping
basic cry
- soft and gradual, then more intense
- when baby is tired or hungry
mad cry
more intense version of the basic cry
pain cry
sudden long bursts of crying followed by a long pause and gasping
purple crying
- crying beyond anger
- all babies go through this period
- nothing you can do
temperament
- tendency to respond to events in predictable ways
- important to refrain from thinking of a child’s temperament as good or bad
- impacts how a child responds to the environment but how the environment reacts with the child as well
categories of temperament
- easy
- difficult
- slow to warm up
easy temperament
- infants are even tempered, typically content or happy, open and adaptable to new experiences.
difficult temperament
- infants are active, irritable, and irregular in their habits, often react negatively to changes in routine
slow to warm up temperament
- relatively inactive, somewhat moody, only moderately regular in their daily schedules, slow to adapt to new people and situations, but they typically respond in mildly, rather than intensively, negative ways
goodness of fit
a parent can learn to match their parenting style to the child’s temperament
factors that affect temperament
- heredity
- environment
terminal buttons
release neurotransmitters that carry information to the other neurons
cerebral cortex
region of the brain that controls higher level thinking
frontal cortex
located at front and functions in personality and executive functions.
growth of specialized brain
- successful specialized requires stimulation from the environment - read!
- the immature brain’s lack of specialization confers a benefit - greater plasticity
- connects that we don’t need we get rid of
experience-expectant growth
wiring of the brain is organized by human experiences
brain plasticity
young children can recover brain skills lost due to injury more easily than older children and adults
self concept
- self awareness
- use of own name or personal pronouns
- knowledge of age and/or gender
Rouge test
- put some red on a child’s nose and put them in front of a mirror and see if they recognize that it is them
- occurs around 15-18 months
theory of mind
- a native understanding of the relations between mind and behavior
- between ages 2 and 5
- ability to understand other people have their own thoughts and experiences
