Infancy Physical Development
Nutrition
• Breast- vs Bottle-Feeding
– Today, nearly two-thirds of
American mothers breast-feed
their babies, although most do so
for only a few months. Less than
40% in underdeveloped countries
do.
– Breast-feeding offers many
nutritional and health advantages
over bottle-feeding.
– Breast-fed babies in impoverished
regions of the world are less likely
to be malnourished and more
likely to survive the first year of
life. Yet, many mothers in the
developing world do not know
about the benefits.
– Some mothers cannot nurse
because of physiological or
medical reasons.
– Breast milk is easily digestible
and, as a result, breast-fed
babies become hungry more
often than bottle-fed infants,
making breast-feeding
inconvenient for many
employed mothers.
– Preterm infants benefit from the
antibodies and easy digestibility
of breast milk.
– Breast- and bottle-fed
youngsters in industrialized
nations do not differ in
psychological adjustment.
III. FACTORS AFFECTING
EARLY PHYSICAL GROWTH
• Heredity
• Nutrition
– A baby’s energy needs are twice as great
as those of an adult.
– Twenty-five percent of an infant’s caloric
intake is devoted to growth. If a baby’s diet
is deficient in either quantity or quality of
nutrients, growth can be permanently
stunted.
Nutrition
• A baby’s energy needs
are twice as great as
those of an adult.
• Babies as newborns
become hungry every
1 ½ to 2 hours if
breastfed and every 3
to 4 hours if bottle.
• Babies under 1 should
not receive cows milk
• Twenty-five percent of an
infant’s caloric intake is
devoted to growth. If a
baby’s diet is deficient in
either quantity or quality
of nutrients, growth can
be permanently stunted.
• Breast feeding advised by AAP
for first 6 months and include
as part of diet until at least 1
year—Canada 2 years.
Nutrition cont.
• No bottle propping (ears and teeth) and warm or cold?
• What about burping?
• Are Chubby Babies at Risk for Later Overweight and
Obesity?
– Only a slight correlation exists between fatness in infancy and
obesity at older ages.
– Infant and toddlers can eat nutritious foods freely, without risk
of becoming too fat.
– Physical exercise also guards against excessive weight gain.
• At six months introduce foods one at a time. Avoid
cheese and cow’s milk until one. Cereals usually first,
not wheat.
Nutrition cont.
• Malnutrition
– Recent evidence indicates that
40 to 60 percent of the world’s
children do not get enough to
eat.
– Marasmus is a wasted
condition of the body usually
appearing in the first year of life
that is caused by a diet low in
all essential nutrients.
– Kwashiorkor is a disease
usually appearing between 1
and 3 years of age that is
caused by a diet low in protein.
Symptoms include an enlarged
belly, swollen feet, hair loss,
skin rash, and irritable, listless
behavior.
– Children who survive these
forms of malnutrition grow to be
smaller in all body dimensions
and their brains can be
seriously affected.
– Iron-deficiency anemia, a
condition common among
poverty-stricken infants and
children, interferes with many
central nervous system
processes.
– Early nutritional intervention is
important, before the effects of
early malnutrition are allowed to
run their own course.
Physical Development in Infancy
Figure 3.5
Maturation
• Physical growth and development of
the body, brain, and nervous system
• Increased muscular control occurs
in patterns
• Cephalocaudal: From head to toe
• Proximodistal: From center of the
body to the extremities
Changes in Muscle-Fat Makeup
• Body fat, which helps the
infant maintain a constant
body temperature, increases
after birth and peaks around 9
months of age.
• Toddlers become more
slender, a trend that continues
into middle childhood.
• Muscle tissue increases very
slowly and does not peak until
adolescence.
• Girls have a higher ratio of fat
to muscle than boys.
Appearance of Teeth
• An infant’s first tooth usually appears between 4 to 6 months of
age. By age 2, the average child has 20 teeth.
• A child who gets her teeth early is likely to be advanced in physical
maturity.
• 65 percent of teething infants show no symptoms.
Fine Motor Development: Voluntary
Reaching and Grasping cont.
• Early Experience and Voluntary Reaching
– Trying to push infants beyond their current
readiness to handle stimulation can undermine the
development of important motor skills.
– As infants’ and toddlers’ motor skills develop, their
caregivers must devote more energies to protecting
them from harm.
MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
The Sequence of Motor Development
– Gross motor development refers to control over actions
that help an infant move around in the environment, such as
crawling, standing, and walking.
– Fine motor development involves smaller movements
such as reaching and grasping.
– Although the sequence of motor development is fairly
uniform across children, there are large individual
differences in rate of motor progress.
– Motor control of the head precedes control of the arms and
trunk which precedes control of the legs (cephalocaudal
trend).
– Head, trunk, and arm control appears before coordination of
the hands and fingers (proximodistal trend).
The Sequence of Motor Development
Cultural Variations in Motor
Development
• Cross-cultural research shows that early movement
opportunities and a stimulating environment contribute
to motor development.
• Cultural beliefs vary concerning the necessity and
advisability of deliberately teaching motor skills to
babies.
• Early motor skills are due to complex transactions
between nature and nurture.
Fine Motor Development:
Voluntary Reaching and
Grasping
• Voluntary reaching plays a vital role in infant cognitive
development, since it opens up a whole new way of
exploring the environment.
• Motor skills start out as gross activities and move
toward mastery of fine movements.
• Prereaching is the uncoordinated, primitive reaching
movements of newborns.
Fine Motor Development: Voluntary
Reaching and Grasping
• Development of Voluntary Reaching and
Grasping
– Voluntary reaching appears at about 3 months and
gradually improves in accuracy.
– Early reaching is controlled by proprioception, our
sense of movement and location in space that arises
from stimuli within the body.
– The ulnar grasp is a clumsy grasp of young infants, in
which the fingers close against the palm.
– The pincer grasp is a well-coordinated grasp that
emerges at the end of the first year, involving the
oppositional use of the forefinger and thumb.
Vision
– By 2 months, infants can
discriminate colors across
the entire spectrum.
– By 3 months, infants can
focus on objects and
discriminate colors about as
well as adults can.
– By 6 months, their visual
acuity is about 20/100.
– By 11 months, visual acuity
reaches a near-adult level.
– Depth Perception
• Depth perception is the
ability to judge the distance
of objects from one another
and from ourselves.
• The visual cliff was used
in the earliest studies of
depth perception.
• Research indicates that
around the time that infants
crawl, most distinguish
deep and shallow surfaces
and avoid dangerouslooking drop-offs.
Hearing
– During the first year, babies start to organize sounds into
complex patterns.
– By 6 months of age, babies “screen out” sounds that are not
used in their own language..
– In the second half of the first year, infants focus on the larger
speech units crucial for figuring out meaning. Older infants
can also detect clauses and phrases in sentences.
– Between 7 and 9 months, infants have begun to analyze the
internal structure of sentences and words.
Shaken Baby Syndrome
• Shaking or jerking babies
• Swinging up and down
SIDS
• Leading cause of infant mortality: 1/3 of deaths
in US
• Usually show physical problems from beginning
• More premature, low birth rate, Apgar,
• Often have a mild respiratory failure
• Chemical abnormality in brain center for
breathing
• Smoking
• Sleep on back with light covering
Video
Emotional and Social Development
• Social Smile: Smiling elicited by social
stimuli; not exclusive to seeing parents
• Self-Awareness: Awareness of oneself as
a person; can be tested by having infants
look in a mirror and see if they recognize
themselves
• Social Referencing: Observing other
people to get information or guidance
Figure 3.4
Figure 3.8
Mary Ainsworth and Attachment
• Separation Anxiety: Crying and
signs of fear when a child is left alone
or is with a stranger; generally
appears around 8-12 months
• Quality of Attachment (Ainsworth)
• Secure: Stable and positive
emotional bond
Mary Ainsworth and Attachment (continued)
• Insecure-Avoidant: Tendency to avoid
reunion with parent or caregiver
• Insecure-Ambivalent: Desire to be with
parent or caregiver and some resistance
to being reunited with Mom
• Contact Comfort: Pleasant and
reassuring feeling babies get from
touching something warm and soft,
especially their mother
Bowlby’s Attachment Phases
• Preattachment: Birth to 6 months
– Infant send signals to adult for contact, grasping,
crying, or gazing into adults eyes
• Phase 2: 6 weeks to 6-8 months
– Signal intensify and focus on caregiver. Still friendly
to strangers, but respond differently
• Phase 3: 6-8 months to 18 months-2 years
– More active in seeking and following caregivers.
Show separation anxiety
• Phase 4: 18 months-2 years and on
– Infants form reciprocal relationships with parents and
significant people in their life
Figure 3.11
Play and Social Skills
• Solitary Play: When a child
plays alone even when with other
children
• Cooperative Play: When two or
more children must coordinate
their actions
Optimal Caregiving
• Proactive Maternal Influences: A
mother’s warm, educational
interactions with her child
• Goodness of Fit (Chess & Thomas):
Degree to which parents and child
have compatible temperaments
• Paternal Influences: Sum of all
effects a father has on his child
Height & Weight Growth
The greatest
height & weight
increases occur
during the 1st
year of life, but
children
continue to
grow through
infancy &
toddlerhood.
• Average birthweights
(progression through the 1st 2 years)
--By age 5 months, the average infant's
birthweight has doubled to about 15 pounds.
--By age 1, the infants' birthweight has tripled to
approximately 22 pounds.
--By the end of its second year, the average child
weighs four times its birthweight.
--By age 1, the average baby stands 30 inches tall.
--By the end of the second year the average child
is three feet tall.
Decreasing Proportions…
At birth, the head is ¼ of the neonate’s body. By
adulthood, it is only 1/8th the size of the body.
 Not all parts of the body grow at the same rate.
The 4 Major Principles Governing Growth
1) The CEPHALOCAUDAL PRINCIPLE
states that growth follows a pattern that
begins with the head and upper body
parts and then proceeds to the rest of
the body.
2) The PROXIMODISTAL PRINCIPLE
states that development proceeds from
the center of the body outward.
(Major Principles Governing Growth continued)
3) The PRINCIPLE OF HIERARCHICAL
INTEGRATION states that simple skills
typically develop separately and independently
but are later integrated into more complex
skills.
4) The PRINCIPLE OF INDEPENDENCE OF
SYSTEMS suggests that different body
systems grow at different rates.
Development of Body Rhythms
• Behavior (sleeping, eating, crying, attending
to the world) becomes integrated through the
development of various body RHYTHMS
(repetitive, cyclic patterns of behavior)
– Some rhythms are obvious/easy to notice
• The change from being asleep to being
awake/breathing patterns
(development of body rhythms, continued)
– Some rhythms are more subtle
• Jerking suddenly while
sleeping
*Some are apparent right after
birth, others emerge over the
course of the 1st year as the
nervous system becomes more
integrated
One of the major body rhythms is an infants state
-- An infant's STATE is the degree of awareness
it displays to both internal and external
stimulation.
-- Includes various levels of wakeful behaviors
(alertness, crying, etc.) and various levels of
sleep (active, quiet)
-- Changes in state are reflected in brain waves
measured by a device called an EEG, or
electroencephalogram.
Temperament and Environment
• Temperament: The physical “core” of
personality
• Easy Children: 40 %; relaxed and
agreeable
• Difficult Children: 10 %; moody, intense,
easily angered
• Slow-to-Warm-Up Children: 15 %;
restrained, unexpressive, shy
• Remaining Children: Do not fit into any
specific category