Chapter 5

The First Two Years:

Biosocial Development

The Developing Person Through the Life Span Kathleen Stassen Berger • Tenth
Body Changes
• Body size
– Birthweight doubles by month four
and triples by 1 year.
– Height increases typically by 10
inches in a year.
• Failure to thrive
– Multiple causes: Allergies;
microbiome, or other medical
conditions
• Obesity
– Multiple causes: Familial; cultural;
and genetic
Weight of Boys and Girls: Birth to 24
Months
Awake at Night
• Why the disparity between
Asian and non-Asian rates of
co-sleeping?

• It may be that Western

parents use a variety of
gadgets and objects—
monitors, night lights,
pacifiers, cuddle cloths,
sound machines—to
accomplish the same things
Asian parents do by having
their infant next to them.
Brain Development

• Brain Growth
– Two-year-olds are
totally dependent on
adults, but they have
already reached half
their adult height and
three-fourths of their
adult brain size.
Growth in Infancy

• Head-sparing
– Biological mechanism
– Protects the brain
when malnutrition
disrupts body growth
– Brain is the last part of
the body to be
damaged by
malnutrition
Brain Development: Dendrites Sprouting
(part 1)
• Axon
– Fiber that extends from a neuron and
transmits electrochemical impulses from that
neuron to the dendrites of other neurons
• Dendrite
– Fiber that extends from a neuron and receives
electrochemical impulses transmitted from
other neurons via their axons
Brain Development: Dendrites Sprouting
(part 2)
• Synapse
– Intersection between the axon of one neuron
and the dendrites of other neurons
• Neurotransmitter
– Brain chemical that carries information from
the axon of a sending neuron to the dendrites
of a receiving neuron
Brain Development (part 1)
• Brain stem
– Region deep inside the brain that controls automatic
responses
• Midbrain
– Area of the brain that affects emotions and memory
• Cortex
– Outer layers of the brain where most thinking, feeling, and
sensing occurs
• Prefrontal cortex
– Area of the cortex at the very front of the brain that
specializes in anticipation, planning, and impulse control
Brain Development (part 2)

• Limbic system
– Parts of brain that interact to produce emotions
• Amygdala
• Hypothalamus
• Hippocampus
– Many other parts of the brain also are involved
with emotions.
• Stress hormones
– Cortisol
– Pituitary
Brain Research
• One area of extensive
international collaboration

• Example: 5-billion-dollar,
12-year project in the
United States called
BRAIN

• All human thoughts and

actions originate in the
complexity of the brain.
Nature, Nurture, and the Brain

• Nature
– Human brains are three times as large per body
weight and take years longer to mature than brains
of any other creature.
– Dendrites form and die; plasticity is lifelong.

• Nurture
– Neural connections reflect how a baby is treated.
– Early nurturing experiences are lifelong.
– Plasticity occurs in response to nutrients and events.
Brain Development
(part 3)
• Exuberance and pruning
– Specifics of brain structure
and growth depend on
genes and maturation, but
even more on experience.
– Expansion and pruning of
dendrites occur for every
aspect of early experience.
– Unused dendrites wither to
allow space between
neurons in the brain,
allowing more synapses and
thus more complex thinking.
Experience Shapes the Brain

Examples from twin Examples from bird

studies brains
• Until about 10 months, • Birds inherit genes that
produce the brain cells they
experience-expectant
need to learn new songs or
circumstances are not find hidden seeds.
influenced by SES.
• For the dendrites and
• After 10 months, neurons to connect, birds
genetics vary more than depend on specific
context in high-SES experiences with song-
families. learning or seed-finding.
Harming the Infant Brain
• Infants need stimulation
– Playing, allowing varied sensations, and encouraging
movement is necessary for brain connections.
• Stress and the brain
– Overabundance of stress hormones damages later
brain functioning.
• Infants need protection
– Shaken baby syndrome is a life-threatening injury that
occurs when an infant is forcefully shaken back and
forth. This motion ruptures blood vessels in the brain
and breaks neural connections.
Perceiving and Moving

• Sensory development
– Typically precedes intellectual and motor
development
• Sensation
– Response of a sensory system (eyes, ears,
skin, tongue, nose) when it detects a stimulus
• Perception
– Mental processing of sensory information
when the brain interprets a sensation
Moving and Perceiving:
Hearing and Seeing (part 1)

• Hearing
– Develops during the
last trimester of
pregnancy
– Most advanced of the
newborn's senses
– Speech perception by
4 months after birth
Moving and Perceiving: Hearing and
Seeing (part 2)
• Seeing
– Least mature sense at birth
– Newborns focus between 4 and 30 inches
away
– Experience and maturation of visual cortex
improve shape recognition, visual scanning,
and details
– Binocular vision at 3 months
Moving and Perceiving: Smelling and
Tasting
• Smell and taste
– Function at birth
– Rapidly adapt to the social world
– Related to family and cultural preferences
– May have evolutionary function
Moving and Perceiving: Touch and Pain

• Touch
– Sense of touch is acute in infants.
– Although all newborns respond to being securely
held, soon they prefer specific touches.
• Pain and temperature
– Pain and temperature are often connected to touch.
– Some people assume that even the fetus can feel
pain.
– Others say that the sense of pain does not mature
until months or years later.
Motor Skills: Gross Motor Skills

• Motor skills
– Learned abilities to move some part of the
body, in actions ranging from a large leap to a
flicker of the eyelid
• Course of development
– Cephalocaudal (head-down) and
proximodistal (center-out) direction
Motor Skills: Gross
Motor Skills
• Gross motor skills
– Physical abilities
involving large body
movements, such as
walking and jumping
Dynamic Systems
Underlying Motor Skills
• Three interacting
elements underlying
motor skills
– Muscle strength
– Brain maturation
– Practice
• The entire package of
sensations and motor
skills furthers three goals.
– Social interaction
– Comfort
– Learning
Motor Skills: Fine
Motor Skills
• Fine motor skills
– Physical abilities
involving small body
movements, especially
of the hands and
fingers, such as
drawing and picking
up a coin
– Shaped by culture and
opportunity
Cultural Variations

• Caregivers influence every infant move

and every caregiver reflects their culture.
• Cultural patterns affect every sensory and
motor skill acquisition.
• Opportunities for and encouragement of
practice influence development.
• Slow normative development may indicate
a problem.
Surviving in Good Health
Alive Today: “Back to Sleep” Campaign
Success and Survival

• Immunization
– Primes the body's immune system to resist a
particular disease
– Contributes to reduced mortality and
population growth; herd immunity
• Successes
– Smallpox
– Polio
– Measles
Cases of Polio Worldwide
Nutrition

Adequate nutrition
• For every infant disease (including SIDS),
breast-feeding reduces risk and malnutrition
increases it, stunting growth of body and brain.
• Breast-fed babies are less likely to develop
allergies, asthma, obesity, and heart disease.
• As the infant gets older, the composition of
breast milk adjusts to the baby's changing
nutritional needs.
The Benefits of Breast-Feeding
• For the baby
– Balanced nutrition
– Micronutrients not found in formula
• For the mother
– Easier bonding with baby
– Reduced risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis
– No formula preparation
• For the family
– Increased survival of other children
– Increased family income because of formula and medical
expenses
– Less stress on father, especially at night
Stunting in Children Under Five by
Region, 2000–2010

Genetic? The data show that basic nutrition is still unavailable to

many children in the developing world.
Surviving in Good Health

• Malnutrition
– Protein-calorie malnutrition
• Condition in which a person does not consume
sufficient food of any kind that can result in several
illnesses, severe weight loss, and even death
– Stunting
• Failure of children to grow to a normal height for their
age due to severe and chronic malnutrition
– Wasting
• Tendency for children to be severely underweight for
their age as a result of malnutrition
Additional Effects of Chronic Malnutrition
• Brains may not develop normally.
• Protection against common diseases may be reduced.
• Some diseases result directly from malnutrition.
– Marasmus
– Kwashiorkor

• Combination of genetic
susceptibility, poor
nutrition, infection, and
abnormal digestive
system bacteria may be
fatal.