Instructional Plan on the Newborn, Infancy Period and

Babyhood
(Chapters 6 & 7)

Submitted by:

Asteann Alexandra M. Villalon

Juffy Genn T. Balaga

BS Psychology II

Submitted to:

Ma’am Aileen Rosette V. Mahinay-Felix, MA Psych

Instructor
 I. Title : The Newborn, Infancy Period and Babyhood
II. Objectives

We aim to discuss and explain the developmental processes in newborn, infancy period, and
babyhood in the 3 domains of human development - physical, cognitive, and psychosocial
development.

Specific Objectives:

● Physical development:

- Discuss physical growth and development in newborn, infancy period, and

babyhood.

- Describe their motor development.

- Summarize their course of sensory and perceptual development.

● Cognitive development

- Describe how neonates, infants, and toddlers learn, focus attention,

remember, and conceptualize.
- Describe the nature of language and how it develops in the stages of
newborn, infancy period, and babyhood.

- Summarize and go over Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory

● Psychosocial development

- Discuss the development of emotions and personality in neonates, infants,

and toddlers.

- Describe their social orientation and explain how they perform socialization/
understanding and the development of attachment in newborn, infancy
period, and babyhood.

- Explain how social contexts influence their development.

- Summarize and go over Erik Eriksons’s Psychosocial Development theory

III. Content/Discussion

Title: Developmental Issues and Milestones on Developmental Stages - Newborn,

Infancy Period and Babyhood

A. Chapter VI - The Newborn and Infancy Period

This period of a child’s life is both a sensitive time for both parent and child alike. Some
parents even suffer from the “new parent-blues” and even in serious cases PPD (Postpartum
Depression). PPD is frequently reported in mothers but can also occur in fathers. Having a
baby entails a great deal of responsibility which could cause both positive and negative
reactions to the expecting parents. And in many cases, it is the child that suffers the
consequences of this.

General Characteristics

Table 1.1: General Characteristics of a Newborn and an Infant

General Characteristics of a Newborn General Characteristics of an Infant

Newborns up to two days old are typically Infancy is the transitional period
unattractive and extremely feeble due to intervening between birth and the first two
regulated muscular restraints weeks of life

Newborns are unable to distinguish their Infancy is when personality and social
surroundings at birth but they can still both development starts to form.
sense and be affected by their environment.

The behavior of a newborn consist of Intellectual ability grows exponentially

reflexes during this period due to the accumulation
of experiences

General Characteristic of a Newborn After Birth

● At birth, an infant is normally appraised as being pink in appearance.

● 100+ heart rate
● Exhibits behaviors like grimacing, active motion and crying (these are measured 1
minute after birth and 5 minutes again after)
● In the case of depressed infants, or infants suffering from neonatal depression, they
are monitored every five minutes. And if the condition persists medical intervention is
needed.
● Infants would often have the physical characteristics of vermix/vernix caseosa
coating, Lanugo hair, The Mongolian Spot and millia.
● The anterior fontanel or anterior fontanelle of the infant’s head is soft due to the
skull being left open due to delayed development during delivery.
● The circumference of the chest is smaller than of the head but as the infant grows the
former becomes bigger.
● After the first year, The head circumference grows ,on average, 13 - 14 centimeters.
○ 34 - 35 centimeters (at birth)
 ○ 44 centimeters (after six months)
○ 47 centimeters (by the first year of life)

The Apgar Test/Score

The Apgar score is a test given to newborns soon after birth. This test checks a baby's heart
rate, muscle tone, and other signs to see if extra medical care or emergency care is needed.
Babies usually get the test twice: 1 minute after birth, and again 5 minutes after they're born.
If there are concerns, a baby may get the test again. (Gavin 2018)

The Apgar Score measures (0 being the lowest and 2 the highest rating) the five things we
need to check in order to ascertain a baby’s health namely:

1. Appearance (skin color)

2. Pulse (heart rate)
3. Grimace Response (reflex)
4. Activity (muscle tone)
5. Respiration (breathing rate and effort)

The highest score a baby can get is 10 and the lowest being 0 but very few get a perfect rating
due to a newborn’s arms and feet often being discolored after birth. A low score does not
necessarily mean that a baby is in poor health but could mean that it needs immediate medical
attention.
Developmental Tasks

Reflexes

A reflex is an involuntary and automatic response to a stimulus. A neonate’s (a newborn

child) greatest strengths is a full set of useful reflexes. One of these reflexes is referred to as
survival reflexes. These are called survival reflexes because they clearly serve an adaptive
purpose. These survival reflexes (and some of primitive reflexes—involuntary motor
responses originating in the brainstem present after birth) not only serve as a means of
survival and protection for an infant but it may also have a positive impact on the caregivers.

For more details see Figure 1.1 in the Appendices

Development: Physical and Motor

Physical Growth

● The height of an infant is 50 centimeters at birth

● At the age of two, boys are slightly taller than girls.
● By the age of 5 - 10 years there's no significance dominance in either sex in terms of
height
● By the ages of 11 - 13 years, girls will surpass boys in height
● And by the age of 14, boys will surpass girls in height and this will be maintained
onwards to maturity
● The average birth length is 50 centimeters or 20 inches
● The rate of growth gradually slows as the infant grows older
● The total average length gain during the first year of life of an infant is 25 centimeters
- See Figure 2.1 in Appendices for Distribution
● The average birth weight of a Filipino baby is approximately 3000 grams or 6.6
pounds
● There are a set of usual weight changes at different ages - See Figure 3.4 in
Appendices for the weight differences table
● At birth the approximate weight of an infant is 6 lbs and 5 oz. to 7 lbs.
● 7 lbs is the average weight of a newborn infant
● There are cases of physiological loss of weight but this is replenished after ten days
after birth.
● Approximate weight gain is 20 gms per day for the first 5 months of life
● 15 grams for the remaining time before the infant reaches one year of age
● The general direction of weight of an infant is directly proportional to growth in
height
● 2 - 9 years boys become heavier than girls
● 10 - 14 years girls become heavier than boys
● By 15 years old boys will retain the advantage until maturity
Additionally,

● Due to the lack of accurate charts and tables, mnemonics were utilized in order to
facilitate rapid computation of an infant’s weight and height. - See Figure 3.1 in
Appendices for Mnemonics

○ For Weight,
Ex: From Ages 1 - 6 - Weight in pounds = Age in years x 5 + 17

○ For Height,
Ex: Height in centimeters = Age in years x 5 + 8, alternatively, Height in
inches = Age in years x 2 + 32

For Caucasians, Height in inches = Age in years x 2 ½ + 30

-See Figure 3.5 in Appendices for Alternative Height Mnemonics

Motor Skills

● Skeletal Development
○ Occurs during the prenatal period
○ Bone development continues intro late adolescence
○ Infant bone are softer and are more prone to trauma
● Muscle Growth
○ Muscle growth in infants are small in length, breadth and width - thus is not
sufficient in energy regulation
○ In the Cephalocaudal Principle - head and neck muscle develops ahead of the
torso, arn and leg muscles.

Other Skills

Perceptual Skills are brain sensory functions that enable infants to perform activities and
make decisions, from the simplest to the most complex.

Perceptual Development refers to the development of all five senses: hearing, sight, taste,
touch, and smell.

Neonate Perceptual Skills

Motor Development
Motor development refers to the to changes in children's ability to control their body's
movements, from infants' first spontaneous waving and kicking movements to the adaptive
control of reaching, locomotion, and complex sport skills (Adolph, Weise, and Marin 2003)

Motor development starts from the head to foot—cephalocaudal law of direction. The
development of the upper extremities prior to the development of lower extremities.
Proximodistal law is the development of mental direction (center extremities).

An infant’s first distinct motor activity is the reaching-prehensile pattern. A grasp reflex
involving the voluntary and permanent motor processes (visual, factual and kinesthetic
stimuli)

Cognitive Function

Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development

This theory suggests that children go through different stages of learning. It does not solely
focus on understanding how children acquire knowledge but also the nature of intelligence.

● Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years

● Preoperational stage: Ages 2 to 7
● Concrete operational stage: Ages 7 to 11
● Formal operational stage: Ages 12 and up

Two Major Assumptions of Jean Piaget

● Children are neither deficient nor inferior in intelligence but rather their mental
structure is significantly different from adults
● Humans are born with an innate drive to gain knowledge. We already possess the
mental structure necessary for learning from experience and the environment

An infant’s cognitive development grows as they interact with the world around them. This
intelligence, according to Piaget, is sensorimotor based. Although Piaget’s theory has been a
subject of much debate, for example, Object permanence. It appears that infants can
distinguish that objects have permanence at a much younger age than what Piaget initially
suggested.

Emotional Development

Erik Erikson’s Stage of Psychosocial Development

Erikson assumed that a crisis occurs at each stage of development. These crises are of a
psychosocial nature because they involve the psychological needs of an individual conflicting
with the needs of society.

Language Development
The roots of language development can be found in an infant’s crying, cooing and eventually
it’s babbling. It is believed that the use of language by infants and young children is
influenced by what they hear.

Social and Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

is a theory that focuses on how children develop morality and moral reasoning. In this theory,
there are six stages. An infant is at the first stage, the preconventional stage, which is
characterized by obedience to being righteous.

B. Chapter VII - Babyhood

Babyhood extends from the end of the second week of life to the end of the second year.
Though this stage is often referred to as infancy, Hurlock (1982) states that compared to
babyhood, infancy is characterized by extreme helplessness. The word ‘baby’ may likewise
suggest a helpless individual; hence, the word ‘toddler’ has been increasingly used to denote
a baby that has achieved enough control of this body to permit relative independence (moving
about, feeding himself, etc.).

Characteristics of Babyhood
The most important characteristics of babyhood:

1. It is the true foundation age - Childhood is generally regarded as the foundation age,
but babyhood is the true foundation period since many behavior patterns, attitudes,
and emotional expressions are established at this time. Largely, these early established
patterns persist regardless of whether they are good or bad, beneficial or harmful.

2. It is an age of rapid growth and change - Growth (both physical and psychological) is
rapid in babyhood, especially during the first year. Babies become less top-heavy in
appearance than they were at birth and their limbs develop in better proportion to the
head. These physical changes (growth in height and weight) are paralleled by
intellectual growth and change.
3. It is an age of increasing independence - Rapid development of body control which
enables the baby to sit, stand, and walk and to manipulate objects result in increased
independence. With this comes an attitude against being “babied.” This protest, which
takes the form of angry outbursts and crying, soon develops into negativism.

Negativism - the persistent resistance to suggestions of others, even when these

suggestions may be entirely logical and actually more helpful or efficient than the
current working process (Sam, n.d.).

4. It is the age of heightened individuality - Through increased independence, babies are

afforded the chance to develop themselves along their interests and abilities. The
individuality apparent at birth increases as the latter part of babyhood is approached.
 As individuality increases, as shown in appearance and in patterns of behavior, the
same child-training techniques cannot be expected to work equally well for all babies.
5. It is the foundation period for socialization - Young babies are very egocentric at first
but this attitude diminishes and they show a desire to become part of a social group as
evidenced by their not wanting to be left alone and by demonstrating
attention-seeking behavior by developing strong emotional ties with people they
associate with, especially their mothers, whom they can count on for attention and
affection.
6. It is the foundation period for sex-role typing - Right after being born, babies are
already subjected to sex-role typing by being dressed in clothes with colors
appropriate to their sex, or being given toys or told stories in line with sex-identifying
traditions. However, the pressure on boys to be sex-appropriate are not as strong as
they are on girls.
7. It is an appealing age - Babies' bodies may be disproportionate but it is this
characteristic that makes them appealing - big heads, protruding abdomens, small
limbs, tiny hands and feet, coupled with their apparent helplessness, clumsiness, and
dependency, make them a source of delight among adults. Gradually, as babies
become capable of doing things for themselves and their appearance becomes less
appealing, they start giving adults a hard time since the former become less easy to
manage and more resistant to help from the latter.
8. It is the foundation period for creativity - While babies may be incapable of doing
anything that can be regarded as original or creative due to their lack of muscle
coordination and lack of ability to exercise control over their environment, they
nonetheless learn to develop interests and the attitudes that will lay the foundations
for creative behavior and for conformity as well as nonconformity to patterns set by
others.
9. It is a hazardous age - There are hazards at every age or period in the life span and
certain hazards are more common during babyhood than at any other. Illnesses and
accidents which often lead to permanent disabilities or even death are the most
common physical hazards. Meanwhile, when poor foundations in relation to behavior
patterns, interests, and attitudes are established, serious psychological hazards may be
the result.

Developmental Tasks of Babyhood

● Learning to walk
● Learning to take solid foods
 ● Having organs of elimination under partial control
● Achieving reasonable physiological stability especially in hunger rhythm and sleep
● Relating emotionally to parents and siblings
● Learning the foundations of speech such as building up a useful vocabulary,
pronouncing pronouncing words with reasonable correctness, comprehending the
meaning of simple statements and commands, and putting together several words into
meaningful sentences
● Learning sex differences
● Getting ready to read
● Learning to distinguish between right and wrong and developing a conscience

Development: Physical, Motor, Speech, and others

Patterns of Filipino Physical Development During Babyhood

● Weight
- At birth male infants are heavier by 0.11 kgs. than the females. The mean
weight of males at birth is 3.05 kgs. While that of females is 2.94 kgs. From
birth up to the end of the first year of life, the males are heavier than the
females, gaining 6.07 kgs. and 5.33 kgs., respectively. There is a trend of
decelerating growth during the first year and this continues through the second
year.
● Height
- The mean length for males and females at birth is 48.85 cms. and 48.14 cms.,
respectively. Generally, males are longer than females from birth to one year
of age from 0.71 cm. At birth to 2.05 cms. at 11 months. The period of most
rapid growth during the second year of life occurs during the first quarter
(12-15 months) for both males and females and the slowest during the third
quarter (18-21 months) for the males and the fourth quarter (21-24 months) for
the females. The total growth for the second year of life is greater than that of
the third year of life for both sexes indicating further a decelerating growth
rate in length.
● Teeth
- In general, the lower central incisors tend to precede the upper central incisors
and the upper lateral incisors to precede the lower laterals.
- The first tooth to erupt is the lower central incisor followed by the upper
central, upper lateral, and lower lateral incisors.
- The lower and upper molars generally erupt during the first half of the second
year life; the cuspids, in the second half.

Motor Development in Babyhood

Maturation and learning work in harmony in the development of muscle control. Babies
are able to use their bodies in a coordinated manner due to the maturation of their muscles,
bones, and nerve structures as well as the changes in body proportions. They should,
however, be afforded an opportunity to learn how to do so since instruction or training would
be of little or no value if this state of readiness is not present.

Development of control over the muscles undeniably follows a definite and predictable
pattern governed by the laws of development direction, which hold that development
proceeds from head to foot and from trunk to extremities.

- One to two (1-2) months - Tonic-neck reflex predominates when the baby is in
supine position. The head is turned far to the side, one arm in extension to the same
side, the other flexed to the shoulder; can roll partly to the side.
- Three (3) months - The baby is able to turn to prone position.
- Four to five (4-5) months - Able to turn prone from supine position and vice versa.
- Six to seven (6-7) months - Able to roll from stomach to stomach.
- Eight (8) months - Can also alternate from prone to sitting position and vice versa;
can cruise by crawling.
- Nine (9) months - Can pull themselves into a standing position by holding on to
something.
- Ten to eleven (10-11) months - Can sit with good control, pivot in a steady manner,
and walk while holding someone’s hands.
- Twelve (12) months - Walks even when only one hand is held.
- Fifteen (15) months - Can push a chair around, climb, and get down from it as well.
- Eighteen (18) months - Runs but falls sometimes; can climb stairs by creeping.
- Twenty-one (21) months - Can squat while playing; can climb up stairs by assuming
an upright position.
- Twenty-four (24) months - Can walk backwards and on toes; can run without falling;
can climb stairs with both feet and tread before stepping.

Sequence of Infant Growth

● Physical growth infancy is a gradual series of maturational changes that had all better
control of action and perceptions. Although there are differences among babies from
different ethnic origins in terms of temperament, reaction, and rate of development,
most infants follow this general sequence.

Babyhood Skills
1. Hand Skills - self-feeding, self-dressing. And play skills.
 2. Leg Skills - jumping, climbing stairs, swimming by kicking legs, and splashing
with arms.
Pediatricians and child psychologists suggest that babies simply need touch, face-to-face
contact, and brightly colored toys they can manipulate for optimal physical and motor
development. Studies on structured exercise classes for babies according to Papalia and Olds
(1990) revealed that there are more bone fractures, dislocations, and muscle strains in babies.

Here are the guidelines for regular unstructured physical activities for infants and toddlers
according to the Australian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (birth to 5
years):

Speech Development in Babyhood

Speech is one tool for communication. Babies, to be able to communicate with

others, must be able to comprehend what the others are trying to communicate to them and to
communicate to others in terms or ways they can comprehend. Often, communication in
babies is not mastered quickly until Babyhood comes to a close. Among written, spoken,
gesticulate, musical and artistic expressions, spoken language is the most efficient since it is
least likely to be misunderstood.

The foundations of both aspects of communication— comprehension and ability to

communicate— are laid during the babyhood years though ability in the former is generally
greater than that in the latter.
- It is believed that the use of language in infants and young children is in accordance
with what they hear and that they are their own "language specialists".
Table 2 - The Course of Language Development

Age (in Months) Vocalization and Language

4 Coos and chuckles

6 to 9 Babbles; produces sounds such as “ma” or “da”; reduplication of

sounds is common.

12 to 28 A small number of “words”follow simple commands, and respond to

“no.”

18 to 21 From about 20 words at 18 months to about 200 words at 21; points to

many more objects; comprehends simple questions; forms two-word
phrases.

24 to 27 Vocabulary to 300 to 400 words; has two to three-word phrases; uses

prepositions and pronouns.

30 to 33 Fastest increase in vocabulary; three to four-word sentences are

common;word order, phrase structure, grammatical agreement
approximate language of surroundings, but many utterances are unlike
anything an adult would say.

36 to 39 Vocabulary of 1000 words or more; well-formed sentences using

complex grammatical rules, although certain rules have not yet been
fully mastered; grammatical mistakes are much less frequent; about
90% comprehensibility

Pre Speech Forms of Communication

In learning to talk, four pre speech forms of communication normally appear:

1. Crying - First piece of human behavior that has social value (Hurlock, 1982). It becomes
differentiated as the newborn reaches the third or fourth week of life to identify what his cry
signifies from its tone and intensity, and the bodily movements that accompany it. Crying
serves the function of telling whether the baby is normal and healthy or not.
2. Cooing and babbling - As the vocal mechanisms develop, the baby becomes capable of
producing explosive sounds that develop into lallation which form their basis of speech. It
starts in the second or third month, reaches its peak in the eighth month, and disappears then
the babyhood stage ends.
3. Gesturing - Used by the baby not to supplement, but to substitute for his speech.
Continues to use gestures to combine them with words and create sentences.
4. Emotional Expressions - The most effective pre speech forms of communication. The
baby is able to communicate his emotional state to others based on facial and bodily
expressions and finds it easier to understand others by their facial expressions compared to
their words.

The appearance of true language, or the first word takes place at 10-15 months. At 2
years old, there is an accumulation of single-word and two-word utterances.

Between the first and second year, a toddler’s sentences are most often-single words.
“Ball,” for example, is likely to mean, “I want the ball” while “more” is used to express “I
want more.” Adults can help at this point in developing babies’ speech development by
practicing "expansion."
A child up to the age of 10 rarely tries to understand each word. At this time, he simply
incorporates words that he hears into the general scheme of his perceptions called schemata.

Other cues a toddler uses for understanding:

Tone, rhythm of voices, body posture, facial expressions, and hand gestures.

Development of Understanding

Through maturation and learning, babies acquire understanding of what they observe, and
this depends largely on two factors: their level of intelligence and previous experiences.

Understanding develops through sensory exploration and motor manipulation. At 2 years

old, they make simple generalizations based on similar experiences.

Important concepts that develop in babyhood are those related to:

1. Space
2. Weight
3. Time
4. Self
5. Sex-role
6. Social
7. Beauty
8. The comic

Emotional Development in Babyhood

- It is at feeding time that the baby receives the earliest lesson in love, along with the
earliest stimulation of his intellect (Hofilena, 1983). A relaxed and happy mother
cradles the baby in her arms and feeds him, nourishing him with “the milk of human
kindness.”
- Stroking, gentle singing, speaking softly enhances the baby’s feelings of satisfaction
and well-being. That transcends in the depth and peacefulness of his sleep.
- Feeding is the giving and taking of love that is vital to the emotional life of both the
mother and the baby.
- Moreover, separation for a significant period from the mother, especially at six
months of age, during which babies have already formed a strong bond with a
mothering figure, may lead to the initial reaction of protest: crying, searching, almost
panic behavior, and a great deal of motor activity involving both arms and legs.
Likewise, babies may show profound disturbances in health and in motor, social, and
language development as was found in a study by Rene Spitz (1983).
- Common emotional patterns shown in babyhood include anger, fear, curiosity, joy,
and affection.

Development of Socialization
- Just like among adults, for toddlers, friendship involves an element of choice. An
important indication of a first friendship is preference for one particular child over all
other kids. Another sign is sharing happiness, even joy, when the toddlers greet each
other. Some children may show pleasure at the mere memory of a little buddy, whose
name you would hear them say over and over, sometimes as they fall asleep.
- Other signs of these early friendships are more subtle, however, such as banging
spoons on a table simultaneously, using the same color of crayons to draw similar
patterns or figures, or playing with similar, if not identical toys.
- This may look like parallel play, but psychologists, like Kimberly Whaley (1990)
believes that the exact mimicking shows an awareness between the children and acts
to forge a connection that excludes others and creates a history for them.
 - By imitating each other, these children actually say, "I like to be with you" or "We
have lots of things in common." It is this mimicking that helps toddlers create a sense
of intimacy amidst a noisy classroom or home. An activity such as sucking from
bottles side by side is enough to put two two-year-olds in their own little world. They
may just sit on a chair without saying a word, yet, even if another child comes up to
one of them and hits them both over the head, they would just ignore the intruder.

Roopnarine and Honig (1985) suggested ways by which parents and other adults can
help kids who have trouble finding playmates or making friends:
1. Use positive disciplinary techniques. Give rewards, make rules and their reasons clear, and
encourage cooperation in non punitive ways.
2. Be models of warm, nurturing, attentive behavior, and work to build kids' self-esteem.
3. Show prosocial behavior yourself, and praise signs of children's budding empathy and
responsiveness.
4. Make a special effort to find a playgroup for kids if they do not often have an opportunity
to be with other children. Social skills grow through experience.
5. Encourage "loners" to play with small groups of two or three kids at first, and give them
ample time to get acquainted before getting involved.
6. Teach "friendship skills" indirectly through puppetry, books about animals, etc. and
children who have learned to make friends.

Play Interests
- Toddlers show a presumably definite social interest in one another; they communicate
somewhat effectively, and attempt cooperative play.
- According to Hughes and Noppe (1985), recent studies place socialization in babies in
a different perspective because they are conducted on a one-to-one interaction study.
Earlier, misconceptions portrayed the toddler as being anti-social due to conduct of
studies involving them in large group settings.
- Babies building with blocks, pretending to be airplanes, or learning to skip, are just
amusements for us, quite different from serious occupations. To babies, play is
actually a serious business.
- Babies generally begin to play around each other at 1 and a half or 2 and a half years
of age and are likely to grab things from each other without much fanfare. The one
 who has a possession never gives it up to be nice. He either hangs onto the object,
perhaps hitting the attacker, or he gives it up in bewilderment.
- Dr. Benjamin Spock says that if a baby at around the age of two seems to be a
grabber, it does not mean that he is going to be a bully. They add that he is just too
young to have much feeling for others. If he is doing it constantly, it may help to let
him play sometimes with slightly older children who stand up for their rights. If he
always intimidates a certain child, better keep them separated for a while. If the baby
is hurting another or looks as though he wants to get rid of him, pull him away and
shift his attention or get him interested in something else. It is better if you don't heap
shame on him, lest he feels abandoned and more aggressive.
- If the child at the age of two does not give up his possessions such as a car or any toy,
he is behaving normally at his age. He will eventually learn to become generous
very gradually, as his spirit grows up and as he learns to enjoy and love other children.
If you make the child give up his prized possession whenever another child wants it,
you give him the feeling that the whole world is out to get his things away from him.
This makes him more possessive, instead of less. This same principle holds true even
among grown-ups.
- When a child reaches the stage when he begins to enjoy playing with others, at around
age three, you can help to make a game of sharing.

Functions and Virtues of Play

- Frank and Theresa Caplan (1995) in their book Power of Play consider it abnormal for
a child not to play, since playing is a valuable way for a child to absorb information,
learn skills, and aid his personal development. They consider the following to be the
merits of play:
1. It aids growth.
2. It is a voluntary activity.
3. It gives freedom of action to a child.
4. It provides an imaginary world that a child can master.
5. It has elements of adventure in it.
6. Through it, language can be built up.
7. It has a unique power of building interpersonal relations.
 8. It offers opportunities for mastery of the physical self.
9. It furthers interest and concentration.
10. It allows the child to investigate the material world.
11. It is a way of learning adult roles. 12. It is a dynamic way of learning.
13. It refines a child's judgment.
14. Academics can be structured into it.
15. It is vitalizing, in that through it the child gets a relief from the sense of
powerlessness.

Play Patterns of Babyhood

1. Sensorimotor Play
2. Exploratory Play
3. Imitative Play
4. Make-Believe/Fantasy Play
5. Games
6. Amusements

Moral Development in Babyhood

- Babies are neither moral nor immoral but nonmoral since they have not yet formed a
scale of values and a conscience. Hence, their behavior is not bound by moral
considerations or standards. They eventually learn moral codes from their parents,
teachers, and playmates or peers as they learn the value of conforming to these codes.
- According to Hurlock (1982), babies judge the rightness or wrongness of an act in
terms of the pleasure or pain it brings them rather than on the basis of the effects it has
on others.
- Learning to behave in a manner considered morally appropriate is a long and slow
process for babies. However, they do manifest what Jean Piaget calls morality by
constraint—automatic obedience to rules without reasoning or judgment. This lasts
until the age of seven or eight.

Interest in Sexuality
- According to Barbara Rutter (1996), sensitivity to sexual stimulation in newborn
males when excited, even while struggling stimulation is present at birth, and that
erections are often noted in newborn males when excited, even while struggling for
 their first breath, just as clitoral sensitivity can be noted in newborn females. Fondling
of one's genitals may appear at age 2-4.
- For all babies, she adds, sexual pleasure is quite secondary to the pleasure they derive
from the satisfaction of their needs for food, sleep, and tactile comfort.
- Since Filipinos live in the modern world and are affected by the mass media, parents
can plan how to educate their kids about sexuality. They can anticipate what will
happen to their toddlers as they mature, and can give them the right answers to their
questions when the time comes, to avoid misconceptions or fallacies about their own
sexuality

IV. Assessment

A. Assessment Test
 Unit IV: Chapter VI & Chapter VII
Name: Section:

I. Multiple Choice (5): Encircle the letter of your answer.

1. Which of the following is not a characteristic of a newborn after birth?

A. At birth, an infant is normally appraised as being pink in appearance.
B. The circumference of the chest is smaller than of the head but as the infant
grows the former becomes bigger.
C. Exhibits behaviors like grimacing, active motion and crying
D. After the first year, The head circumference grows ,on average, 10 - 14
centimeters.
2. Which of the following is not a characteristic of babyhood?
A. It is the true foundation age

B. It is the age of heightened collectivity

C. It is an age of rapid growth and change

D. It is an age of increasing independence

3. Children acquire knowledge at what stage of Cognitive Development?

A. Sensorimotor Stage
B. Preoperational Stage
C. Concrete Operational Stage
D. Formal Operational Stage
4. Which of the following is not a skill found in Babyhood Skills
A. Self-feeding
B. Jumping
C. Self-cleaning
D. Self-dressing
5. Which one of the following is a an example of a Pre Speech form communication
A. Cooing
B. Gesturing
C. Crying
D. Grabbing
II. Identification (5): Write your answer on the space provided.

1. It is the involuntary and automatic response to a stimulus.

2. are brain sensory functions that enable infants to perform activities and
make decisions, from the simplest to the most complex.
3. This theory suggests that children go through different stages of learning.

4. the persistent resistance to suggestions of others, even when these

suggestions may be entirely logical and actually more helpful or efficient
than the current working process.

5. The most effective pre-speech forms of communication.

III. 5-item explanation (5): Write your answers on the space provided.

1. Motor Development
2. Language Development
3. The Apgar Test/Score
4. Play Interests
5. Schemata

ANSWER KEY

I. Multiple Choice
 1. D
2. B
3. A
4. C
5. D

II. Identification

1. Reflex
2. Perceptual Skills
3. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
4. Negativism
5. Emotional Expression

III.

1. Refers to the to changes in children's ability to control their body's movements, from
infants' first spontaneous waving and kicking movements to the adaptive control of
reaching, locomotion, and complex sport skills
2. The roots of crying can be found in an infant’s crying, cooing and eventually it’s
babbling. It is believed that the use of language by infants and young children is
influenced by what they hear.
3. This theory suggests that children go through different stages of learning. It does not
solely focus on understanding how children acquire knowledge but also the nature of
intelligence.
4. Toddlers show a presumably definite social interest in one another; they communicate
somewhat effectively, and attempt cooperative play.
5. The general scheme of perceptions

D. References
Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K. (2013). Developmental Psychology: childhood and
adolescence. Cengage Learning.
Gines, A. et al. (1998). Development psychology : a textbook for college students in
psychology and teacher education.
Santrock, J. (2001) Life-Span Development: Seventeenth Edition.
N., Sam M.S., "NEGATIVISM," in PsychologyDictionary.org, April 7, 2013,
https://psychologydictionary.org/negativism/ (accessed September 18, 2023).
Scarff, J. R. (2019, May 5). Postpartum depression in men. PubMed Central (PMC).
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6659987/#:~:text=Postpartum%20depression
%20(PPD)%20is%20often,can%20also%20occur%20in%20fathers.
Biban, P., & Silvagni, D. (2016). Early detection of neonatal depression and asphyxia. In
Springer eBooks (pp. 1–13). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18159-2_178-1
Gavin, M. L. (Ed.). (2018, February). What is the Apgar score? (for parents) - nemours
kidshealth. KidsHealth.
https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/apgar0.html#:~:text=The%20Apgar%20score%20is%20
a,minutes%20after%20they’re%20born.
Graber, E. G. (2023, August 29). Physical growth of infants and children. MSD Manual
Professional Edition.
https://www.msdmanuals.com/professional/pediatrics/growth-and-development/physical-
growth-of-infants-and-children#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20healthy%20term%20infa
nts,12%20months%20and%2010%20years.
Australian Department of Health and Aged Care. (n.d.). Australian 24-Hour Movement
Guidelines for the Early Years (birth to 5 years): An Integration of Physical Activity,
Sedentary Behaviour, and Sleep. https://www.health.gov.au/
MSEd, K. C. (2022). Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development Explained. Verywell
Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457
Paris, J. (n.d.). Chapter 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood.
Pressbooks.
https://wtcs.pressbooks.pub/infanttoddlerdev/chapter/chapter-5-cognitive-development-i
n-infancy-and-toddlerhood/
MSEd, K. C. (2022b). Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development Explained. Verywell
Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457
E. Appendices

Figure 1.1: Major Reflexes Present in Full-Term Neonates

Figure 2.1 Distribution of Length Gain of Infants

Age (Months) Height Gained (Centimeters)

From birth to three months of age Nine centimeters

From three to six months of age Eight centimeters

From six to nine months of age Five centimeters

From nine to twelve months (one year) of age Three Centimeters

 Figure 3.1 Mnemonics (Del Mundo Mnemonics)

Age (years) Formula

1 - 6 years Weight in pounds = Age in years x 5 + 17

6 - 12 years Weight in pounds = Age in years x 7 + 5

Figure 3.2 Mnemonics (Simplified Version)

Age (years) Formula

Below 6 months of age Weight in grams = Age in months x 600 + birthweight

6 -12 months of age Weight in grams = Age in months x 500 + birthweight

2 years and up Weight in kilograms = Age years x 2 + 8

Figure 3.3 Mnemonics Caucasian vs Filipino

Race From 3 - 12 months

Caucasian Weight in pounds = Age in months + 11

Filipino Weight in pounds = Age in months + 10

Figure 3.4 Weight changes

Age Weight Difference

4 - 5 Months 2 x birth weight

1 year 3 x birth weight

2 years 4 x birth weight

3 years 5 x birth weight

5 years 6 x birth weight

7 years 7 x birth weight

10 years 10 x birth weight

Figure 3.5 Alternative Height Mnemonic

Age (years) Height

At 1 year 30 inches

At 2 years ½ Mature height (boys)

At 3 years 3 feet tall

 At 4 years 40 inches x c ½ + 30

At 13 years 3 x birth length