Babyhood spans from 2 weeks to 2 years of age. During this period, rapid physical and intellectual development occurs. Babies experience increased independence, begin socializing with family members, and start developing sex-typical behaviors. Their motor skills, vision, teeth, bones, and language abilities develop greatly. Babies progress from reflexive behaviors and self-exploration to goal-directed behaviors and basic problem-solving by their second year according to Piaget's stages of cognitive development.

1. PERIOD OF BABYHOOD
R.SUBHA,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

2. Babyhood is the stage that follows infancy and extends between
two weeks to two years.

3. Characteristics of Babyhood
1) Development during babyhood is the foundation for the development during the
entire lifespan.
2) During babyhood rapid physical and intellectual development takes place as
evidenced by increase in height, weight and body proportions.
3) Increased independence and individuality mark babyhood.
4) Socialisation begins during babyhood as the baby shows increasing desire to be a
part of the social group of the family and extend the basic relationship with the mother
or mother substitute to others as well.
5) Sex-role typing begins during babyhood. Boys and girls are dressed sex.
appropriately and are treated in subtly different ways. Culturally relevant sex-
appropriate clothes, games, behaviour or even interactions are gradually brought in.

4. 6) There are hazards faced by a baby which may be physical or psychological. ,
Physical hazards such as in illness, accidents and psychological hazards can
interfere with positive development of the baby.

5. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
- 1.Height and Weight
❖ Rapid growth takes place during babyhood.
❖ Height and weight increase.
❖ The birth weight is doubled by four months and tripled by one year.
❖ On an average the height of the baby at four months is 23 to 24 inches
and at one year 28 to 30 inches and by two years 32 to 34 inches.
❖ Changes in height are found to be more than weight during the second
year.
❖ Changes in body proportions are very small in contrast to increase in
height and weight.

6. 2.Motor Abilities and Skills
● Refers to the ability to control movements of various parts of the body.
● Child’s muscular abilities and skills development is very much noticed in
postural control, locomotion and hand movements.
○ A. Postural control - coordination of muscles in maintaining different positions of the
body - sitting, standing etc.,
○ B. Locomotion - coordination of muscles in the movements of the body from place to
place.

7. Postural Control and Locomotion - sequence as reported by Shirley (1931)

8. C. Hand Movements
● It was aimless at first - then progresses to squeezing an object, then grasping
it with his hand and finally using his thumb and forefinger.
● Majority of children ca grasp objects of suitable size and hold it - end of 6th
month.
● All babies accurately reach an object and pick it up - end of 9th month.

9. 3. Development of Visual Ability
Sequence of visual development:
1. Awareness, shortly after birth, moving light in the field of vision.
2. Ability to follow light with the eyes
3. Ability to make the eyes work together - focus on mothers face or hands.
4. Preference for certain colours, shown by his reaching for bright coloured
objects.
5. Eye-hand coordination - possible to pick up small objects.
6. Ability to follow a more distant objects - birds/ animals

10. 4. Development of Bones
● Very rapid during first year of life.
● At birth, infants skeletal system has more
than 300 bones - largely cartilages.
● Development of cartilage - ossification -
firmer and grow in length and width.
● Bone development is slower in the second
year.
● The soft spot on the skull (tontanelle) will be
closed by the end of two years.

11. 5. Development of Nervous System
★ First 2 years - Rapid development in the nervous system - The brain weight is one-eighth of the baby’s total
weight at birth. The cerebellum and the cerebrum triple its weight in one year and complete 3/4th of their
development by the end of second year.
★ By three months, the eye muscles are well developed and babies can see things clearly. They can also see
colours.
★ Hearing develops rapidly during this stage.
★ Smell and taste are improved during babyhood.
★ Babies are highly responsive to all skin stimuli because all sense organs relating to touch, pressure, pain, and
temperature are present in well-developed forms.

12. 6. Teething
● First tooth appear during the 7th month, remaining front, upper and lower
teeth usually appear 2-3 months after first tooth.
● At two years he may be a possessor of 16 teeth.
● By end of 2 years 20 baby teeth called temporary / milk teeth formed - and
start falling from about their 7th year - permanent teeth replace that erupt.
● Teething is a troublesome period - affects baby’s eating and sleeping habits -
gums may get swollen - baby feel irritable at time of teething.
● Common symptoms of teething are drooling, gnawing, biting, fussiness and
irritability.
● Giving hard toast, carrot, teething ring to chew on helps.

13. Social Development
The baby begins to communicate with others by gestures and also develops close relation with caregivers like
mother and father.
At about five weeks of age, the baby smiles in response to patting.
By the second month it recognizes his/her mother and by the third month the baby will turn its head in response to
human voice.
Once the babies get attached to their mother they show fear on separation - it is a significant factor - he emotionally
attached to the mother or the caretaker.
By 8 - 9 months, the baby tries to imitate the speech and gestures of others.
By 1 year he understands the meaning of NO.

14. Emotional Development

15. Common Emotions
● Anger - most common - aroused when one interferes in his activities or
achieving his desires - usually when parents says NO while baby play in mud
baby gets angry - usually screams, kicks his legs or throw objects when she
gets angry.
● Fear - animals, dark rooms, high places, strange persons, loud noises etc., -
crying, shouting, holding breathe, hiding his face exhibit.
● Joy - pleasure or happiness - playing with toys, funny sounds, playing with
familiar person - expressed in smiles and laughter.

16. Language Development
★ It is an important means of becoming
independent for the child.
★ It gives him new power to
communicate his feelings to others.
★ Before the baby speaks words, he
shows the ability to produce vowels
and consonant sounds.
★ By about 6 months, infant produce
most of the vowel sounds and very
few consonants.
★ Baby uses sounds in a variety of
ways in different combinations.

17. Cooing and Babbling
➢ The baby coos and babbles before
he speaks words - these two along
with gestures are known as pre-
speech forms.
➢ Cooing is the quick burst of
squealing noises.
➢ Babbling is production of
inarticulate meaningless speech
sounds - usually sequences of
consonants and vowels such as “da-
da-da”.
➢ Cooing and babbling appear by the
3rd month.
➢ Babbling ultimately narrows down
to words.

18. ● Between the 10th and 12th month the
baby utters the first meaningful word
usually a noun.
● The baby is said to be in one word
stage of language development.
● Average one year child speaks about
4 or 5 words.
● He uses words individually rather than
putting them together to form a
sentence.
● This period of language acquisition is
called the one word stage.
● After his 2nd birthday , a child is likely
to reach the stage of production of a
sentence combining 3 or more words.

19. Mental Development
● Baby recognizes objects by what he can do with them and what they do to
him - means he lives in the present.
● Before one year completion, he show the ability to remember the past for a
brief time.
● Piaget, a famous psychologist - studied the intellectual development of
children in great details - child is born with ability to recognize his experience.
● His intellectual development in children is known as Cognitive theory of
development.
● Between birth and 2 years the baby is in sensory - motor stage - has six
substages.

20. a. Stage 1 - reflex activity (0 - 1 month)
● Reflexes are involuntary responses to certain stimuli
● Large number of reflexes are present in the infant at the time of birth -
includes responses like breathing, swallowing, digestion etc.,
● First month of baby life is a time for exercising these reflex activities

21. B. Stage II - self investigation ( 1 - 4 months)
❖ Between first 1 -4 months, the baby indulges in investigating his parts of the
body.
❖ Includes sucking his own thumb and grasping his foot.
❖ Piaget calls these activities when done in repetitive way as primary circular
reactions.

22. C.Stage III - coordination and reaching out (4-8
months)
● Baby reaches out objects other than his own body.
● This involves number of coordination like eye - hand coordination, coordination
between larger and finer muscles of the body.
● These reaching out responses are called secondary circular reactions.
● Object permanence begins to appear in this stage.

23. D. Stage IV - goal directed behaviour (8 - 12 months)
★ Child exhibits purposeful behaviour between 8 - 12 months.
★ The child may remove things for the purpose of obtaining other thing to get
what is inside.
★ Goal directed behaviour can be observed clearly in this period only.

24. E. Stage V - experimentation (12 - 18 months)
➢ The child begins to experiment actively with things to discover how various
actions will affect an object.
➢ Breaking plaything to see what is inside, inserting objects into his nostrils,
ears etc.,
➢ These reactions are called tertiary circular reactions.

25. F. Stage VI - problem solving and mental
combinations (18 -24 months)
➔ The child is able to solve problems by mental combinations of signs, symbols,
or images between 18 and 24 months - object permanence develops fully.
➔ Able to remember objects - imitates others - solve simple problems like how
to wake up his sleeping parent.

26. THANK YOU