Introduction
Infancy
During the earliest stages the child perceives things like a solipsist
who is unaware of himself as subject and is familiar only with his own
actions. ~Piaget
Physical Development
Physical development during the first two years is so rapid that infants
often seem to change before their parents’ very eye. Module 1 describes
the typical patterns of growth and maturation that occur in the infant’s
body and nervous system and looks at how the development of sensory,
perceptual, and motor abilities keeps pace with physical development. For
the most part, development takes place as rapidly as a baby’s genetic
history allows, and the developmental sequence is the same for all healthy
infants. The age at which certain skills are mastered, however, varies
because development of many skills depends on the interaction of
biological and environmental forces. One critical variable in development
is nutrition. In developing countries, where poverty and poor hygiene are
the rule rather than the exception, malnutrition is common, sometimes
resulting in lifelong impairment of both physical and cognitive
development. Preventive medicine and the importance of immunizations
during the first two years are also discussed, along with the possible
causes of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Cognitive Development
Cognitive development—the ways in which the infant comes to learn about,
think about, and adapt to his or her surroundings. It focuses on the
various ways in which infant intelligence is revealed: through
sensorimotor intelligence, perception, memory, and language development.
The discussion includes a description of Jean Piaget’s theory of
sensorimotor intelligence, which maintains that infants think
exclusively with their senses and motor skills. Piaget’s six stages of
sensorimotor intelligence are examined, as is information-processing
theory, which compares cognition to the ways in which computers analyze
data.
Finally, it turns to the most remarkable cognitive achievement of the
first two years: the acquisition of language. Beginning with a description
of the infant’s first attempts at language, the chapter follows the
sequence of events that leads to the child’s ability to utter two-word
