Operant Examining Research

New Born babies use their senses from the moment they are born, they can already recognise their mothers voice and smell and they have natural reflexes for example the Walking and standing reflex which

Connect observed behaviors of children birth to 36 months to developmental concepts and theories in the physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional domains.

An explanation of the impact of current research into development and learning of babies and young children.

The brain is the most complex thing on earth. Even the brain of a baby which weighs less than one pound is extremely complicated. When we are a baby our brain is a universe of meaning; it is where the emotions, memories, ideas, and dreams evolve and change over the lifetime. Baby Elizabeth who was born three months before she was expected was a healthy premature baby but her brain was not fully prepared. Most premature babies survive but nearly half have difficulty paying attention, learning, planning, and even prioritizing as they grow up. What happens with premature babies is that they are more hypertensive and easily over stimulated. Automatically when the baby comes out of the womb the brain reacts to all the stimulation and in the case

The Journal of Perinatal Education. 2001. Web. 4 November 2016, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC1595080/#. Author is very educated (lots of titles). Article contains a lot of information from other experiments.

According to Piaget (1929, 1954, 1963), the process of adaptation helps us to understand how a child constructs his/her world. Taking Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development with particular focus on the Sensori-Motor stage of development, I am going to discuss how understanding this stage might influence me when working with a baby as a nursing student in the future.

Infant learning and brain development is fragile and contingent upon numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The most critical time frame for infant brain development is from the second trimester to the first three months of life (Marshall, 2011). During this time, neural pathways are forming, areas of the brain are maturing, and brain development is rapid. From infancy until the age of 3 years, neural pathways are still being formed in response to stimulation and for this reason, it is extremely important for caregivers and parents to be aware of the many factors that can influence brain development in infants (Marshall, 2011).

When infants are born prematurely it affects their natural neurodevelopment, even more so when feedings are a set and regulated requirement. This is because when an infant is in utero, the central nervous system develops at a slow natural pace. Sucking reflexes for the fetus are still being developed. Infants born prematurely, have a disruption in this developmental milestone because preterm infants have not yet fully mastered their sucking reflex (Pickler et al., 2015). McClure also lends support to the findings that infants who are born 34-37 weeks have decreased flexor tone and less coordinated sucking and swallow synchronization (McClure, 2013). Furthermore, Pickler et al. stated that out of utero feedings need to have a more normative experience for infants to essentially help build neuronal networks in a more natural way. The pathways set for neurodevelopment are not only important for the neonate now, but for infant development later in life which include other cognitive functions such as thinking, organizational skills, and especially language (Pickler et al.,

Long-term follow-up of high risk preterm infants has become increasingly important as the proportion of infants surviving has increased steadily over the past several decades. It is well known that these infants are at increased risk of cognitive impairment. (Class) With this increase in at risk survivors, many clinical research questions arise that can only be answered by long-term follow-up studies. (Vohr, Teune) Clinical trials that examine common perinatal therapies should also include a long term follow-up component in their research to examine later neurodevelopmental outcomes in their cohorts. Although there is no prescribed protocol dictating which specific neurodevelopmental tests are to be completed during follow-up, the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development and all its revisions, is the most widely used test to assess neurodevelopment of very preterm infants in the first three years of life (Luttikhuizen) and is a common outcome measure used in clinical research trials.

Research has shown that the way the caregiver and infant interact has a significant effect on the maturation of the infant's nervous system,

Advancement made in regard to cognitive neuroscience has enabled a better understanding of the cognitive processes in infants. Studies have indicated that cognitive development in infants starts before they are born. In the eighth week of pregnancy, fetuses have the ability to hear. They become accustomed to their

Successful levels and stages of development are majorly associated with the increasing efficiency and memory capacity. These explain a progression to higher stages and individual differences which increases by same age persons and cognitive performance. Research indicates that the performance of children at a given age is changeable from domain to domain such as the understanding of social, mathematical, and spatial concepts that it is impossible to place the child in a single stage. This level involves processes that define the volume and kind of information that the individual child can process. For example, reflexes arise before birth and are still present in newborns. Sometimes, prenatal development and birth complications may also be connected to neurodevelopmental disorders. Young children react to various motivations in various ways (Damon & Lerner, 2006). For example infants’ sight blurry in early stages improves over time.

Operant conditioning focuses on a system of reinforcement and punishers where actions will have a consequence (Skinner, 2016). In operant conditioning, behaviour that is reinforced will be strengthened while behaviour that is not reinforced will weaken with time (Skinner, 2016). There are three types of operants. The neutral operants that will neither increase nor decrease the chances of repeating a behaviour (Skinner, 2016). The reinforcers will increase the chances of repeating a behaviour (Skinner, 2016). The punishers will decrease the chances of repeating a behaviour (Skinner, 2016). Positive reinforcement strengthens a behaviour as an individual gains rewards through it (Skinner, 2016). Negative reinforcement strengthens the behaviour by removing an unpleasant consequence

A question that is continually used in many areas of child development is ,” how many of a newborn infants abilities are innate or inborn and how many have to be learned ?”.

Infancy is far from what some have assumed – a time for rigidly and mechanically handling the baby because he seems to have so little capability as an adapting human being. The following developmental tasks are to be accomplished in infancy: