• Fact 1: Babies are born with many more neurons they need, but most neurons in an infant’s brain have relatively few connections to other neurons. During the first two years of life the child’s brain establishes billions of new connections between neurons. Neurons that are not interconnected with other neurons die increasing the efficiency of the nervous system. In other words, if the baby’s experiences do not stimulate nerve connections the unused neurons are eliminated by synaptic pruning. The pruning down of the unnecessary neurons allow for the established neurons to build elaborated communication with other networks. This is contrary to other aspects of growth because the nervous system continues more effectively through the loss of …show more content…
Since the baby’s brain triples its weight by two years old, it is important for the baby’s experiences to stimulate the nerve connections including the remaining neurons for the nervous system to continue contributing to the brain’s growth. Cuddling, talking and singing to, and playing with babies stimulate the environment encouraging the healthy brain growth.
• Fact 2: Nutrition strongly affects physical development. Appropriate nutrition should be for be for an infant to consume 50 calories per day for each pound the infant weighs. Malnutrition or having the improper amount and balance of nutrients can produce marasmus or disease in which infants stop growing because of a deficiency in calories and protein. The body wastes away resulting in death.
• To understand the infancy stage and the rapid physical growth during this stage you must know without proper nutrition infants cannot reach their physical potential. Nutrition provides the energy for the infant to perform the skills at the gross motor and fine motor …show more content…
• Fact 2: Developmental psychologist Gesell developed a developmental quotient (DQ) to find differences in intelligence during infancy. The DQ is an overall development score that relates to performance in motor skills, language use, adaptive behavior and personal social-behavior. The score will show individual differences in intelligence during infancy. The score does not predict future development. For instance, a one year old with a slow development may not be slow at five or 10 years old.
• The developmental scales including the DQ developed by Gesell can be used to understand the infancy stage individual mental differences at how infants measure when compared with the “norm” performance at a particular age. It is important to determine at an early age if the infant is developmentally delayed or advanced; the earlier one finds out the sooner the infant will get special attention.

Psychosocial