Describe and discuss the visual abilities, reflexes, and motor capabilities of the newborn child.

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The Answer is The answer should include the following information: (1) Unlike an adult, who can see detail at up to 600 feet away, a newborn can see equivalent detail at only about 20 feet away. However, when visual stimuli are close enough to be seen, newborns are very responsive: They follow stimuli with their eyes and distinguish unknown stimuli. Newborns are especially attuned in many ways to social stimuli: They track visual stimuli, such as faces, and engage in motor activities, such as pursing their lips and sticking out their tongues; (2) Visual capabilities are present within their first hours of life, but motor development is a longer process that includes the ability to execute physical actions such as reaching, grasping, crawling, and walking. The development of these behaviors tends to obey two general rules. The first of these rules is the cephalocaudal rule: Infants tend to develop motor skills in sequence from their heads to their feet (they learn to maneuver their heads first, then their arms and trunks, and so on). The second rule is the proximodistal rule: Infants tend to develop motor skills from the center to the periphery of their bodies (they learn to control their trunks before their elbows and knees, and so on). However, the development of motor skills does not occur on a strict timetable. Motor skills typically emerge depending on an infant's incentive, body weight, muscular development, and level of activity; (3) Infants are also born with a small set of reflexes-specific patterns of motor responses that are triggered by specific patterns of sensory stimulation. Examples of infant reflexes include the rooting reflex and the sucking reflex. The rooting reflex is the tendency for infants to move their mouths toward any object that touches their cheek. The sucking reflex is the tendency to suck any object that enters their mouths. Both these reflexes serve the basis of their survival: finding the mother's nipple to begin feeding.

Describe and Discuss the Visual Abilities, Reflexes, and Motor Capabilities