The prenatal period extends from conception to birth, usually encompassing nine months of pregnancy.
Zygote: Created when two gametes meet (fertilization)
Germinal stage: first phase of prenatal development, encompassing the first two weeks after conception.
• 1 in 5 pregnancies end without the woman knowing (implantation is far from automatic)
• Placenta: a structure that allows oxygen and nutrients to pass into fetus from the mother’s bloodstream and bodily wastes to pass out to the mother
Embryonic Stage: 2nd stage of prenatal development, lasting two weeks until the end to the second month—forms embryo (great vulnerability)
Fetal Stage: lasts from two months to birth – now a fetus sensory are now functional
• Age of viability- the age at which a baby can survive in the event of a premature birth (slim at 22wks 14%26%) 26wks 80-83%
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: a collection of congenital (inborn) problems associated with excessive alcohol use during pregnancy.—small head, heart defects, irritability, hyperactivity, and delayed motor development.
Motor development: refers to the progression of muscular coordination required for physical activities.
Cephalocaudal trend: the head-to-foot0 direction of motor development (gaining control of upper body before lower body)
Proximodistal trend: the centeroutward direction of motor development.
Maturation: development that reflects the gradual unfolding of one’s genetic blueprint
• Toddlers are active learners too (stimulated by their environment. There is a wide range of developmental milestones, variation is common)

Early Emotional Attachment
Attachment: refers to the close emotional bonds of affection develop between infants and their caregivers. –not instantaneous. Occurs around 6-8 months of age
Separation Anxiety: emotional distress seen in many infants when they are separated from people with whom they have formed an attachment. –peaks around 14-18 months and then starts to decline
Harry Harlow: Experiment with cloth mothers and bottle mothers for monkeys.—proposed that attachment had a biological basis. Emit behaviors that adults are programmed to respond to with warmth, love, and protection
Mary Ainsworth: Attachment falls into 3 categories: Secure attachment—upset when mother leaves, and quickly calmed when mother returns. Anxious ambivalent attachment: anxious when mothers are near and protest when she leaves, but is not comforted when she returns. Avoidant attachment: seek little contact with their mothers and often are not distressed when she leaves
• Secure attachment is correlated with resilience, sociable, competent, persistent, self-reliance etc..
• 67% secure, 21% avoidant & 12% anxious ambivalent
• Japanese had more children in anxious ambivalent than us and Germany
Language Development
• By 7.5 Months, infants begin to recognize common word forms & by 8 months shows first sign of understanding
• Around 10-13 months utter sounds that resembles words
• At 18 months vocabulary explosion
Fast Mapping: process in which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure
• Overextension: occurs when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to ie. Using the word ball for anything round like the sun, orange, apples
• Underextension: occurs when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions that it is meant to.
Telegraphic Speech: Consist mainly of content words, other less critical words are omitted ie. Give ball
Overregularization: occur when grammatical rules are incorrectly generalized to irregular cases where they do not apply ie. The girl goed home
Erikson’s 8 stages of Life in which we face a crisis (psychosocial crisis)
1. Trust vs. Mistrust (0-1)
If an infant’s basic biological needs are adequately met by its caregivers and sound attachments are formed, the child should develop an optimistic, trusting attitude