4 Apr
What can an infant do in the first weeks of life?
One moment a fetus is in the warm, quiet, and fluid cushioned world of the womb; the next moment, it is in the cold, noisy, bright world of the delivery room. From the time of birth until approximately 1 month of age, a child is considered a newborn a neonate. A newborn’s major body organs have begun to function as he struggles to survive on his own. During the coming months, he will show a rapid development of perceptual and motor responses.
Let’s first examine the newborn’s sensory and perceptual responses. So we must determine what they can see, hear, smell, state, and feel by observation and various conditioning procedures.
First the vision; acuity is the ability to see fine details. A newborn visual acuity is about 20/600 a normal human 20/20. This means that newborn can see at 20 feet what an adult; with adult perfect vision is about 600 feet. The other senses, as you have just learned, infants have relatives good vision. Similarly, an infant’s other senses, especially hearing, are also well develop.
