Sensory Function in Children From Birth

Such functions include Vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. How are they peculiar to a newborn or a child?

Vision
At birth, the eye is structurally incomplete. The fovea centralis is not yet completely differentiated from the macula. The ciliary muscles are also immature, limiting the ability of the eyes to accommodate and fix on an object. However, the pupils react to light, the blink reflex is responsive to a minimal stimulus, and the corneal reflex is activated by a light touch. Tear glands usually do not begin to function until the neonate is 2 to 4 weeks of age.

The newborn has the ability to momentarily fix on a bright or moving object that is within 20cm (8 inches) and in the midline of movement is greater during the first hour of life than during the succeeding several days. Although Visual acuity is difficult to measure, it has been found that a newborn can respond to orthokinetic stripes that are comparable to 20/50 vision.

Hearing
Once the amniotic fluid has drained from the ears, the infant probably has auditory acuity similar to that of an adult. The neonate is able to detect a loud sound of about 90 decibels and reacts with a startle reflex. The newborn's response to sounds of low frequency and high frequency differs; the former, such as the sound of a heartbeat, metronome, or lullaby, tends to decrease an infant's motor activity and crying, whereas the latter elicits an alerting reaction.

There also seems to be an early sensitivity to the sound of human voices, although not to specific speech sounds. One study found that infants younger than 3 days of age can discriminate the mother's voice from that of other females. As early as age 2 weeks the neonate may stop crying to listen to the sound of a voice. The cortical activity associated with hearing or with any other sense is still incomplete at this stage because of the immature myelination of the various neural pathways beyond the midbrain, This lack of cortical integration is responsible for the infant's response to sound.

The internal and middle ears are larger at birth, but the external canal is small. The mastoid process and the bony part of the external canal have not yer developed. Consequently, the tympanic membrane and facial nerve are very close to the surface and can be easily damaged.

Smell
Limited research has been done on the newborn's ability to smell, However, it is known that newborns will react to strong odors such as alcohol or vinegar by turning their heads away. Recent studies have demonstrated that breast-fed infants are able to smell breast milk and will cry to their mothers when the breasts are engorged and leaking. Infants also have the ability to differentiate the breast milk from their mother or from other females by the smell.

Taste
The newborn has the ability to distinguish between tastes. Various types of solutions elicit differing gustofacial reflexes. A tasteless solution elicits no facial expression, a sweet solution elicits an eager suck and a look of satisfaction, a sour solution causes the usual expression. During early childhood the taste buds are distributed mostly on the tip of the tongue.

Touch
At birth, the infant is able to perceive tactile sensation in any part of the body, although the face (especially the mouth), hands, and soles of the feet seems to be most sensitive. There is increasing documentation that touches and motion are essential to normal growth and development, Gentle patting of the back or rubbing of the abdomen usually elicits a calming response from the infant. However, painful stimuli, such as a pinprick, will elicit an angry, upsetting response.

These peculiarities are very essential in observing the healthy state of a newborn or infant.

Article directory networking is an excellent, but hidden strategy of making lots of money through the internet. It is not an easy-money making system and does not require your dollars for you to get any information from an e-book. It is a free strategy which is happily shared to as many individuals as possible. It is 100%, if and only if you follow the strategies required. Every website, technicalities and 'know-hows' are exposed and you need not worry, you will get all that you need to know. So What is article directory networking? Click on the link below to get adequate information on this awesome revelation

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/365901_earn-money-through-a-unique-system-of-networking-your-accounts-in-various-article-directories

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Understanding How We Understand - Basics of Brain Function

The basic unit of the nervous system is the neuron or nerve cell. It has a cell body that houses the nucleus where the DNA is stored, and projections called dendrites and axons. Generally, neurons have only one axon (although it may have many branches at the end) that carries impulses away from the cell body and many dendrites that carry impulses to the cell body.

Imagine that you are the neuron with a special job to do and the dendrites are your ears and the axon is your mouth. Your job is to scream "Go!" when enough of the cells around you say it's OK. So, its like you are on a game show and the audience is all calling out to you telling you what to do. All around you are other cells screaming in your ears. Some of them are telling you to be quiet and some are telling you to scream. In neurological terms, the cells telling you to be quiet are inhibitory because they inhibit your decision to scream. The ones telling you to go ahead and let 'er rip are excitatory. You are listening with your dendrites to all this input from all these other cells and when enough of them are saying scream you decide it's time to let it all out. At this point the neurologist would say you have reached your potential and there is only one thing you can do so you scream "Go!" with all you've got.

Now, you are just one link in a network of neurons and when you scream "Go!" other neurons on their own game shows are listening to you and making their decisions about when they have reached their potential and fire their axons to other cells and so on.

It looks like a jumbled mess but this is a network of neurons. The cells are connected and interconnected to hundreds or thousands of other cells. They are all telling each other to fire (excitatory) or not fire (inhibitory). It is the sum of all this input that causes specific sequences of neurons to fire in what we call a neural pathway. These pathways end up being thoughts or actions depending on what cells are involved.

When you see the sun, the light falls on the retina in your eye and a retinal cell says "Go!" to a cell in the optic nerve and it says "Go!" to a nerve in the thalamus in the brain and that cell says "Go!" to a nerve in the visual center at the back of the brain. In this way, with thousands of cells firing in sequence, we begin to get a picture of our world. It is terribly complex and there is so much information coming in at all times from all the senses it is absolutely amazing that we can put it all together.

When we say "sensory integration" we are talking about the orderly interpretation of all the information we are getting from both inside and outside our bodies. In order to do this we have to have healthy neurons that are doing their part in the pathways that make sense of it all. For neurons to be healthy they have to have input (be it excititory or inhibitory) from lots of other cells. When they get input it turns on their DNA to build more nerve cell just like exercise tells muscle cells to get bigger and stronger.

For various reasons sometimes neurons break down and stop doing their jobs efficiently. This effects other neurons in their pathways and we start to see breakdowns in the way the nervous system operates. By looking at specific clues from behavior or movement, to over or under sensitivity to sound or light among other things, we can figure out what pathways are failing and give special input to those pathways to help build them up again.

Dr. Martin Rukeyser DC, is a Chiropractor who lives and practices in Port Saint Lucie, FL. He maintains a solo chiropractic office called Life Chiropractic http://www.lifechiropracticpsl.com and is also one of the co-founders of the Brain Training Center of the Treasure Coast http://www.flbraintraining.com - a practice dedicated to improving the lives of children and adults with Autism, ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia, Aspergers, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Marty has long held a personal and professional interest in brain function and development and the connection between a healthy body and brain.

Dr. Rukeyser graduated Magna Cum Laude from Life University Chiropractic College in 1998. Prior to coming to Florida, he directed two clinics in a medically under-served community in in rural Mississippi. Dr. Marty, was raised in Long Island, NY and met his wife Ashley while in Mississippi. They have two sons, Ben and Jonah.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.