In learning how to correctly perform a task, infants display the greatest difficulty in switching back and forth between similar yet different tasks, and children and adolescents display progressively less difficulty with increasing age.  Adults display even less difficulty in switching between similar yet different tasks, yet their reaction time and response time to the stimuli, as well as the movement time for completion of a movement/ motor skill, is also measurable (measurements are typically done in milliseconds).  The psychologist William James used this example in learning specificity: It requires years for adults to learn to discern and differentiate one type of red wine from another.  A precept from motor learning texts:  the more difficult the task, the more specific practice must be to the task, a precept that lactation clinicians know well.  When a newborn is learning to latch and is also given a pacifier or a bottle nipple before he has mastered the latch (or before he has consolidated the memory for latch), the greater the difficulty for the infant in returning to the breast, particularly when the mother’s nipple is very short, flat, or inverted, and with minimal protractility.          

(Continued in next post as Part III)

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome