Developmental milestones question - please help

[Phloston]

From GT:

"While visiting your family over the holidays, you meet up with a childhood friend, who brings their infant along. The child is 11 weeks old. Which of the following signs or milestones should be present if social/cognitive development were proceeding normally?

A. Object permanence
B. Social smile
C. Stranger anxiety
D. Separation anxiety
E. None of the above

Answer Explanation

The correct answer is E.

An 11 week old child should exhibit none of these social/cognitive milestones. Social smile persists until 2 months of age; this child is 11 weeks old. Stranger anxiety develops at 7-9 months. Object permanence develops at 12-24 months. Separation anxiety develops at 10-18 months."


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For some reason (and also based on P.62 of FA2012), I had had the impression that social smile develops at ~3 months of age. Notice this child is ~3 months old.

I would understand if the question were nitpicky and wanted the social smile developing at exactly three months, but the explanation says the social smile persists until ~2 months of age as the reason for it being wrong here.

Am I crazy or is something off? I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.

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[defcon8]

From GT:

"While visiting your family over the holidays, you meet up with a childhood friend, who brings their infant along. The child is 11 weeks old. Which of the following signs or milestones should be present if social/cognitive development were proceeding normally?

A. Object permanence
B. Social smile
C. Stranger anxiety
D. Separation anxiety
E. None of the above

Answer Explanation

The correct answer is E.

An 11 week old child should exhibit none of these social/cognitive milestones. Social smile persists until 2 months of age; this child is 11 weeks old. Stranger anxiety develops at 7-9 months. Object permanence develops at 12-24 months. Separation anxiety develops at 10-18 months."


-----


For some reason (and also based on P.62 of FA2012), I had had the impression that social smile develops at ~3 months of age. Notice this child is ~3 months old.

I would understand if the question were nitpicky and wanted the social smile developing at exactly three months, but the explanation says the social smile persists until ~2 months of age as the reason for it being wrong here.

Am I crazy or is something off? I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.

"There are actually two types of smiles for babies:
the spontaneous or almost reflexive smile that can occur early in the newborn period, and
the social smile that occurs in response to something, like when you talk or sing to your baby
The social smile is a developmental milestone that most infants reach when they are one to two months old. Not having a social smile by six months of age is commonly considered to be an early sign of autism."

Denver Developmental 2 and Harriet Lane both pretty much say you develop a social smile around 2 months

(harriet lane milestones below)
http://pediatrics.uchicago.edu/chie...ocuments/DevelopmentandAgesandStagesFinal.pdf

 

[ijn]

Do they market the GT question bank as STEP 1-like? The NBME question writing guidelines do not allow "none of the above" to be an option. It's a sign of a poorly written question.

 

[Phloston]

Do they market the GT question bank as STEP 1-like? The NBME question writing guidelines do not allow "none of the above" to be an option. It's a sign of a poorly written question.

I agree that the GT questions are not written that well overall. The only reason I like them is because they, combined with Rx, seem to covet details in FA that I otherwise would have overlooked. Many of them are not vignette-style as well, but simply just ask for some obscure detail in FA that I otherwise would not have realized was even in there. So, in turn, rather than taking away from GT strong learning in terms of question-style/trickery specifically, I'm finding it to more or less just re-hammer-in FA.

Everyone labels Rx as coveting FA. I would actually say GT beats Rx for the FA-loving reputation.

 

[OveractiveBrain]

From GT:

"While visiting your family over the holidays, you meet up with a childhood friend, who brings their infant along. The child is 11 weeks old. Which of the following signs or milestones should be present if social/cognitive development were proceeding normally?

A. Object permanence
B. Social smile
C. Stranger anxiety
D. Separation anxiety
E. None of the above

Answer Explanation

The correct answer is E.

An 11 week old child should exhibit none of these social/cognitive milestones. Social smile persists until 2 months of age; this child is 11 weeks old. Stranger anxiety develops at 7-9 months. Object permanence develops at 12-24 months. Separation anxiety develops at 10-18 months."


-----


For some reason (and also based on P.62 of FA2012), I had had the impression that social smile develops at ~3 months of age. Notice this child is ~3 months old.

I would understand if the question were nitpicky and wanted the social smile developing at exactly three months, but the explanation says the social smile persists until ~2 months of age as the reason for it being wrong here.

Am I crazy or is something off? I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.

A word of advice you dont want. This is not worth your time. The question you will be get will ask you, for each of 5 different milestones, "behind, met, ahead" which gives you nearly an infinite number of permutations, requires you to know a dozen details only to get one question right. And thats if you can recall ALL the milestones exactly. Personally, I skipped this knoweldge and went with "tricycle, tower of three blocks, age 3" it didnt get me a single question on step 1, and I ended up with a 243

 

[AndyRSC]

Barbara "god of behavioral science" Fadem says social smile develops at 2 months and lasts at least until 4 months.
Kaplan Pediatrics says social smile develops at 2 months and the most prominent social feature at 3 months is still "persistent social smile."

****ty question, simple as that.