An Introduction to Child Development

Question 1

reasons to learn about child development

Answer 1

help us become better parents
inform our views about social issues that affect children
improve our understanding of human nature

Question 2

Historical Foundations of the Study of Child Development

Answer 2

Plato, Aristotle, Locke and Rousseau raised basic questions about child development and proposed interesting hypotheses about them, but they lacked early scientific methods to answer them.

early scientific approaches such as those of Freud and Watson, began the movement toward modern research based theories of child development.

Question 3

Enduring themes in Child Development

Answer 3

the field of child development is an attempt to answer a set of fundamental questions:

1. how do nature and nurture together shape development?
   just as the genome - each person’s complete set of hereditary info - influences behaviors and experiences, behaviours and experiences influence the genome. this developed the new field of epigenetics, the study of stable changes in gene expression that are mediated by the environment. this evidence is derived from research on methylation, a biochemical process that reduces expression of a variety of genes and that is involved in regulating reactions to stress.
2. how do children shape their own development?
   firstly through their selection and what they pay attention to as a newborn, through the use of language at 1 to 2 yrs old (talking to yourself motivates the learning of language called “crib speech”), and from 2yrs old choices of activity; play contributes to children’s development (especially fantasy play which learned children how to cope with fears and interact with others, and self-control)
3. in what ways is development continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous?
   continuous - process of small changes
   (parents see their children everyday therefore are stuck by the continuity of their development, seeming to grow a bit everyday)
   discontinuous - series of occasional, sudden changes (children of different ages seem qualitatively different: a 4yr old and 6yr old differ from what they know and how they think of the world (e.g. Piagets conservation-of-liquid-quanitity problem). this phenomena comes from stage theories, an approach proposing that development involves a series of large, discontinuous, age-related phases. Freud, Erikson and Kohlberg believe in this theory.
   it depends on how you look at it and how often you look.
4. how does change occur?
   the mechanisms that produce developmental changes involve a complex interplay among brain structures and activity, genes and learning experiences in the development of effortful attention (the voluntary control of one’s emotions and thoughts).
5. how does the sociocultural context influence development?
   Urie Bronfenbrenner - develop through people with whom they interact directly with (parents, teachers etc.), the physical environment (house, school etc.) the institutions (educational systems, religious institutions, sports leagues etc.), and societal beliefs and values such as those relate to race, ethnicity, and social class.
6. how do children become so different from one another?
   genetic differences
   differences in treatment by parents and others
   differences in reactions to similar experiences
   different choices of environments
7. how can research promote children’s wellbeing?
   - principles, findings, and methods from child development research are being applied to improve the quality of children’s lifes
   - helping children deal with their anger
   - recommendations for fostering valid eyewitness testimony from young children
   - educational innovations; understanding how children reason, remember, form concepts, and solve problems.

every aspect of development reflects both their nature and nurture.

Question 4

Methods for studying child development

Answer 4

basic assumption of the scientific method is that all beliefs may be wrong, therefore until all beliefs are repeatedly tested, they must be viewed as a hypothesis.

the scientific method involves 4 basic steps:

1. choosing a question to be answered
2. formulating a hypothesis regarding the question
3. developing a method for testing the hypothesis
4. using the resulting data to draw a conclusion regarding the hypothesis

for a measure to be useful, it must be directly relevant to the hypotheses being tested, reliable and valid. key properties of behavioural measures:
relevance to hypothesis
interrater reliability - is the extent to which two or more raters (observers, coders, examiners) agree
test-retest reliability - measures test consistency — the reliability of a test measured over time. In other words, give the same test twice to the same people at different times to see if the scores are the same.
internally - whether effects observed within experiments can be attributed with confidence to the factor that the researcher is testing.
externally - the ability to generalise research findings beyond the particulars of the research on question.

main contexts for gathering data about children:
interviews (structured/clinical) and questionnaires - used for revealing children’s subjective experience.
naturalistic observation - useful when the primary goal is to describe how children behave in their everyday environments.
structured observation - useful when main goal is to describe how different children react to an identical situation.

advantages and disadvantages on PG31

Question 5

Correlation and causation

Answer 5

(correlation does not imply causation): two are different as correlation indicates the degree to which two variables are associated, whereas causation indicates that changing the value of one variable will change the value of the other.

1. directions-of-causation problem - a correlation between two variables does not indicate which, if either, variable is the cause of the other.
2. third-variable problem - a correlation between two variables may stem from both being influenced by some third variables.

experimental designs:
a group of approaches that allow inferences about causes and effects to be drawn, two techniques are crucial to experimental designs,
1. random assignment - assigning participants to a group by chance so that the groups are comparable at the outset.
2. experimental control - the ability of the researcher to determine the specific experiences that children in each group encounter during the study.
the experience that children in the experimental group receive that the children in the control group do not receive, is referred to as the independent variable. the behaviour that is hypothesised to be affected by exposure to the independent variable is referred to the dependent variable.

experimental designs are valuable for revealing the causes of children’s behaviour

correlational designs are useful when the goal is to describe relations among variables or when the variables of interest cannot be manipulated because of technical or practical considerations.

Question 6

Research designs for examining Children’s Development

Answer 6

cross-sectional designs

• definition: participants of different ages are compared on a given behaviour or characteristic over a short period
• advantages: provides useful info about differences among age groups, its quick and easy to administer
• disadvantages: uninformative about stability of individual differences overtime and the similarities and differences in individual children’s pattern of change.

longitudinal designs

• definition: the same participants are studied twice or more over a substantial length of time.
• advantages: indicates the degree of stability of individual differences over long periods. reveals individual children’s patterns of change over long periods.
• disadvantages: difficult to keep all participants in study. repeatedly testing children can threaten external validity of study.

microgenetic designs

• definition: the same participants are studied repeatedly over a short period of time
• advantages: intensive observation of changes while they are occurring can clarify processes of change. reveals individual change patterns over short periods in considerable detail.
• disadvantages: does not provide information about typical patterns of change over long periods.

Question 7

Ethical Issues in Child-developmental Research

Answer 7

• should not harm children physically or psychologically
• obtain consent from parents (also from children if they are old enough), explain what the research is about which might influence their willingness to participate, refusing to participate will not result in consequences.
• preserve anonymity and use info only when permitted
• discuss with parents info regarding child welfare
• try to counteract any unforeseen negative consequences that arise during the research
• correct inaccurate impressions that the child develops in the course of the study. explain the main findings of the research to participants at a level they understand.