Ch 8 Development Part 1

Question 1

Describe human development.

Answer 1

Human development is the sequence of age‐related changes that occur in people as they progress from conception to death.

Question 2

What are the influences on human development?

Answer 2

The influences on human development are Biological influences, psychological influences, and social cultural influences.

Question 3

What are the characteristics of biological influences?

Answer 3

They biological influences on human development include Shared human genome, Individual genetic variations, Prenatal environment, and Sex related genes, hormones, and physiology.

Question 4

What are the physiological influences?

Answer 4

The Psychological Influences on human development include Gene environment interaction, Neurological effect of early experiences, Responses evoked by our own temperament, gender, etc., and Beliefs, feelings, and expectations.

Question 5

What are the social-cultural influences?

Answer 5

The Social-Cultural influences on human development include, Parental influences, Peer influences, Cultural individualism or collectivism, and Cultural gender norms.

Question 6

What are the three major issues in developmental psychology?

Answer 6

The three major issues in developmental psychology are Nature v. Nurture (How do genetic inheritance and experience influence our development?), Continuity vs. Stages (Is development a gradual continuous process or sequence of separate stages?), and Stability vs. Change (Do our early personality traits persist through life or do you become different persons as we age?)

Question 7

What are the three types of developmental research designs?

Answer 7

Cross-Sectional: Different participant of various ages studied at one point in time.

Longitudinal: Same participants studied at multiple time points. Costly in terms of money and time. One single cohort, may not be true for other generations.

Cross-Sequential: combination of both of the above designs. Start cross-sectional with at least two groups and have longitudinal follow ups.

Question 8

What is the difference between dominant and recessive genes?

Answer 8

Dominant genes refer to a gene that actively controls the expression of a trait.

Recessive genes refer to a gene that only influences the expression of a trait when paired with an identical gene.

Question 9

What are two examples of genetic disorders?

Answer 9

Phenylketonuria (PKU) and Fragile X syndrome

Question 10

What are some examples of chromosomal disorders?

Answer 10

Down Syndrome (extra 21st chromosome), Klinefelter’s Syndrome (23rd pair is XXY), and Turner’s Syndrome ( 23rd pair missing an X).

Question 11

What happens during conception?

Answer 11

In conception a single sperm cell (male) penetrates the outer coating of the egg (female) and fuse to form a zygote.

Question 12

How are identical twin formed?

Answer 12

Identical twins occurs when one egg is fertilized by one sperm and the egg splits in half, each developing into a fetus with the same genetic composition.

Question 13

How are fraternal twins formed?

Answer 13

Fraternal twins occurs when two eggs are released at once and both are fertilized by two separate sperms, two fetuses form, genetically they are just ordinary siblings.

Question 14

What happens during the germinal stage of prenatal development.

Answer 14

The germinal stage is the first 2 weeks after fertilization, during which the zygote becomes a mass of cells, moves down to the uterus (wk1), in implants in the lining (wk 2). In the first week the zygote is rapidly dividing creating hundreds of cells or more they continue to become increasingly diverse and in about 14 days the zygote turns into an embryo.

Question 15

What happens during the embryonic stage of prenatal development?

Answer 15

The embryonic stage is the period from 2 to 8 weeks after fertilization, during which major systems, organs and structures of the body develop. At the end of 8 weeks: embryo is about 1‐inch long, weighs about 1/7 of an ounce and has primitive eyes, nose, ears, lips, teeth, little arms and legs, hands, feet, fingers, toes, as well as a beating heart.

Question 16

What are teratogens?

Answer 16

Teratogens are drugs, chemical, or viruses that can enter the placenta and harm the developing fetus.

Question 17

What is the critical periods?

Answer 17

Critical periods are times during which certain environmental influences can have and impact on the development of the child.

Question 18

What are other environmental factors affecting pregnancy?

Answer 18

Nutrition: Severe malnutrition increases the risk of birth complications and neurological deficits.

Stress and emotion: anxiety and depression in pregnant women can have long‐lasting effects on the child.

Question 19

What is the fetal stage of prenatal development?

Answer 19

The time from about 8 weeks after conception until birth of the baby. Period of tremendous growth. Organs accomplish differentiation and continue to become functional. Muscles and bones form, enabling the fetus to make physical movements including kicking. During last several weeks, fetus can respond to stimuli in outside world.

Question 20

What are the newborn senses?

Answer 20

Senses are well developed at birth including taste, touch, smell, Hearing is functional, but not fully developed, and Vision is least functional sense at birth. Reflexes provide information about health of NS including grasping, startle, rooting, stepping, sucking.

Question 21

Descibe language development in kids?

Answer 21

Language acquisition is rapid and starts early. The ability to understand words develop before the ability to produce words.

Stages of language development:

1. Cooing Stage - At about 2 months the infant begins to make vowel‐like sounds.
2. Babbling stage (4-6 months) the infant spontaneously utters various sounds, adding consonant sounds to the vowel‐like sounds to form phonemes. Ex: like ah‐goo, ba‐ba‐ba, ma‐ma‐ ma or da‐da‐da.
3. One-Word stage: beginning around first birthday, child starts to speak one word and makes family adults understand him/her. Holophrase whole phrases communicated in one word
4. Two- word stage; Before second year, a child starts to speak in two-word sentences. Called telegraphic speech in which the child speaks like a telegram (only nouns and verbs). Contains only essential content to carry meaning. By age 6 children are nearly a fluent as adults.

Question 22

Describe Jean Piaget’s idea of cognitive development.

Answer 22

Jean Piaget said “Children are not like adults, instead the way they think about the world is much differently.” Piaget believed they had to learn to interact with the world. Piaget believed that cognitive development results from individual discovery and a child’s interaction with objects.

Question 23

What are schemas?

Answer 23

We make sense of our experience by forming schemas, concepts or framework in which we organize and interpret information. The process of assimilation involves incorporating new experiences into our current understanding (schema). The process of adjusting a schema and modifying it is called accommodation.

Question 24

Describe the first component of Piaget’s Theory of cognitive development?

Answer 24

1. Sensorimotor (Birth to 2 years): In sensorimotor stage babies take in the world through their senses and motor abilities. Object permanence (knowledge object exists even if not in sight) is a major accomplishment. However, children younger than 6 months do not display object permanence yet.

Question 25

Describe the second component of Piaget’s Theory of cognitive development?

Answer 25

2. Pre-operational: Piaget suggested that from 2 to about 6‐7 years, children are in pre-operational stage — too young to perform mental operations, but they display egocentricism and conservation issues (centration and irreversibility). Egocentric means they see world only from their point of view. Ex: a child covers his eyes and says, “you can’t see me” or holds something up to the phone thinking the person on the other end can see it. Have not yet mastered conservation, the ability to understand that simply changing the appearance of an object does not change the object’s nature. Those in the pre operational stage fail at conservation due to:
   Irreversibility. Unable to “mentally reverse” actions.
   Centration: the tendency to focus on only one feature of some object rather then taking all of the features into consideration

Question 26

Describe the third component of Piaget’s Theory of cognitive development?

Answer 26

3. Concrete Operational Stage (7‐12 years): children becomes capable of concrete logical thought processes but is not yet capable of abstract thinking. Conservation possible. Capable of decentration and reversibility. Can classify and categorize.

Question 27

Describe the fourth component of Piaget’s Theory of cognitive development?

Answer 27

4. Formal Operational Stage (12 years to adulthood). Around age 12, our reasoning ability expands from concrete thinking to abstract thinking. We can now use analogies, critical thinking skills, and think about and test hypotheses (e.g., what if…). Piaget did not believe that everyone would reach formal operational thinking. Studies have shown that only about half of all adults in the United States reach this stage in thinking.

Question 28

What are the current thoughts of Piagets theory?

Answer 28

Piaget’s stage theory has been influential globally and decades of research suggest that cognitive development follows the sequence Piaget describes. However, today’s researchers believe:

1. Development is a continuous process.
2. Children express their mental abilities and operations at earlier ages than Piaget proposed.
3. Stressed the importance of the child’s interaction with objects, while underestimated the role of others in child’s acquisition of knowledge and skills.