Chapter 1: Basic Concepts Of Child And Adolescent Development

Question 1

State the stages of development

Answer 1

The prenatal stage subdivided into Germinal embryonic and the fetal periods

The neonatal- first 2-4 weeks of life and infancy 2 yrs after.

Early childhood 2-6 yrs

Middle childhood 6-12 yrs

Adolescence puberty to adulthood

Question 2

What are the division of development

Answer 2

Physical development: entails changes in body such as height and weight including development of brain and effect of heredity hormones and nutrition. The development of motor development like sitting crawling walking and other activities

Cognitive development: refers to how children come to know and understand their world and includes perception learning memory thinking decision making imagination creativity language and intelligence.

Personality development: personality is the totality of a person’s psychological social moral and physical characteristics

The self: is the core of a person’s personality
Self concept: refers to a person’s evaluation of themselves
Identity: is the way a person identifies themselves in relation to others

Social development: involves the development of the individuals interaction and relationships with others. it includes aspects like attachment the expansion of persons interpersonal relationships the modelling of behaviour and interaction between sexes

Moral development involves the individual views concerning that’s right or wrong and the way moral judgement is made

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Question 3

What is the nature Vs nurture debate

Answer 3

Nature refers to biological determinants like genetics neurological and hormonal factors.

Nurture refers to environmental factors such as social and physical environment.

Debate centred on whether child’s development is resultant of biological esp genetic factors or environmental influences.

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Question 4

Explain concept of continuity or discontinuity

Answer 4

Whether human development is a continuous ( gradual) or discontinuous ( distinct stages) process

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Question 5

Discuss universality and cultural context

Answer 5

Universality refers to existing worldwide and shared by all.

Culture refers to the beliefs norms customs and general way of life of a specific group of people passed on from generation to generation

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Question 6

State the theories of the biological perspective of development

Answer 6

Maturational theory:

• American psychologist Arnold Gesell (1880-1961)
• according to this theory child development reflects a specific and prearranged scheme or plan within the body. Development is simply a natural unfolding of a biological plan experience matters little.
• Behaviour like speech play and reasoning emerge spontaneously according to predetermined developmental timetable without input or influence from environment.

Question 7

What is the ethological theory based on biological perspective of development

Answer 7

Views development from an evolutionary perspective and contends that behaviour tend to be adaptive and have survival value.
- ethnologists believe that we are biologically programmed so that some kinds of learning occurs only at certain stages called critical period.

A critical period is the stage in development when a specific type of learning can take place before or after critical period the same learning is difficult or impossible.

Imprinting: a form of learning that takes place during a short early period in the life of an organism when attachment to members of same species and sometimes other occurs.

Question 8

What is the evolutionary theory based on the biological perspective.

Answer 8

• apply Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Theory of evolution based on natural selection which is result of successful adaptation to environment

Evolution refers to the change in the inherited characteristics over successive generations.

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Question 9

Explain the psychodynamic perspective of development

Answer 9

Explores the influence of unconscious psychological motives such as drives or urges on behaviour developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).

Question 10

Discuss the psychosexual theory of Sigmund Freud

Answer 10

Psychoanalysis that suggest development is determined by how well people resolve the unconscious conflicts that they face at different ages.

The Id is a reservoir of primative instincts and drives which is present at birth and demands immediate gratification of bodily needs and wants.

The Ego is the practical rational component of personality and starts to emerge during the first year of life as infants learn that they can’t always get their way. The Ego tries to resolve conflict that occurs when instinctive desires of I’d encounter obstacles of the real world.

The super ego is the moral agent in the child’s personality. It emerges during the pre school years as children begin to internalise adult standards of right and wrong.

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Question 11

Discuss Erik Erikson psychosocial theory

Answer 11

Development consists of a sequence of stages defined by unique crisis or challenge.

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Question 12

Explain the Theory of behaviourism with regards to the learning perspective

Answer 12

John B Watson (1878-1958)
Refers to the theory that behaviour is primarily learned from ones environment.

Classical conditioning is the phenomenon where repeated pairing of stimuli may lead to new behaviour and refers to the process of learning through which an initially neutral stimulus comes to elicit a certain response after repeated pairing with unconditioned stimulus.

B.F Skinner (1904-1990) proposed operant conditioning where he believed children operate in their environment to attract more rewarding reactions and to avoid punishment.

Question 13

Discuss the social cognitive theory

Answer 13

Albert Bandura (1925- present) 
Self efficacy which are beliefs about their own abilities and potential plays a role in imitating others.

Question 14

Explain Jean Piaget Theory of cognitive development based on the cognitive developmental perspective

Answer 14

Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
4 stages of cognitive development.
Refer to notes.

Schemes: a psychological template to organise encounters and which is based on prior experiences and memory. They are mental categories of related events objects and knowledge.

Cognitive development based on organisation which is the tendency of cognitive processes to become more complex and systematic and coherent in order to make sense of the world.

Adaptation means that as one gains new experiences they have to deal with info that seems to be in conflict with what they already know which involves assimilation and accommodation
assimilation is the tendency to interpret new experiences in terms of existing schema
Accommodation takes place when new info leads to develop another cognitive schema.

Equilibration is the process of constant striving for a stable balance between assimilation and accommodation.

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Question 15

Discuss the information processing Theory

Answer 15

Attempts to explain how incoming info is processed in order for person to make sense of it.

Proposes that human cognition consists of mental hardware and software. Mental hardware refers to cognitive structure including diff memories where info is stored. Mental software includes organised sets of cognitive processes that allows us to complete specific tasks like reading playing.

Sensory memory: info recognised
Short term memory: the working memory where info is processed
Long term memory: info permanently stored.

Info in sensory memory is rapidly forgotten if unattended to. Short term memory limited in capacity and holds info that processed. Long term memory is unlimited in capacity and info stored in association.

Question 16

What is the contextual perspective

Answer 16

A system that includes ones parents and siblings and individuals outside the family. Includes institutions that influence development such as schools

Culture: is the knowledge attitudes and behaviours associated with a group of people.

Question 17

Discuss Vygotskys socio cultural theory in line with the contextual perspective

Answer 17

Lev Vygotsky ( 1869-1934)
Believed fundamental aim of society is to enable children to acquire essential cultural values and skills. 

Zone of proximal development which refers to tasks which are too difficult for a child to do alone but which can be managed with the help of an adult.

Question 18

Evaluate Urie Bronfenbrenners ecological theory

Answer 18

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005)

Said environment is divisions of a microsystems, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem.

Microsystem- consists of child and persons and institution in the child’s immediate environment like family.

Mesosystem- represent reciprocal interactions between various microsystems. Means that what occurs in 1 microsystem is likely to influence the next.

Exosystem- refers to social settings which child may not experience directly but still influence the child’s development. May be formal institutions, the availablity of health care or social networks who provide friendship advice and help. A break in the exosystem can have negative consequences.

Macrosystem- the cultures and subculture each with own value system and ideologies in which micro meso and exo systems are embedded and which has indirect but important influence on child’s development.

Chronosystem- refers to the point of time at which certain changes occur in a child’s life and the influence it holds for the child’s development.

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Question 19

Analyze super and Harkness developmental niche

Answer 19

Super and Harkness (1986,1994,2002)

Developmental niche- which refers to the integration between the child with specific temperament and psychological disposition age gender and various elements in child culturally structured environment.

1st component is physical and social environment of child’s daily life like construct of family.

The 2nd refers to childcare and childrearing practices applied in certain culture like emphasis on formal scholarstic education

3rd refers to psychological characteristics of caregivers like educational practices value systems cultural beliefs and expectations for child.

Question 20

Evaluate the African perspective of child development

Answer 20

Based on a holistic perspective of humans and the universe. Human behaviour can be understood only in terms of a greater whole of which individual is a part.

Hierarchical view: inanimate objects at lowest level followed by plants and animals. Humans placed in the middle following the living dead. In some societies lesser god’s follow and God is at the top of the hierarchy.

Founded on social ontogenesis and has 3 phases

Spiritual Selfhood: starts with conception and ends when newborns umbilical cord stumps off and receive name.

Social selfhood: begins at birth but specifically after naming and ends with death.

Ancestral selfhood: follows biological death of person and incorporation into spiritual Selfhood follows ritual initiation.

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Question 21

What is research and what kinds are there

Answer 21

Research is an active and systematic process of inquiry where certain acknowledged methods and guidelines are followed.

Quantitative research: is a process where mainly statistical data is used to obtain info and make predictions concerning a specific topic.

Qualitative research: attempts to provide an in depth understanding of what people experience.

Question 22

What are the methods of gathering information

Answer 22

Research question which is theme or research topic
Hypothesis: is a tentative assumption about behaviour or phenomenon that has to be investigated empirically.

Systematic observations of behaviour

involves watching and carefully recording behaviour. Naturalistic observations: done in a natural or real life situation.
Structured observations: researchers create a setting likely to cause behaviour that’s under research.

Self reports

Interviews and questionnaires.

Psychological tests

Consists of questions statement problem or pictures to which research participants must respond.
Standardisation: is meant that a test has been compiled in a way that it’s reliable valid and norm oriented.
Reliability: refers to fact that results are consistent over time and similar scores are obtained by same individual when tested on different occasions.
Validity: requires test should measure what it’s supposed to measure.
A norm: a statistical number that makes it possible to compare any individual test scores with the achievement of a comparable group.

Question 23

What are the general research design

Answer 23

Experimental research: contains variables which is anything that is changeable and take on different number quantity or value.
Independent variables: any factor the research expects to cause change in another variable.
Dependent variable: is the factor the research expects to be influenced by the independent variables in an experiment.
Experimental group: exposed to certain variable.
Control group: unexposed to variable.

Correlation research: goal is to determine whether there is a relationship between variable and if so to describe the strength of the relationship.

Case studies: is an in-depth study of a single person or event.

Meta analysis: where statistical analysis is made of results of existing studies on the topic to determine whether greater clarity could be reached.

Question 24

State the research design for studying child development

Answer 24

Determinants of development: factors that influence developmental changes.
Developmental changes: changes that accompany an increase in age.

The longitudinal design:

Same sample is studied at different stages over a long period of time.

The cross sectional design:

Person of different age groups studied together on a single occasion and the results of different groups are compared.
Cohort effects: refer to the effects of history related influence on research.

The sequential design:

Both longitudinal and cross sectional design are used. Different groups are studied on various occasions but for a short time.

Question 25

Explain how cross cultural research is done

Answer 25

Goal is to discover principles that are universal to all cultures and principles unique or specific to certain ones.

Question 26

What are the research ethics

Answer 26

Non harmful procedure
Informed consent
Parental consent
Deception 
Confidentiality
Informing participants