Development 1 Flashcards
WHat is Developmental Psychology?
Study of age-related changes in behaviors and mental processes from conception to death
What are the three components of development psych?
1) the developing body
a) Prenatal development
b) the aging brain
2) the developing mind
a) Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
b) Vygotsky socioltural approach
3) The developing personality
What are the stages in Prenatal development?
1) Germinal
2) Embryonic
3) Fetal
How long is the germinal period?
0-2 weeks ( time form conception to implantation)
What is a zygote and what stage in the prenatal devopment does it take place?
A Zygote is a fertilized human egg, it takes place in the germinal period ( conception - 2 weeks)
How long is the Embryonic Period ?
3 – 8 weeks:
What develops in the EMbryonic period?
Heartbeat begins; brain starts developing; recognizable body parts appear, etc.
During what prenatal deveolpmet stage is the “baby” most venerable and why
The embryonic because it’s where vital organs are being developed and during this stage the baby is the most vulnerable to environmental hazards
How long is the Fetal Period
9 weeks - birth
WHat happens during the fetal period?
Last 3 months, the fetus has Rapid growth of body and brain
WHats a fetus and where does in what stage in prenatal deveopment does it occur?
A fetus is an offspring of a human or other mammal) and it occurs in the fetal period
What are the three prenatal influences?
1) General maternal factors
2) teratogens
3) alcohol consumption
What does general maternal factors include on prenatal development ?
1)Health (e.g.,stress,diseases)
2) Diet/nutrition (e.g.,folicacid;over consumption of certain nutrients can lead to defects)
3)Age (e.g.,infant mortality rates by maternal age) ( also the age of the mom becauae the younger the mom the more at risk the baby is of like death)
What are teratogen and how do they influence prenatal development
Teratogens are Environmental hazards that can damage the developing embryo or fetus
Examples:illegal or legal drugs radiation
Teratogens harm particular structures at a particular point in
development
* Critical periods of susceptibility
How does alcohol consumption affect prenatal development? and what disorder can it cause
alcohol consumption can cause Low birth weight, preterm delivery, birth defects, intellectual disabilities, and neurodevelopmental disorders
* there is No known safe amount for alcohol consumption or known safe time
alcohol consumption can caus e Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Whishc affects the Physical, behavioral, psychological parts of the baby
* Alcohol damages unborn baby’s brain
the aging brain is the second component to what part of developmental psychology
The developing body
The Agining Brain syas what about neurons?
Neurons do die with age
* However, they can continue to increase in complexity
WHat is dementia?
Loss in mental functioning caused by physical changes in the brain
Fewer than what % of those under 65 have dementia
1%
About what percent have dementia over a certain age?
About 20% over 80 have dementia
What are some differences in a persons brain with Alzheimer’s Disease and without?
1) Cerebral Cortex: shrivels up and damages areas involved in thinking, planning, and remembering. The cerebral cortex is responsible for language info and info processing
2) Ventricles filled with cerebrospinal fluid grow larger
3) Hippocamus shrinks severyly which is bad becuase it is critcal to the formattion of new memories
What theories does The Developing Mind have?
Theories of cognitive development: Explanations of how we acquire the ability to learn, think, communicate, and remember over time
Asks if the mind has
* Stage-like or gradual changes?
* Domain-general or domain-specific?
* Principal source of learning
The Developing Body: Summary
1) What are the twp components of development body
2) Describe prenatal development, the influences
3) What does the aging brain talk about?
1) Prenatal development and the aging brain
2) Prenatal development has
* 3 stages of prenatal development
* Maternal factors
* Teratogens (critical periods of susceptibility; alcohol)
3) The aging brain talks about how :
* Neurons die with age
* Increase in complexity continues with age
* Dementia vs. Alzheimer’s Disease
What approach and theory are used to understand how the developing of mind
1) Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development
2) Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Approach
What do theories of cognitive development explain and question
- Explain how we acquire ability to learn, think, communicate and remember over time
- question if the developing mind has stagelike or gradual changes, domain-general or domain-specific and its principle source of learning
how does Piaget Theory see children
- As constructivists ( children construct knowledge themselves )
- they see children as active, learning many things on their own and intrinsically ( like natural) motivated to learn
What three processes work togther in Piagets theory
1) Assimilation: Transalte new info into a from you already have and understand
2) Accommodation: When this new information does not fit, you need to restructure your theories
3) Equilibration: Balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
How does Piaget’s theory see reality?
- Intergrationg reality into one’s own view
- changing ones view to better match reality
How do the components of Piagets theory use reality in terms of childs intellignce
- Equilibrium: child familiar with birds, all flying things are birds
- Assimilation: Child sees a plane and calls it a “birdie”
- Disequilibrium: Child notices the difference between planes and birds
- Accommodation: Child concludes that planes are not birdies, creates new category for them
Stages of Cognitive Development
1) Sensorimotor ( 0-2 yr)
2) Preoperational ( 2-7yr)
3) Concrete operational ( 7-11 yr)
4) Formal operational ( 11+ yr)
Whats the sensorimotor stage ?
- first stage in cognitive development
- Birth to 2 years
- infants know the world through their senses and actions
- over this stage infants increase their ability to hold mental represenations (Mental representation is the ability for children to begin to collect mental pictures or schema, and symbols to represent objects. This happens after children have mastered object permanence)
- Infants live largely in teh present ( Out of sight, out of mind”)
What does Piaget say about infants in sensorimotor stage
- Piagets say infants do not understand object permanence until 8 months of age
What are three main things that occur in sensorimotor stage
1) object permanence
2) A-not B error
3) Deferred imitation
What is Object Permanence
The knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view
What error is in the Sensorimotor Stage
- A-not-B error
- this error is committed around 8-12 months
What is the A-not-B-error
The tendency to reach to where objecrs have been found before, rathjer than to where they were last hidden
Why do infants ( 8-12 months) make the A-not-B-error
The frontal lobe in charge of executive functions is immature in infants so they are unable to inhibit a previous rewarded Motor response
What is Deffered imitation
occurs in the sensorimotor stage
- is the repetition of other people behaviour after a delay
- occurs around 18-24 months
- evidence of persisting metal represntaions
What is the Preoperational Stage?
- 2 to 7 years
- represents the world through language and mental representations; can see the world from other people perspectives
- a mix of acquisitions and limitation
1) symbolic representations
2) Egocentrism
3) Contraption
4) Lack of the conservation concept
What is symbolic representation?
in the preoperational Stage
- the ability to use one thing to stand for another for an example:
* Pretend play
* Use of words, numbers etc
* use of scale models
What is egocentrism?
- apart of the preoperation stage
- the tendency to perceive the world soleu from ones own point of view
What is Centration?
- apart of the preoperation stage
- teh tendency to focus on a single dimension of an iobject or event (e.g, the balance scale task)
What is conservation
- apart of the preoperation stage
- merely changing the appearance of objects does not change their key properties
How do you test conservation?
1) conservation of liquid quantity
2) Conservation of solid quantity
3) Conservation of number
all three conservationss have three phases in which differnt questions are asked
phase one: “do they have the same amount of – “
phase two: “Now watch what I do” (either pours, stretches clay or spreads a number of something)
phase three: “now do they have the same amount of — or different amount of —?”
what is concrete operational stage?
- the third stage of cognitive development
in what stage of cognitive development do children understand conversation, begin to reason logically BUT have difficulty with abstract concepts and hypotheicals
concrete operational stage
when children are 7-11 years old what stage in cognitive development are they in
concrete operational stage
in what stage do children 7-11 have difficulty reasoning systematically and provide an example
- concrete operational stage
- example: Pendulum problem
(Jean Piaget’s pendulum problem is a classic cognitive development task that has been used to study children’s scientific reasoning skills. The task involves a pendulum with a weight attached to it that swings back and forth. The child is asked to determine what factors influence the speed of the pendulum. What makes a pendulum swing faster or slower?” Children have the opportunity to construct a pendulum using longer and shorter strings with heavier and lighter weights. Children in the formal operations stage can systematically manipulate various combinations of weights and lengths to observe how they influenced the speed of the swing.)
whats the formal operational stage?
- last stage of cognoitive development
- ages 11 to adulthood
what do children begin to do in formal operational stage
- begin to think abstractly and reason hypothetically
- are capable of systematic and scientific reasoning
- thinking is now adultlike
list all the pros of Piagets theory
- it’s highly influential.
- establishes children are not small adults
- learning is an active rather than passive process
- exploring general cognitive processes that explain multiple domains of knowledge
list all the cons of Piagets theory
- People argue that Development is more continuous
- it probably underestimates childrens competence ( like task demands)
- It has culturally biased methods
Whats Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Approach
- views children as social beingsl other people eager to help them learn
- childrens developmet is continuous
- insaists that we have a unique inclination to teach each other and to learn from each other
how does Vygotsky’s Sociocultural approch view the developmetal process
- many procces ( guided participation) are the same in all societies BUT content varies a lot from culture to culture and shapes children’s thinking accordingly
What is intersubjectivity and give examples
It’s a mutual understanding that people share during communication and serves as the foundation of human cognitive developmemt
- Joint attention: Joint attention refers to the triadic coordination of an infant and her caregiver with objects or events in the immediate environment.
- Social referencing : child uses emotion cues from social partner to interpret new things
ex:when an infant goes to pull a tablecloth, atop which there are plates and silverware, off the dining room table. Just before they attempt to pull it, they look to their mother who looks scared and the infant decides to not pull the cloth anymore
Whats social scaffolding and ZDP
- more competent individuals provide a temporary framework that supports children thinking at a higher level
whats does ZDP satnd for
zone of proximal development
in terms of the development on the mind, how does Piaget theory see children vs Vsgotskys theoyr ?
- Piagets: see children as scientist; construe knowledge through their own explorations
- Vygotsky: child is social beong; get help form others and surrounding culture
how does Piaget and vygotskys theory see the length/characteristic of cognitive develoomemt
- Piagets: 4 stages of cognitive development ( discontinuous) and mostly universal
- ## Vygotskys: Continuois development; vary across cultures
what types of changes do Piagets and Vygotskys theory have in terms of their therios of how the min devlops
Piagets: Qualitative
Vygotskys: Quantitative
