Development Flashcards
What are sensitive periods?
Periods that are optimal for the acquisition of certain abilities or skills, if these are not established during such periods, they may not develop their full potential. Children need to be exposed to certain stimuli for their brains to develop fully
Sensitive periods for early brain development?
The first 4 years of life are key for the development of number, peer social, symbol, habitual ways of responding, emotional control, vision and hearing skills
Synaptic pruning is the process where…
Neurons and synapses that are not used often get eliminated, and only the ‘strong’ ones survive into adulthood
Sensitive periods for language
Sensitivity declines markedly after puberty, wild children (Aveyron and California cases) who had little exposure to language growing up were never able to grasp the grammatical structures of their languages.
Werker and tees: What age difference may be observed in the sensibility to discriminate consonants among infants?
Hindi contains sounds that are exclusive to the language, only native speaker who have been exposed to it during childhood can distinguish between them. A study with English infants was done to determine the change in sensitivity to language with age. As English infants get older, they lost the ability to distinguish the two sounds.
Sensitive Periods for Culture?
culture and language are both acquired through social learning, some argue that they are inseparable. Sensitivity for Language and social skills is higher in early stages.
Age at immigration and length of stay affect an individual’s cultural identity (Paulhus). The younger the individual migrates, the …
more they identify with the new culture. It also increases the longer they stay in the new place. In contrast, if one moves after 31y, identification with new culture decreases as one spends more there
Minoura: Japanese children in the US were tested in three categories
Cognitive, behavioural and affective. The younger they moved to the US the more they perform to the American standard in all three. Children before 9 had not yet internalized Japanese culture and thus could internalize American culture easily
Developmental trajectory Implications
- Younger children across cultures should be relatively similar because there has been relatively little socialization
- Older children and adults should show greater cultural differences due to more socialization
Change Prediction (Ji, Nisbett and Su)
Likelihood of predicting that a current trend will continue in the future. Chinese are more likely to predict changes than americans
Developmental Niche (Super and Harkness)
- The psychology of the caretakers –parents’ values, beliefs, and expectations about the nature of the child, parenting, and the family
- Customs and practices of child rearing –inherited and adapted ways of nurturing, entertaining, educating, and protecting the child
- Physical and social settings – who is there, what is in the physical space
Parenting styles and their effects on development
Any differences found in this domain is of great importance: these interactions mark the beginning of children’s socialisation process
Mother-child interactions us vs japan
US mothers – encourage their babies to be active, give stimulation, vocally responsive (e.g., chat with their babies)
Japanese mothers – soothe & quiet their babies by carrying, rocking, or lulling
Percent of Time in Face-to-Face Contact with Infants vs Percent of Time Bodily Contact with Infant (Keller et al.)
Face-to-face contact:
- Self vs. Other (Mother) distinction
- Fosters Self-recognition
Body contact
- Less freedom but relatedness with other (Mother)
- Fosters Self-regulation
Attachment styles
Bowlby and Ainsworth proposed three kinds of attachment styles common among parents (esp. mothers) and children.
- Secure Attachment
- Avoidant Attachment
- Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment
