Developmental Flashcards
Longitudinal Studies
repetitive studies of the same people over time to understand their changes
advantages
- measure age-related changes
- stronger conclusions
disadvantages
- time consuming, expensive, attrition (loss of participants)
- generational effects - generalising results over culturally-influenced time periods
- practice effects from repeated measures
- difficulties in determining the data
Cross-Sectional Design
people from different age groups are measured at the same time
advantages
- measures age-related differences
- less time consuming/expensive
disadvantages
- cohort effects: effects of societal change, third variable can confound data of the age
- hyperspecific
Genotype
genetic blueprint; DNA passed from parents to child
Phenotype
observable physical or psychological attributes
Homozygous or Heterozygous
describes allele pairs, two identical alleles are homozygous, bearing two different alleles is heterozygous
Heritability
the degree to which variation in a particular trait among individuals is due to genetic differences among those individuals
Monozygotic and Dizygotic Twins
monozygotic - twins split the zygote in two, 100% of genes are identical
dizygotic - share 50% of their genetic makeup
G x E Interactions
gene –> phenotype –> environment –> (triangle)
Limitations Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
- overestimates adults ability, underestimates ability in children
- conservation of ideas may vary depending on the child, which is not viewable in Piaget’s lack of depth
- task demands: where to devote your attention and resources, distractor involved, level of focus
Prenatal Development
- conception to birth
- formation of a zygote in fallopian tube
- roughly 266 days for one-celled zygote to fetus
Prenatal Development - Germinal Period
- conception through implantation, 14 days
- zygote travels towards uterus
- divides and forms blastocyst
- 16 to 64 cells
Prenatal Development - Embryonic Period
- 3rd to 8th week
- formation of major organs (not functional) at 8 weeks, facial structures fuse
- blastocyst implants in uterine wall
- layers of cells differentiate and become parts of the body
Prenatal Development - Fetal Period
- from 9th week until birth (38 weeks)
- organ and brain systems begin to function
- at 6 months they are able to hear, sound level 75db, hear their mother’s voice and heartbeat are best heard
- limit of viability = 24 weeks
- more responsive
- 6 months, capable of responding to light
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
a cluster of abnormalities that appear in the offspring of mothers who drink alcohol heavily during pregnancy
- microcephaly, brain damage, cognitive/learning delays
- malformations of face
- congenital heart disease
- joint anomalies
Critical Period
period of time during development when certain experiences are crucial for a particular feature of development to emerge
Sensitive Period
period of time during which experience is optimal for the development of a particular function, but is not critical
Visual Acuity
measure of the ability of the eye to distinguish shapes and the detail of objects at a given distance
babies improve over first few months, newborns all see colour but have difficulty distinguishing them if they are equally bright
Tests of Monocular Deprivation
absence of visual experience makes it so development doesn’t occur, thus causing a failure to recover
Attachment
infants form with attachment with primary caregiver
John Bowlby Attachment Theory
- attachment in early childhood is important for life
- long-term impact, adaptive bond, safe bond,
development of attachment
- newborns recognise their mother’s voice in utero, infants recognise mothers face in first few days, separation anxiety, familiarity preferences
Measurement of Attachment - Mary Ainsworth
- Secure Attachment - welcomes return, seeks closeness, comforted
- Insecure-Avoidant Attachment - not phased by leaving, ignores on return
- Insecure-Anxious Attachment - very upset leaving, rejecting on return, desires closeness
- Disorganised Attachment - behaviour is contradictory
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
- constructivist approach, thought that children construct knowledge by mixing their experiences with their own ideas
- schemas interpret experiences
- accommodation (adjusting schemas to fit with reality)
- assimilation (fitting reality into existing schemas)
Sensorimotor Stage (Piaget)
- think with hands, mouths and senses, limited high order reasoning
- sensing and acting
- object permanence milestone
Preoperational Stage (Piaget)
- symbolic thought: can imagine without action, still egocentric, limited high order reasoning, lack perspective
- centration: fixate on a single feature of an object, fail conservation tasks, fail dimensional card sorting tasks
Degree of Relatedness
The probability of sharing genes among relatives
Example of G X E Interaction
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study
- followed from age 3
- fatty acids in breast milk are important in brain development (FADS2 involved in fatty acid metabolism), therefore breastfed children have higher IQ than those who are not, but only in carriers of C allele (homozygous [cc or gg], heterozygous [cg])
Teratogens
Disease, drug or other environmental agent that can harm a developing embryo or fetus
effects depend on timing, dose, duration
timing - organ systems and the brain are particularly susceptible during periods of rapid development
Visual Scanning
pattern of scanning in early children
looking for contrast early on (edges of an object), they have limited attention, disengagement is hard, useful information about faces is in the middle
Habituation
a form of non-associative learning in which a non-reinforced response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus
Visual Preferences
understanding of their interpretations, prefer patterned over plain stimuli, the more complex the better
Pascalis (2005) Exposure to Race (Perceptual Development)
exposure to race effects the ability for infants to recognise different faces of different races
- lost ability later on due to lower exposure (experience) with other race faces
Hubel and Weisel and Monocular Deprivation (Perceptual Development)
absence of visual experience make it so development doesn’t occur and fails to recover
- kittens eyes were sewn shut causing pathway from retina to brain to close even after the eyes had been unsewn
Congenital Cataracts (Perceptual Development)
- clouded lens
- rare
- if not removed early the infant will have permanent vision impairment and will be unable to see depth
- the effect of perceptual development
Harlow Study on Attachment
- baby monkey spent more time on cloth mother than wire mother, even when the wire mother had nourishment
Bucharest Intervention Study
- high child caregiver ratio
- little one-on-one attention
- lack of touch and responsiveness
- created psychosocial dwarfism - inability to metabolise properly from stress
- intellectual delay
- hyperactivity
- disturbances of attachment - no secure base so highly interested in strangers fulfilling this need
Stranger at the Door Task
stranger would come to the door of institutionalised (normal care or foster care group) and never institutionalised group and offer present
- control = less than 5% went to car
- 30% institutionalised group likely to leave with stranger
Constructivist Approach and Schemas
Constructivist Approach - Piaget thought that children construct knowledge by mixing experience with their own ideas
Schemas - mental structures created to understand and interpret a stimulus
Assimilation or Accommodation
adaptations of knowledge to meet the demands of an environment
Assimilation - fitting reality into existing schemas
Accommodation - adjusting schemas to fit with reality
