Developmental Flashcards
What is ontology?
The development of an individual organism.
What reasons are there to study developmental psychology?
how have we come about?
Raising children better
social policies.
What were Plato’s views on child development?
self control/discipline.
Nativist, you are born with innate knowledge.
What were Aristotle’s views on child development?
Raise children based on their own needs,
Empiricist.
What were John Locke’s views?
Install discpline first then increase freedom gradually.
Empiricist.
What were Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s views?
Parents and society should give children maximum freedom from the start.
Who was nativist/empiricist?
Nativist - Plato
Empiricist - John Locke, Aristotle.
What are the 3 methods of attaining data?
Natural observation, interviews, experiment.
What are the pros and cons of natural observation?
pros - good ecological validity as similar to real life.
cons - hard to identify a causual realationship.
- some behaviours are uncommon in everday behaviour.
What are the pros and cons of interviews?
pros - can ask follow up questions
cons - can be hard to generalise past individual cases
- hard to find a causal argument.
What are the pros and cons of experiments?
Pros - directly test the relationship between variables
- easy to control
Cons - low ecological validity
- ethical issues limit experiments
What are naturalistic experiments and their pros and cons?
Data collected in everyday settings.
Pros - high ecological validity
What are cross sectional designs?
Children of different ages compared on a specific behaviour.
What are longitudal designs?
Children studied twice or more over a long period of time.
What are microgenetic designs?
Children on the edge of developmental change are given heightened exposure to a stimulus, they are studied while in the transitional period.
What is synaptogenesis?
Infants experience it before birth and for many months follow it, the density of synaptic connections between neurons increases.
Having a rich learning environment increases the synaptic connections.
What is habituation?
A decrease in responsiveness to repeated stimulus.
A new response is dishabituation.
What did Eimas discover in 1985?
At 2 months of age presented with a stimulus, sucking increases and then returns to baseline - habituates.
At the presentation of a new stimulus sucking increases again - dishabiutation.
What did Maurer and Maurer find in 1985?
3 month old, same as sucking but with pictures of a face.
What is perceptual learning?
Allows an infact to see experiences go together.
What is differentiation?
the extraction from the constantly changing stimulation in the environment of those elements that are invariant or stable.
For example, infants learn the association between certain facial expressions and tones of voice, even from different people.
Ability increases with age.
What are affordances?
The possibilities offered by objects or situations, such as a shape box.
What is statistical learning?
Involves picking up information from the environment, forming associations among stimuli that occur in a statistically predictable pattern.
What is classical conditioning?
Association a neutral stimulus with another so it always envokes a response.
Pavlov’s dogs
Describe a process of classical conditioning on a baby.
UCS breast milk –> UCR sucking.
Present neutral stimulus - head stroking with UCS.
neutral stimulus then envokes sucking.
What is instrumental/operant conditioning?
+
Positive reinforcement - rewarded with positive stuff.
negative reinforcement - rewarded by stopping an ongoing negative experiment.
-
punishment - behaviour is penalised.
extinction - nothing happens.
What is an example of extinction conditioning?
Infants of depressed mothers tend to smile less and show lower levels of positive affect than do infants of non-depressed mothers
This may be because infants of depressed mothers have learned there is no contingency relation between such friendly displays and being rewarded by their preoccupied parent (Campbell et al., 1995)
What is observational learning?
The ability to imitate the behaviour of others appears to be present early in life, although in an extremely limited form
In choosing to imitate a model, infants appear to pay attention to the reason for the person’s behaviour (i.e., the person’s intention)
Give Meltzoff’s examples of observational learning.
When 18-month-olds see a person apparently try, but fail, to pull the ends off a dumbbell, they infants imitate the action by actually pulling the ends off
i.e., They perform the action the person intended to do, not what the person actually did (Meltzoff, 1995)
They do not imitate a mechanical device at all
What was Aristotle’s idea of how life developed?
Aristotle rejected the prevailing idea that the individual was preformed at the start of life in favor of epigenesis
Where does fertilisation occur?
Fallopian tubes
Why are more males concieved than females?
Y sperm lighter/faster.
However males miscarridge more and are vulnerable to more disorders.
What is a fertilized egg called?
Zygote.
What are the periods of development?
Germinal conception - 2 weeks
Embryonic 3rd - 8th week
Fetal 9th week - birth.
When does the germinal period end, what happens in it?
when the zygote is implanted in the uterine wall.
rapid cell division.
How do identical twins originate? (mono-zygotic)
from the splitting in half of the inner cell mass, resulting in the development of genetically identical individuals.
How do fraternal twins originate? (dizygotic)
when two eggs are released into the fallopian tube at the same time and are fertilized by different sperm.
What occurs in the embryonic stage of development?
cell division: results in proliferation of cells
cell migration: movement of cells from point of origin to other locations in embryo
cell differentiation: transformation of stem cells into roughly 350 different types of cell
cell death: selective death of certain cells (apoptosis)
Also involves hormonal influences (testosterone)
the inner cell mass becomes the embryo and the rest of the cells develop into its support system.
The neural tube is a U-shaped groove formed from the top layer of differentiated cells in the embryo.
It eventually becomes the brain and the spinal cord.
What is the support system of the embryo?
Placenta: permits the exchange of materials between the bloodstream of the fetus and that of the mother
Umbilical cord: the tube that contains the blood vessels that travel from the placenta to the developing organism and back again
How is the fetus protected?
The placental membrane is a barrier against some, but not all toxins and infectious agents.
The amniotic sac, a membrane filled with fluid in which the fetus floats, provides a protective buffer for the fetus
Descibe fetal behaviour.
By 12 weeks after gestation, most of the movements that will be present at birth have appeared.
How does the fetas behaviour improve its body system?
Swallowing amniotic fluid promotes the normal development of the palate and aids in the maturation of the digestive system.
Movement of the chest wall and pulling in and expelling small amounts of amniotic fluid help the respiratory system become functional.
Descibe fetal sensations.
The fetus experiences tactile stimulation as a result of its own activity, and tastes and smells the amniotic fluid
It responds to sounds from at least the 6th month of gestation
Descibe fetal learning.
At 32 weeks’ gestation, the fetus decreases responses to repeated or continued stimulation - habituation.
Newborns also prefer smells, tastes, and sound patterns that are familiar because of prenatal exposure
What are tetragens?
Environmental agents that have the potential to cause harm during prenatal development
What is the most important factor relating to tetragens?
Timing.
Many agents cause damage only if exposure occurs during a sensitive period in development
Why is identifying tetragens difficult?
sleeper effects in which the impact of a given agent may not be apparent for many years.
Describe some tetragens and their effects.
fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), which is associated with delays in cognitive development, facial deformity, and other problems. Alcohol can cross the placenta.
Cigarette smoking during pregnancy is linked to reduced growth and low birth weight.
Cigarette smoking has also been linked to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), although the ultimate causes of SIDS are still unknown.
What are the 6 states of an newborn baby?
Most spent in Active sleep and Quiet sleep. Crying Active awake Alert awake Drowsing
What is the autostimulation theory?
brain activity during REM sleep in the fetus and newborn makes up for natural deprivation of external stimuli and facilitates the early development of the visual system
REM sleep constitutes fully 50% of a newborn’s total sleep time and declines rapidly to only 20% by 3 or 4 years of age
What is REM sleep?
Rapid eye movement.
What makes a low birth weight?
Infants weighing less than 5.5 pounds (2,500 grams)
What makes a premature birth?
LBW infants born at or before 35 weeks after conception
What was Piaget?
A constructionalist. Comes from the interaction between the child and its environment, they construct knowledge themselves.
How did Piaget see children?
As little scientists. Learn lessons on their own and motivated intrinsically to do so.
What are the 4 characteristics of Piaget’s theory?
Constructionist
Stage Theory
Invariant sequence
Universal
What are the 3 sources of continuity for Piaget?
Assimilation - The process by which people translate incoming information into a form they can understand.
A chef learning a new cooking technique
Accommodation - The process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences.
Equilibration - The process by which people balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding.
Why is Piaget’s theory considered discontinuous?
Due to the hierarchial stages he uses.
What the the 4 hierarchial stages in Piaget’s theory?
Sensorimotor birth - 2yr
Pre-Operational 2 -7 yr
Concrete Operational 7 -12 yr
Formal Operational 12+ yr
dont need to know ages.
Describe the Sensorimotor stage.
Infants get to know the world through their senses and through their actions.
Object permanence: the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view, typically emerges by about 8 months
After attaining object permanence, children make the A-Not-B error (the tendency to reach to where objects were found before, rather than where they were last hidden) until about 12 months
Deffered imitation - repeating others behaviours.
When does object permanence arise?
8 months.
When does the A not B error occur?
8-12 months
Describe the pre-operational stage.
Toddlers and young children start to rely on internal representations of the world based on language and mental imagery.
symbolic representation, the use of one object to stand for another, which makes a variety of new behaviours possible. banana phone
A major limitation is egocentrism, the tendency to perceive the world solely from one’s own point of view.
3 mountains task.
conservation errors, where they incorrectly believe that merely changing the appearance of objects can change their quantity. juice/coins
Why do conservation errors occur?
“centration” – focus on one perceptually salient aspect of the stimulus and ignore the other stimulus dimensions.
Describe the concrete operational stage.
Children begin to reason logically about the world, conservation errors no longer occur, but Thinking systematically remains difficult.
Piaget’s pendulum problem, Children below age 12 usually perform unsystematic experiments and draw incorrect conclusions.
The task is to compare the motions of longer and shorter strings, with lighter and heavier weights attached, in order to determine the influence of weight, string length, and dropping point on the time it takes for the pendulum to swing back and forth
Describe the formal operational stage.
Cognitive development culminates in the ability to think abstractly and to reason hypothetically.
Not universal, depending on environment and education.
Give critique of Piaget’s theory.
The stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is (but e.g., conservation of number vs. solid-quantity)
Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized.
Piaget’s theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development (what about the role of other people in the child’s development?)
Piaget’s theory is vague about the cognitive processes that give rise to children’s thinking and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive growth (what processes lead children to think in a particular way?)
Individual differences are not always taken into account.
How did Light, Buckingham & Robbins (1979) critique Piaget’s theory and conservation errors.
72% correct responses in teddy condition where transformations occurred ‘accidentally’ (a naughty teddy spoils the game).
the child assumes if an adult does something it must mean something has changed.
What did Vygotsky say?
little social beings.
The sociocultural approach to child development.
His theory presents children as social beings, intertwined with other people who are eager to help them gain skills and understanding
It sees development as continuous, with change as quantitative rather than qualitative
What is the sociocultural approach to child development?
Focus on the contribution of other people and the surrounding culture to children’s development.
Emphasize guided participation, a process in which more knowledgeable individuals organize activities in ways that allow less knowledgeable people to engage in them at a higher level than they could manage on their own.
Present interactions as occurring in a broader sociocultural context that includes cultural tools, the innumerable products of human ingenuity that enhance thinking
What are the two levels of mental function according to Vygtosky?
Lower mental functions are regarded as elementary mental abilities closely tied to biological processes that are innate and involuntary, and involve simple perception, memory and responding directly to the environment.
Higher mental functions are regarded as consciously controlled transformations of lower functions that are developed through cultural mediation, and involve voluntary attention, conceptual thought and logical planning.
What is cultural mediation?
the transmission of knowledge through social interactions with other people - higher mental functions.
What are cultural tools?
These include language, values, skills and other symbolic systems that represent the shared knowledge of a culture.
change with each society.
What is internalisation?
Eventually, a child understands a cultural tool and can use it independently (i.e., without the help of social interaction).
What did Vygtosky view as the foundation for all higher cognitive processes?
egocentric or private speech.
Helps guide behaviour
Used more when tasks are difficult, after errors, or when confused
Gradually becomes more silent
Children with learning and behavioural problems use it for longer
External-to-internal develops with age, but also experience
How can behaviour be regulated?
- Children’s behaviour is controlled by other people’s statements
Parent/guardian instruction - Children’s behaviour is controlled by their own private speech
Most prevalent between 4-6 years, though also common in older children and adults during complex tasks - Children’s behaviour is controlled by internalised private speech
Speech “goes underground” and becomes thought
The transition into silent thought often involves whispers and lip movements
What is intersubjectivity?
The mutual understanding that people share during communication.
Joint attention: A process in which social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment.
Social referencing: The tendency to look to social partners for guidance about how to respond to unfamiliar or threatening events.
What is the Zone of proximal development?
Refers to the range of performance between what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal support.
Vygotsky aimed to challenge child in the zone.
What is social scaffolding?
A process in which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children’s thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own (into the ZPD).
How can play help develop a child?
Play with peers is one way that children can stretch their performance into the ZPD.
Playing games involves rules and roles, allowing the child to learn how to:
Separate ideas from objects (conceptual development)
Self-regulate behaviour (social development)
Sum up Piaget in terms of general, language, early speech and education.
General : The child has to explore the world on her own – social factors can make a difference but it is the child who has to find out independently about the world and people.
Language : Language develops together with other skills, mirroring other skills.
Early speech : Early speech is egocentric, but with development it can function for social communication (inner to outer).
Education : The content and level of teaching has to be adjusted to where the child is in her development.
Sum up Vygotsky in terms of general, language, early speech and education.
General : The child needs parents and other adults to teach her – social interactions have a significant contribution to make to the child’s cognitive development.
Language : Language does not just reflect the child’s skills, it can work as a tool for the child.
But because language is a necessary tool for cognitive development, it can interfere with the child’s development.
Early speech : Early speech is adaptive to social interaction, and once it is mastered it is then internalised (outer to inner).
Education : Teaching should aim to challenge the child by giving tasks just above her actual competence into the Zone of Proximal Development.
What is special about the bond between caregivers and children?
children’s early relationships with parents influence the nature of their interactions with others from infancy into adulthood, as well as their feelings about their own worth.
What is attachment theory?
John Bowlby, further tested by Mary Ainsworth.
children are biologically predisposed to develop attachments with caregivers as a means of increasing the chances of their own survival.
attachment is developed over 4 phases to a secure base – an attachment figure’s presence that provides an infant or toddler with a sense of security that makes it possible for the infant to explore the environment
What are the 4 phases of attachment theory?
. Preattachment phase (birth to 6 weeks)
The infant produces innate signals that bring others to his or her side and is comforted by the interaction that follows.
- Attachment-in-the-making (6 weeks to 6-8 months)
The phase in which infants begin to respond preferentially to familiar people. - Clear-cut attachment (6-8 months to 1-2 years)
Characterized by the infant’s actively seeking contact with their regular caregivers and typically showing separation protest or distress when the caregiver departs. - Reciprocal relationships (from 1 or 2 years on)
Involves children taking an active role in developing
working partnerships with their caregivers.
Describe the strange situation and it’s results.
Mary Ainsworth.
Varying interactions.
Secure attachment is a pattern of attachment in which an infant or child has a high-quality, relatively un-ambivalent relationship with his or her attachment figure.
Insecure-avoidant attachment is a type of insecure attachment in which infants seem somewhat indifferent toward their caregiver and may even avoid the caregiver.
If these children become upset when left alone, they are as easily comforted by a stranger as by the caregiver.
Insecure-resistant (or ambivalent) attachment is a pattern in which infants or young children are clingy and stay close to their caregiver rather than explore the environment.
Tend to become very upset when the caregiver leaves them alone in the room, and are not readily comforted by strangers.
When the caregiver returns, they are not easily comforted and both seek comfort and resist efforts by the caregiver to comfort them.
disorganised/ disoriented attachment - no consistent way of coping with stress.
