Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Paul Balte’s Framework
Development is lifelong
Development depends on history and context
Development is multidirectional and multidimensional
Development is plastic
Only 10-20% of fertilized eggs survive two weeks to make it to implantation
Single cell zygote develops to embryo, then to fetus (review book for more details)
Embryos are vulnerable, and chromosomal disorders can lead to spontaneous abortion
(miscarriage)
Proper maternal nutrition is vital
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Malnutrition
Can lead to birth defects, low birth weight and stillbirth
Maternal age outside of optimal range ____ can pose difficulties
Both for teens and over age 35
Teratogens
external/environmental contaminants that can penetrate the maternal protections of pregnancy and cause harm to the fetus
- heart rate, oxygen, nutrition
Examples of Teratogens
Medical drugs (thalidomide and birth defects)
Environmental Pollution (lead paints can affect cognitive development)
Alcohol (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)
Nicotine (Learning disorders, low birth weight, SIDS)
Illegal Drugs (Children born addicted)
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Issues found for children whose mothers drank heavily during pregnancy
-tighter skin
-undeveloped teeth
- cognitive deficiencies
Capacities at Birth
Senses develop according to stimulation
Sight
Preferences on hearing, tastes, and odors already present at birth
Sight
stimulation builds quickly; binocular depth perception by 4-5m, 20/20 by 6m
Reflexes
innate, unlearned, adaptive behaviors
Others include grasping, stepping, basic swim reflex (all innate)
Main model is Piaget’s
Driven by improving skills to organize information
1st Stage of Piaget’s
Sensorimotor- learning and thought is centered on the senses and the motor skills (what can I see/smell right now, cannot think about anything outside of this)
- Babies develop more complex schemes (structure) for understanding the world
- Lasts from birth until about 2 years old, experimenting with everything to learn
- No sense of object permanence
- End goal is mental representation
Object Permanence-
Knowledge that something still exists even though I cannot currently see it
Mental Representation
the ability to mentally represent things that are not immediately present in the senses at this moment
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage (2-6 years old)
Follows the onset of mental representation at the end of sensorimotor stage
- Marked by advances and refinements based on this
- Can now manipulate information in the mind, but with limitations
Centration
a tendency to focus on only one dimension of a problem
- Can’t do conservation tasks
Conservation Task
3 glasses, 1 is tall but thin, others are shorter but wider
When asked which have more water, will say tall but thin
Only focus on one dimension of the problem
Egocentrism
a tendency to only be able to reason about a problem from one’s own viewpoint
- Three Mountain Problem, describe as what they see, not how others perceive it
Piaget’s Concrete Operations (7-12 years old)
-Onset of logical, but not abstract thought
-Greater aptitude in using mental representations
- Now able to reason better in multiple dimensions
Main limitation with respect to abstract thought
Multiple Dimensions
Improves conservation
Allows ability to use maps for finding directions
Allows greater aptitude with math
Abstract thought
Child cannot fully comprehend non-concrete concepts though
Formal Operations
Ability to think abstractly
Can now deal with abstract concepts without concrete representation
- Life, death, the self, morality, abstract math
Able to deal with hypothetical-deductive reasoning
- Evolution of “what it” ability for abstractions