Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Rejected/Neglected Children
Rejected children are actively disliked by their peers and are often disruptive and have poor social skills; while neglected children are often shy, have fewer-than-average interactions with peers, and rarely engage in disruptive behaviors. Outcomes tend to be worse for rejected children, who report more loneliness and peer dissatisfaction and are less likely to experience an improvement in peer status when they change peer groups.
Head Start
Studies investigating the impact of Head Start and other compensatory preschool programs have found that initial IQ test score gains are often not maintained but that children who attend these programs often obtain higher scores on achievement tests, have better attitudes toward school, and are less likely to be retained in a grade or drop out of high school.
Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS)
The CMMS is a measure of general reasoning ability for children ages 3 years, 6 months through 9 years, 11 months. It was originally developed for children with cerebral palsy but is also useful for children with brain damage, a speech or hearing impairment, or limited English proficiency.
Phonemes/Morphemes
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that are understood in a language (e.g., p, m, sh), while morphemes are the smallest units of sound that convey meaning and include simple words, suffixes, and prefixes.
Genotype/Phenotype
Genotype refers to characteristics that are determined by information coded on the genes, while phenotype refers to observable characteristics that are affected by both genes and environment.
Teacher Behaviors
Studies on teacher behaviors have confirmed that male and female teachers interact differently with male and female students and that these differences are consistent with gender stereotypes. For example, Sadker and Sadker (1994, 2003) found that, from elementary through graduate school, male students are more likely than female students to receive attention, praise, and feedback from teachers that fosters academic achievement.
Sexuality in Adulthood
In their survey of over 6,000 adults ages 25-85, Lindau and Gavrilova (2010) found that most respondents reported being interested in sex and being sexually active. However, men were more likely than women to report being sexually active, to have a good sex life, and to be very interested in sex, with the gender gap increasing with increasing age. Other studies have found that, among both men and women, the best predictor of sexual activity later in life is sexual activity in previous decades.
Patterns of Attachment
Ainsworth and colleagues studied attachment using the Strange Situation, in which the baby spends time alone, with his/her mother, and with a stranger and identified four patterns of attachment - secure, anxious/avoidant, anxious/resistant, and disorganized/disoriented. Each pattern is associated with different caregiver behaviors and child outcomes. For example, abused children often exhibit the disorganized/disoriented pattern.
Brain Development
Continues following birth, with the prefrontal cortex continuing to develop into the late teens or early 20s. Most neurons are present at birth, so development following birth involves the growth of new dendrites, creation of new synapses, and myelination. The brain begins to decrease in weight around age 30 as the result of a loss of neurons, and this decline accelerates after age 60. However, the brain compensates for some neuron loss by developing new connections between neurons and by the production of new neurons in the hippocampus.
Huntington’s Disease
Huntington’s disease is a degenerative, autosomal dominant gene disorder of the central nervous system that involves cognitive, motor and psychiatric symptoms. Offspring of an afflicted parent have a 50% chance of inheriting the disorder.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
According to Vygotsky, cognitive development depends on the social, cultural, and historical context and always occurs on two levels:first between the child and another person (interpersonal) and then within the child (intrapersonal). A key concept is the zone of proximal development, which is the gap between what a child can currently do alone and what he or she can accomplish with help from parents or more competent peers. Learning occurs most rapidly when teaching is within this zone.
Niche-Picking
The term gene-environment correlation refers to associations that are often found between people’s genetic make-up and the environmental circumstances they are exposed to. One contributor to these associations is niche-picking, which refers to the tendency of people to seek out environments that are compatible with their genetic make-up.
Ecological Model (Bronfenbrenner)
Bronfenbrenner proposed that environmental influences on development can be described in terms of five interacting systems - microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.
Effects of Divorce on Children
The effects of divorce are moderated by age, gender, and other factors. Because children who are in preschool at the time of the divorce are unable to understand the reasons for it, they often blame themselves and revert to more immature behaviors; however, children who are older at the time of the divorce may have worse long-term outcomes. Also, while boys tend to exhibit more externalizing behaviors after the divorce, girls are more prone to internalizing behaviors and may experience a sleeper effect that is characterized by few problems initially but the emergence of problems during adolescence. Continuing open conflict between divorced parents is a strong predictor of negative outcomes for children.
Infant Reflexes
Early infant reflexes include the Babinski reflex (in which the infant extends his/her big toe and fans out his/her small toe when the sole of the foot is stroked) and the Moro reflex (which occurs when the infant is held in a horizontal position and the infant arches his/her back, extends his/her legs outward, and then brings them back toward the body in response to his/her head being allowed to drop or to a sudden loud noise).
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
According to Kohlberg, moral development is related to cognitive development and social perspective-taking and involves three levels that are each divided into two stages: preconventional (punishment and obedience, instrumental hedonistic orientations); conventional (good boy/good girl, law and order orientations); and post-conventional (social contract/individual rights, universal ethical principles orientations).
Ethological Theory of Attachment
According to Bowlby’s (1969) ethological theory, infants and their mothers are biologically programmed for attachment - i.e., infants are endowed with innate attachment-related behaviors that serve to keep the mother in close proximity and increase the infant’s chance of survival. As the result of early attachment experiences, children develop internal working models of the self and attachment figures that influence their future relationships.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV)
The WAIS-IV is an individually administered intelligence test for examinees ages 16 through 90. It provides a Full Scale IQ (FSIQ), scores on four Indexes (Working Memory, Verbal Comprehension, Processing Speed, and Perceptual Reasoning), and scores on 10 core and five supplemental subtests. The FSIQ and Index scores have a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15; the subtests have a mean of 10 and standard deviation of 3.
Gay and Lesbian Parents
The research has found that, overall, children of gay and lesbian parents are similar to children of heterosexual parents in terms of social relations, psychological adjustment, cognitive functioning, gender identity development, and sexual orientation.
Developmental Scales for Infants and Preschoolers
Developmental scales are useful as screening devices for developmental delays and disabilities; but, when administered to children less than two years of age, they are not good predictors of future IQ. They include the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Denver Developmental Screening Test, and Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence.
Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC-II)
The KABC-II is a measure of cognitive ability for children ages 3 through 18 years and was designed to be a culture-fair test by minimizing verbal instructions and responses. Interpretation of scores can be based on one of two models - the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of cognitive abilities or Luria’s neuropsychological processing model.
Parenting Styles
Baumrind and colleagues used two dimensions of parenting behavior to derive four parenting styles: (a) Authoritative parents are high in acceptance/responsiveness and demandingness/control. Their children have the best outcomes. (b) Authoritarian parents are low in acceptance/responsiveness and high in demandingness/control. (c) Permissive parents are high in acceptance/responsiveness and low in demandingness/control. (d) Uninvolved parents are low in acceptance/responsiveness and demandingness/control. This style is associated with delinquency and antisocial behavior.
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 4th Edition (PPVT-4);
The PPVT-4 is a measure of receptive vocabulary for examinees ages 2 years, 6 months to 90+ years. It is useful for examinees with a motor or speech impairment and can be administered to any examinee who can hear the stimulus word, see the pictures, and communicate a response in some way.;
Down Syndrome
Down syndrome is due to an extra number 21 chromosome. It causes mental retardation, retarded physical growth and motor development, distinctive physical features, and an increased risk for heart defects, leukemia, and Alzheimer’s dementia.
Cognitive Contributors to Aggression
Some investigators attribute high levels of aggression in children to cognitive factors - e.g., Dodge and Crick found that aggressive children are more likely than nonaggressive children to interpret the ambiguous acts of others as intentionally hostile.
Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA)
IDEA requires that (a) a free and appropriate public education be available to all individuals between the ages of 3 and 21 regardless of their ability; (b) an Individualized Educational Program (IEP) be developed for each disabled student that provides education in the “least restrictive environment” and that has been approved by the child’s parents; and (c) while reliable, valid, and nondiscriminatory tests can be used, assignment to special education classes cannot be made on the basis of an IQ test or any other single procedure.
Genetic Influences on Intelligence
Studies investigating the correlations between the IQ scores of people with varying degrees of genetic similarity provide evidence of the impact of genetics on intelligence. They have confirmed that, the closer the genetic similarity, the higher the correlation (e.g., for identical twins reared together, r = .85; for identical twins reared apart, r = .67).
