Exam 3 Flashcards
Critical period
Age range during which certain experiences MUST occur for development to proceed normally
e.g. Language acquisition (2 - 7 years), if this does not occur, child will likely never learn language
e.g. Jeanie the wild child
–> Case of extreme neglect. Jeanie was never exposed to language until she was taken out of her parent’s custody at age 13. She learned how to speak words, but never learned how to use language as she had passed the critical period.
Sensitive period
The optimal age range for certain experiences to spur normal development. More of a good range, but does not need to occur during this period.
Cognitive Development (Piaget)
Brain builds schemas to achieve understanding.
- Split into assimilation and accommodation
Assimilation
New experience incorporated into existing schemas.
E.g. Baby has a schema for cats and dogs. Baby sees a raccoon for the first time and categorizes the raccoon as a cat.
Accommodation
New experiences cause existing schemas to change
E.g. Baby originally categorized raccoon as cat, but adjusts schema to call it a night cat once it realizes fundamental differences with their schema for cats vs dogs.
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Stages
- 4 stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational
- Discontinuous stages of development (stages are distinct from one another, and no step can be skipped)
Sensorimotor
- Birth - 2 years old
- Understand world through sensory experience and physical interactions with objects (babies put objects in mouth)
- Begin to acquire language
- Develops object permanence towards the end of the stage
- Begin to understand sense of self –> realize they are a separate entity from their mother
Preoperational stage
- Ages 2 - 7
- World represented symbolically through words an mental images
- Symbolic thinking enables pretend play
- Does not understand conservation (pouring water in different glasses)
- Thinking displays animism (thinking everything is alive) and egocentrism (self-centered thinking that allows them to not understand how someone might have a different point of view from them e.g. broccoli and goldfish example)
Concrete operational
- Ages 7 -12
- Easily perform basic mental operations involving tangible problems and situations (e.g. fractions, decimals)
- Have trouble with problems that require abstract reasoning (lack executive functioning as frontal lobe is not fully developed, e.g. think of how would life be without a thumb example)
- Developing empathy
Formal operational stage
- Develops around 11 - 12 years
- Ability to think logically about concrete and abstract problems
- Able to form and test hypotheses
- Adolescents show egocentrism (everyone is looking at me teenager behaviour)
Attachment
Strong emotional bond that develops between children and caregivers
Imprinting
Sudden, inflexible, biologically primed form of attachment found in some nonhuman species (e.g. ducks following dog as mother)
Harry Harlow
- Did experiements with Monkeys were he separated them from their mother and observed whether they preferred the clothed “monkey” which provided contact comfort or the wired “monkey” which provided food
- He found that monkeys spent most of their time near the clothed monkey
Bowlby
- Newborns show no discrimination in attachment behavior
- Infants begin to discriminate familiar from unfamiliar people in first months of life (3 months); specific attachment behavior at 8 months.
- Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety develop around this time.
Stranger anxiety
- Around 6/7 months to 18months
- Distress over contact with unfamiliar people
