Introduction to Childhood Development Flashcards
Why Study Childhood Development
Raising Children
Choosing Social Polocies
Understanding Human Nature
Nature vs Nurture
Nature refers to our biological endowment, especially the genes we receive from our parents.
Physical characteristics, emotional
temperament? IQ?
Nurture refers to the wide range of
environments, both physical and social, that influence our development.
Prenatal teratogens, family styles, etc
The Active Child
Children’s actions
contribute to their own
development, even during
their first year of life:
Attentional patterns
Use of language
Play
As children grow older, they have even more control of their
environmental influence.
Continuity/Discontinuity
Continuous Change: Change with age occurs gradually, in small increments
Discontinuous Change: Change with age includes occasional large shifts
Mechanisms of Change
The interaction of genes and environment determines both what changes occur and when those changes occur.
How does developmental change occur?
*Effortful attention
‐Gene influence
‐Parenting influence
‐Children’s experience
Sociocultural Context
The physical, social, cultural, economic,
and historical circumstances that make
up any child’s environment
Aristotle (384‐322)
Fitting child rearing to needs of individual child: All knowledge
comes from experience
Plato (437‐347)
Self‐Control & Discipline:
Children are born with
innate knowledge
John Locke (1632-1704)
saw infants as a “tabula rasa”or blank slate; emphasized children’s need for
discipline beforefreedom.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
believed that children learned from their own actions; emphasized children’s need for freedom before discipline and formal education.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Psychoanalytic Theory
Biological drives influence development
John Watson (1878-1958) Behaviorist Theory:
Children’s behavior develops from rewards and punishments they receive
Scientific Method
- Choosing a Question
- Do Background Research
- Formulate Hypothesis (If/Then)
- Testing Hypothesis
- Draw Conclusions
Measurement (Reliability)
the degree to which
independent measurements of a
given behavior are consistent
Measurement (Validity)
the degree to which a
test measures what it is intended
to measure
Reliability: Test-Retest vs interrater
Test-Retest:a measure of reliability obtained by administering the same test twice over a period of time to a group of individuals
Interrater:a measure of consistency used to evaluate the extent to which different judges agree in their assessment decisions
Validity: Internal vs external
Internal: the degree of confidence that the causal relationship being tested is trustworthy and not influenced by other factors or variables.
External: the extent to which you can generalize the findings of a study to other situations, people, settings, and measures
Interviews (Structured)
a research procedure in
which all participants are
asked to answer the same
questions
Interviews (clinical)
a procedure in which
questions are adjusted in
accord with the answers the
interviewee provides
Naturalistic observation
examination of ongoing
behavior in an environment
not controlled by the
researcher
Structured observation
a method that involves
presenting an identical
situation to each child and
recording the child’s
behavior
