Lecture 1 - Developmental Psychology Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
Life-span or life course perspective from conception to death → Developmental psychologists aim to examine human behaviour across the life course and adopt a range of perspectives.
What is an example of a continuous, increasing ability?
Height
What is an example of continuous, decreasing ability?
Example from Language Development
“Becoming a native listener” – Janet Werker
- Young infants (from birth) can discriminate between all the speech sounds in all the world’s languages (phonetic contrasts)
- Around 1 year this ability declines
- Child loses phonemes that are not important in their own language.
What is an example of a step or stage-like ability?
Piaget’s Stage Theory
- Sensori-motor stages
- Thoughts in action
- Basic problem-solving
- Pre-operational - 2-7 years
- Advanced problem-solving
- Egocentrism
- Animism
- Concrete Operations - 7-11 years
- Conservation tasks
- Formal operations - 11 years+
- Abstract thought
- ‘Scientific’ reasoning
- Thinking philosophically
What is an example of an inverted u-shape ability?
Life course trajectory of inteligence
What is an example of an upright u-shaped ability?
The Stepping Reflex
- Newborn infants make stepping movements appearing to be able to walk
- These disappear at about 2 months
- They reappear a few months later as the infant is starting to walk (around 12 months).
- An additional major reason for their disappearance relates to the accumulation of body fat – only when the infant begins to walk are the legs strong enough to carry the infant’s weight!
What is an example of an observational design?
Darwin and Erasmus
What was Darwin and Erasmus’ study?
Charles Darwin’s account of the development of his first-born
son, William Erasmus - born 27th December 1839
- Hearing - “Although so sensitive to sound in a general way, he was not able even when 124 days old (4 months) easily to recognise whence a sound proceeded, so as to direct his eyes to the source.”
- Darwin - finest ever observer of natural behaviour. We now know new-borns can see and hear. Generalisability?
What is time and event sampling?
- Multiple observations over time
- Frequent, brief intervals
- Observations by time or event
What is an example of time and event sampling?
Electronic time sampling
- 56 High School Seniors 17-18-year-olds in South Korea and 62 seniors (17-year-olds) in the United States
- An electronic timer beeped 7 times a day
- When the beep occurred the students made a note of what they were doing
- Korean students spent more time on school work and less time in other activities and were more distressed and depressed.
What is the clinical method?
- Jean Piaget
- Observation of own children
- Varying tasks and observe results
What is an example of interviews with children on memory?
Studies of the earliest recollection of childhood have a long history
- e.g. Miles, 1893.
Typical questions asked include:
- What is the earliest thing you are sure you
can remember? - How old were you (in years and months)?
- Was it happy, sad or neutral?
- Did it involve people?
- The overall mean age of earliest memory was 40.2 months (3 years 4 months).
- Girls reported earlier first memories than boys. As did firstborn siblings.
- Hypothesis-generating. Why?
- Do parents talk more with firstborns and girls?
Why are observations important?
- Ideal for discovering questions to ask about child development
- Hypothesis-generating
- Children have a vast repertoire of behaviour occurring in natural settings
- Provides data from ‘real-time’ unfolding behaviour, processes or situations
- Useful when other methods are inappropriate – e.g. interviews
- Children may have difficulty expressing themselves
- Easily used with young children
- Information on how people actually behave in common environment
What are the advantages of observations?
- Researcher defined and chooses target behaviours
- Can look at microscopic processes and mechanisms
- Hypothesis-generating
- Great for children and young people
What are the limitations of observations?
- Expensive
- Unforeseen factors may pose threat to validity
- Many events may occur at one time
- Observer influence
- Uncontrolled
- Cannot be sure what is causing behaviour
- Time-consuming
- Required extensive training
What was the aim of Bjork et al (2006) study?
The aim of this observational study was to describe the needs of children with cancer under the age of 7 during their initial hospitalisation.
What was the method of Bjork et al (2006) study?
Observations were made on behaviours, body language, and verbal expression. Observations were made during many activities, throughout the day.
What were the results of Bjork et al (2006) study?
- Need to have the parent close by
- Need to play and feel joy
- Need for participation in care and treatment
- Need for a good relationship with the staff
- Need for physical and emotional satisfaction
What is the experimental method?
- Experiments allow researchers to test causal relationships between two or more variables.
- The independent variable affects the dependent or outcome variable. The independent variable is manipulated by the experimenter.
- However, there are some limitations about the generalisability of findings to the real world.
What was the aim of Talwar and Lee (2011)?
To compare the lie-telling behaviour of 3- and 4-year-old West African children (N = 84) from either a punitive or a nonpunitive school.
What was the method of Talwar and Lee (2011)?
Children were told not to peek at a toy when left alone in a room.
What were the results of Talwar and Lee (2011)?
Most children could not resist the temptation and peeked at the toy.
What are the kinds of psychometric assessments?
- Cognitive
- Imaging methods
What is the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V)?
is a widely used, individually administered intelligence test for children aged 6 to 16 years, designed to assess a child’s general intellectual ability and identify specific cognitive strengths and weaknesses.
What is an example of a Longitudinal Study Assessing Cognitive Outcomes - Munck et al, 2012
- A cohort of 120 very low birth weight (VLBW) children born between 2001 and 2004 was followed up by using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 2 and WISC at 5 years.
- 168 randomly selected healthy term control children were also assessed.
- They found lower scores for VLBW - good stability of cognitive outcomes for both groups.
What are the Imaging Methods to Measure Children’s Brain Activity During Tasks
- Link between specific brain areas and the functions they serve.
- Locate brain areas that are affected by neurological disorders.
- Could help to develop interventions for treating brain disorders.
- Can be measured from the scalp with electrodes or inside the head
What are the challenges of conducing imaging studies with infants and children?
- Can be invasive
- Testing procedure is challenging (e.g. loud)
- The brain develops rapidly in infancy
- Expensive
