Lecture 1 - Intro Flashcards
Outline smith et al (2003)’s definition of development
Process by which an organism (human/ animal) grows ad changes through its lifespan
How did development used to be studied? and why did that change?
Used to be studied through observations, e.g dawrwin
- this was anecdotal and lacked scientific rigour
Who changed dev psych to experiments?
Piaget in the 20s, blended observations and experiments
Processes of development have become key area of study, how things change
- e.g. Schaffer (1996)
Compare observations and experiments
Observations:
√ - naturalistic
X - lots of ev’s
Experiments
√ - high control
X - low eco val
X - children dont develop in labs, they do in parks, homes, school etc
What areas of child development are studied?
- Physical (growth, motor, sensory)
- Cognitive (learning, thinking, memory, problem solcing)
- Pscyhosocial (peers, family, morality)
- Emotional (attachment, personality, emotions, self-esteem)
- Linguistic (speech, language, communication)
What age periods of studied?
- Prenatal (conception to birth)
- Infancy (birth to 2/3 years)
- preschool/ early childhood (3-5 years)
- middle childhood (6-12)
- Adolescence (13-18)
What are the changes in infancy, from birth to toddlerhood
rapid changes
- physical
- social
- intellectual
- emotional
All go through this process, just at different rates
Outline Danny at 3 weeks
- Startled by noise
- responds to mum by turning head
- grasps
- follows objects
Outline Danny at 3 months
- looks around
- smiles/ interacts
- can push body up
- reacts to strange signs
- can support neck
- watches things but doesnt reach
Outline Danny at 2 months
- nearly always smiles at mum
- watches objects, takes hold
Outline Danny at 4 months
- stands up
- recognises own name
- watches but doesnt reach
Outline Danny at 6 months
- sits alone
- grabs things
- recognises different types of voice
- no fear of strangers
Outline Danny at 8.5 months
- sits and stands well
- learns and picks up
- precise movement
- very active (crawls)
- eat and drink alone
- dont like strangers/ seperation
Outline Danny at 10 months
- stands and move on own
- take/ return objects
- potin and find
- imitation
- understands simple requests
- alone = anxiety
- stranger anxiety
Outline Danny at 12 months
- walk
- carry things
- reach
- climb
- great motor control
- purposeful behaviour
- books/ drawing
- understand much of what is said to him
- can follow mother when she leaves
Outline Danny at 14 months
- accurate movement
- balance/ run
- interested in what he can do with things
- distracted from mother by external world
- moods
Outline Danny at 16 months
- independent
- interested and involved in world
- secure attachment
- communicates
What are the 3 central concerns in dev psych?
- Continuity
- Sources of development (nature/ nurture)
- Plsaticity
Outline continuity as a concern in dev psych
Development as either continuous or discontinuous
- Small, gradual process of change = continuous. Often quantiative, like vocab/ memory
- periods of rapid development, emergence of new forms of thought/ behaviour = discontinuous. qualitative, like babbling, talking
What were Flavell (1971)’s criteria of stage theories?
- Stages are distinguished by qualitative changes
- Stage transitions marked by other aspects of change
- When changes occur, they are rapid (e.g. crawling -> walking = 90 days)
- Behavioural/ physical changes are coherent
What are the 4 developmental functions (Graphs)?
- Continuous
- increasing/ decreasing steadily over time
- e.g. vocab (+), or phoneme narrowing (-) - Step/ discontinuous
- develops in distinct phases, then plateaus for a bit before the next stage
- e.g. piagets stages of Cog dev - Inverted-U
- starts bad, peaks at middle, then gets worse again
- e.g. muscular peak - U-Shaped
- starts good, gets worse in middle, then improves again
- e.g. infants stepping reflex
- starts at birth, disappears, then reappears when they get muscular control again
Why do we use graphs?
Easier to spot atypical devevlopment
Graphs 1, 3 and 5 are continuous, 4, 2 is discontinuous
Outline sources of developent: nature vs nurture
Nature/ genetics
- inherited biological predispsotions
nuture/ environment
- socio-cultural influences
Look at how these interact, and how does upbrining and culture impact our development
Outline plasticity
“The degree to which, and the conditions under which, development is open to change and intervention”
- how dev can be changed
Outline research into plasticity
- Critical period, where exposure is required otherwise development wont proceed normally
- Sensitive periods - where a period has more impact on development, wont develop as will but wont necessarily not develop at all
What are the methods of studying development?
Cross-sectional studies
- snap shot of behaviour at one give time
Longitudinal studies
- study progression/ change over time
Cohort design
- compare groups of children born in different years
- e.g. 12 year olds in 2000, vs 12 year olds now
Cohort sequential design
- study cohorts cross-sectionally and longitudinally
Compare study designs
Cross sectional:
- different p’s, different ages, same point in time
Longitduinal
- same p’s, at different ages, at different times
Cohort
- different p’s, same ages, different time points
