Lecture 19: Child Development

Question 1

Developmental Psychology

Answer 1

Study of changes over lifespan in physiology, cognition, emotional and social behavior

Question 2

Prenatal

Answer 2

Conception to birth

Question 3

Infancy

Answer 3

Birth to 24 months

Question 4

Childhood

Answer 4

24 months to 14 years

Question 5

Adolescence

Answer 5

14 years to 21 years

Question 6

Adulthood

Answer 6

21+ years, including aging

Question 7

Developmental patterns are consistent

Answer 7

Genes set the order of development, which is shaped by interplay b/w nature and nurture

Question 8

Dynamic systems theory

Answer 8

Consistent interactions between biological being and his cultural and environmental contexts leads to emergence of new behavior

Question 9

Developmental advances in any domain (physiological, cognitive, emotional, or social) occur through…

Answer 9

Active exploration of environment

Constant environmental feedback

Question 10

General principles of child development

Answer 10

Children develop in predictable ways…with normal variation
Nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) tied together
Change over time (learning and maturation)
Plasticity
Sensitive/critical periods

Question 11

Developmental plasticity

Answer 11

Occurs during time of development
Typical development requires typical input
Reorganization results from insults or changes
TIMING of input, exposure, insult can be crucial

Question 12

Maturation involves progressive restriction of fate…

Answer 12

Deviation from typical path early in development/major perturbation later in develop leads to different developmental pathway
Altered pathway could lead to alternative end states (phenotypes)
Developmental disorders: trajectories in response to different sets of constraints

Question 13

Reorganization can result from insults or changes

Answer 13

LGN projections surgically rerouted from eye to MGN in ferrets
Found normal visual responses in A1 - cells responded as though they were in V1

Question 14

Timing can be crucial

Answer 14

Critical and sensitive periods
E.g. children receiving cochlear implants
children > 2 yrs achieved 80% accuracy with 1 yr of implantation; children > 4 yrs made little progress even after 4-5 years of implant use

Question 15

Critical periods

Answer 15

Begin & end abruptly
Result in permanent changes in brain structure/function
At molecular level: period of time in which intercellular communication alters a cell’s fate
At systems level: Visual input, Lorenz’s geese

Question 16

Lorenz and the geese

Answer 16

mid-1930s, studied attachment of Graylag geese to their mothers
Without mother present, geese formed social attachments to variety of moving objects
Once “imprinted” on object, would behave as though object were mother
“Imprinting” takes place within first two days of hatching

Question 17

Sensitive periods

Answer 17

Impact of experience is not consistent throughout life

Brain’s sensitivity to experience changes depending on developmental stage

Question 18

Stages of development

Answer 18

Children generally progress in behaviorally-identifiable stages
With much inter-individual variation
There’s a “normal” range

Question 19

General developmental milestones

Answer 19

Gross motor
Fine motor
Language
Cognitive
Social

Question 20

Gross motor

Answer 20

sit, stand, walk, run, balance, and change positions

Question 21

Fine motor

Answer 21

using hands to be able to eat, draw, dress, play, write, etc

Question 22

Language

Answer 22

speaking, using body language and gestures, communicating, and comprehension

Question 23

Cognitive

Answer 23

learning, understanding, problem-solving, reasoning, remembering

Question 24

Social

Answer 24

interacting with others, having relationships with family, friends, and teachers, cooperating, and responding to the feeling of others

Question 25

What underlies these development stages?

Answer 25

Nature: genetically controlled maturation of organism
Nurture: environmental exposure to appropriate stimuli; teaching

Question 26

What we’re born with

Answer 26

At birth, basic newborn reflexes aid survival

Question 27

Rooting and sucking reflex

Answer 27

turning and sucking automatically occurs when a nipple or similar object touches area near the mouth

Question 28

Moro reflex

Answer 28

cling to mother if loss of support

Question 29

Brain development and behavior

Answer 29

further brain development necessary for cognitive development
maturity of different brain areas reflected in behavior

Question 30

Myelination and neuronal connections

Answer 30

Most neurons already formed at birth, but continued growth of neurons, new synapses, myelination
Massive number of synapses formed, followed by pruning: “use it or lose it”
Myelination occurs in different brain regions at different stages
Environmental stimulation, interactions, and nutrition affect aspects of brain development, including myelination

Question 31

Methods: how do we know that babies know?

Answer 31

Preferential looking: infants look longer at things that interest them
Orienting reflex: pay more attention to new stimuli than to habituated stimuli
Brain measures: ERPS, MEG

Question 32

How do children learn about the world?

Answer 32

differs depending on stage of development
how children learn reflects maturational stage of brain and nervous system
Perceptual and motor systems lead to language lead to cognitive regions

Question 33

The same experience is not experienced the same way…

Answer 33

even under identical environmental conditions, differs depending on state of the brain
description and effect of “experience” should include background, developmental stage, state of brain & exposure

Question 34

Perception introduces the world

Answer 34

Development of infants’ sensory capacities allows infants to observe & evaluate the objects & events around them
Perception (visual & auditory) improves w/ experience (e.g. depth, localization)
Perceptual information used to try to make sense of how the world works

Question 35

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Answer 35

Children go through four stages of development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational
Each stage builds on previous one through two learning processes

Question 36

Assimilation

Answer 36

The process by which we place new information into an existing schema

Question 37

Accomodation

Answer 37

Process by which we create a new schema/drastically alter existing schema to include new info that otherwise wouldn’t fit into schema

Question 38

Sensorimotor (birth to 2 yrs)

Answer 38

Infants acquire information about the world through their senses and motor skills
Reflexive responses develop into more deliberate actions through the development and refinement of schemas
Cognitive concept developed during this stage: object permanence

Question 39

Preoperational (2-7 years)

Answer 39

• Children think symbolically about objects, but reason based on intuition and superficial appearance rather than logic
• No understanding of the law of conservation of quantity
• Key cognitive limitations :
– Centration: cannot think about more than one detail of
a problem-solving task at a time
– Egocentrism: tendency to view the world through their
own experiences
• Such “immature” skills prepare children to take special note of their immediate surroundings and learn as much as they can about how their own minds and bodies interact with the world

Question 40

Concrete operational (7-12 years)

Answer 40

Can think logically about objects & events
Achieves conservation of number (age 7), mass (age 7) and weight (age 9)
Classifies object by multiple features and can order them in a series along a single dimension, such as size

Question 41

Formal operational (12 years and up)

Answer 41

Can think logically about abstract prepositions and test hypotheses systematically
Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems