Lifespan Development Flashcards Set - Sheet1
Coercive Family Interaction Model (Patterson)
Patterson et al.’s coercive family interaction model proposes that children initially learn aggressive behaviors from their parents who rarely reinforce prosocial behaviors, rely on harsh discipline to control their children’s behavior, and reward their children’s aggressiveness with approval and attention and that, over time, aggressive parent-child interactions escalate. They developed the Oregon model of parent management training (PMTO)to help stop this coercive cycle by teaching parents effective parenting skills and providing parents with therapy to help them cope more effectively with stress.
Information Processing Theories
Information processing theories describe cognitive development as involving increasing information processing capacity and efficiency. For example, improvements in memory are due to increased memory capacity, enhanced processing speed, and greater automaticity. In contrast to Piagetians, information processing theorists focus on development within specific cognitive domains such as attention, memory, and reasoning rather than on identifying global principles of development.
Visual Changes In Adulthood
After age 65, most individuals experience visual changes that interfere with reading, driving, and other aspects of daily life. In addition to presbyopia (loss of near vision), common changes include loss of visual acuity, reduced perception of depth and color, increased light sensitivity, and deficits in visual search, dynamic vision (perceiving the details of moving objects), and speed in processing what is seen.
Down Syndrome
Down syndrome is caused by an extra number 21 chromosome. It is characterized by intellectual disability, retarded physical growth and motor development, distinctive physical characteristics, and increased susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease, leukemia, and heart defects.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) which encompasses a range of conditions that involve largely irreversible physical, behavioral, and/or cognitive abnormalities. Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is the most severe form of FASD and is characterized by facial anomalies; retarded physical growth; heart, kidney, and liver defects; vision and hearing impairments; cognitive deficits; and behavioral problems. Alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND) is characterized by cognitive deficits and behavioral problems without prominent facial anomalies, retarded physical growth, or physical defects, while alcohol-related birth defects (ARBD) involves physical defects without other prominent symptoms.
Adolescent Egocentrism (Elkind)
Adolescent egocentrism appears at the beginning of the formal operational stage. As defined by Elkind, its characteristics include the personal fable and the imaginary audience.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (Zone of Proximal Development, Scaffolding)
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory proposes that cognitive development is always first interpersonal (when the child interacts with an adult or other teacher) and then intrapersonal (when the child internalizes what he/she has learned). According to Vygotsky, cognitive development is facilitated when instruction falls within the child’s zone of proximal development, which refers to the discrepancy between a child’s current developmental level (the level at which the child can function independently) and the level of development that is just beyond his or her current level but can be reached when an adult or more experienced peer provides appropriate scaffolding (instruction, assistance, and support).
Sibling Relationships
Most interactions between young siblings involve prosocial, play-oriented behaviors. However, middle-childhood is usually marked by a paradoxical combination of closeness/conflict and cooperation/competition. During this period, sibling rivalry increases and is most intense among same-gender siblings who are 1-1/2 to 3 years apart in age and whose parents provide inconsistent discipline. In adolescence, siblings spend less time together, their relationship becomes less emotionally intense and more distant, and the friction between them usually declines as they begin to view one another as equals.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Effect
Research by Rosenthal and Jacobson found that teachers’ expectations about students can have a “self-fulfilling prophecy effect” on their academic performance, motivation, and self-esteem of students.
Empty Nest Syndrome
Contrary to what is commonly believed, adults do not usually experience distress and a sense of loss (i.e., the “empty nest syndrome”) when all of their children come of age and leave home. Instead, the studies suggest that they usually experience an increase in marital satisfaction and other positive changes.
Teacher Feedback
The research indicates that teachers tend to respond differently to boys and girls. Boys generally receive more correction, criticism, praise and help than girls do. Moreover, the nature of the feedback is gender-related; e.g., boys are more often criticized for sloppiness and inattention, girls for inadequate intellectual performance.
Conservation
As defined by Piaget, conservation is the ability to understand that the physical characteristics of an object remain the same, even when the outward appearance of that object changes. Conservation depends on the operations of reversibility and decentration and develops gradually during the concrete operational stage, with conservation of number occurring first, followed by conservation of liquid, length, weight, and then displacement volume.
Turner Syndrome
Turner syndrome occurs in females and is caused by the presence of a single X chromosome. Females with Turner syndrome are short in stature, have characteristic physical features (e.g., drooping eyelids, webbed neck), have retarded or absent development of the secondary sex characteristics, and may exhibit certain cognitive deficits.
Androgyny
The research has found that, for both males and females, androgyny (which combines masculine and feminine characteristics and preferences) and, to a lesser degree, masculinity were associated with higher levels of self-esteem than was femininity. Androgyny has also been linked to greater flexibility when coping with difficult situations, higher levels of life satisfaction, and greater comfort with one’s sexuality.
Precausal Reasoning (Magical Thinking/Animism):
As described by Piaget, the preoperational stage of cognitive development is characterized by precausal (transductive) reasoning, which reflects an incomplete understanding of cause and effect. One manifestation of precausal reasoning is magical thinking (the belief that thinking about something will cause it to occur); another manifestation is animism (the tendency to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects).
Early Reflexes
Reflexes are unlearned responses to particular stimuli in the environment. Early reflexes include the Babinski reflex (toes fan out and upward when soles of the feet are tickled) and the Moro reflex (flings arms and legs outward and then toward the body in response to a loud noise or sudden loss of physical support).
Patterns Of Attachment (Ainsworth)
Research using Ainsworth’s Strange Situation has revealed four patterns of attachment: secure, insecure/ambivalent, insecure/avoidant, and disorganized/disoriented. Each pattern is associated with different caregiver behaviors and different personality and behavioral outcomes. For example, infants who exhibit a disorganized attachment pattern are at an increased risk for aggressive behavior problems in childhood.
Perception in Newborns (Vision, Auditory Localization, Pain)
Of the senses, vision is least well developed at birth. At birth, the newborn sees at 20 feet what normal adults see at about 200 to 400 feet; but, by about six months, the infant’s visual acuity is probably very close to that of a normal adult. With regard to specific types of visual stimuli, newborns prefer to look at high-contrast patterns, and their preference for more complex patterns increases with increasing age. The fetus hears sounds in the uterus during the last months of development, and newborns are only slightly less sensitive to sound intensity than adults. Some auditory localization is evident shortly after birth, seems to disappear between two and four months, and then reappears and improves during the rest of the first year. The research has confirmed that newborns are sensitive to pain. For example, male newborns who are circumcised without anesthesia often react with a loud cry, a facial grimace, and an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension. There is evidence that exposure to severe pain as a newborn can impact later reactions (e.g., in some cases, can increase sensitivity to pain).
Relational Crisis (Gilligan)
Gilligan proposed that, in early adolescence, girls experience a relational crisis due to pressures to conform to cultural stereotypes of femininity. As a result, they become disconnected from themselves (e.g., they experience a “loss of voice”).
Erikson’s Stages Of Psychosocial Development
Erikson’s theory of personality development proposes that the individual faces different psychosocial crises at different points throughout the life span. These are: trust vs. mistrust; autonomy vs. shame and doubt; initiative vs. guilt; industry vs. inferiority; identity vs. role confusion; intimacy vs. isolation; generativity vs. stagnation; and integrity vs. despair.
Signs Of Attachment
Obvious signs of attachment to a primary caregiver are usually not apparent until about six months of age. These include social referencing, separation anxiety, and stranger anxiety.
Effects Of Maternal Employment
Research investigating the effects of maternal employment has found it to be associated with greater personal satisfaction for the working mother (especially when she wants to work) and, in terms of the children, with fewer sex-role stereotypes and greater independence. For lower-SES boys, maternal employment is associated with better performance on measures of cognitive development; but for upper-SES boys, it may result in lower scores on IQ and achievement tests.
Childhood (Infantile) Amnesia
Studies investigating episodic (autobiographical) memory have found that adults are usually able to recall very few of the events they experienced prior to age three or four. This is referred to as childhood or infantile amnesia.
Semantic And Syntactic Bootstrapping
Semantic and syntactic bootstrapping are mechanisms that facilitate early language development. Semantic bootstrapping refers to using knowledge of the meaning of a word to infer its syntactical category; while syntactical bootstrapping refers to using syntactical knowledge to deduce the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
Underextension/Overextension
During the course of language development, children exhibit a number of errors including underextension and overextension. Underextension occurs when a child applies a word too narrowly to objects or situations, while overextension occurs when a child applies a word to a wider collection of objects or events than is appropriate.
Rejected And Neglected Children
A distinction is made between rejected and neglected children; and the studies have found that, overall, outcomes are worse for children who are actively rejected by their peers: Rejected children express greater loneliness and peer dissatisfaction and are less likely to experience an improvement in peer status when they change social groups.
