Lifespan Development Unit 10 Lecture 1 Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
The study of physical and psychological changes commonly associated with the different stages of our life
In order to track human development, 2 processes were used
Cross-Sectional Designs
Involving measuring groups of different people at a single point in time, but that differ in their age. Allows comparisons between people of different age levels. They are easier because a person can measure people that are different ages in a single point in time. Have the potential confound of COHORT EFFECTS - people that are different ages, also developed different time periods
Longitudinal Designs
Involves measuring the same group of people at DIFFERENT points in time. These designs are time-consuming and there is high risk of ATTRITION (the withdrawal of participants from a study over time)
Developmental psychologists rely on both of these methods to determine physiological and psychological changes across our lifespans
Developmental Stages
Lifespan changes proceed through patterns of stability followed by periods of more rapid transition
Sensitive Periods
More rapid transitions between stages - mark points of transition between developmental stages
Ex) Language acquisition in children
Children’s success of acquiring a language depends on the degree of their exposure to language during the sensitive period
Ex) Their daughter was death the first 3 months - needed to work with a speech therapist to gain ability to speak English
Conception
The developmental process that led to who we are now, began right from conception (sperm & ovum)
The Germinal Stage
Starts off with a ZYGOTE (fertilized egg)
Then zygote splits into 2 BLASTOCYST cells
Moves along fallopian tubes until it gets implanted in the uterus
Once a blastocyst settles in the uterus, it settles into 2 cell clusters: The inner cluster of the cells forms the EMBRYO, the outer ring of cells forms the placenta (inner part = blastocyst cavity)
The Embryonic Stage
From 2-8 weeks after conception
Human embryo 4 weeks after conception, embryo starts to develop major body parts (organs, limbs)
The Fetal Stage
8 weeks to birth (ideally 40 weeks)
We enter the world with apps 100 million neurons (4000/second)
Biggest gain in weight for the baby
Maternal Malnourishment
Increases the risk of giving birth to lower weight newborns that are more prone to illness and deficits in mental functioning
Ex) Severe malnourishment in Holland in WWII
Teratogens
Substances that negatively affect the process of development in Utero
Ex) The use of the drug thalidomide - caused severe birth defects, including blindness, deafness and limb deformities called PHOCOMELIA
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Infant is born with a number of disabilities
Smoking & Pregnancy lowers the amount of much needed oxygen for the fetus to consume, and also adds chemical
Preterm Infants
The chance of a baby’s survival if it is born at only 25 weeks is about 50%, and the babies that do survive suffer permanent damage to their brain & other organs
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
A syndrome in which infants die because they stop breathing
Infants, particularly preterm have very vulnerable respiratory system
Exposure to 2nd hand smoke triples the risk that a baby will die of SIDS
Infant Sensory Abilities
- Infants enter the world preferring their mother’s voice over other voices.
- Infant vision is especially well-designed to facilitate interactions with their mother while breastfeeding (best point of vision = 30cm).
- Infants taste and smelling ability is about equivalent to adults
- Can’t distinguish colours until 2 months
- Can’t distinguish depth until 4 months
- Can’t perceive objects/shapes as well as adults until 8 months
Infant Social Abilities
Infants imitate adults facial expressions
In experiments that measure infants looking time to different stimuli, babies show a preference for human faces over other comparison stimuli
Ex) babies can use their sense of smell to determine mothers breast milk from another milk
Synaptogenesis
rapid formation of new synapses in the brain, creation of neural connections
Synaptic Pruning
deleting unnecessary/weak neural connections (occurs lots as a child and less frequency as an adult)
We need these both because sometimes when we are young we develop snaps we don’t need, so pruning them maximizes efficiency
Infant Reflexes
Involuntary motor actions that help newborn infants adapt to life outside the uterus
Ex) Newborn babies have a ROOTING REFLEX (stimulating the corner of an infant’s mouth causes the baby to move their head toward the source of the stimulation and start sucking as if they are breastfeeding
Ex) MORO REFLEX (newborns react with a startle response whenever they lose support of their head - reduces chance of baby falling out of mother’s arms
Ex) GRASPING REFLEX (touching a baby’s palm causes them to tighten their grasp with surprising strength
Motor Development
Infants learn to crawl, then walk
Jean Piaget
- Fascination with child cognitive development arose naturally from being a father of 3 children
- signature ideas was ASSIMILATION and ACCOMMODATION
Developmental Milestones
Achieving mastery over a particular skill
Piaget proposed that we all go through 4 stages of cognitive development
Specifically said that the end of each preceding stage depends on the child mastering some skills
ASSIMILATION
Acquiring new knowledge by relating it to what we already know
ACCOMMODATION
earning by adjusting old knowledge in the face of new information (like learning not all 4 legged creature are dogs, cats etc too)
Piaget’s 4 stages of Cognitive Development:
- Sensorimotor Stage
- Pre-operational Stage
- The Concrete Operational Stage
- The Formal Operational Stage
Sensorimotor Stage
- Birth to age 2
- All of the child’s awareness is tied to their sensory experience and they are not yet capable of any thoughts that are separate from what they can directly see, hear, taste, smell or feel. Even the concept of themselves
Ex) Lack of object permanence - an awareness that objects continue to exist when we are unable to directly perceive them
Pre-operational Stage
- Age 2-7
- Accomplishments include language acquisition and being able to think in other symbolic ways, such as with numbers
- Children acquire an increasing ability to use their imagination, to imitate the behaviour of others, and to pretend
Ex) Concept of Conservation - an accomplishment of this stage means learning that changes in a perceptual feature of a substance docent have the substances volume or quantity (like putting water in a large beaker vs. small test tube)
Ex) more smaller cookies vs one giant cookie
Young children seem to reason better about qualities of objects and amounts of substances when the problems have to do with CANDY
SCALE ERRORS: Children’s confuse scale models of objects with the real time (2 year old’s try to fit themselves in toy cars) lmao
Scale Errors
Children’s confuse scale models of objects with the real time (2 year old’s try to fit themselves in toy cars) lmao
The Concrete Operational Stage
- Age 7-11
- Children acquire skills in thinking logically, metalling performing operations with numbers and learn how to classify objects according to size, shape, colour etc.
Transitivity: If X>Y and Y>Z then X must be greater than Z
The Formal Operational Stage
- Age 11-adulthood
- Children experience an increasing complexity of reasoning capacity and the ability to think about abstract concepts
- The ability to adopt a scientific approach to problems also emerges at this stage
