Week 4 Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
A bio-social view
- > Social environment
- > Nurture: exposure to a particular environment
- > Maturing CNS
- > Nature: gradual unfolding of one’s genetic blueprint
Development Research Approaches
Cross-sectional:
Several groups of people of different ages are studied/compared at one point in time
Longitudinal:
A single group of people are studied as they age over time
Sequential:
A combination of the above (i.e. several groups are studied, each over time)
Physical prenatal development
- Germinal
- Embryonic
- Fetal
Germinal stage
(first 2 weeks)
► Conception
► Implantation
► Formation of placenta
Embryonic stage
(2 weeks – 2 months)
► Formation of vital organs and; systems
Fetal stage
► Bodily growth continues
► Movement capability begins
► Brain cells multiply
► Age of viability
Genotypes v Phenotypes
Genotype
► Genetic make-up (genes)
► Present at conception
Phenotype
► Observable characteristics
► Influenced by genotype + environment
Teratogens associated with
- Deformities of face, body, limbs
- Organ defects
- Growth restriction, premature birth
- Neurological problems
- Mental problems
- Deafness, blindness
What are teratogens
Prenatal development is a crucial stage of development that can be affected adversely by teratogens:
- Maternal malnutrition
- Maternal illness (e.g. Rubella, Mumps, AIDS, Syphilis, Herpes, other STIs)
- Substance use (e.g. tobacco, alcohol, prescription & recreational drugs)
Reflex development
- Inborn, automatic responses to particular forms of stimulation
- Human infants are born with a set of ~20 reflexes
► Some lifelong (e.g. swallowing, orienting)
► Some disappear between first 2 to 6 months - Example neonatal reflexes:
► Sucking
► Swallowing
► Stepping
► Grasping
Infancy motor development
2 months - lift head up 2-3 months - able to roll over 3 months - sit with support 6 months - sit without support 7 months - stand holding on 9 months - walk holding on 10 months - stand momentarily 11 months - stand alone 12 months - walk alone
Rudimentary motor abilities (6 - 18 months)
► Reaching ► Crawling ► Standing ► Throwing ► Sitting ► Walking
Fundamental motor abilities (18 months - 6 years)
► Running ► Hopping ► Kicking ► Jumping ► Skipping ► Catching
Development 7 years and on
Application and; refinement of fundamental abilities (7 - 12 years)
Specialised skills (12+ years) ► Depends on area of concentration
Sensory Development in Infancy - smell and touch
SMELL
- Prefer pleasant (chocolate, bananas) > unpleasant (rotten eggs)
- Breastfeeding babies can identify mothers by smell
TOUCH
- Most sensitive around mouth, palm, feet
- Calms crying, assists sleep cycles, skin-to-skin contact promotes growth in premature infants
Sensory Development in Infancy - hearing and taste
HEARING - Well-developed at birth - Can locate sources of sound - Newborns have innate preference for: ► Mother’s voice ► Human speech sounds ► Native language ► Infant-directed speech – “motherese” TASTE - Preference for sweet (breastmilk) - Can taste sour and; bitter, salty comes ~4 months old
Sensory Development in Infancy - vision
VISION Not very well-developed at birth ► 20cm fixed focus ► 20/500 visual acuity Prefer bold, high-contrasting colours Adult vision by 8 months ► Coincides with onset of crawling Visual cliff and; depth perception (Gibson and; Walk, 1960)
Sensory Development in Adulthood
- All sensory systems deteriorate with age
- Older people have difficulties with colour vision, dark adaptation, visual contrasts, detecting high-pitch sounds, etc.
- Partly due to disuse rather than decay
Cognitive Development
- The development of perceiving, imagining, thinking, reasoning, problem-solving, knowledge
- Describes cognitive development in terms of qualitatively different, discrete stages
- Major approaches
► Piaget’s “structural” theory
Piaget’s structural theory
JEAN PIAGET - Swiss genetic epistemologist - Interested in the way children think, and how they come to develop fundamental concepts (e.g. number, time, quantity, causality, justice) - First major theoretical account of children’s cognitive development - Three tenets of Piaget’s theory: ► Schemas ► Adaptation processes ► Stages of development
Piaget’s theory - schemas
- Each schema incorporates knowledge about one specific aspect of the world(e.g. object, action, abstract concept)
- Building blocks of cognition
- Form a mental model of our world
- As children develop, their schemas become more numerous and complex (form interconnected network of schemas)
Schemas in children
Equilibrium:
When a child’s existing schemas can explain what it sees around it
Disequililbrium:
When a child’s existing schemas can NOT explain what it sees around it, it engages in adaptation processes:
► Assimilation
► Accommodation
Piaget’s theory - adaptations
Assimilation:
The re-use of existing schemas to fit in new information
Accommodation:
Formation of new schema for new information
Piaget’s theory - development stages
FOUR STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore the world:
1. Sensorimotor Stage (birth – 2 years)
2. Preoperational Stage (2 – 7 years)
3. Concrete Operational Stage (7 – 11 years)
4. Formal Operational Stage (11+ years)
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (birth – 2 years)
Exploration via senses and motor abilities
► Begins with reflexes
► Own body -> Environment; Accidental -> Intentional
► Imitative ability develops (faces, gestures)
No mental representations
► World only exists for infant if they can perceive it through senses
Object permanence: understanding that things continue to exist even when hidden from view (incomplete ~2 years)
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2 – 7 years)
- Mental representations/symbolic thought developed
- Increase in representational activity
► Language
► Make-believe play - Difficulty entertaining multiple, conflicting representations
► Egocentrism: inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s (i.e. Theory of Mind)
► Animism: inanimate objects imagined to have life like properties
► Centration: fixation on single aspect (neglecting others)
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2 – 7 years) Piaget’s test
Cannot perform logical operations – “dominated by perceptions”
Piaget’s conservation tasks
-> Test understanding that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes
Failure of conservation characterised by:
► Irreversibility: child unable to reverse a concrete operation
► Centration: child concentrates on one feature and cannot coordinate several (e.g. height vs. weight)
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7 – 11 years)
- Less egocentric, less perceptually-dominated
- Children acquire mental operations that enable them to solve problems logically
- Concrete operations/logical thinking used
► Understanding of conservation, reversibility
► Only when faced with concrete information that can be perceived directly
► Limited to the here and now
FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (12+ years)
Further development of logical thinking/reasoning:
► Abstract thought (e.g. algebraic equations)
► Idealistic thought
► Scientific, systematic, hypothetical-deductive problem solving
- Increased interest in abstract, intangible phenomena: (e.g. love, justice, morality, values, thought itself)
Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory
- Cognitive development doesn’t go through “stages”
- Under-estimated competencies of children
- Over-estimated capacities of adolescents
- Task demands (e.g. assumptions about experimenters goals)
- Socio-cultural influences
- Do all individuals reach formal operations?
LEV VYGOTSKY
- Emphasised role of social and; cultural factors
- Infants born with basic functions for intellectual development:
► Attention
► Sensation
► Perception
► Memory - Through socio-cultural interaction, these develop into higher mental functions
Key features:
► More Knowledgeable Other
► Zone of Proximal Development - Importance of language
Language Development
The development of understanding and; use of language
Nature: language is built in to the human brain
► Developmental regularity across the world
► Generality of language
Nurture: language is learned through human interactions
► Rate of language development depends on input
► Variation in languages across the world
Noam Chomsky: innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
Language in Early Infancy
EARLY INFANCY 0 months ► Infant cries, gurgles grunts 1-3 months ► Increasing repertoire of sounds (e.g. coos, chuckles) 4-8 months ► Babbles (become increasingly social, “universal” -> language-specific) ► Sounds chained together ► Able to distinguish phonemes/sounds
Language in Late Infancy
LATE INFANCY 8-12 months ► Intentional sounds ► Precursors of speech ► Understands first words 12-18 months ► First words ► Communicative intent (e.g. pointing) ► Understands and; follows simple commands
Language 18-24 months
18 – 24 months
► Rapid acquisition and; expansion of vocabulary
► 2-word utterances
► Basic syntax (e.g. word ordering)
► Telegraphic speech: leave out smaller/less important words
► Overextension: applying a word to a wider collection of objects/events than is appropriate
► Underextension: applying a word too narrowly than is appropriate (less common than over-extension)
Language 2-3 years
2 – 3 years ► 3- and 4-word sentences ► Continued development of syntax ► Emergence of running commentary ► Vocabulary: 1000+ words ► Begin to produce inflectional morphemes (e.g. “-s” for plural, “-ed” for past tense)
Language 3-4 years
3 – 4 years
► Continued explosion of vocabulary
► Use of tenses, conjunctions and; complex sentences
► Over-regularisation errors occur (e.g. go/goed)
