Developmental Psychology Overview

Developmental Psychology Introduction

• Quantitative change involves a gradual increase in quantity, without altering the fundamental nature of a process.
• Qualitative change represents a dramatic shift in a process, with new functions emerging abruptly.
• U-shaped change involves temporary setbacks before improvement.
• Atypical development includes delays (slower pace of development within the typical trajectory) and divergences (different or unusual trajectory).

Counting Span Task

• Case et al. (1982) study showed children's working memory capacity increases with speed and efficiency in memory strategies.
• Older children (11 years old) predominantly use phonological strategies, while younger ones (5-year-olds) mainly use strategies based on visual memory.

Memory Strategies and Development

• Hitch et al. (1989) found qualitative change in memory strategies with age.
• Children learn to use past tense verbs, but sometimes overgeneralize rules, demonstrating temporary regression before adopting the final strategy.
• Roch & Jarrold (2008) study linked phonological awareness in Down syndrome individuals to delays in non-word reading.
• Brock & Jarrold (2005) research showed lower digit task performance compared to expected performance, given spatial task performance, in those with Down Syndrome.

Nature vs. Nurture

• Behavioral genetics studies explore the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to individual differences in traits.
• Heritability measures trait variation attributable to genetic variation within a population.
• Familial studies measure correlations in relatives.
• Twin studies compare monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins to assess the impact of genetics.
• Adoption studies examine twins separated at birth, reducing environmental similarity to assess genetic influence.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

• Piaget's theory proposes that children construct their knowledge through interaction with their environment.
• Stages of development include sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.
• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years): knowledge based on action.
• Preoperational stage (2-6 years): symbolic thought, egocentrism emerges.
• concrete operational stage (6-11 years): logical thought, but tied to concrete experiences.
• formal operational stage (11+ years): abstract and logical reasoning.
• Piaget emphasizes assimilation (integrating new information into existing schemas) and accommodation (adjusting schemas to fit new information).
• Sensorimotor development includes object permanence, A-not-B error, and symbolic thought.

Egocentrism

• Young children in the preoperational stage struggle to see the world from others' perspectives.
• This is demonstrated through tasks such as the three-mountains experiment.
• Children have difficulty understanding that others might perceive things differently.

Evaluating Piaget

• Object permanence is demonstrated earlier than Piaget suggested, based on studies like Hood & Willatts (1986).
• Piaget's theory, while influential, was criticized for oversimplifying cognitive development and underestimating children's capacities.
• Siegler's overlapping waves theory emphasizes that children use multiple strategies to solve problems, and these strategies coexist and change over time.
• Piaget's theory underestimated the gradual and quantitative changes in cognitive development.

Sensation, Perception, and Action

• Perception of vision, audition, taste, smell and touch develops after birth.
• Infants show visual preferences for patterned stimuli and faces.
• Cross-modal perception is the ability to integrate information across different senses.
• Preferences for certain tastes and smells may be influenced by experiences in the womb or early life.

Competence vs. Performance

• Competence refers to what a child actually knows, but performance describes how well that knowledge is demonstrated.
• Children might fail tasks due to limitations in executive function skills (attention, working memory, inhibition).
• Immaturity in these areas can affect performance, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the underlying competence is missing.

Early Social Perception

• Biological origins of early face preferences may contribute to social learning.
• Imprinting mechanisms in humans likely facilitate initial social interactions.
• Research on newborns and imitation emphasizes early intersubjectivity.
• The importance of contingency factors in infant-caregiver interactions highlights the role of experience in social development.

Joint Attention

• Joint attention refers to shared focus on an object or event between two individuals.
• Pointing behaviors and gaze following in infants help with the development of joint attention abilities.
• Shared attention lays the foundation for infants to understand others' intentions and communicate with them.

Memory Development

• Implicit memory refers to non-conscious memory, and explicit memory involves conscious recall.
• Semantic memory is general knowledge, while episodic memory comprises personal memories.
• Childhood amnesia is the difficulty recalling early childhood memories.
• Memory abilities undergo development along with language acquisition.

Suggestibility in Children's Memories

• Young children are more susceptible to suggestions about events they have experienced or to information provided by interviewers.
• Children are more easily influenced and their eyewitness accounts may become clouded by misleading information.

Language Development

• Language development begins prenatally.
• Infants gradually differentiate between the sounds of their native language and other languages.
• Vocabulary acquisition is influenced by fast mapping and mutual exclusivity.
• Syntax development involves acquiring the rules of grammar.

Neurodiverse Development

• Domain-general theories propose a unified system for cognitive development, and domain-specific theories stress specialized brain structures for different cognitive abilities.
• Developmental language disorder (DLD) reflects atypical development in a specific domain.
• Other neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and Williams syndrome are also domains-specific, with particular strengths and challenges.

Early Emotional Development

• Attachment theory emphasizes the importance of early relationships in shaping emotional development.
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation is used to assess attachment styles in children.
• Secure attachment is characterized by a child's comfort in exploring the environment and seeking comfort from the caregiver upon reunion; while insecure attachment styles are associated with distress upon separation, avoidance, or ambivalent responses.

Cultural Differences in Attachment Style

• Cultural factors influence attachment styles.
• These differences reflect diverse parenting styles and expectations about independence and dependence.

Early Social Cognition

• Infants recognize goal-directed behavior in others, even with non-human actors.
• Understanding intentionality in actions is a crucial cognitive milestone for later social interactions.
• This understanding emerges by around 6 months to 2 years.
• Meta-representation is the ability to think about mental states (beliefs, desires, intents) in oneself and others.

Early Moral Development

• Prosocial behavior, including helping, is commonly observed in young children.
• Early moral judgments may reflect simple concern with consequences or conformity but gradually incorporate social rules and principles.
• Kohlberg's stages of moral development describe how moral reasoning evolves from focusing on consequences and obedience towards abstract principles.

Perceptual Constancy in Newborns

• Perceptual constancy is the ability to recognize that objects maintain their properties even when their appearance changes.
• Studies have shown that infants display size constancy.
• Integration of perception and action is demonstrated early on through reflexes, and visual cliff examples.

Theory of Mind

• Theory of Mind (TOM) refers to the ability to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that may differ from one's own.
• TOM development is assessed using experiments like the Sally-Anne task.
• Children's performance on TOM tasks is frequently linked to age.
• Alternative explanations exist for TOM development challenges.