DEV-PSYCH-FINALS-merged PDF

THIS IS A BOARD EXAM SUBJECT. Lesson 1: Introduction to Course (Developmental Psychology)  What is HUMAN DEVELOPMENT? o It is the process of growth and change that takes place between birth and maturity (until death). o It is the scientific study of age-related changes...

THIS IS A BOARD EXAM SUBJECT. Lesson 1: Introduction to Course (Developmental Psychology)  What is HUMAN DEVELOPMENT? o It is the process of growth and change that takes place between birth and maturity (until death). o It is the scientific study of age-related changes throughout the human life span. 1. Examines how and why people change overtime. 2. Examines how and why people are both unique and similar to each other. 3. Multidisciplinary science based on theories and researches.  What is DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY? It recognizes humans of all societies and cultures as beings who are “in process,” or constantly growing and changing. This discipline identifies the biological, psychological, and social aspects that interact to influence the growing human life-span process.  What is a NORM? o DEVELOPMENTAL NORM – a standard based upon the average abilities or performances of children of a specified age. o NORMS – averages of growth, development, work-rate, or various other abilities observed across populations.  THE HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY The History of Developmental Psychology 1. Ancient to Middle Ages o Children were seen as inherently evil and discipline was harsh. 2. Modern Viewpoints on Children o John Locke (tabula rasa) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (children are inherently good, society is bad) o But children are still seen as “little adults”. 3. 1800’s (Industrial Revolution) o Saw different stages of development according to age. o I.e. infancy, childhood, adulthood, old age. o Beginning with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Jean Piaget (1896-1980), the early focus of developmental psychology was on child development, or the maturation of children. 4. 1950’s o Stanley Hall said that there is between childhood and adulthood, the stage called adolescence. 5. Within the last 25 years, o Researchers who study human Developmentalists development – expanded their focus to include the study of the physical, motor, cognitive, intellectual, emotional,  personality, social, and moral changes that occur throughout all stages of life span.  ASSUMPTIONS WITHIN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Assumptions Within Developmental Psychology 1. Development is LIFELONG o Development occurs across lifespan of the individual, including both growth and ageing, gains and losses, all of which interact in dynamic ways. 2. Development is o Biological, socio-emotional, and MULTIDIMENSIONAL cognitive aspects overlap within development. o For example, intelligence contains many overlapping components such as verbal, spatial, social, and nonverbal intelligence. 3. Development is o Some dimensions of MULTIDIRECTIONAL development may increase or grow while others decrease. o Wisdom, for example, may increase while mental agility may decline. 4. Development is FLUID o Depending on an individual’s life conditions, development may take many paths and there is often potential for change. o For example, the reasoning abilities of adults may be improved through training. 5. Development is EMBEDDED IN o Historical conditions are very HISTORY important. o For example, the career orientation of many 30-year-old females today is very different from those of women 40 years old. 6. Development is o Sociologists, psychologists, MULTIDISCIPLINARY linguists, anthropologists, medical researchers, and neuroscientists all study human development from different perspectives. 7. Development is CONTEXTUAL o Individuals continually respond to and act on various contexts that in turn influence them.  DEBATES WITHIN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY o THE LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE – an approach to human development which examines changes at all ages, through adolescence and adulthood, to late adulthood, up until death.  one of the basic approaches of current developmental psychology.  many earlier approaches strongly prioritized the first six years of life as a blueprint that would determine the pattern and course of an individual’s life. Most contemporary approaches in developmental psychology – including the life-span perspective – examine the entire life-span. o STABILITY VERSUS CHANGE – earlier psychological theory supposed that personality was fundamentally shaped during the early childhood years and remained, in relative terms, the same thereafter.  first five years of childhood influence people permanently.  children are no longer seen as passive recipients of environmental influences, but as active protagonists in influencing and moderating these environmental factors. o NATURE VERSUS NURTURE  HEREDITY – those inborn characteristics which we inherit through our genes from our parents.  NATIVISM – the viewpoint that our characteristics and abilities are chiefly determined by our inborn characteristics (often also referred to as genetic determinism). This represents our nature side of the nature-nurture debate.  ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM – the view that environmental factors exert the greatest influence on human development. This represents the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate. o CONTINUITY VERSUS DISCONTINUITY – does developmental growth follow a gradual and cumulative pattern (as, for example, a huge tree develops from a tiny seedling), or does growth rather take place in clearly differentiated stages (as a larva transforms into a moth).  Nature of Developmental Changes:  QUANTITATIVE CHANGES – changes in degree or amount; for example, changes in height or weight.  QUALITATIVE CHANGES – changes in kind, structure, or organization, which make a fundamental difference to the individual. For example, the preverbal infant is qualitatively different to the toddler who can speak. o ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY  PHYLOGENY – application of developmental psychology to the understanding of the development of a wider group of people or ‘species’.  ONTOGENY – application of developmental psychology to the understanding of the individual development of a specific child or person. o CRITICAL PERIODS  CRITICAL PERIOD – a specific time during development when a given event has its greatest effect.  READINESS – the point at which an individual can be said to have matured sufficiently to benefit from a particular learning experience.  o NORMATIVE AND NON-NORMATIVE INFLUENCES  NORMATIVE – an event is normative when it occurs in a similar manner for most people in a given group; for example, physical changes such as puberty or menopause.  NON-NORMATIVE – these are unusual events that have a significant impact on an individual’s life.  CONTEXTS FOR DEVELOPMENT o CASE STUDY EXAMPLE o BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL FRAMEWORK o BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL MODEL/FRAMEWORK – the interaction of biological, psychological, and social aspects of developmental psychology from the essence of holistic biopsychosocial perspective.  REDUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE - in contrast to the biopsychosocial perspective, which reduces complex phenomenon or events to a single cause.   CONTEXTS FOR DEVELOPMENT Contexts for Development 1. BIOLOGICAL CONTEXT o Health and physical status. 2. SOCIAL CONTEXT o Family network, friends, peers, and colleagues. 3. CULTURAL CONTEXT o The dominant culture in which the subject grows up. 4. HISTORICAL CONTEXT o The times in which the subject grows up. 5. ECONOMIC CONTEXT o The subject’s financial and work environment. 6. INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT o The subject’s ability to deal with new challenges.  RESEARCH APPROACHES  5 CRITICISMS OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY o Burman’s (1994) five general themes. 1. Developmental psychology as a means of social regulation and control. 2. The ‘normalizing’ effects of developmental psychology. 3. The ‘colonialism’ of normalization. 4. The ‘blameworthy mother’. 5. An isolated focus on the individual child.  APPROACHES/PERSPECTIVES OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT o PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACHES – observe the significance of childhood in the development of personality.  childhood is seen as the developmental period where the child is most vulnerable to the influences of social, cultural, and family demands. It is also the time when the human organism is still in its most formative stage and is developing ways of coping with both external and internal demands.  Psychoanalytic theories propose that it is during childhood that the relationship between culture and physiology is at its most significant. o COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT  COGNITION – a collective term for the processes involved in acquiring, organizing, manipulating, and using knowledge. Lesson 2 UNIT 1: FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT  DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLGY AS A BRANCH OF PSYCHOLOGY o DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY - is primarily concerned with the description and explanation of changes that occur in psychological processes at any point in the life span. o DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGISTS – study how heredity and environment interact to produce change from conception throughout the lifespan.  SEVERAL PERSPECTIVES OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY o LIFELONG – womb to womb; no age period dominates development.  o MULTIDIRECTIONAL – the study of change from multiple directions of influence.  BUTTERFLY EFFECT – one small action or event set of a much larger chain of effects. o MULTICULTURAL – there are many, many cultures around the world!  Each one is influential.  Each one has separate values, traditions, living standards, etc. that influence the individuals. o MULTIDISCIPLINARY – we have to use many different fields in order to effectively study development. o PLASTICITY – developmental changes occur throughout the lifespan and can be drastically altered at any point in time. o MULTICONTEXTUAL – there are many contexts that affect human development.  Normative age-graded influences  Normative history-graded influences  Nonnormative life events o DEVELOPMENT INVOLVES GROWTH, MAINTENANCE, AND REGULATION OF LOSS  Example: a 75-year-old man might aim not to improve his memory or his gold swing, but to maintain his independence and his ability to play golf at all. o DEVELOPMENTT IS A CO-CONSTRUCTION OF BIOLOGY, CULTURE, AND THE INDIVIDUAL – the brain shapes culture, but it is also shaped by culture and the experiences that individuals have or pursue.  We can go beyond what our genetic inheritance or environment give us.  BIOLOGICAL, COGNITIVE, AND SOCIOEMOTION PROCESSES  GICAL PROCESSES – produce changes in an individual’s physical nature.  Example: genes inherited from parents, the development of the brain, height and weight, changes in motor skills, nutrition, exercise, the hormonal changes of puberty, the cardiovascular decline. o COGNITIVE PROCESSES – refer to changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.  Example: watching a colorful mobile swinging above the crib, putting together a two-word sentence, memorizing a poem, imagining what it would be like to be a movie star, and solving a cross-word puzzle. o SOCIOEMOTIONAL PROCESSES – involve changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality.  Example: an infant’s smile in response to a parent’s touch, a toddler’s aggressive attack on a playmate, a school-age child’s development of assertiveness, an adolescent’s joy at the senior prom, and the affection of an elderly couple.  PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT/DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES  BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT o DEVELOPMENT – is a pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the lifespan.  Most development involves growth, although it also includes decline brought on by aging and dying.  In exploring development, we will examine the life span from the point of conception until the time when life (or at least life as we know it) ends.  LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE o THE LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE – is the perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; involves growth, maintenance, and regulation; and is constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual factors working together. o THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE  Part of your everyday life is dealing with children. Consequently, the more you learn about them, the better you can deal with them.  Who are we?  How did we come to be this way?  Where do our future will take us?  You will see yourself as an infant, as a child, and as an adolescent, and be stimulated to think about how those years influenced the kind of individual that you are today. And you will see yourself as a young adult, as a middle-aged adult, and as an adult in old age, and be motivated to think about how your experiences today will influence your development through the remainder of your adult years. o LIFE EXPECTANCY – is the average time that a human being is expected to live, based on his or her birth year, current age, and other demographic factors such as gender and country of birth.  FACTORS AFFECTING DEVELOPMENT o INTERNAL FACTORS – things that are unique to the individual that can influence development.   Genetics  Physical maturation  Cognition o EXTERNAL FACTORS – things that are outside of the individuals that can influence development.  Socioeconomic status  Availability of resources  Social influences  DEVELOPMENTAL PERIOD o Refers to a time frame in a person’s life that is characterized by certain features. DEVELOPMENTAL PERIODS 1. PRENATAL PERIOD o Involves tremendous growth – from a single cell to an organism with complete brain and behavioral capabilities – and takes place in a approximately a 9-month period. 2. INFANCY o Many psychological activities – language, symbolic thought, sensorimotor combination, and social learning, for example, are just beginning. 3. TODDLER o This term is often used to describe a child from about 1 ½ to 3 years of age and in a transitional period between infancy and the next period, the early childhood. 4. EARLY CHILDHOOD o Or preschool years o Is the time where young children learn to become more self-sufficient and to care for themselves, develop school readiness skills (following instructions, identifying letters), and spend many hours playing with peers. 5. MIDDLE AND LATE CHILDHOOD o Master the fundamental skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and they are formally exposed to the larger world and its culture. 6. ADOLESCENCE o Begins with rapid physical  changes – dramatic gains in height and weight, changes in body contour, and the developmental of sexual characteristics such as enlargement of breasts, growth of pubic and facial hair, and deepening of voice. o At this point of development, the pursuit of independence and identity are preeminent. Thought is more logical, abstract, and idealistic. More time is spent outside of the family. 7. EMERGING ADULTHOOD o The transition from adolescence to adulthood. o The period from approximately 18-25 years of age. 8. EARLY ADULTHOOD o Is a time of establishing personal and economic independence, advancing in a career, and for many, selecting a mate, learning to live with that person in an intimate way, starting a family, and rearing children. 9. MIDDLE ADULTHOOD o Is a time expanding personal and social involvement and responsibility; of assisting the next generation in becoming competent, mature individuals; and of reaching and maintaining satisfaction in career. 10. LATE ADULTHOOD o Is a time of live review, retirement, and adjustment to new social roles and diminishing strength and health. o It has the longest span of any period of development, and as noted earlier, the number of people in this period has been increasing dramatically. THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT Lesson 3 UNIT 2: PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT  THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE o NATURAL SELECTION – is the process by which those individuals of a species that best adapted, survive and reproduce.  Darwin (The Origin of Species, 1859) proposed that natural selection fuels evolution.  Those that do survive and reproduce pass on their characteristics to the next generation. Darwin argued that these survivors are better adapted than those that did not survive.  ADAPTIVE BEHAVIORS – are behaviors that promote an organism’s survival in the natural habitat.  Example: Attachment between a caregiver and a baby ensures the infant’s closeness to a caregiver for feeding and protection from danger, thus increasing the infant’s chance of survival.  EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY o Emphasizes the importance of adaptation, reproduction, and “survival of the fittest” in shaping behavior. o Evolution gave us biological propensities but it does not dictate behavior. People have used their biological capacities to produce diverse cultures – aggressive and peace-loving, egalitarian and autocratic. o Biology allows a broad-range of cultural possibilities.  HOW ARE GENES PASSED ON?  o The first cell of a new human being forms during fertilization when an egg cell (from the mother) combines with a sperm cell (from the father). This cell has the genetic information that includes the encoded building instructions for the whole body. From now on, every time a cell divides, a complete copy of this genetic information is passed on to the two new (“daughter”) cells.  WHAT CARRIES THE GENETIC INFORMATION?  o As the growing baby develops in the womb, sca continue dividing, leading to the formation of various types of cells, tissues, and organs. Even though the cells in different types of tissue (e.g. muscle cells and liver cells) carry out different tasks, they still contain the same genetic information that was passed on from the very first cell. o But when people talk about genes being passed on, they generally don’t mean genes being passed on from cell to cell during cell division. Instead, they usually mean genes being passed on from parents to children. This is known as “heredity” or “inherited genes”. o Genetic information is all of the information stored in our DNA. DNA stands for “deoxyribonucleic acid”. The strands of DNA look like a twisted ladder, known as a double helix. Each step of this ladder is made up of two bases. There are four different bases:  Adenine (A)  Thymine (T)  Guanine (G)  Cytosine (C)  The different types of bases result in different kinds of “ladder steps”. o The order (sequence) of the different steps produces a code of letters. This code serves as the building instructions for the cell to make proteins. o GENE - the sequence of genetic information that contains the building instructions for a specific protein.  Genes vary in length, from a few hundred to over 100,000 bases. The DNA typically has sections before each gene that act as switches. These sections are responsible for the fact that certain genes are only activated in muscle cells while others are only activated in liver cells, for example.  When different genes are “read”, different proteins are made – each with their own function. For instance, some proteins are used as enzymes or hormones to regulate specific processes in the body. Other proteins are used as building blocks in the body or serve to transport in the bloodstream. The cell nucleus contains a lot of proteins, too: some help to read the DNA code, while others help to support the structure of the DNA.  WHAT ARE CHROMOSOMES?  o Human genetic information isn’t encoded on just one strand of DNA. A cell nucleus contains a number of strands. o CHROMOSOMES – strands in a cell nucleus.  Before cells divide, the chromosomes become more tightly packed into a condensed form which can be seen through a microscope. Chromosomes always come in pairs.  AUTOSOMES - human beings have 22 pairs of chromosomes that look identical.  The pairs of chromosomes are sorted according to what parts of the genetic information they have, and then numbered from 1-22. Every cell nucleus has another pair of chromosomes too: the two sex chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes whereas men have one X chromosome have one Y chromosome.  WHAT INFLUENCES DO GENES HAVE?  o What we look like and how our body functions is determined by a combination of our genes, our lifestyle, and our environment. o So it’s usually not possible to say that a particular characteristic or trait is due to a specific gene. Also, many traits are influenced by different genes working together – like your height and skin tone. Some genes affect several traits as well. o Another complicating factor is that the gene come in pairs. That means that there are two of every gene. o ALLELES - the different versions of the genes. One is from the father, and one from the mother. Even if both versions of the genes have the same task, they may be slightly different to each other. o Sometimes these different versions of genes (alleles) result in different result in different traits. The blood groups are on example.  Some of the blood group traits are determined by genes on chromosome 9. If someone has the allele for blood group A, on both chromosomes, then a certain protein called the A antigen is produced on the surface of their red blood cells. If the allele for blood group B is on both chromosomes, then the B antigen is produced on the blood cells. If one chromosome has the allele for blood group A and the other chromosome has the allele for blood group B, both of the antigens are produced, and the person has the blood group AB.  WHAT DO THE TERMS DOMINANT AND RECESSIVE MEAN? o In the blood group example, the A allele and B allele are equally “strong”. But sometimes one allele of a gene is “stronger” than the other, and determines what trait is expressed, overriding the other allele. o DOMINANT ALLELE – the stronger allele. o RECESSIVE ALLELE – the weaker allele. o This also applies to blood groups: besides the two alleles for A and B, there is another allele that doesn’t lead to production of A or B on the red blood cells. This “non-antigen” allele is recessive, though. So someone who has one chromosome with the non-antigen allele and one with the A allele will still have blood group A. Only if both chromosomes have the non-antigen allele with that person have red blood cells without any antigens on them – known as blood group “O”. o This blood group example also shows that the same traits and characteristics don’t necessarily come from identical genetic information. Some people who have blood group A have the allele for A antigens on both chromosomes, and others have the allele for A antigens on one and the allele for no antigens on the other.  WHY DO WE HAVE TWO VERSIONS OF MOST GENES? e from the mother and one from the father has some advantages. For instance, if one chromosomes has a recessive allele that causes a disease, the healthy dominant allele on the other chromosome may be able to reduce severity of the disease or even prevent it. Also, mixing the genes can create completely new combination of genes, which may help future generations to better adapt to environmental conditions or may protect them from diseases.  WHY ARE THERE GENETIC DISORDERS OR ABNORMALITIES? o MONOGENIC DISORDER - genetic disorders can be caused by a mutation in one gene. o MULTIFACTORIAL INHERITANCE DISORDER – genetic disorders can be caused mutations in multiple genes. o Genetic disorders can be caused by a combination of gene mutations and environmental factors, or by damage to chromosomes (changes in the number or structure of the entire chromosomes, the structure that carry the genes). o For example: chromosomal abnormalities produce down syndrome, which is caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21. Sex-linked conditions include Klinefelter syndrome, fragile X syndrome, Turner syndrome, and XYY syndrome.  GENE-LINKED ABNORMALITIES – involve harmful or absent genes.  ARE THERE PRENATAL DIAGNOSTIC TESTS? o Ultrasound sonography, fetal MRI, chorionic villus sampling, amniocentesis, and maternal blood screening are used to determine whether a fetus is developing normally. Determination of the sex of the fetus is occurring earlier in prenatal development through noninvasive methods.  BEHAVIOR GENETICS o Is the field concerned with the influence of heredity and environment on individual differences in human traits and development. Research methods used by behavior geneticists include twin studies and adoption studies.  SCARR’S HEREDITY ENVIRONMENT CORRELATION o PASSIVE – children inherit genetic tendencies from their parents, and parents also provide an environment that matches their own genetic tendencies.  Example: Musically inclined parents usually have musically inclined children and they are likely to provide an environment in music for their children. o EVOCATIVE – the child’s genetic tendencies elicit stimulation from the environment that supports a particular trait. Thus genes evoke environmental support.  Example: A happy, outgoing child elicits smiles and friendly responses from others. o ACTIVE (NICHE-PICKING) – children actively seek out “niches” in their environment that reflect their own interests and talents that are thus in accord with their genotype.  Example: Libraries, sports fields, and a store with musical instruments are examples of environmental niches children might seek out if they have intellectual interests in books, talent in sports, or musical talents, respectively. o Heredity directs the types of environments that children experience. She describes three genotype-environment correlations: passive, evocative, and active (niche-picking). Scarr argues that the relative importance of these three genotype-environment correlations changes as children develop. o NICHE-PICKING – refer to finding a setting that is suited to one’s genetically influenced abilities.  SHARED AND NON-SHARED ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIENCES o SHARED ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIENCES – are siblings’ common experiences, such as their parents’ personalities or intellectual orientation, the family’s socioeconomic status, and the neighborhood in which they live. o NONSHARED ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIENCES – consist of a child’s unique experiences, both within the family and outside of the family, that are not shared with a sibling. Even experiences occurring within the family can be part of “nonshared environment”.  Example: Parents often interact differently with each sibling, and siblings interact differently with parents. Siblings often have different peer groups, different friends, and different teachers at school, all of which contribute to their nonshared environments.  EPIGENETIC VIEW o THE EPIGENETIC VIEW – emphasizes that development is the result of an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between heredity and environment. Gene x environment interaction involves the interaction of a specific measured variation in DNA and a specific measured aspect of the environment. An increasing number of G x E are being conducted.  Example: A baby inherits genes from both parents at conception. During prenatal development, toxins, nutrition, and stress can influence some genes to stop functioning, while others become more active or less active. During infancy, environmental experiences such as toxins, nutrition, stress, learning, and encouragement continue to modify genetic activity and the activity of the nervous system that directly underlies behavior. Heredity and environment operate together – or collaborate – to produce a person’s intelligence, temperament, height, weight, ability to pitch a baseball, ability to read, and so on.  SUMMARY o Behaviors are influenced by genes and environments in a way that gives people a propensity for a particular developmental trajectory. The actual development requires both genes and an environment, and that environment is complex.  PREGNANCY SUPERSTITIONS AMONG FILIPINOS o A pregnant woman’s cravings will affect the baby’s appearance.  Truthfully, food (or any of the cravings and obsessions) has no effect on the baby’s physical appearance. The baby’s skin color will depend on the genes of the parents. The best way to find out what your baby will look like is through 4D ultrasounds.  Despite that, some may encourage pregnant moms to indulge their cravings since it is believed to be for the baby as well. The better thing to do would be to consult with your doctor on how to manage your diet to ensure that the baby is getting proper nutrients. o Avoid wearing necklaces or wrapping towels around your neck.  It is possible for the umbilical cord to wrap around the baby’s neck, particularly during the second and third trimester. This is caused by the baby’s own movements in the womb and not external factors. Getting regular check-ups with your doctor before delivery can give you more insights and possibly allay your fears. o Pregnant women should be avoid attending funerals.  The emotional stress that death brings can be a cause for concern. When you are stressed, the body copes by releasing the stress hormone cortisol. Unfortunately, the placenta surrounding the baby can also release this hormone. This hormone enters the amniotic fluid in small amounts, which may alter fetal metabolism. o Eating twin bananas can increase the chances of having twins.  In truth, twins are produced in two kinds of ways. The first is when a single embryo splits into two after fertilization, which creates identical twins. The second is when two separates egg cells are each fertilized by different sperm, resulting in fraternal twins. If you want to increase your chances of having twins, then it’s important to understand that genetics, family history, fertility, and treatments such as IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) play a great role.  Bananas and eggs are good sources of nutrients for pregnant mothers. Good prenatal care can help identify what you need to include in the diet to keep the mom and baby healthy. o Don’t sew or step over ropes to avoid labor difficulties.  Factors that can result to difficulties during labor are age, genetics, stress levels, existing medical conditions, and the like. Through prenatal consultations, you can address these concerncognitives and possibly find ways to ensure easier and safer delivery. o If the pregnant woman has spots or dark areas on the body, the baby will be a boy.  The gender of the baby isn’t something that is seen in the physical appearance. The only way to check the baby’s gender is through an ultrasound.   The health of the mom and baby should not depend on old wives’ tales or folklore. Proper prenatal care can best address the baby’s needs while in the womb, all while taking care of the mother’s health. Lesson 4 UNIT 3: NEONATAL DEVELOPMENT  LESSON OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES o It is very important for infants to get a healthy start. When they do, their first two years of life are likely to be a time of amazing development. In this chapter, we focus on the biological domain and the infant’s physical development, exploring physical growth, motor development, sensory and perceptual development, and socioemotional development.  NEONATAL DEVELOPMENT o NEONATAL - relating to newborn children (or other mammals). Also referred to as infancy. NEONATAL: PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT  CEPHALOCAUDAL PATTERN - developmental sequence in which the earliest growth occurs at the top –the head– with the physical growth in size, weight, and feature differentiation gradually working from top to bottom.  PROXIMODISTAL PATTERN - developmental sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves towards the extremities. Infants see objects before they can control their torso, and they can use their hands long before they can crawl or walk. Infants control the muscles of their trunk and arm before they control their hands and fingers, and they can use their whole hands before they can control their several fingers. o HEIGHT AND WEIGHT  o In the first several days of life, most newborns lose 5-7 percent of their body weight before they adjust to feeding by sucking, swallowing, and digesting. o They grow rapidly, gaining an average of 5 to 6 ounces per week during the 1st month. They have doubled their weight by the age of 4 months and have nearly tripled it by their 1st birthday. o Infants grow about 1 inch per month during the 1st year, approximately doubling their birth length by their 1st birthday. o Growth starts considerably in the 2nd year of life. By 2 years of age, infants weigh approximately 26 to 32 pounds, having gained a quarter to half a pound per month during the 2nd year to reach 1/5 of their adult weight. o At 2 years of age, infants average 32-35 inches in height, which is nearly half of their adult height. o BRAIN o By the time the infant is born, the infant that began as a single cell is estimated to have a brain that contains approx. 100 billion neurons. o The infant’s head should be protected from falls or other injuries, and should not be shaken. o SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME - includes brain swelling and hemorrhaging. o EEG - is best used to measure an infant brain’s electric activity. o At birth, the newborn’s brain is about 25 percent of its adult weight. o By the 2nd birthday, the brain is about 75 percent of its adult weight. However, the brain’s areas do not mature uniformly. o MAPPING THE BRAIN. Scientists analyze and categorize areas of the brain in numerous ways. The portion farthest from the spinal cord is known as the forebrain. o FOREBRAIN – this region includes the cerebral cortex and several structures beneath it. o CEREBRAL CORTEX – covers the forebrain like a wrinkled cap. o The brain has two halves, or two hemispheres. o Based on ridges and valleys in the cortex, scientists distinguish 4 main areas, called lobes, in each hemisphere. Although the lobes usually work together, each has a somewhat different primary function. o FRONTAL LOBES – are involved in voluntary movement, thinking, personality, and intentionality or purpose. o OCCIPITAL LOBES – function in vision. o TEMPORAL LOBES – have an active role in hearing, language processing, and memory. o PARIETAL LOBES – play an important roles in registering spatial location, attention, and motor control. o The cerebral cortex has two hemispheres (left and right). o LATERALIZATION - refers to specialization of function in one hemisphere or the other. o Early experiences play an important role in brain development. o Newborns show greater electrical brain activity in the L-hemisphere than the R-hemisphere when they are listening to speech sounds. o LEFT AND RIGHT HEMISPHERES  o WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INFANT AND ADULT BRAINS?  CHANGES IN NEURONS  CHANGES IN REGIONS OF THE BRAIN o CHANGES IN NEURONS o Neurons change into two very significant ways during the 1st year of life. o MYELINATION - is the process of encasing axons with fat cells (prenatal-birth-adolescence). o Increase of connectivity among neurons that creates new neural pathways. o SYNAPTIC PRUNING - a natural process that occurs in the brain between early childhood and adulthood. During synaptic pruning, the brain eliminates extra synapses. o SYNAPSES - are brain structures that allows the neurons to transmit an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron.  o THE NEURON. (a) DENRITES OF THE CELL BODY - receive information from other neurons, muscles, or glands through the axon. o (b) AXONS - transmit information away from the cell body. o (c) MYELIN SHEATH - covers most axons and speeds information transmission. o (d) As the axon ends, it branches out into TERMINAL BUTTONS. o CHANGES IN REGIONS OF THE BRAIN o Some areas of the brain such as the primary motor areas develop earlier than others such as the primary sensory areas. o Frontal lobes are immature in the newborn.  the frontal lobe become myelinated and interconnected in the 1st year of life, infants develop an ability to regulate sleep and reflexes. o Cognitive skills do not emerge until later in the 1st year. o The prefrontal region of the FL has the most prolonged development, of any brain region – with changes detectable into emerging adulthood. o EARLY EXPERIENCES AND THE BRAIN o Children who grow up in a deprived environment may have depressed brain activity. But are they reversible? o The brain can demonstrate flexibility and resilience. o Neuroscientists believe that what wires the brain – or rewires it, is repeated experience. o THE NEUROCONSTRUCTIVIST VIEW o Scientists have initially believed that our genes determined how our brains were ”wired” and that the cells in the brain responsible for processing information naturally unfolded with not much input from the environment. o But, the brain has plasticity and its development depends on context. o NEUROCONSTRUCTIVIST VIEW – emphasizes the importance of considering interactions between experience and gene expression in the brain’s development, much in the way the epigenetic view proposes. In this increasingly popular view:  Biological processes (genes, for example) and environmental conditions (enriched or impoverished, for example) influence the brain’s development.  The brain has plasticity and is context dependent.  Development of the brain and the child’s cognitive development are closely linked.  These factors constrain or advance the construction of cognitive skills. o SLEEP o Newborns usually sleep about 18 hours a day. By 6 months of age, many American infants approach adult-like sleeping patterns. o REM SLEEP — during which dreaming occurs—is present more in early infancy than in childhood and adulthood. Developmental stages in the average number of total hours spent in REM and non-REM sleep. o Sleeping arrangements for infants vary across cultures. In America, infants are more likely to sleep alone than in many other cultures.  o SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME (SIDS) – some experts believe that shared sleeping can lead to this, a condition that occurs when a sleeping infant suddenly stops breathing and dies without an apparent cause. However, it is generally accepted that the most critical factor in predicting whether an infant will develop SIDS is prone sleeping. o NUTRITION o Individual differences among infants in terms of their nutrient reserves, body composition, growth rates, and activity patterns make defining nutrient needs difficult. o As infants develop their motor skills, so as their eating movement: from suck-and-swallow to chew-and-swallow. o Caregivers play very important roles in infants’ early development of eating patterns. o Low maternal sensitivity when infants are 15-24 months is linked to higher risk of obesity in adolescence. o BREAST VS. BOTTLE FEEDING: WHICH IS BETTER?  For the first 4-6 mos. of life, human milk or alternative formula milk is the baby’s source of nutrients and energy.  The growing consensus is that breast feeding is better than bottle feeding. o WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BREAST FEEDING? THE FF. ARE SUPPORTED BY RESEARCH.  OUTCOMES FOR THE CHILD OUTCOMES FOR THE MOTHER o MALNUTRITION IN INFANCY: o MARASMUS - is a wasting away of body tissues in the infant’s first year, caused by severe protein-calorie deficiency.  An infant with Marasmus o KWASHIORKOR - is a condition caused by severe protein deficiency in which the child’s abdomen and feet become swollen with water; usually appears between 1-3 years old. A Honduran child with Kwashiorkor. NEONATAL: MOTOR DEVELOPMENT o DYNAMIC SYSTEMS THEORY o DYNAMIC SYSTEMS THEORY - Thelen’s and Smith’s dynamic systems theory seeks to explain how motor behaviors are assembled for perceiving and acting. o Perception and action are coupled. o Motor skills are the result of many converging factors, such as the development of the nervous system, the body’s physical properties and its movement possibilities, the goal the child is motivated to reach, and environmental support for the skill. o Motor development is far more complex than the result of a genetic blueprint. o HOW IS A MOTOR SKILL DEVELOPED, ACCORDING TO THIS THEORY?  When infants are motivated to do something, they might create a new motor behavior.   For example, babies learn to walk only when maturation of the nervous system allows them to control certain leg muscles, when their legs have grown enough to support their weight, and when they want to move. o REFLEXES o REFLEXES – automatic movements, govern the newborn’s behavior. o They include the sucking, rooting, and Moro reflexes. o The rooting and Moro reflexes disappear after three to four months. o Permanent reflexes include coughing and blinking. o For infants, sucking is an especially important reflex because it provides a means of obtaining nutrition. o REFLEXES – built-in reactions to stimuli that govern the newborn’s movements, which are automatic and beyond the newborn’s control. o ROOTING REFLEXES – a newborn’s built-in reaction that occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked or the side of the mouth is touched. In response, the infant turns his or her head toward the side that was touched. It is an apparent effort to find something to suck.  o SUCKING REFLEX – a newborn’s built-in reaction to automatically suck an object placed in its mouth. It enables infant to get nourishment before he or she associated a nipple with food and also serves as a self- soothing or self-regulating mechanism. o MORO REFLEX – a neonatal startle response that occurs in reaction to sudden, intense noise or movement. When startled, the newborn arches its back, throws its head back, and flings out its arms and legs. Then the newborn rapidly pulls its arms and legs close to the center of the body. o GRASPING REFLEX – a neonatal reflex that occurs when something touches infant’s palms. The infant responds by grasping tightly. o GROSS MOTOR SKILLS o GROSS MOTOR SKILLS - involve large-muscle activities. Key skills developed during infancy include control of posture and walking. o Although infants usually learn to walk by their first birthday, the neural pathways that allow walking begin forming earlier. o The age at which infants reach milestones in the development of gross motor skills may vary by as much as two to four months, especially for milestones in late infancy.  Milestones in gross motor developent o FINE MOTOR SKILLS o FINE MOTOR - skills involve finely tuned movements. o The onset of reaching and grasping marks a significant accomplishment, and this skill becomes more refined during the first two years of life. o Infants refine their ability to grasp objects by developing 2 types of grasps: palmer grasp and pincer grip. Palmer Grasp and Pincer Grip o Infants need to exercise their fine motor skills just as their gross motor skills. NEONATAL: SENSORY AND PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT o SENSATION AND PERCEPTION o SENSATION – the product of the interaction between information and the sensory receptors – the eyes, ears, tongues, nostrils, and skin. o PERCEPTIONS – the interpretation of what is sensed. o THE ECOLOGICAL VIEW o THE ECOLOGICAL VIEW - created by the Gibsons, the ecological view states that we directly perceive information that exists in the world around us. o The view is called ecological “because it connects perceptual capabilities to information available in the world of the perceiver.” o Perception brings people in contact with the environment to interact with and adapt to it. o AFFORDANCES – objects have affordances. These are opportunities for interaction offered by objects that fit within our capabilities to perform activities.  e.g. a pot for cooking, or banging for a toddler; a chair to sit on; a surface for walking; object for reaching, and so on. o WHAT AFFORDANCES CAN INFANTS OR CHILDREN USE?  In a study, for example, when babies who could walk were faced with a squishy waterbed, they stopped and explored it, then chose to crawl rather than walk across it.  They combined perception and action to adapt to the demands of the task.  How would you use the Gibson’s ecological theory of perception and the concept of affordance to explain the role that perception is playing in this toddler’s activity? o VISUAL ACUITY AND HUMAN FACES: HOW WELL CAN INFANTS SEE? o Newborns cannot see small things that are far away. o Estimated at 20/240 on the Snellen chart – a newborn can see at 20 ft. what a normal adult can see at 240 ft. o By 6 mos., their vision becomes 20/40 by average. o Researchers have developed a number of methods to assess the infant’s perception, including the visual preference method (which Fantz used to determine young infants’ preference for looking at patterned over nonpatterned displays), habituation and dishabituation, and tracking (see research on page 131 of textbook). o VISUAL PERCEPTION METHOD – a method used to determine whether infants can distinguish one stimulus from another by measuring the length of time they attend to different stimuli. o HABITUATION – decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus. o DISHABITUATION – recovery of habituated response after a change of stimulation. o FANTZ’ EXPERIMENT ON INFANT’S VISUAL PERCEPTION  Infants 2-3 weeks olds preferred to look at some stimuli more than others. In Fantz’ experiment, infants preferred to look at patterns rather than color or brightness. For example, they looked longer at a face, a piece of printed matter, or a bull’s eye than at red, yellow, or white discs.  Fantz used a “looking chamber” to study infants’ perception to stimuli.  o The 4 photos above represent a computer estimation of what a picture of a face looks like to a 1-month, 2-month, 3-month, and 1-year old (with approx. visual acuity of an adult). o Infants spend more time looking at their mother’s face than a stranger’s as early as 12 hours after being born. o By 3 months old, infants match voices to faces; distinguishes between male and female faces; discriminate faces based on ethnicity. o COLOR VISION o PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCY - indicates infant’s perception goes beyond the information provided by the senses. o SIZE CONSTANCY – the recognition that an object remains the same even though the retinal image of the object changes as you move toward or away from the object. o SHAPE CONSTANCY – the recognition that an object’s shape remains the same even though its orientation to us changes. o DEPTH PERCEPTION - indicates infant’s perception goes beyond the information provided by the senses. o From the experiment, 2-4 month old infants show differences in heart rate when they are placed directly on the deep side of the visual cliff instead of on the shallow side. Visual cliff experiment o PERCEPTION OF OCCLUDED OBJECTS - Do infants perceive an object as complete when it is occluded by an object in front of it?  o VISUAL PERCEPTION SUMMARY  The infant’s visual acuity increases dramatically in the first year of life.  Infants’ color vision improves as they develop. Young infants systematically scan human faces.  As early as 3 months of age, infants show size and shape constancy.  At approximately 2 months of age, infants develop the ability to perceive that occluded objects are complete.  In Gibson and Walk’s classic study, infants as young as 6 months of age indicated they could perceive depth.  OTHER SENSES o The fetus can hear during the last two months of pregnancy. o Immediately after birth, newborns can hear, but their sensory threshold is higher than that of adults. o Developmental changes in the perception of loudness, pitch, and localization of sound occur during infancy. o Newborns can respond to touch and feel pain. o Newborns can differentiate odors, and sensitivity to taste may be present before birth. o INTERMODAL PERCEPTION – early exploratory forms of this is the ability to relate and integrate information from two or more sensory modalities— are present in newborns and become sharper over the first year of life.  PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR COUPLING o A number of experts on perceptual and motor development question whether this distinction makes sense. o The main thrust of research in Esther Thelen’s dynamic systems approach is to explore how people assemble motor behaviors for perceiving and acting. o The main theme of the ecological approach of Eleanor and James J. Gibson is to discover how perception guides action. o Action can guide perception and perception can guide action. Only by moving one’s eyes, head, hands, and arms, and by moving from one location to another can an individual fully experience his or her environment and learn how to adapt to it. Perception and action are coupled. NEONATAL: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT  JEAN PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (a) Sensorimotor Stage, (b) Preoperational Stage, (c) Concrete Operational Stage, (d) Formal Operational Stage Watch: Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhcgYgx7aAA o In Piaget’s theory, children actively construct their own cognitive worlds, building mental structures to adapt to their world. o SCHEMES - are actions or mental representations that organize knowledge.  Behavioral schemes (physical activities) characterize infancy, whereas mental schemes (cognitive activities) develop in childhood. o ASSIMILATION - occurs when children use their existing schemes to deal with new information; o ACCOMMODATION – refers to children’s adjustment of their schemes in the face of new information. o ORGANIZATION - children group isolated behaviors into a higher-order, more smoothly functioning cognitive system. o EQUILIBRATION - explains how children shift from one stage to another. o THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (BIRTH – ABOUT 2 YEARS OF AGE) - infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences and motoric actions. SUBSTAGES: SENSORIMOTOR SUBSTAGES 1. SIMPLE REFLEXES (1st month after o Piaget’s first sensorimotor birth) substage, which corresponds to the first month after birth. In this substage, sensation and action are coordinated primarily through reflexive behaviors. 2. FIRST HABITS AND PRIMARY o Piaget’s second sensorimotor CIRCULAR REACTIONS (1-4 substage, which develops between months) 1-4 months of age. In this substage,  the infant coordinates sensation and two types of schemes: habits and primary circular reactions.  PRIMARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS – a scheme based on the attempt to reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance. 3. SECONDARY CIRCULAR o Piaget’s third sensorimotor REACTIONS (Between 4 and 8 substage, which develops months) between 4 and 8 months of age. In this substage, the infant becomes more object-oriented, moving beyond preoccupation with the self. 4. COORDINATION OF SECONDARY o Piaget’s fourth sensorimotor CIRCULAR REACTIONS (Between substage, which develops 8 and 12 months) between 8 and 12 months of age. Actions become more outwardly directed, and infants coordinate schemes and act with intentionality. 5. TERTIARY CIRCULAR o Piaget’s fifth sensorimotor REACTIONS, NOVELTY AND substage, which develops CURIOSITY (Between 8 and 12 between 12 and 18 months of months) age. In this substage, infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things that they can make happen to objects. 6. INTERNALIZATION OF SCHEMES o Piaget’s sixth and final (Between 18 and 24 months) sensorimotor substage, which develops between 18 to 24 months of age. In this substage, the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols. o OBJECT PERMANENCE - is the ability to understand that objects continue to exist even when the infant is no longer observing them. Another aspect involves infants’ understanding of cause and effect. o A-NOT-B ERROR - occurs when infants make the mistake of selecting familiar hiding place (A) rather than the new hiding place (B) as they progress into Substage 4. o Theorists argue that infants’ perceptual abilities are highly developed at a very early age. o The nature-nurture issue in regard to infant cognitive development continues to be debated. o CORE KNOWLEDGE APPROACH - Spelke this which states that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems. Critics argue that Spelke has not given adequate attention to early experiences that infants have.  Is it really “Out of sight, out of mind?”  CONDITIONING o OPERANT CONDITIONING TECHNIQUES - have been especially useful to researchers in demonstrating infants’ perception and retention of information about perceptual-motor actions.  ATTENTION o ATTENTION - is the focusing of mental resources on select information, and in infancy attention is closely linked with habituation. In the first year, much of attention is of the orienting/investigative type, but sustained attention also becomes important. o HABITUATION - is the repeated presentation of the same stimulus, causing reduced attention to the stimulus. o DISHABITUATION - If a different stimulus is presented and the infant pays increased attention to it.  MEMORY o MEMORY - is the retention of information over time.  o IMPLICIT MEMORY - memory without conscious recollection; involves skills and routine procedures that are automatically performed. o EXPLICIT MEMORY – memory of facts and experiences that individuals consciously know and can state. o Infants as young as 2 to 6 months of age can retain information about perceptual-motor actions. However, many experts argue that what we commonly think of as memory (consciously remembering the past) does not occur until the second half of the first year of life. o By the end of the second year, long-term memory is more substantial and reliable. o The hippocampus and frontal lobes of the brain are involved in development of explicit memory in infancy. Key brain strictures involved in explicit memory in Infancy (hippocampus and cerebral cortex) o INFANTILE OR CHILDHOOD AMNESIA - the phenomenon of not being able to remember events that occurred before the age of 3, may be due to the immaturity of the prefrontal lobes of the brain at that age.  IMITATION o Meltzoff believes that infants’ imitative abilities are biologically based – infants can imitate facial expression within the first few days after birth. o Infant’s imitative abilities are not hardwired response but rather involve flexibility and adaptability. o He concluded that infants don’t blindly imitate everything they see and often make creative errors.  o There is an interplay between learning by observing and learning by doing. o DEFERRED IMITATION - are imitation that occurs after a delay of hours or days.  CONCEPT FORMATION AND CATEGORIZATION o CONCEPTS - are cognitive groupings of similar objects, events, people, or ideas. o Infants as young as 3-4 months can group together objects with similar appearances such as animals. o PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION – categorization based on similar perceptual features of objects such as size, color, and movement. o At 7-9 months, infants develop conceptual categories. e.g. classifying birds as animals, and airplanes as vehicles even though these are perceptually similar.  INTELLIGENCE o DEVELOPMENTAL QUOTIENT (DQ) – an overall score that combines subscores in motor, language, adaptive, and personal-social domains in Gesell assessment of infants. o BAYLEY SCALES OF INFANT DEVELOPMENT – scales developed by Nancy Bayley that are widely used to assess infant development. The current version has three components: a mental scale, a motor scale, and an infant behavior profile.  LANGUAGE o LANGUAGE - is a form of communication, whether spoken, written, or signed, that is based on a system of symbols. Language consists of words used by a community for varying and combing them. o RULE SYSTEMS OF LANGUAGE  o Among the milestones in infant language development: 1. Are crying (birth) 2. Cooing (1-2 months) 3. Babbling (6 months) 4. Making the transition from universal linguist to language-specific listener (6-12 months) 5. Using gestures (8-12 months) 6. Comprehending words (8-12 months) 7. Speaking one’s first word (13 months) 8. Undergoing vocabulary spurt (19 months) 9. Rapidly expanding one’s understanding of words (18-24 months) 10. Producing two-word utterances (18-24 months) o TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH – the use of short and precise words without grammatical markers such as articles, auxiliary verbs, and other connectives. o BIOLOGICAL INFLUENCES  BROCA’S AREA - is an area in the brain’s left frontal lobe that is involved in speech productions.  WERNICKE’S AREA - is an area in the brain’s left hemisphere that is involved in language comprehension.  APHASIA - is a loss or impairment of language ability caused by brain damage.  In evolution, language clearly gave humans an enormous advantage over other animals and increased their chances of survival. Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area are important locations for language processing in the brain’s left hemisphere. o ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES  Chomsky argues that children are born with the ability to detect basic features and rules of language. In other words, they are biologically  equipped to learn language with a prewired language acquisition device (LAD). Adults help children acquire language by engaging in child-directed speech, recasting, expanding, and labeling.  CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH – one intriguing component of young child’s linguistic environment which is language spoken in higher speech than normal, with simple words, and sentences.  RECASTING – is rephrasing something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a question or restating the child’s immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical sentence. For example, the child says “the dog was barking,” the adult can respond by asking, “When was the dog barking?” Effective recasting lets the child indicate an interest and elaborates on an interest.  EXPANDING – is restating, a linguistically sophisticated form, what a child has said. For example, a child says, “Doggie, eat,” and the parent replies, “Yes, the doggie is eating.”  LABELING – is identifying the names of objects. Young children are forever being asked to identify the names of objects. Roger Brown called this “the original word game” and claimed that much of a child’s early vocabulary is motivated by this adult pressure to identify the words associated with objects.  AN INTERACTIONIST VIEW NEONATAL: SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT  EMOTIONAL AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT o EMOTION - is feeling, or affect, that occurs when a person is in a state or an interaction that is important to him or her. o The broad range of emotions includes enthusiasm, joy, and love (positive emotions) and anxiety, anger, and sadness (negative emotions). Psychologists stress that emotions, especially facial expressions of emotions, have a biological foundation. o Biological evolution endowed humans to be emotional, but embeddedness in culture and relationships provides diversity in emotional experiences. o Emotions are the first language with which parents and infants communicate, and emotions play key roles in parent-child relationships. Infants display a number of emotions early in their development, although researchers debate the onset and sequence of these emotions. o Lewis distinguishes between primary emotions and self-conscious emotions.  PRIMARY EMOTIONS – emotions that are present in humans and other animals and emerge early in life; examples are joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust.  SELF-CONSCIOUS EMOTIONS – emotions that require self-awareness, especially consciousness and a sense of “me”; examples include jealousy, empathy, and embarrassment. o CRYING - is the most important mechanism newborns have for communicating with the people in their world.  o Babies have at least three types of cries—basic, anger, and pain cries. Controversy swirls about whether babies should be soothed when they cry, although increasingly experts recommend immediately responding in a caring way during the first year. o Social smiling occurs as early as 2 months of age. o Two fears that infants develop are stranger anxiety and separation from a caregiver (which is reflected in separation protest). o As infants develop, it is important for them to engage in emotion regulation. o SMILING - is critical as a means of developing new social skill and is a key social signal.  REFLEXIVE SMILE – a smile that does not occur in response to external stimuli and appears during the first month after birth, usually during sleep.  SOCIAL SMILE – a smile that occurs in response to external stimulus, typically a face in the case of a young infant. It occurs as early as 2 months of age. o FEAR - is one of babies’ earliest emotions which typically starts at 6 mos. Abused and neglected babies show fear as early as 3 mos.  STRANGER ANXIETY - is an infant’s fear and wariness of strangers; it tends to appear in the second half of the first year of life.  SEPARATION PROTEST - is an infant’s distressed crying when the caregiver leaves.  TEMPERAMENT o TEMPERAMENT - involves individual differences in behavioral styles, emotions, and characteristic ways of responding. o Chess and Thomas classified infants as (1) easy, (2) difficult, or (3) slow to warm up.  AN EASY CHILD – is generally a positive mood, quickly establishes regular routines in infancy, and adapts easily to new experiences.  A DIFFICULT CHILD – reacts negatively and cries frequently, engages in irregular routines, and slow to accept change.  A SLOW-TO-WARM-UP CHILD – has a low activity level, is somewhat negative, and displays a low intensity of mood. o Kagan proposed that inhibition to the unfamiliar is an important temperament category. (Extremely inhibited, extremely uninhibited, and intermediate). o Rothbart and Bates’ view of temperament emphasizes this classification:  (1) EXTRAVERSION/SURGENCY – “positive anticipation, impulsivity, activity level & sensation seeking”,  (2) NEGATIVE AFFECTIVITY – “fear, frustration, sadness & discomfort”, and  (3) EFFORTFUL CONTROL (SELF-REGULATION) – “attentional focusing and shifting, inhibitory control, perceptual sensitivity, & low- intensity pleasure.” o GOODNESS OF FIT - refers to the match between a child’s temperament and the environmental demands the child must cope with. Goodness of fit can be an important aspect of a child’s adjustment. Although research evidence is sketchy at this point, some general recommendations are that caregivers should (1) be sensitive to the individual characteristics of the child,  (2) be flexible in responding to these characteristics, and (3) avoid negatively labeling the child.  PERSONALITY o Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development  Erikson argued that an infant’s first year is characterized by the stage of trust versus mistrust.  The infant begins to develop a self-understanding called self- recognition at about 18 months of age.  Independence becomes a central theme in the second year of life.  Erikson stressed that the second year of life is characterized by the stage of autonomy versus shame and doubt.  SOCIAL ORIENTATION/UNDERSTANDING o Infants show a strong interest in their social world and are motivated to understand it. Infants orient to the social world early in their development. o Face-to-face play with a caregiver begins to occur at about 2 to 3 months of age. o Newly developed self-produced locomotion skills significantly expand the infant’s ability to initiate social interchanges and explore their social world more independently. o INTENTION AND GOAL-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR – at about 10-11 months, joint attention intensifies and infants begin to follow the caregiver’s gaze. By 1 year old, they have begun to direct the caregiver’s attention to objects that capture their interest. o SOCIAL REFERENCING – “reading” emotional cues in others to help determine how to act in a particular situation. o SOPHISTICATION AND INSIGHT – reflected in infant’s perception of others’ actions as intentionally motivated and goal-directed and their motivation to share and participate in that intentionality.  ATTACHMENT o ATTACHMENT - is a close emotional bond between two people. In infancy, contact, comfort, and trust are important in the development of attachment. o BOWLBY’S ETHOLOGICAL THEORY - stresses that the caregiver and the infant are biologically predisposed to form an attachment. o Attachment develops in four phases during infancy. o SECURELY ATTACHED BABIES - use the caregiver, usually the mother, as a secure base from which to explore the environment. o Three types of insecure attachment are avoidant, resistant, and disorganized. o STRANGE SITUATION – Ainsworth created this, an observational measure of attachment. Ainsworth points out that secure attachment in the first year of life provides an important foundation for psychological development later in life. The strength of the link found between early attachment and later development has varied somewhat across studies. Watch: The Strange Situation - Mary Ainsworth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTsewNrHUHU o Based on how babies respond in the Strange Situation, they are described as being securely attached or insecurely attached (in one of three ways) to the caregiver:  SECURELY ATTACHED BABIES – when in the presence of their caregiver, securely attached infants explore the room and examine toys that have been placed in it. When the caregiver departs, securely attached infants might protest mildly, and when the caregiver return these infants reestablish positive interaction with her, perhaps by smiling or climbing onto her lap. Subsequently, they often resume playing with the toys in the room.  INSECURE AVOIDANT BABIES – show insecurity by avoiding the caregiver. In the Strange Situation, these babies engage in little interaction with the caregiver, are not distressed when she leaves the room, usually do not establish contact when she returns, and may even turn their back on her. If contact is established, the infant usually leans away or looks away.  INSECURE RESISTANT BABIES – often cling to the caregiver and then resist her by fighting against the closeness, perhaps by kicking or pushing away. In the Strange Situation, these babies often cling anxiously to the caregiver and don’t explore the playroom. When the caregiver leaves, they often cry loudly and push away if she tries to comfort them on her return.  INSECURE DISORGANIZED BABIES – appear disoriented. In the Strange Situation, these babies might seem dazed, confused, and fearful. To be classified as disorganized, babies must show strong patterns of avoidance and resistance or display certain specified behaviors such as extreme fearfulness around the caregiver. o INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN ATTACHMENT  Developmental Social Neuroscience  Increased interest has been directed toward the role of the brain in the development of attachment. The hormone oxytocin is a key candidate for influencing the development of maternal-infant attachment.  Caregiving Styles – Maternal/Paternal  Childcare – Cultural Diversity  What are the beliefs and practices of Filipinos in terms of child care? Lesson 5 UNIT 4: EARLY AND MIDDLE CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT EARLY AND MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: PHYSICAL CHANGES  BODY GROWTH AND CHANGE o Growth in height and weight is the obvious physical change that characterizes childhood. o HEIGHT  Average child grows 2 and ½ inches in height. o WEIGHT  Gains 5 to 10 pounds a year during childhood. o During preschool years, both boys and girls slim down as the trunks of their body lengthen. o GROWTH PATTERNS VARY INDIVIDUALLY.  Some were naturally taller, shorter, some fatter, some thinner, some were stronger, some weaker.  Much of the variation was due to heredity, but environmental experiences were also involved. o GROWTH HORMONE DEFICIENCY – is the absence or deficiency of growth hormone produced by the pituitary gland to stimulate the body to grow. It may occur during infancy or later in childhood.  THE BRAIN o BRAIN - holds one of the most important physical developments early in childhood. o Although the brain continues to grow in childhood, it does not grow as rapidly as it did in infancy.  o MYELINATION – this is an important process in the development of abilities during childhood because it has the effect of increasing the speed and efficiency of information traveling through nervous system.  BRAIN CHANGES DURING THIS STAGE  GROSS MOTOR SKILLS o MOTOR AND PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT  According to recent studies, children who have higher motor proficiency was found to have higher levels of physical activity in adolescence.  FINE MOTOR SKILLS  SLEEP o Getting a good night’s sleep is important for children’s development. o Experts recommend that young children get 11 to 13 hours of sleep each night. o Most young children sleep through the night and have one daytime nap. Not only do children need a certain amount of sleep, but also uninterrupted sleep. o Children can experience a number of sleep problems. These include: narcolepsy (extreme daytime sleepiness), insomnia (difficulty of getting to sleep or staying asleep), and nightmares. o RESEARCH STUDIES INDICATE LINKS BETWEEN CHILDREN’S SLEEP PROBLEMS AND NEGATIVE DEVELOPMENTAL OUTCOMES:  Sleep problems in early childhood were associated with subsequent attention problems that in some cases persisted into early adolescence.  In a Chinese study, preschool children who slept 7 hours per day or less had a worse school readiness profile (including language/cognitive deficits and emotional immaturity). Also in this study, preschool children who used electronic devices 3 or more hours per day had shortened sleep durations.  Preschool children with a longer sleep duration were more likely to have better peer acceptance, social skills, and receptive vocabulary.  Short sleep duration in children was linked with being overweight.   IN 2-TO-5-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN, each additional hour of daily screen time was associated with a decrease in sleep time, less likelihood of sleeping 10 hours or more per night, and later bedtime.  4-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN who had insomnia were characterized by hostile-aggressive and hyperactive-distractible problems.  To improve children’s sleep, it is recommended to make sure that bedroom is cool, dark, and comfortable; maintaining consistent bedtimes and wake times; and building positive relations.  Also, helping the child slow down before bedtime often contributes to less resistance going to bed. Reading a the child a story, playing quietly with the child in the bath, and letting the child sit on the caregiver’s lap while listening to music are quieting activities.  NUTRITION AND EXERCISE o Eating habits are important aspects of development during early childhood. o Exercise and physical activity also are very important aspects of young children’s lives. o OVERWEIGHT YOUNG CHILDREN  Being overweight has become a serious health problem in early childhood.  Young children’s eating behavior is strongly influenced by their caregiver’s behavior. Young children’s eating behavior improves when caregivers eat with children on a predictable schedule, model choosing nutritious food, make mealtimes pleasant occasions, and engage in certain feeding styles.  Forceful and restrictive caregiver behaviors are not recommended.  EXERCISE o Routine physical activity should be a daily occurrence for young children. Too often children are not getting adequate exercise. o Recently, four expert panels from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued physical activity guidelines for young children that were quite similar. o The guidelines recommend that young children get 15 or more minutes of physical activity per hour over a 12-hour period, or about 3 hours per day total. o The child’s life should center around activities, not meals.  ILLNESS AND DEATH o Children’s safety is influenced not only by their own skills and safety behaviors but also by aspects of their family and home, school, and peers, and community. o Devastating effects on the health of young children occur in countries where poverty rates are high. o The poor are the majority in nearly one out of every five nations in the world. They often experience hunger, malnutrition, illness, inadequate access to health care, unsafe water, and lack of protection from harm. Individual School/Peers o Development of social skills and o Promotion of home/school ability to regulate emotions. partnerships. o Impulse control (such as not darting o Absence of playground hazards.  out into a street to retrieve a ball). o Injury prevention and safety o Frequent use of personal protection promotion policies and programs. (such as bike helmets and safety seats). Family/Home Community o High awareness and knowledge of o Availability of positive activities for child management and parenting children and their parents. skills. o Active surveillance of environmental o Frequent parent protective hazards. behaviors (such as use of child o Effective prevention policies in place safety seats). (such as pool fencing). o Presence of home safety equipment (such as smoke alarms and cabinets). o CHARACTERISTICS THAT ENHANCE YOUNG CHILDREN’S SAFETY  In each context of a child’s life, steps can be taken to create conditions that improve the child’s safety and reduce the likelihood of injury. EARLY AND MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: COGNITIVE CHANGES  COGNITIVE CHANGES o The cognitive world of preschool child is creative, free, and fanciful. Preschool children’s imaginations work overtime, and their mental grasp of the world improves.  PIAGET’S PREOPERATIONAL STAGE o The second Piagetian stage that lasts from 2 to 7 years of age. o In this stage, children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings. They form stable concepts and begin to reason. At the same time, a young child’s cognitive world is dominated by egocentrism and magical beliefs. o The label preoperational emphasizes that the child does not yet perform operations, which are mentally reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what before they could only do physically. o PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT – the beginning to reconstruct in thought what has been established in behavior. o This developmental stage can be divided into two substages: the symbolic function substage and the intuitive thought substage. o SYMBOLIC FUNCTION STAGE – first substage that occurs roughly between the ages 2 and 4.  The young child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present.  Young children use scribble designs to represent people, houses, cars, clouds, and so on; they begin to use language and engage in pretend play. However, although young children make distinct progress during this substage, their thought still has important limitations, two of which are egocentrism and animism.  EGOCENTRISM – the inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective.   ANIMISM – the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action. o INTUITIVE THOUGHT STAGE – the second substage of preoperational thought, occurring between approximately 4 and 7 years of age.  Children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions.  BY THE AGE OF 5, children have just about exhausted the adults around them with “why” questions. The child’s questions signal the emergence of interest in reasoning and in figuring out why things are the way they are.  Piaget called this substage intuitive because young children seem so sure about their knowledge and understanding yet are unaware of how they know what they know. That is, they know something but know it without the use of rational thinking. o CONCENTRATION AND THE LIMITS OF PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT AND PIAGET’S CONSERVATIONAL TASK  CENTRATION - one limitation of preoperational thought, a centering of attention to one characteristic to the exclusion of all other. Lack of conservation, the awareness that altering an object’s or substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties.  The situation that Piaget devised to study conservation is his most famous task. In the conservation task, children are presented with 2 identical beakers, each filled to the same level with liquid.  They are asked if these beakers have the same amount of liquid, they usually say yes. o PIAGET’S CONSERVATION TASK – in Piaget’s theory, failing the conservation-of-liquid task is a sign that children are at the preoperational stage of cognitive development. The failure demonstrates not only centration but also an inability to mentally reverse actions.  VYGOTSKY’S THEORY o Vygotsky (1962) emphasized that children actively construct their knowledge and understanding. o They develop their ways of thinking and understanding primarily through social interaction. o Their cognitive development depends on the tools provided by society, and their minds are shaped by the cultural context in the way they live. o THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT – the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance from adults or more skilled.  The ZPD captures the child’s cognitive skills that are in process of maturing and can be accomplished only with the assistance of a more-skilled person.  LOWER LIMIT OF THE ZPD – level of skill reached by the child working independently.  UPPER LIMIT OF THE ZPD – level of additional responsibility the child can accept with the assistance of an able instructor. o SCAFFOLDING – closely linked to the idea of ZPD. It means changing the level of support.  Over the course of a teaching session, a more-skilled person (a teacher or advanced peer) adjusts the amount of guidance to fit the child’s current performance.  As the student’s competence increases, less guidance is given.  Heighten engagement, direct exploration, and facilitate “sense- making,” such as guided play, improved 4-to-5 year-old children’s acquisition of geometric knowledge. o LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT  The use of dialogue as a tool for scaffolding is only one example of the important role of language in a child’s development.  According to LEV VYGOTSKY, children use speech not only to communicate socially but also to help them solve tasks. Young children use language to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior.  PRIVATE SPEECH – the use of language for self-regulation.  For PIAGET, private speech is egocentric and immature, but for VYGOTSKY, it is an important tool of thought during the early childhood years.  Vygotsky said that language and thought initially develop independently of each other then merge. All mental functions have external, or social origins.  Children must use language to communicate with others before they can focus on their own thoughts. This transition period occurs between 3 and 7 years of age and involves talking to oneself. When they gain this skill, children have internalized their  egocentric speech in the form of inner speech, which becomes their thoughts. o EVALUATING VYGOTSKY’S THEORY  Even though their theories were proposed at about the same time, most of the world learned about Vygotsky’s theory than they learned about Piaget’s theory. Thus, Vygotsky’s theory has not yet been evaluated thoroughly.  Vygotsky’s view of the importance of sociocultural influences on children’s development fits with the current belief that is important to evaluate the contextual factors in learning.  Vygotsky’s emphasis on the importance of inner speech in development and Piaget’s view that such speech is immature.  Vygotsky’s theory takes a social constructivist approach, which emphasizes the social contexts of learning and construction of knowledge through social interaction. o COMPARISON OF VYGOTSKY’S AND PIAGET’S THEORIES COMPARISON OF VYGOTSKY’S AND PIAGET’S THEORIES VYGOTSKY PIAGET 1. SOCIOCULTURAL o strong emphasis o little emphasis CONTEXT 2. CONSTRUCTIVISM o social o cognitive constructivist constructivist 3. STAGES o no general stages o strong emphasis of development on stages proposed (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational) 4. KEY PROCESSES o zone of proximal o schema, development, assimilation, language, accommodation,  dialogue, tools of operations,