Developmental Psychology - Psych 144 Week 1 Notes PDF

Developmental Psychology Early and middle childhood: Chapter 3 Adolescence, adulthood and ageing: Chapter 4 Lecturer: Mr Ryan Van Der Poll Stellenbosch University Introduction Who am I? What will I cover? Expectations for the test/exam and lectures ...

Developmental Psychology Early and middle childhood: Chapter 3 Adolescence, adulthood and ageing: Chapter 4 Lecturer: Mr Ryan Van Der Poll Stellenbosch University Introduction Who am I? What will I cover? Expectations for the test/exam and lectures  Development is widely recognised as a lifelong process that extends into late adulthood. Take a lifespan view and cover all areas of human development, from prenatal Foundational development to death. Explore various developmental stages: Aspects and Prenatal Development Early and Middle Childhood Terminology Adolescence Adulthood Explore the domains of physical, cognitive and socio-emotional development. All development is interrelated and interactive. Early and middle childhood: Chapter 3 Physical Development Prenatal Development Factors that Stages of influence prenatal prenatal development developme nt Progress Before Birth: Prenatal Development Science and society continue As a result, the debate to consider the roles of about the relative genetics, environment and importance of biological and parental (particularly environmental factors is maternal) factors on child ongoing. development. 9 Months Of Pregnancy In 4 Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_lI86boUU 8  Stages of prenatal From conception to development birth, usually nine months of pregnancy. A great deal of important development occurs before birth. Foetal stage/ Fetale periode Germinal Embryonic stage/ stage/ Ontkiemings Embriostadium tadium 0-2 wks 2-8 wks 9 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 38 Full Term The Germinal Stage The germinal stage lasts from conception to about two weeks. Conception: Moment when the sperm cell fertilises the ovum (egg cell). Zygote is formed. Rapid cell division occurs, and the mass of cells migrates to the uterus. Implants into the uterine wall, forms a placenta during the implantation process. The Embryonic Stage From the end of the 2nd week until the 8th week. Development of the placenta and the umbilical cord. Most of the vital organs and bodily systems such as the heart, spine and brain emerge. The embryonic period is a time of great vulnerability. The embryo is contained in a sac within the mother’s uterus and is surrounded by amniotic fluid, which cushions and protects the embryo. Embryonic stage Source: https://slideplayer.com/slide/9188398/  The Foetal Stage The foetal period lasts from 8 By about 26 weeks, the zone weeks to birth. of viability is reached − when During the early parts of this the baby could survive if born stage, the muscles and bones prematurely. begin to form. At 22 or 23 weeks, the Sex organs develop in the chances of survival are slim, third month and brain cells but by 26−28 weeks, the multiply during the final three chances improve to a months. survival rate of about 85%.  Genetic disorders Culture, family Maternal & nutrition / environmental malnutrition toxins Factors influencing on prenatal development Maternal illness and Maternal stress psychopatholog and emotion y Maternal drug use  Genetic disorders GENE ABNORMALITIES CHROMOSOME ABNORMALITIES https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases- spina-bifida/symptoms-causes/syc-20377860 conditions/down-syndrome/symptoms- causes/syc-20355977 Maternal nutrition Maternal stress & emotion Stress hormones (epinephrine, norepinephrine, adreno-corticotropic hormone) Effect of blood pressure, immune system Maternal drug use Alcohol Smoking Other substances Prescription and over-the counter drugs Maternal illness & Psychopathology Many illnesses pose high risk for damaging brain development – lead to intellectual and other disorders: e.g. Rubella, syphilis, HIV  Culture influences thoughts and decision around Culture, family, pregnancy and child-rearing Miscarriages environmental Changes in family structure toxins over time Environmental toxins: air pollution, radio-activity  Neonatal period Spans approximately the first two to four weeks after birth Transition from relatively safe environment of its mother’s uterus to an environment where it must now breathe and feed on its own. The newborn baby (neonate) is much more competent than was previously thought. Display more than 20 reflexes over which they initially have no control; o Involuntary responses to specific stimuli. o Important for the newborn’s survival (e.g. rooting, sucking and swallowing for feeding). o The absence of reflexes may be an early indication of neurological problems.  Neonatal period: Perceptual development Neonates are able to take in information from their environment via their senses: Vision: Hearing: Taste and smell: o The visual system is present at o Can distinguish human o Well-developed sense birth, speech from other sounds. of smell. o certain parts of the eye and visual o Can distinguish between o Can distinguish cortex are not fully developed, nor is human speech sounds – between different the ability to coordinate the o A preference for their smells. movement of the eyes. mother’s voice. o Their sense of taste is o Cannot focus properly. Blurry vision. o Baby talk directed towards also well developed o Neonates actively scan their them o Strong preference for surroundings o Can see objects about 21 cm away. sweet as opposed to sour tastes.​ o Distinct preference for looking at faces, patterns rather than plain stimuli, and patterns with sharp contrasts. Preschool period  Preschool Period Characterised by rapid growth during the first two years of life, slower pattern of growth between the ages of two and six years. Growth follows the cephalocaudal developmental trend and the proximodistal developmental trend. Cephalocaudal Developmental Trend o From the head downward o The trunk grows fastest during the first year. Gain control over muscles of the head and neck, then the arms and abdomen, and finally the legs. o By four to six months, birth weight has often doubled. By end year one, birth weight has often tripled. o Body proportions also change. Eg., at two years, head is about ¼ of total body size; by 5½ years, it is 1/6th. o The brain increases from being 25% of its eventual adult weight at birth to being about 50% at the age of one year. o The brain and nervous system develop increasingly dense neural networks. o ability to acquire new information increases. Genetics and the environment influence the growth. o Malnutrition may stunt brain growth and cognitive development.  Preschool Period Very physically active, engaging in activities such as running, walking, hopping, jumping, skipping and climbing. Children improve both gross motor skills and fine motor skills o Gross motor skills: capabilities involving large body movements such as walking, running and hopping. o Fine motor skills: capabilities involving small body movements such as handling a spoon and writing. o Proximodistal Developmental Trend o From the centre outward o Gross motor skills develop faster than fine motor skills during this period. Preference for right or left hand begins to show at about two years. Develops slowly. Only established at about age five to six. Environmental factors can stunt or delay normal development. o Sustained periods of malnutrition are associated with stunted Middle Childhood Age 6 to puberty  Middle Childhood Slower average growth rate Increase in strength, coordination and muscular control, leads to improved gross motor and fine motor skills. An improvement in motor-perceptual functioning (hand–eye coordination). Three main environmental influences on physical growth and development: the quality of care, nutrition and illnesses Brain continues to grow in both structure and function. Between five and seven years, the brain experiences a growth spurt, particularly in the frontal lobes and their connections to other parts of the brain. oFrontal lobe development is important for planning and for the Cognitive Development Cognitive development refers to the age-related changes that occur in mental activities such as paying attention, perceiving, learning, thinking and remembering  The transition in children's pattern of thinking, Cognitive including reasoning, remembering and problem solving Jean Piaget: the interaction with the environment and Development maturation gradually alters the way children think. Occurs through two complementary processes: o Assimilation: interpreting new experiences in terms of existing mental structures without changing them. o Accommodation: changing existing mental structures to explain new experiences. Piaget proposed that children’s thought processes go through a series of four major stages: Piaget’s Stage Theory Stage 4 Stage 3 Stage 2 Formal Stage 1 Concrete Operational Preoperational Operational Period Sensorimotor Period Period Period Coordination Mental operations of sensory input Development applied to and motor of symbolic concrete events; Mental operations responses; thought marked mastery of applied to development by irreversibility, conservation, abstract ideas; of object centration and hierarchical logical, systematic permanence egocentrism classification thinking Birth to Age 11 to 2 to 7 Years 7 to 11 Years 2 Years Adulthood  Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: Sensorimotor Stage (birth – 2 years) Progressively develops coordination of sensory input and motor responses Move from reflex action to goal directed activity Primitive understanding of cause and effect Learn by doing: look, touch, sucking begin to make use of memory, imitation, and thought Symbolic representation Object permanence: the recognition that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible.  Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: Sensorimotor Stage (2 – 7 years) Children engage in symbolic thought and pretend play. However, with characteristic flaws in their reasoning such as: o Irreversibility: inability to envision reversing an action. o Centration: the tendency to focus on just one feature of a problem, and Preoperational child (aged between o Egocentrism: the limited ability to share 2-7) will say the taller glass has more another’s viewpoint. o Animism: the belief that all things are living, just water as they have not yet developed the ability of conservation like oneself. which develops at the concrete Lack conservation in their thinking: operational stage o cannot understand that quantities can remain the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyhK9beGuQU same regardless of changes in appearance.  Language development At birth, undifferentiated crying to communicate their needs. After the first month, caregivers can distinguish cries of pain, hunger, discomfort, tiredness and boredom by listening to the pitch of the cry. Six to eight weeks, babies start making cooing sounds. Around four months, babies utter consonant–vowel combinations in long strings, such as ‘babababa’ or ‘mamamama’. Six to seven months, babbling starts to resemble the child’s home language. Most children utter their first word at about 12 months.  Start with holo-phrases: one-word sentences to convey the meaning of a whole sentence. Vocabulary increases to about 50 words by the age of 18 months. At about 24 months, babies use telegraphic speech. Only those words that are necessary to communicate meaning. From three to six years, vocabulary and sentence length increase. By age six the child uses all the parts of speech.  Vocabulary spurt: develops a vocabulary of approximately 10 000 words. Four years later their vocabulary increases to around 40 000 words. Piaget’s Stage Theory Stage 4 Stage 3 Stage 2 Formal Stage 1 Concrete Operational Preoperational Operational Period Sensorimotor Period Period Period Coordination Mental operations of sensory input Development applied to and motor of symbolic concrete events; Mental operations responses; thought marked mastery of applied to development by irreversibility, conservation, abstract ideas; of object centration and hierarchical logical, systematic permanence egocentrism classification thinking Birth to Age 11 to 2 to 7 Years 7 to 11 Years 2 Years Adulthood  Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: Concrete Operational Stage (7 – 11 years) Earlier limitations in thinking are overcome. Thinking becomes less egocentric and more logical. Features of the concrete operational thought are: Conservation: recognise that properties of objects do not change because their form changes. Reversibility: One operation can be reversed by the effects of another. Compensation: can mentally compare changes in two aspects and say that the one change compensates for the other. Decentration: can simultaneously focus attention on several attributes of an object. Seriation: can arrange objects along quantitative dimensions. Transitivity: can recognise relations amongst a number of ordered objects. Requires real objects. Cannot mentally manipulate abstract ideas or hypothetical events. Vygotsky’s Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist. Important challenge to Piaget's theory. Sociocultural Focuses on how culture is transmitted Theory of between generations. Cognitive Vygotsky saw cognitive growth as a socially mediated activity. Development Children gradually acquire new ways of thinking and behaving through cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society. Higher mental functions: acquired through guided instruction from more competent people in their environment. o These functions are internalised by the child over the course of development.  Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): the hypothetical space within which the child interacts with the caregiver or teacher. It marks the boundaries between the child’s actual level of development and their potential development. The level of cognitive tasks a child can perform with the help of a competent instructor. Scaffolding: A scaffold provides temporary support while a task is being completed. Specific guidance is provided to a child learning a new skill until they are able to complete it alone. May include: defining the task in familiar terms; breaking the task down into logical parts; demonstrate parts of the task; actively motivate learners.  Moral Development: Kohlberg’s stage theory A stage theory of moral development based on subjects’ responses to presented moral dilemmas. Kohlberg was interested in a person’s reasoning, not necessarily their answer. People progress through a series of three levels of moral development, each of which can be broken into two sublevels. Each stage represents a different way of thinking about right and wrong.  Moral Development: Kohlberg’s stage theory Preconventional level: Think in terms of external authority − acts are considered wrong or right based on whether or not they are punished for them. Conventional level: See rules as necessary for maintaining social order, it gains them approval and they believe rules should be applied rigidly. Postconventional level: Acts are individually judged by a personal code of ethics. At this stage someone might allow for the possibility that an individual may not comply to societies rules if they in conflict with personal ethics. A MORAL DILEMMA Nosipho’s younger brother Should Nosipho’s brother Siyanda is very ill and needs have stolen the money? to get to hospital. Her older Why or why not? brother is desperately worried about Siyanda but he has no money to pay for transport. He decides to steal some money for transport out of his neighbour’s house. Social and Emotional development Neonatal Period  Emotional Development: Temperament In the first year of life, children can show a wide range of emotions. Infants show consistent differences in emotional tone, tempo of activity and sensitivity to environmental stimuli very early in life. Temperament: An individual's characteristic manner of responding to the environment. characteristics of mood, activity level & emotional reactivity. Some babies cheerful while others are irritable. Individual differences in temperament appear to be influenced to a considerable degree by heredity. Although temperament tends to be fairly stable over time, theorists emphasise that it is not unchangeable. Emotional Development: Temperament Slow-to-Warm Easy Difficult Up happy, adaptable, adapts slowly, adapts slowly, regular, easy to distractible, inflexible, reactions are not as soothe. intense reactions, intense. crying. Social and Emotional development Preschool Period  Attachment The close, emotional bonds of affection that develop between infants and their caregivers. The cornerstone of all relationships. Made up of the emotional, social, cognitive and physical connection of infants and young children with their primary caregivers. Not just a “special affection”. Enduring bond that one person has for another who fulfils needs for safety and comfort Attachment and Separation Anxiety Separation anxiety: emotional distress when separated from people with whom they have formed an attachment. Emerges 7-9 months Peak 14-18 months Seen in many cultures, suggests attachment is universal Stranger Danger: Wary reaction to strangers. Peak at 8-10 months and gradually declines in intensity.  Theories of Attachment : John Bowlby One of the most dominant theories of attachment was proposed by John Bowlby, a prominent British psychoanalyst. Ethological theory (attachment has evolutionary mechanism) Bowlby asserted that attachment has a biological basis. According to Bowlby, infants are programmed by evolution to exhibit endearing behaviour − such as smiling, cooing, and clinging − that triggers an affectionate, protective response from adults. Behaviors (crying, clinging, proximity seeking) – keeps carer nearby. Theories of Attachment: Mary Ainsworth Mary Ainsworth: showed that attachments vary in character. The strange situation procedure: assesses the quality of attachment between 1- to 2-year-old infants and their caregivers. The strange situation procedure puts infants through a series of short separations from, and reunions with, their caregivers. As a result, Ainsworth concluded that attachment falls into three patterns: secure, anxious−ambivalent and avoidant.  Theories of Attachment: Mary Ainsworth Secure attachment: playing and exploring comfortably when caregiver is present, becoming visibly upset when they leave and calming quickly upon their return. o Most infants have a secure attachment, o Correlational evidence suggests that babies with secure attachment tend to show favourable traits as they develop through childhood, such as resilience, self-reliance, curiosity and leadership. Insecure-avoidant attachment (avoidant attachment): seek little contact with their caregiver and are not distressed when they leave. o Appear independent and self-sufficient. Insecure-resistant attachment (anxious-ambivalent): upset by the departure of the caregiver and protest excessively when they leave but are not particularly comforted when they return. o Display ambivalent behaviour alternating between seeking comfort and the rejecting that comfort. Disorganised attachment: show confusion about whether they should approach the caregiver or not. o Displayed marked fear in the presence of their caregiver. o