Child Development: Theory, Stages & Influences | PDF

An introduction to Child Development Chapter Outline ​ Reasons to Learn About Child Development ​ Enduring Philosophical Issues in the Study of Child Development ​ Enduring Themes in Child Development ​ Methods for Studying Child Development Why Study Child-Development? 1.​ Child-rea...

An introduction to Child Development Chapter Outline ​ Reasons to Learn About Child Development ​ Enduring Philosophical Issues in the Study of Child Development ​ Enduring Themes in Child Development ​ Methods for Studying Child Development Why Study Child-Development? 1.​ Child-rearing ​ Application of child-development research can: ○​ Build empathy for diverse populations of children ○​ Improve child-rearing across a variety of setting ​ Improve children rearing across a variety of settings and caregivers ○​ Ie can I drink wine while I am pregnant? ○​ My 4 year-old isn't speaking yet, should I be worried? 2.​ Social policy ​ Knowledge of child development facilitates informed decisions about social-policy questions ​ Example research ○​ Preschool children’s responses to leading interview questions and their accurate testimonies in court ○​ Playing violent video games and increased aggressive behaviour in children and adolescents 3.​ Understanding Human Nature ​ Child development research provides important insights into intriguing questions regarding human nature. ○​ When does learning start? ○​ Can detrimental effects of early rearing be overcome? ○​ Do children vary in personality from the day they were born? ○​ How do humans evolve throughout life? Development ​ Development ○​ The systematic continuities and changes that occur between conception to death ​ Child Development ○​ Specifically focused on the continuities and changes that occur between conception and adolescence ​ Key Processes of Development ○​ Maturation: is attributed to specific biological inheritance  ○​ Learning: the process in which life experiences affect and change thoughts, feelings, and behaviour ○​ Context: individual combination of personal and environmental circumstances that can influence development across the lifespan -​ Can go 2 different ways -​ Raised on a farm for example, isolated from others, did not have access to internet -​ Going to boarding school at 6 years old teachers and peers are more influential Domains of Development ​ Physical - touch, taste, smell, sight, hear ​ Cognitive - think, reason, and understand ​ Language - comprehend, utilise and manipulate language ​ Emotional - understand and regulate emotions ​ Social - connect to others (build relationships and social cues) Developmental Periods Across the Lifespan ​ Prenatal (conception to birth) ​ Infancy and Toddlerhood (birth to 2 years) ​ Early Childhood (2-6 years) ​ Middle Childhood (6-11 years) ​ Adolescence (11-18 years) ​ Emerging Adulthood (18-24 years). Theory ​ A theory is: ○​ A well validated set of principles and explanations of a particular phenomenon ○​ A framework for organizing concepts and ideas ○​ An explanation of how and why something is as it is ○​ Aims to predict what will happen ○​ A state of possible relationships between concepts ○​ A developmental theory:  ​ Systematic ways of thinking about and understanding how human beings evolve from babies to adolescents ​ Set of concepts or statements that describe, explain and make predictions about various aspects of development or observations Types of Developmental Theories ​ Biological Theories ​ Psychoanalytic Theories ​ Learning Theories ​ Cognitive-Developmental Theories ​ Ecological Systems or Contextual Theories Enduring Themes in Child Development 1.​ Nature vs. Nurture: How do Nature and Nurture together shape development? 2.​ The Active Child: How do children Shape their own Development? 3.​ Continuity vs. Discontinuity: In what ways is Development COntinuous, and In what ways is it Discontinuous? 4.​ Mechanisms of Change: How does change occur? 5.​ Sociocultural Context: How does the sociocultural context influence development? 6.​ Individual Differences: How do children become so different from one another? 7.​ Research and Child’s Welfare: Nature VS. Nurture ​ All human characteristics are created through interaction of genes and environment. ​ How does this interaction shape development? ○​ Nurture = environment ○​ Nature/genome = individual's complete set of hereditary information -​ Identical twins are 50% more likely to develop scitophremina The Active Child ​ How does a child’s actions impact their own development? ​ Preference to look at mother →strengthens mother child bond Continuity VS. Discontinuity ​ Continuous Development ○​ Changes with age occur gradually, in small increments. ○​ Development occurs skill by skill and task by task.  ​ Discontinuous Development ○​ Changes with age include occasional large shifts. ○​ Qualitative differences occur. ○​ Piaget, Freud, Erikson, and Kohlberg were stage theorists -​ Displays the direct correlation of continuous or discontinuous development Mechanisms of Change ​ How does change occur to produce an outcome of interest? ​ There are three main mechanisms of change ○​ Behavioral ​ Behaviour that improves strategies ○​ Neural ​ Brain activity ○​ Genetic ​ Presence or absence of particular alleles The Sociocultural Context: ​ Physical ​ Social ​ Cultural ​ Economic ​ Political ​ Time in history  -​ Individual at the bottom and the more and more outwards in the circle you go the more larger aspects are involved Contextual Factors ​ Family ○​ Families are often the most significant influence ○​ Families are networks or ‘webs’ of relationships ○​ Relationships are reciprocal, dynamic and evolving ​ Peers ○​ Peers can be seen as second more influential to children as they develop into adolescence and young adults ○​ Become more important as they age ​ SES ○​ Poverty vs. affluence ​ Birthweight ​ Academic success ​ Mental health ​ Physical health * Family dinners = positive influence on child and adolescent development Education ​ Education ○​ Consistent access to quality education ○​ In Canada, consistent quality education is not a given Individual Difference ​ Scarr's factors related to differences in children ○​ Genetic differences ○​ Differences in treatment by parents and others ○​ Differences in reactions to similar experiences ○​ Different choices of environments Research and Children’s Welfare  ​ Research often leads to a wide variety of benefits in diagnosing children's problems and in helping children to overcome them. ○​ Anger-management programs ○​ More valid child eyewitness testimony ○​ Educational innovation -​ Through this we change how we teach, or we change the ways we advocate for children and youth Studying Child Development The Scientific Approach ​ Approach to testing beliefs ○​ Choosing a question to be answered ○​ Formulating a hypothesis regarding the question ○​ Developing a method for testing the hypothesis ○​ Using the data yielded by the method to draw a conclusion regarding the hypothesis Importance of Appropriate Measurement ​ Key criteria in creating good research measures ○​ Relevance to hypotheses ○​ Reliability ​ Interrater reliability ​ Test-retest reliability ○​ Validity ​ Internal validity ​ External validity ○​ Replicability -​ STUDY for the exam - its important Contexts for Gathering Information on Child Development  ​ Interviews and questionnaires ○​ Structured interviews: useful when goal is to collect self-reports on same topics from everyone being studied ○​ Clinical interviews: useful for obtaining in-depth information about an individual child ○​ Questionnaires: information gathered simultaneously through uniform set of questions presented to participants ​ Naturalistic observation ○​ Observing without disruption ○​ Examination of ongoing behaviour in an environment not controlled by the researcher ○​ Particularly useful for understanding everyday social interactions ​ Structured observation ○​ Facilitating an environment that will elicit a particular response ○​ Method that presents identical situations to each child and records child's behaviour Stanford Marshmallow Test Correlation and Causation ​ IMportant goal of child-development research ○​ Determine how variables are related to one another through ​ Associations ​ Cause-effect relations ​ Correlational designs ○​ Studies intended to indicate how two variables are related to each other ​ Correlation ○​ Association between two variables  ​ Cause–effect inference in correlation is not justified. Why? ○​ Direction-of-causation problem ​ Correlation between two variables does not indicate which, if either, variable is the cause of the other ○​ Third-variable problem ​ Correlation between two variables may stem from both being influenced by some third variable -​ Correlation does not mean causation Experiments ​ Experimental designs ○​ Group of approaches that allow inferences about causes and effects to be drawn ​ Crucial characteristics ○​ Random assignment of participants to groups ○​ Experimental control ​ Control group ○​ Group of participants in an experimental design who are not presented the experience of interest bit in other ways are treated identically ​ Experimental group ○​ Group of participants in an experimental design who are presented the experience of interest Research Designs for Examining Children’s Development Celebrating the First 60 Years of the National Child Development Study  -​ Video watched in class; -​ Children were all born in the UK in one week that were put into the study -​ A total of 17,000 children were in the study -​ All children took part in different cognitive tests (for reading and math) -​ Where you start n ,ife and where you get to in life has direct correlations -​ Longitudinal studies are very valuable -​ 1958 study will give immense information on aging -​ This will be the foundation for public policies Ethical Issues: ​ Maximize benefits minimize harm ​ Respect for the dignity of persons and people ​ Equity ​ Scientific integrity Maintaining a Critical Eye ​ Western lens: ○​ Eurocentric, heteronormative, cis-normative conceptions ○​ Issues of cultural appropriateness