Child Development

Front 1

Periods of Development

Back 1

Prenatal Period (9 months): period from conception to birth during which a single, fertilized cell grows to a living baby- by the end of 9 months, the baby will be on average, 18 inches long and weigh just over 7 pounds- most rapid growth during this period!
Infancy and toddlerhood (birth- 2 years): at birth- cannot hold up heads, eat solid food, or sleep through the night. By age of 2- can walk and talk, eat at the table, and sleep through the night
Early Childhood (2-6 years of age): grow taller and stronger, develop a conscience, self-control, thinking and language skills surge, and pretend play emerges
Middle childhood (6-11 years): thinking and reasoning categories continue to grow-allowing them to learn to read and write, solve new kinds of problems, increased physical coordination

Front 2

Domains of Development

Back 2

Physical growth and heath: motor development (sit, stand, and walk) as well as physical health and illness

Cognitive Development: cognitive growth (math, reading, science), as well as linguistic dev. (speak, write, and comprehend languages)

Social and Emotional Dev: Social relationships as well as emotional dev. -increasing conscience, self-control, and concern for others

Front 3

Themes in Child Development

Back 3

Nature v. Nurture: Inherent disposition vs. environment factors

Continuity and Discontinuity:
-Cont: development occurs via slow but continual processes of change- gradual building of new knowledge and skills-like a pine tree growing- quantitative- smooth linear development
-i.e. motor skills, vocabulary, height
Discont: there are moments during development when children take giant leaps followed by periods or relative stability. -more qualitative and discrete
-i.e. certain insights like solving math problems

Universality and Diversity:
Universal View: sequence of development = the same everywhere, all around the world and has remained the same throughout history
Diversity: connections between development and the contexts or cultures in which it takes place
-sociocultural context: socioeconomic status, religion, family- traditional/nontrad./geographic location, time (historically)

Front 4

Themes in Child Development

Back 4

Nature v. Nurture: Inherent disposition vs. environment factors

Continuity and Discontinuity:
-Cont: development occurs via slow but continual processes of change- gradual building of new knowledge and skills-like a pine tree growing- quantitative- smooth linear development
-i.e. motor skills, vocabulary, height
Discont: there are moments during development when children take giant leaps followed by periods or relative stability. -more qualitative and discrete
-i.e. certain insights like solving math problems

Universality and Diversity:
Universal View: sequence of development = the same everywhere, all around the world and has remained the same throughout history
Diversity: connections between development and the contexts or cultures in which it takes place
-sociocultural context: socioeconomic status, religion, family- traditional/nontrad./geographic location, time (historically)

Front 5

Themes in Child Development

Back 5

Nature v. Nurture: Inherent disposition vs. environment factors

Continuity and Discontinuity:
-Cont: development occurs via slow but continual processes of change- gradual building of new knowledge and skills-like a pine tree growing- quantitative- smooth linear development
-i.e. motor skills, vocabulary, height
Discont: there are moments during development when children take giant leaps followed by periods or relative stability. -more qualitative and discrete
-i.e. certain insights like solving math problems

Universality and Diversity:
Universal View: sequence of development = the same everywhere, all around the world and has remained the same throughout history
Diversity: connections between development and the contexts or cultures in which it takes place
-sociocultural context: socioeconomic status, religion, family- traditional/nontrad./geographic location, time (historically)

Front 6

Erikson's Psychsocial Theory

Back 6

-emphasized cultural and contextual issues- at each stage- conflicts emerge between the needs of the developing person and the supports available from the environment
Conflicts:
-basic trust vs. mistrust
-autonomy vs. shame and doubt: shame in dependency and pride in independent action

Front 7

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

Back 7

emphasized the importance of motives and drives, especially w/ a sensual nature
Stages:
Oral- pleasure from sucking (i.e. breasts)
Anal- pleasure centers on the anus, toilet training, self-control
Phallic (3-6): pleasure focused on the genital region of the body
Latency (7-11): quiet period of development when the child's interest is focused outside of the body
Genital: seek sexual stimulation and satisfaction

Id: unconscious, wishes and desires- sexual, agressive
Ego: rational part of personality that plans and executes behavior
Superego: Conscience- judges morality of person's actions

Front 8

Designs for Studying Child Development

Back 8

Cross-Sectional Designs: Researchers study people of different ages at the same time
-good for gathering large amounts of information, but do not reveal ways in which individuals change over the course of development

Longitudinal Designs: Same children over an extended period of time
-good b/c you can study change over time, but they take years to complete and people may drop out
-also may be cohort effects- which occur when one generation differs from another

Cross-Sequential Designs: different groups of participants are followed over time

Microgenetic Designs: Same children over short time
-i.e. child during major transitional stage (crawling to walking)

Front 9

Data Gathering Techniques

Back 9

-Interviews: face to face or questionare
-Naturalistic Observation: observe in everyday settings- i.e. playgrounds-> can be problematic due to consent and external stimuli

-Structured Observations: observe performing predetermined tasks
-i.e. compliance task w/ toys

Front 10

Gene x Environment Relations

Back 10

Passive G-E relation: parents pass on genotype and environment- i.e. sociable parents will expose children to more social situations than socially inept and isolate parents

Evocative: different genotypes evoke different responses from the environment
i.e. smiling, active babies receive more social stimulation than fussy, difficult infants

Active G-E relation: actively seek environments related to their genes i.e. children who are quick strong, and agile will likely become involved in athletic activities

Front 11

Periods of Prenatal Development

Back 11

Zygote period: conception to implantation on the wall of the uterus
-approx the first 8-10 days after conception

Embryonic Period: weeks 3-8- cell division, cell migration (movement of cells from pt. of origin elsewhere), cell differentiation (movement and specialization of cells- i.e. cells to become eyes, liver), hormones- around the 8th week, the presence or absence of testosterone determines the development of male/female genitalia

Fetal period: 9th week to birth
-increases in length and weight (8 grams to 3500 grams), organ system increases in complexity
-increasing behavior, sensory experience, and learning

Front 12

Maternal Environmental Influences of Prenatal Development

Back 12

-Stress
-Nutrition
-Age
-Disease

Front 13

Teratogens

Back 13

Hazards to prenatal development- environmental sources of birth defects--> effects depending on the time of exposure!- first 2 weeks is most severe
-illegal drugs: cognitive problems
-alcohol: FAS, heavy drinker = 3 oz/ day in a pregnant woman, brain differences: smaller, less dense, asymmetric growth, decrease in convulsions and fissures, cognitive imparities, eyes far apart
-tobacco: fetal growth restriction- due to constriction of blood vessels, low birth weight, and greater risk of infant mortality, babies w/ shorter attention span, poor memory, and other behavioral and cognitive difficulties in infancy --> due to reduction in oxygen in system and more CO2 in bloodstream
-environmental toxins: mercury- dev. defects, pesticides, polluction
-OTC drugs: antihistamines, aspirin, thalidamide (arm/leg abnormalities), streptomyacin (antibioitc), valium
-infections: AIDS, German measles- results in blindness

*each teratogen has a characteristic pattern of action!*

Front 14

Teratogen Severity

Back 14

Dose-Response Relation: how much? how long exposure?

Cumulative Impact: i.e. smoking and poor maternal nutrition

Sleeper effects: exposure and birth of child- everything seems fine- certain age when effect of teratogen is seen

Front 15

Twins

Back 15

Monozygotic:
-during mitotic development of zygote, 2 indiv. w/ same genetic makeup

Dizygotic
- 2 zygotes formed
-factors influencing: genetics, fertility drugs, IVF, age, race, # of prior pregnancies

Front 16

Prenatal Development

Back 16

Movement:
5-6 weeks after conception: spontaneous movement- jerky and uncoordinated
12 weeks post conception: most of the movements present at birth already present

Swallowing: drink amniotic fluid, passes through GI system, tongue movements promote health palate development

Breathing: 10 weeks post conception- exercises lungs through fetal breathing- moving chest wall in and out
-lungs and muscles that move the diaphragm must be mature and functional at birth

Hearing- from 6th month of pregnancy on- responds to variety of sounds- external noises elict changes in movement and heart rate

Learning: last 3 months- CNS sufficiently developed to support learning

Front 17

Prenatal learning of speech

Back 17

9 month of gestation
-"babi"-> deceleration of HR
-repeated presentation- HR return to baseline
-"biba" - spike in HR, maintained, then comes down

=habituation

Front 18

Characteristics of the Newborn- Reflexes

Back 18

-rooting (touch cheek- child turns face to suck)
-sucking
-grasping
-moro (triggered by a sudden loss of support to the back and neck or by loud noise--> newborns arms fly back and forward, head falls backward, and begins to cry)
-Babinsky (stroking bottom of foot causes the baby's toes to splay outward and then curl under

Front 19

Characteristics of the Newborn- Sensory Abilities

Back 19

Visual:
-at birth= nearsighted
-preferences: stripes rather than plain colors, 3D objects rather than 2D, human faces rather than picture of scrambled human facial features
-preference of mother's picture
-fuzzy image at first- clear image at 4-6 months
Imitation- babies are capable of imitating facial expression as young as 2 hours old
Auditory:
-functioning well at birth
-preferences: pitch and loudness of female voice
-ability to discriminate b/w mother's voices and voice of other females

Taste and Smell:
-these abilities developed at birth
-can distinguish among salty, sweet, sour, and bitter tastes
-preferences: prefer breast milk over formula

Multimodal perception:
-infants seem to recognize that input from one sense modality corresponds in important ways w/ that from other modalities

Front 20

Do infants recognize a stimulus exposed to during late fetal stage?

Back 20

-last 6 weeks prior to birth- read aloud 2 times/day
--> repeatedly exposed to highly rhythmic pattern of speech (the cat in the hat)

Newborn testing: 2 or 3 days old
-established baseline sucking rate
-suck rate associated with presentation condition
Condition A: increasing suck rate turned on recording of reading
-decreased suck rate turned on no previously experience recording of reading

Condition B:
-decreased suck rate turned on recording of reading
-increasing suck rate turned on not previously experienced recording of reading
RESULTS:
-infants modified their suck rates in the direction that produced the cat in the hat

Front 21

Synaptic Density Post-Natal

Back 21

-synaptic density in humans changes over the life span
-> relatively rapid synapse formation early in life
- 3 months: 1 main synaptic structure- but more branching/ connections, 6 months- more nerve bundles
-pre-frontal cortex- late development
-synaptic density at the plateau is greater than adult densities
-beginning at puberty, synaptic densities decrease to adult levels (pruning)- to make more efficient

Front 22

Synaptic Myths

Back 22

1. More synapses = more brain power
the data- no clear connection b/w synaptic links. losing synapses is a part of the maturation process
-adults are more intelligent than infants
-adolescents do not have a precipitous decline in intelligence
2. Early environmental stimulation causes synapses to form
-some studies have shown more environmental stimulation- more synaptic connections- but to what extent?
3. Period of rapid synapse formation is the time when basic learning skills are hardwired
-but skills continue to develop past the time that synaptic density begins to decline

Front 23

Experience-Expectant Synaptogenesis

Back 23

something all members of a species experience
-plays a necessary role in the developmental organization of the nervous system
-i.e. vision

Front 24

Experience- Dependent Synaptogenesis

Back 24

-not confined to a window of opportunity that slams shut after a period of time
-i.e. rolling sushi

Front 25

Periods of Development

Back 25

Critical period: times during which the brain requires certain kinds of stimulation if it is to develop normally
-i.e. zebra finch and song

Sensitive period = less rigidity in nature and timing of the required experiences
i.e. in humans: language, vision-> cataracts in infants- impedes normal development- need to remove before 5 years- otherwise permanent damage, auditory

Front 26

Newborn learning

Back 26

classical and operant conditioning
-variables affecting learning: infant's state, type of response (kids can pick up on anxiety in parents)
-immediacy of reward, amount of repetition

Parental response to vaccinations
-if parents sang, joked, talked to infants in a calm and soothing manner- infants cried the least and showed less intense pain expression
-if they apologized- infants cried hardest/ longest

Front 27

Newborn playing

Back 27

2 months- explore and interact
-offer interesting objects to look at/ touch
-place so can kick or hit at objects
Toys:
-differentiate b/w rough and smooth surfaces
-face w/ smile
-rings
-bold attractive colors
-different sounds/ visual experience
-interactive
-tactile/ textures

-by 4 months- looking to explore/ interact

Front 28

Theories of Attachment

Back 28

Psychoanalytic Theory: gratification of oral needs (i.e. feeding)
-> attachment to mother b/c satisfies oral needs

Behaviorism/ Learning Theory: parental gratification of needs is positively reinforcing
-> operant conditioning

Biological/ Evolutionary: facilitates survival

-> Harlow's study w/ monkey's
-attachment to terricloth mother (vs. wire mother w/ milk)
message - attachment is beyond basic nutrition

Front 29

What makes babies upset?

Back 29

Strangers: stranger anxiety
-peaks at 8-10 months

Separation: separation anxiety
-peaks at 14-18 months

Front 30

Strange Situation

Back 30

Standardized laboratory measure to measure attachment style by assessing the way a child reacts to his/her parent after experiencing stranger and separation anxiety

-21 min procedure (each step = 3 minutes, highly scripted)

1. After entering the room, parents sits while baby plays
2. stranger enters and talks to parent
3. parent leaves, stranger offers comfort
4. parent returns and offers comfort; stranger leaves
5. parent leaves --> child needs to be stressed!
6. stranger returns and offers comfort
7. parent returns and offers comfort --> 2nd reunion!- where classification of attachment style is made

Front 31

Attachment Styles

Back 31

Secure: 65%
-caregiver is secure base (consistent b/w mother and father)
-child shows some distress when caregiver leaves
-child is glad to see caregiver return

Insecure Anxious/ Resistant/ Ambivalent
-10%
-high distress when separated
-angry when parent returns

Insecure Anxious/ Avoidant
-20%
-low distress when separated
-ignore parent when returns

Front 32

Constructivist Perspective on Cognitive Development

Back 32

-Piaget
-knowledge is constructed
-role of child that results in growth
-knowledge, reasoning = an active role

Main themes = nature/nurture, continuity/ discontinuity, active child

-the active child constructs knowledge w/ continuity
-> trial and error, and then building on current knowledge
-i.e. blowing bubbles- state of current knowledge guides processing of new information and current knowledge substantially influences how and what new information is acquired

Discontinuous stages of development:
sensorimotor (birth- 2 years) = senses and actions
preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

Front 33

Assimilation and Accommodation

Back 33

Assimilation: integrate new materials into existing patterns of behavior -> may require distorting or modifying input (making it fit)

Accomodation: create a new schema and modify old schema
-change the way think about things to account for differences in environment

Disequilibirum = driving force
-logical conflict
-ensures efficient interaction with the environment -> too much assimilation or accomodation
-NEED BOTH- if only assim- very general knowledge, if only accom- no general know, just specific
Horse v. Cow -> different type of horses = assim., but diff b/w horse and cow- need accomodationn

Front 34

Sensorimotor Stage

Back 34

-Infants understand the world through their sense and actions (not through mental thought processes)
-Unable to anticipate what will happen without actually doing it - need to be actively engaged
Stages:
1: (0-1 month)- reflexes become coordinated- i.e. sucking/ eating- > to feed more efficiently
2: (1-4 months)- primary circular reactions (bringing something on own body back to the body and repeated)-i.e. sucking thumb- early developmental sucking behaviors
3: (4-8 months): secondary circular reactions (repetitive actions with objects that produce an effect)- i.e. banging a toy on a hard surface to produce a noise- starting to develop object permanence but will not look for hidden object
4: (8-12 months)- coordinating secondary circular reactions- learn to perform new kinds of actions that are intentional i.e. simple hiding task- will look for object
5: (12-18 months)- tertiary circular reaction (beginning of problem solving)- i.e. object through bars
6: (18-24 months)- beginnings of symbolic representation-> objects are permanent- even if cannot see them

Front 35

Object Permanence

Back 35

Belief that objects continue to exist even when they are out of range of our senses
Simple Object Hiding Task: succeed b/w 8-12 months
A-B search error- 1 object-2 hiding spots- gets confused

Successive Object Hiding Task 0 succeed b/w 12-18 months- no AB search error

Invisible Object Hiding Task: succeed b/w 18-24 months
-distract child and move objects- able to find it

Why do children fail (according to Piaget)?
-physical limitations of children- memory, inhibiting of reach

Front 36

Renee Baillargeon and Reasoning about non-visible objects

Back 36

"Violation of Expectancy" = physically impossible (magical) events in which infants show different responses when their expectations are met vs. not met
-in conflict w/ piaget!
-baby recognizes impossible event and stares longer (as young as 3 months)

Her Task:
Familiarization events (real events) = control- see what their gaze looks like normally

Test events: possible and impossible (with short and tall rabbit)
*kids have knowledge of objects and properties at ages as young as 3 months!)

Front 37

Learning

Back 37

Experience and Knowledge
-Classical Conditioning
-Operant Conditioning
-> rewarded acts are strengthened (the greater the satisfaction, or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond)
-Infants learn to do things b/c they know other things will follow
-positive/negative reinforcement or punishment

Rovee-Collier and development of memory: string attached to mobile- kicking moves mobile
-Retention findings: 2 month-remember for 24-hour perod, but 36-hour- no kicking-limitations to what can learn at that age
3 month old- remember for 8 days, 6 months- remember 2 weeks-> after 4 weeks can give a hint/ reminder and will continue
-Specificity- need same backdrop, same letters on mobile
-Recognition vs. Recall
-higher performance w/ recognition ("is this what i saw before")
-recall- ("is this what i saw before") involves fewer environmental supports and is more difficult

Scale Errors
-under 2 years
-big slide vs. little slide- no perception of size-cog. dev. not there
-Observational Learning
-i.e. tongue imitation

Front 38

Building Blocks of Language

Back 38

Phoneme: smallest unit- sounds
-200 max/ 40 in english
-alphabet, combinations, vowels
-phonological development: learning about sound system of a language

Morphemes: smallest unit of meaning (sing. vs. plural, prefix/suffix)
-sematic development: learning about expression of meaning

Syntax: words arranged into meaningful wholes (subject, verb, object)
-Syntactic development: learning rules for combining words

Pragmatics
-pragmatic development: learning how language is used

Front 39

Stages of Language Development

Back 39

First months- cooing
7 months- babbling consonant-vowel (sounds from any language) i.e. mama, baba
9-12 months- phonemes from native language (40 sounds)

Front 40

Infant Speech Perception

Back 40

young infants ability to discriminate b/w different speech sounds
-universal babblers and perceivers (6-8 months)- can hear differences in sounds that adults cannot hear i.e. hindi da daah
-native babblers and perceivers (10-12 months)

Media Message:
-importance of exposing young infants to foreign language- to avoid "bad accent"- but do they remember?

Front 41

Media viewing in children

Back 41

CDI = developmental index that measure vocab growth

-reading once a day, telling stories once a day inc. CDI score
-listening to music not sig.
-viewing baby DVDS/videos dec. CDI in children (8-16 months)
-parental viewing w/ children did not raise CDI scores

Recommended media viewing
-kids under 2 = less than 1 hour
-> taking away from communicative dialogue
Today- over 60% of 2 year-olds have DVD player in room

Front 42

Gestures

Back 42

Pre-verbal, signs and pointing- food, more, animals
-inventive and spontaneous
-can also teach baby signs
-do deaf children babble w/ their hands? - in hearing children-babbling= repeated consonant/vowel, in deaf children- attempt to sign
-brain can take input from sign and speech equally well

Iverson and Goldin-Meadow (2005)
-examined gesture production in relation to lexical and syntactic development in the early stages of language development- do gestures precede the spoken language?
Results: on average, children produced a gesture for a particular object 3 months before they produced the word for that object -> facilitates language development
-mean interval between onset of complementary gesture-plus word combinations (sign and word are the same) and 2-word combinations was 4.7 months
-corresponding interval between onset of supplementary (gesture and word mean different things) gesture plus word combinations and onset of 2-word utterances was 2.3 months -> ie. point to bird and say sleeping
Coding of Behaviors:
-Deictic gestures: showing, index point, palm point
-Conventional gestures: wave, shake head "no"
-Representational gestures: flap arms = flying

Front 43

First Words

Back 43

-recognize words b/w 7-8 months
~10 months- range 11 to 154 words- when production begins
HOLOPHRASTIC PERIOD
-single word
-names, objects, events
-overextensions- picks up on a parameter and applies a word beyond its customary boundaries-i.e. ball = ball, balloon, marble, apple, egg
-underextensions- falsely overly specific -i.e. doggie = golden and not lab

-fast mapping: pairing of auditory and visual stimuli- ability to learn new words on the basis of little input
-mutual exclusivity- children's assumption that words refer to separate and nonoverlapping categories or that a given object has only one name- i.e. if given 2 words 1 (ducky), other is unknown (blicket, toma)- able tp ick out object due to ability to eliminate unknown word/ object

Emotional reaction- instructor shows reaction to correct object w/ nonsense name

Front 44

2+ Words

Back 44

-Sentences - telegraphic speech (contain content but not function words)
-Grammar- overregularization- "walkedid" or "i have 2 foots"
-'Wh' questions
-negatives

Front 45

Temperament

Back 45

stable individual characteristics in attention, activity, and strength of emotional reactions --> dispositional to the child at birth!
Styles (Thomas and Chess)
-Easy babies: ~40%
-adapt well to change, normal sleep schedule, regulates, reacts calmly and easier to calm
-Difficult Babies ~10%
-resistant to change- react negatively and intensely, difficulty in routine
Slow-to-warm-up babies: ~15%
-slow to accomodate change, relatively inactive, and negative in mood

Kagan Study:
-shy vs. outgoing babies
-mobile w/ dangling
-crying at mobile/ motor movements = shy
-calm and relaxed = outgoing

Front 46

Emergence of Emotions

Back 46

-parents read emotions by coding and classifying facial cues
Positive Emotions
-social smile- 6-7 weeks
-smiling at familiar people- 7 months
-laughing- 3-4 months

Negative emotions
-Generalized distress (1st and most basic emotion)
-Anger and sadness- 2 months
-Fear- 1 month
-Separation Anxiety- peaks at 8 months
-Embarassment, guilt, and shame- 15-24 months

Front 47

Regulation of Emotions

Back 47

Self-regulation
-internal feeding states
-emotion-related physiological processes- fight or flight-sweating and muscle tension
-emotion-related cognition
-emotion-related behavior- hitting

Front 48

Development of Emotional Regulation: Role of Self and Parent

Back 48

Quality of parent-child relationship
-internalization of parental values

Socialize children through:
-modeling expression of emotion in interactions with their children and others
-reactions to children's expression of emotions
-discussion w/ their children about emotion and the regulation of emotion

Parents help infants regulate emotions: control exposure to stimuli and remove source of frustration or fear

-by 6 months: self-soothe
-Language development: use talk to regulate expression of emotions
-learn to express emotions in socially acceptable ways

Front 49

Bed Time stories

Back 49

Falling asleep children:
-relaxing after an action-packed day
-bidding farewell to play, food, sociability
-experience that can be welcomed or feared and is met w/ a mixture of emotions

Fear- Darkness
-Goodnight moon: soothing, slow, repetition, room gets darker
Fear- Bad Dreams
-What's under the bed/ There's a nightmare in my closet- ends w/ another monster- soothing?
Fear- separation from parents
-Bedtime for Francis-> soothing, closing message/ sleepyhead

Front 50

Theories of Cognitive Development

Back 50

-constructivist (piaget): main themes = nature/nurture, continuity/ discontinuity, and active child

-information-processing: how fast/ how well cognitive development occurs- emphasizes the flow of info through the mind- main themes - nature/nurture and how change occurs

Core-knowledge: infants are born with some understanding about essential areas, such as language, space,objects and numbers main themes= nature/nurture and continuity/discontinuity

Sociocultural (Vygotsky): emphasizes social and cultural factors in development- main themes = nature/nurture, sociocultural influences, and how change occurs