The Study of Child Development Introduction

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How is development defined?

It is a pattern of movement/change starting at conception.

When does development happen?

It happens THROUGHOUT LIFE.

Is development always positive?

It includes both growth and decline.

How does health and well-being influence development?

It influences the physical and mental health on developmental outcomes such as diet, physical activity, public health policies.

How does the influence on health and well-being affect development?

It translates to an influence on your emotional well-being depending on how bad or how well your health and well-being is.

How does the role of parents and home environment affect development?

The way a parenting such as behaviors and parent-child interactions and family dynamics such as household stability affect how a child develops.

What are the aspects of parenting that affect the child?

The parental responsiveness and warmth, household stability and chaos translates to child attachment; behavioral and emotional outcomes.

How can education affect development?

It affects the socioemotional and cognitive outcomes of the child.

What aspects of education can affect the outcomes of the child?

Educator-parent/child relationships; assessment practices; depth and breath of curriculum affect how the child navigates education.

How can sociocultural contexts affect the child?

Culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender and historical context affect how the child navigate the world.

Culture

behaviour patterns, beliefs, and other products of a people that are passed on from generation to generation.

Cross-cultural studies

Comparisons of cultural influences on development across two or more cultures.

Ethnicity

Characteristics based on cultural heritage, race, religion, and language.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

A person’s position within society based on occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.

Gender

Identity, roles, norms, relations, social equity.

Historical Context

time in which individuals live in.

Resilience

Ability to overcome adverse experiences.

How can resilience affect the development of a child?

How a child handles resilience can affect their coping skills that depends on their access to supportive resources and opportunities.

How is resilience a multisystemic phenomenon?

It depends on the individual, family and environmental factors that can affect how a person handle adversity.

What are the characteristics of the individual factors of resilience?

• Temperament

• Learning skills

• Self-confidence

• Social skills

Individual Factor: Temperament

appealing, sociable, easygoing disposition.

Individual Factor: Learning Skills

Awareness, initiative, and decision-making skills.

Individual Factor: Social Skills

being able to cooperate and interact with others.

What are the characteristics of family factor of resilience?

• Strong, positive emotional attachment to a caring adult.

• Good communication among family members.

• Emotionally and physically healthy parent.

• Authoritative parenting

• Connections to extended supportive family networks.

What are the characteristics of authoritative parenting?

Warmth, structure, and appropriate expectations.

What are the characteristics of the environment factor of resilience?

• Having a sense of belonging in the community.

• Bonds to caring adults outside the family.

• Social supports that ensure healthy food and decent housing.

• Safe neighborhoods and access to health, education, and recreation services in the community.

• Freedom from racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice and discrimination.

Social Policies

Governmental courses of action designed to promote welfare.

What are examples of systems targeted by social policies?

• Familial

• Educational

• Community

What is a risk factor on the influence of social policies on development?

Poverty is a risk factor that can affect academic achievement and behavioral maladaptation.

What are some stressors amongst children who are low-income and middle-income families?

• Family trauma

• Child separation

• Exposure to violence

• Crowding

• Excessive noise

• Poor housing quality

Three key processes involved in human development:

• Biological

• Cognitive

• Socioemotional

Biological process involved in human development:

• Produce changes in an individual’s physical nature

What are examples of the biological processes that affect human development?

Genetic influences, hormonal changes, physical maturation, motor skills.

What is the cognitive process that affect human development?

Changes in an individual’s thoughts, intelligence and language.

What are examples of cognitive processes that affect human development?

Problem solving, increased sentence complexity.

What is the socioemotional process that affects human development?

Changes in relationships, emotions and personality.

What are the examples in socioemotional processes that affect human development?

Change to interpersonal relationships like parents and peers.

Prenatal Period

time from conception to birth → 0- ~9 months.

Infancy

birth → ~18 - 24 months

What is developing during infancy?

Speech, physical coordination, symbolic thought.

Early Childhood

end of infancy to ~ 5 to 6 years (preschool years).

What is developing during early childhood?

Increased socioemotional development (peer involvement, self-regulation).

Middle and Late Childhood

~ 6 - 11 years (elementary school years).

What is developing during middle and late childhood?

Pronounced cognitive development such as problem solving and self-regulation.

Adolescence

~ 10 to 12 years → ~ 18 - 19***

What is developing during adolescence?

Rapid physical maturation; pronounced social and cognitive changes.

Nature-nurture issue

Whether development is primarily influenced by nature or nurture — biological inheritance or environmental experiences.

Continuity-discontinuity

Whether or not development is gradual and cumulative or occur in distinct stages.

Stability vs. change

To what extent are aspects of our development fixed or changeable?

What are example topics in the issue of stability vs. change?

• Personality

• Brain plasticity

• Genetic inheritance

Earlier vs. later experience

The degree to which early experiences or later experiences are key determinants of children’s development.

What is the scientific method?

Objective, systematic and testable where it reduces the likelihood that conclusions will be based on personal beliefs, opinions, and feelings.

What is the four-step process of the scientific method?

• Conceptualize a process or problem to study

• Collect research information

• Analyze data

• Draw conclusions

Theory

An irrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps explain and to make predictions.

Hypothesis

A specific, testable assumption or prediction.

How does psychoanalytic theories describe development?

It describes development as primarily unconscious and heavily influenced by emotion.

What are key features in psychoanalytic theories?

• Behavior as a surface characteristic

• Developmental insights like analyzing the symbolic meanings of behaviors

• Importance of early experiences especially with parents

Psychoanalytic Theories: Freud

• Individuals’ problems result of early life experiences

• Focus of pleasure and sexual impulses shifts between various stages of psychosexual development.

What are Freud’s five stages of psychosexual development?

Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

What does Freud say about adult personality?

It is determined by how we resolve conflicts between sources of pleasure and demands of reality at each developmental stage.

How does Freud conceptualize personality?

Reflection of instinctive needs (id), rationality (ego), and morality (superego).

How does Freud define anxiety?

Tension that accumulates from socially unacceptable thoughts/feelings.

Freud: defense mechanisms

strategy by which the unconscious reduces anxiety.

Defense Mechanism: Denial

Refusing to accept reality when it is too painful to experience.

Defense Mechanism: Repression

The unconscious act of hiding painful memories or thoughts from awareness.

What did Erik Erikson say about development in psychosocial stages?

The primary motivation for human behaviour is social not sexual, and reflects desire to affiliate with others and that development occurs throughout the life span.

Erikson: Trust vs. Mistrust

Expectations of safety: determined by caregiving

Erikson: Autonomy vs. shame & doubt

Independence vs. restriction → shame/doubt

Erikson: Initiative vs. guilt

Social changes → behavioral expectations & feedback

Erikson: Industry vs. inferiority

Competency development (importance of schools)

Erikson: Identity vs. identity confusion

Development of sense of self

Erikson: Intimacy vs. isolation

Increased social complexity/demands

Erikson: Generativity vs. stagnation

Purposiveness of actions in a broader context

Erikson: Integrity vs. despair

Life reflection

What is the the difference between psychoanalytic vs. cognitive theories?

Importance of unconscious vs. conscious thoughts/processes

Cognitive Theory: Piaget

Developed the cognitive developmental theory where he states that children actively construct their understanding of the world.

What did Piaget say about the two processes involved in progression across stages?

Organization and adaptation

Piaget: Organization

Where one would order and attenuate relevant experiences and information

Piaget: Adaptation

Where one would adjust based on updated demands/understanding.

What did Piaget propose about cognitive development that occurs through four qualitative stages?

Children think in fundamentally different ways, rather than just knowing more information.

Piaget: Sensorimotor Stage 1

The infant constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions. Infant goes from reflexive, instinctive action to the beginning of symbolic thought at the end. (Birth to 2)

Piaget: Preoperational Stage 2

The child begins to represent the world with words and images. Symbolic thinking increases and go beyond the connection of sensory information and physical action. (2 to 7)

Piaget: Concrete Operational Stage 3

The child can now reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets. (7 to 11)

Piaget: Formal Operational Stage 4

The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways. (11 through Adulthood)

Cognitive Theories: Vygotsky

Developed the sociocultural cognitive theory where children are active participants in shaping their development and has relative importance of social and cultural influences.

How did Vygotsky describe development?

He describes that society is an engine for development and that knowledge transmission is a collaborative process.

Information Processing Theory

Describes development as a continuous process and thinking as information processing → increased processing ability → increased knowledge complexity. (Minds and computers has the same mechanics.)

Behaviorism

The view that development should be defined as observable behavior that can be learned through experience with the environment.

Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov discovered this principle where a neutral stimulus produces a response originally produced by another.

What results from classical conditioning?

Many of our fears.

Operant Conditioning

B.F. Skinner argued a second type of conditioning that accounts for other types of behavior.

What did Skinner argue about operant conditioning?

The consequences of a behaviour changes in the future probability of the behaviour.

Positive Reinforcement

giving a reward to increase likelihood of behaviour.

Negative Reinforcement

taking away something negative or unpleasant to increase likelihood of behaviour.

Punishment

response/feedback that decreases the likelihood of behaviour.

What did Skinner emphasize about development and behaviour?

Development consists of the pattern of behavioural changes that are brought about by rewards and punishments.

What did Bandura say about development and behaviour?

People acquire range of behaviours, thoughts, and feelings through observing others’ behaviour → powerful influence on child development.

What is the social cognitive theory?

Behaviour, environment and cognition are key factors in development.