midterm two terms/concepts

features of human growth

growth is more rapid in infancy than during any other period after birth, infants double their weight by three months, and triple their weight by 1 year

postural development and locomotion

control of body, trunk and arms/legs for movement

prehension

the ability to use hands and fingers as tools for grasping

proximodistal direction

body parts near the center of the infant come under control before distant parts (arms before hands before fingers)

cephalocaudal direction

body parts near the heard are controlled first

how long do newborns sleep

newborns sleep 16-18 hours daily, cycle of 4 hours of sleep followed by 1 hour of wakefulness, usually sleep through the night at 3 months, rem sleep gradually decreases from 50% of the newborns sleep to about 25% by 1 year

adolescent growth spurt and puberty

puberty marks the biological start of adolescence, events and timing of sexual maturation differ for boys and girls, adolescents become taller, heavier, and experience changes in both primary and secondary sex characteristics, timing of puberty is regulated by genes, nutrition, and health, maturing early or late has different psychological consequences for girls and boys

mechanisms of maturation

the hypothalamus sends hormones to the pituitary gland, triggering growth hormones, the pituitary stimulates other glands to produce estrogen in girls and testosterone in boys, the timing is genetically regulated and is affected by health and nutrition

body image

teenagers are very attentive to physical changes, which take place very rapidly and are dramatic, girls are more critical of their appearance and are likely to be dissatisfied

anorexia

persistant refusal to eat

bulimia

uncontrolled eating

body dysmorphic disorder

dissatisfaction with perceived body shape, mostly affects young athletes or boys who want a more masculine physique

obesity

refers to individuals who have a body mass index in the upper five percent, reflects heredity (activity level, basal metabolic rate) and environment (tv ads, external eating signals), effective weigh loss programs incorporate parents, exercise, and changed eating habits

accidental deaths

every year approximately 1-2000 children 15-19 dies often due to high risk behaviour, adolescents reason-out risk like adults but give greater weight to the social consequences of choices

abuse and psychological trauma

psychological disturbances or maltreatment can lead to failure-to-thrive syndrome

neurons

nerve cells in the brain, which transmit activity through axons and dendrites, neurons send electrical signals which cross the synapse by the flow of neurotransmitters

myelin

ensures effective and speedy message transmissions

cell production

neurons are produced between 10-28 weeks post conception

cell migration

nerve cells travel from inner neural tube outward to final location

cell elaboration

synapses are formed, nerve cells are ‘pruned’

the developing brain

brain originates in the prenatal neural plate, myelinization starts before birth and continues through adolescence, resulting in improved coordination and reaction times, after birth, the brain grows rapidly with synaptic pruning weeding out unnecessary connections between neurons

neuroimaging techniques

technologies and methods that enable scientists to generate ‘functional’ maps of brain activity through measurements of changes in either the brains metabolism, blood flow, or electrical level

1. measure electrical brain activity

2. distinguish physical structure of brain

3. assess the functional and metabolic activity of the brain

electrodes

placed on the scalp, generates maps of neural activity

eeg

spontaneous electroencephalography, measures rhythms of electrical activity of neurons under stimulus conditions

erp

event-related potentials, measures electrical activity of specific brain areas in response to a particular stimulus or action

pet

positron emission tomography, measures metabolic activity through the injection of radioactive positron-emitting isotopes

fmri

functional magnetic resonance imaging, oxygen, determines the functionality of brain structures with the use of powerful magnets, no radioactive substance used

plasticity

the brains ability to reorganize itself to become more efficient and to recover from damage if not severe, infants have very ‘plastic’ brains so a childs environment plays a crucial role in their development

sensation

direction of sensory information

perception

interpretation of sensation, organization and understanding of meaning of sensations

attention

selective perception, focus on certain stimuli while ignoring others

inattentional blindness

refers to the inability to see an object or person in our midst

change blindness

form of inattention blindness in which two-thirds of individuals giving directions failed to notice a change in the individual asking for directions

pain

babies react with cries and heart rate changed to skin damage (pin prick)

touch

sensitivity to touch can be demonstrated in the womb, tactile stimuli elicit a variety of reflexes in the newborn (rooting, palmar reflexes)

smell

evident prenatally (amniotic fluid), babies react with facial expressions

taste

evident at birth, various tastes will either elicit a facial expression or change the rate of sucking

hearing

28 week old fetus shows reactivity to sounds, newborns show changes in sucking rate to mother versus a strange female (can discriminate mother but not fathers voice from that of strangers), newborns can discriminate familiar stories from new stories, newborns can discriminate languages

sound

infants prefer and can hear best for sounds that fall within the frequency range of human voice, newborns can distinguish sound location, recalibration necessary with age (head growth)

orienting: hearing/vision

startle reactions show sensitivity to sound, by 7 months can use sound to locate direction and distance, newborns respond to light & visually track moving objects, newborns perceive contrast but few colours

visual activity

the clarity of visual images, the visual acuity of a newborn is 20/400-20/800, the neural circuits that govern visual accommodation are not functional in a newborn

colour vision

is present, but not fully developed in newborns; it is much improved by 3-4 months related with the maturation of colour receptor cells

colour

1 month - can differentiate, red from green

3-4 months - can now detect blue and perceive colours like adults

perceiving faces

infants like to look at faces, one month tend to look at the edges of the face/head, by three months infants tend to look at the features of the face

the spatial layout

infants are able to perceive depth by 7 months, avoid crawling across a visual cliff, show changes in heart rate when exposed to a sharp drop off

vestibular sensitivity

sensory feedback from vestibular organs maintain balance and posture, posture cal alter alertness in babies, development of vestibular sensitivity and posture is a necessary scaffold for the development of motor skills, visual & vestibular cues usually consistent but conflict can occur, visual cues can outweigh vestibular cues with development

intermodal perception

the ability to realize that cues from different senses go together

exploratory intermodal relations

infants inborn ability to spatially relate among sensory modes

intermodal representation

the ability to develop mental representation that bridge haptic touch and visual modes as well as auditory and visual modes, occurs in the second half year of life

convergence

the larger the object the closer it is

attention and action

as children grow older, they become more efficient in their scanning, older children are more careful in gathering visual information, more flexible in their search strategies, less likely to be distracted in their visual searches

attention deficit hyper activity disorder

diagnosed more often in boys than girls, symptoms: inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, biological and hereditary causes, drugs alone can treat ADHD, drugs combined with psychosocial treatment are best treatment for ADHD and accompanying problems

dsm criteria: adhd

a. inattention or hyperactivity and impulsivity

b. at least some of the symptoms present before age 7

c. impairment present in two or more settings

d. clear evidence of significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning

attention deficits

difficulty concentrating on tasks, difficulty sustaining attention over time, trouble following through on instructions, forgetful in daily activities

hyperactivity and impulsivity

constantly in motion, jiggling legs, fidgeting, talking out of turn, trouble to sit still, unable to stop moving or talking when asked to be quiet, activities and movements seem haphazard

neurological basis: adhd

abnormalities of CC, frontal lobes symmetry (r=l) pet studies/metabolism, frontal-basal circuitry (inhibitory function)

stimulant drugs

drugs such as Ritalin used to reduce attention deficit, side effects: sleep problems, loss of appetite

psychological treatment

parent training and changes in classroom management based on operant conditioning principles, reinforcement for behaving appropriately

locomotion

walking alone occurs around the first birthday, dynamic systems theory: motor development involves many distinct skills, differential and integration of component skills is necessary

dynamic systems approach

physical resources interact with the environment to determine timing and direction of development

ulnar

claw like grap with little manipulation (4 months)

pincer

when thumb is used in opposition to fingers (7 months)

handedness

about 90% of children use their right hand, most grasp with right hand by 13 months, clear preference seen by 2 years

fine motor skills

at 4 months infants clumsily reach for objects

by 5 months infants coordinate movement of the two hands

by 2-3 years, children can use zippers but not buttons

tying shoes is a skill that develops by age 6

what is cognition

everything we do involves mental processes or cognitive functioning

who is jean piaget (1896-1980)

piaget became interested in how children think and reason, he noticed that young children answered questions differently than older children

piagets cognitive theory

page viewed cognitive development as qualitative (changes in kind) rather than quantitative (changes in amount), process v content

epistemology

how does knowledge grow, children are not ‘little adults’ having less knowledge, mental growth results from adjusting internal concepts (schemas) to match the external environment, the child constantly constructs and re-constructs their own model of reality

a constructivist approach

often labeled constructivist because it depicts children as constructing knowledge for themselves

the process - piaget

used by the individual in the attempt to reach equailibrium

assimilation

the process by which new experiences are readily incorporated within existing schemas

accommodation

the process of changing cognitive structures based on new experiences

sensorimotor period

birth through age 2, infant schemes are simple reflexes and interactions with people and objects

object permanence - refers to the realization by a child that an object continues to exist even if it can not be seen

preoperational period

age 2-7, child begins to use mental representations but problem solving is limited

children use symbols but there are many errors in thinking - egocentrism, centration, confuse appearance and reality

major feature of this stage is the appearance of representational thought

concrete operations

age 7-11, child performs mental operations (conservation)

conversation - the principle that properties such as volume, number, and mass remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects

formal operations

age 11-through adulthood, child can use formal problem solving and higher-level abstract thinking

child now has the capacity for hypothetical deductive reasoning

piagets sensorimotor thinking

1. newborn uses reflexes

2. primary circular motions (1-4 months)

3. secondary circular motions (4-8 months)

4. behaving intentionally (8-12 months) - infants engage in deliberate behaviour to achieve some end result

5. tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months) - experimenting trying old behaviours on new objects to see results

6. symbolic capacity (18-24 months) - words and gestures are used to represent objects and desires

exercising reflexes

birth to 1 month - infant is limited to exercising inborn reflexes

developing schemas

1-4 months, reflexes evolve into interesting acts centred on the childs own body

discovering procedures

4-8 months, behaviour becomes outwardly oriented, infant develops procedures for reproducing interesting events on objects

intentional behaviour

8-12 months, infant can separate means from ends in pursuit of a goal

novelty and exploration

12-18 months, the infant alter schemes to produce new effects, trial and error is used to solve problems

mental representation

18-24 months, capacity for mental representation emerges, mental problem solving being to replace overt trial and error problem solving

deferred imitation

of a model observed in the past

symbolic play

in which a child uses one thing to stand for something else

qualitative identity

nature of something remains unchanged, but cannot conserve quality

transitivity

ability to combine relations and deduce necessary conclusions is achieved during concrete operational period

limitations of piagetian theory

underestimates cognitive competence in infants; overestimates in adolescence, some components to vague to test, state theory inconsistencies, overlooks influence of cultural and social groups, memory/language/motor components, cognitive development & information processing

the sociocultural perspective: vygotskys theory

cognitive development is inseparable from social and cultural contexts

vygotskys term for ‘thought’: inner speech

zone of proximal development

difference between what one can do alone or with assistance

scaffolding

teaching styles that match assistance to learners needs

private speech

comments intended to regulate own behaviour

core-knowledge theories

much knowledge is general, we also have distinctive domains of knowledge, some of which are acquired early in life, some forms of knowledge so important for survival that learning of these is simplified, children rapidly acquire language and knowledge of objects, living things, and people

understanding people

around age 4, children develop a new appreciation for the centrality of thoughts and beliefs, vocabulary and conversations about thinking, knowing, and beliefs are important to development of understanding of others, even 1 year olds have understanding intentionality, between ages 2-5, children develop a theory of mind