Psych of childhood exam 1

Movement/physical

how our bodies function, how we move and perceive

Cognitive

how we think, how we learn, how we know

Language and communication

how well we comprehend and express ours and others thoughts and feelings

Social/emotional

how we relate to others in families and society at large. How we feel, how we regulate our feelings

Nature and nurture

development as a function of genetics/biology.

vs

development as a function of genetics/biology

Active and passive

Individual actively shapes their development

vs

Individual is shaped from the outside

Person and context

development is invariant across culture.

vs

development is shaped by contexts

Continuity and discontinuity

Development proceeds at a regular pace

vs

Development occurs through bursts or stages of change

Average Development and Individual differences

How children develop “on average”

vs

How children differ in their development

Interview/questionnaire

Asking questions directly to child or others

Performance

Measuring behavior to assess certain aspects of development

Observation of behavior

Observing and coding behaviors of children

Neurobiological assessment

using technologies to understand physiology of the body or the structure and function of the brain

Naturalistic observation

observing children in their natural environment

Structured observation

observing children within a standardized scenario

Quasi- experement

comparing children using grouping variables that are not randomly assigned

Experiment

comparing children using group variables that are randomly assigned

Cross-sectional

comparing age-related differences in of different ages

Longitudinal

examing growth of children over a period of time

Cohort Sequential

combination of cross sectional and longitudinal designs

Micro genetic

large number of assessments examining children across a small developmental window

Primary study

collect data on new participants

Secondary analysis

Analysis of existing data set

Literature review

summary of existing studies

Meta-analysis

analysis of existing studies

Simulation studies

analysis of data on mathematical assumptions/formula

Frontal Lobe

Executive functions, thinking, planning, organizing, and problem solving. Emotions and behavior control, personality

Motor Cortex

movement

Sensory cortex

sensations

Parietal Lobe

Perception, making sense of the world, arithmetic, spelling

Occipital Lobe

vision

Temporal Lobe

memory, understanding, language

Experience-independent

refers to the brains early developmental processes that occur without requiring any specific environmental input or experience. These processes lay down the basic neural architecture of the brain and happen largely before birth

Experience-expectant plasticity

occurs mostly during early development and reflects the fact that as systems grow, they need specific types of inputs to form normally.

Experience dependent plasticity

is a process whereby the connections of networks of neurons are modified by experience, a process that begins early in life and continues for a lifetime

Critical period

periods in development wherein specific environmental experiences are required for the maturation of specific brain regions or functions in which specific experiences result in irreversible changes in brain organization and function.

Sensitive period

periods in which the brain is unusually responsive to a wide range of experiences during postnatal development

Newborn motor skills

Reflexes:

breathing, blinking

sucking, grasping

rooting

moro

babinsky

grasping

stepping

Contemporary Neonatal Testing

blood test (genetic/metabolic conditions)

Pulse oximetry test (heart)

Hearing Screenings (Otoacoustic and/or brain stem response)

New born vision: limitations

getting image of object onto foveas

eyes dont converge

poor focusing

poor color vision

New born vision

Visual world lacks in sharpness, detail, color

It is attuned to faces

cannot be corrects, but it rapidly improves

By a year it is adult like

Neonatal development: hearing

Prenatal period: 24th-28th week gestionalage (before birth) the auditory system is functional

Neonatal period: can already pick out language sounds (all of them)

Preformationism (1500s)

Maturation: process by which organism emerges over time

Experience independent

Driven by genetics/ biology

Behavioral theory (1920s)

Motor and Cognitive skills develop from accumulation of learning

Conditioning

• Classical- Pavlov

• Behaviorism- Watson

• Operant- Skinner

Social learning

• Bandura

Experience Dependent

Pre 1980s: Infancy

Motor development

Preformatrionism: Biology is so strong that babies will learn to walk with “good enough” input

• Experience independent

vs.

Behaviorism: Motor Programs are learned through trial and error/social learning

• Experience dependent

Post 1980s: Perception/Motor development

Move away from preformationism vs behaviorism

Infant Motor development is experience expectant

• Biology sets the conditions and the basic building blocks

• Environment needed for development to countine

Examples: reflexes

Esther Thelen

Dynamic Systems theory: experiences are necessary for development to continue which yield rapid, systemic development.

Incorporated Dynamic Systems theory

• casuality from x to y is de-emphasized. Instead focus on how a system of interrelated factors develops/emerges

• Idea that biological systems emerge as a dynamic interaction between genetics, biology, and environment

• At certain points in time, development takes a path which becomes increasingly specialized and fixed

Dynamic Systems

Open system: structures that maintain their organization even though the elements within the system change

System hierarchies: system will tend to develop in ways that promote a hierarchical structure with increasing specialization (for example coordination of muscle/neurons for higher order movement

Attractor States: recurrent patterns in which the system is likely to move (for example, milestones of motor development)

Emergence: Process of developmental change

• Phase Transitions=qualitative shifts from one pattern or stable state to another

Baby cognition pre 1970s

Babies are thinking about nothing

Piaget: assumptions

• motor skills necessary for cognitive development

• no meaningful cognitive skills until language and enough motor experience in the world

Behaviorism

• these associations had to be learned

1970s Change

1970s people began to ask the following questions

• Can we separate cognition from motor and language skills

• Can we model infant cognition using computer science

Developmental Psychology

1970s: Key methodology pioneered by Robert Fantz

• babies prefer to look at things they perceive to be new

• By comparing patterns of looking it is possible to infer what babies can perceive, remember, and are thinking

Habituation

• show baby simuls over and over again until/she gets bored and looks away

• Change the stimulus and see if baby looks

• If the baby looks (still isn’t bored), assume that the baby can tell something different or novel about the new stimulus

Looking preference

• show infant a stimulus

• then show infant 2 stimuli, one old one new

• measure how much time infant spends looking at new vs. old stimulus

• if infant prefers new stimulus, assume that infant notices something different about it

Cat Dog study

Familiarized on Cats: would look at the dog

Familiarized on Dogs: would look equally at both cat and dog

Why? Cat faces more similar, infants look at faces more than adults do

What does this tell us?

• infants can form categories

• infants can do it before they have meaningful, motor experiences and language

Computer Science/ Artificial Intelligence: Google Deep Learning

How many computers does it take to learn what a cat is

• Built a neural network out of 16,000 processing cores, about 1 billion connections

• Showed this network pictures of 10 million images of cats taken from YouTube videos

• Didn’t tell the network what is was looking for, wanted to see if it could learn the features of a cat all on its own

Infants don’t think like Google Deep Learning: Categorization

• Infants: Global Shape, face processing, active

• Google Deep Learning: Features, passive

Voice

is the sound we make as air from our lungs is pushed between vocal folds in our larynx, causing them to vibrate

Speech

is talking, which is one way to express language. It involves the precisely coordinated muscle actions of the tongue, lips, jaw, and vocal tract to produce the recognizable sounds that make up language

Language

is a set of shared rules that allow people to express their ideas in a meaningful way. Language may be expressed verbally, or by writing, signing, or making other gestures, such as eye blinking or mouth movements.

Dialect

Languages are invariably manifested through their dialects, and to speak a language is to speak some dialect of that language. Any variety of language that is shared by a group.

Phonology

units of sounds

Morphology

units of meaning

Semantics

meaning of words

Pragmatics

use and intent

Syntax

rules of language (grammar)

Prosody

rhythm stress, intonation to convey meaning/emotion

Nonverbal communication

facial, body gestures

Directionality

expressive=ability to express language to be understood
receptive= ability to understand received language

Birth to age 1

Reflexive sounds

Cooing

Babbling

begins at 4 months

• determined by growth of vocal tract

• 4-6 months=Early babbling

• 7-8 months= Canonical babbling

• 10-12 months= Jargon Babbling

First words/ word combo

12-14 months-first words

• characteristics

  • names

  • social words

  • routine words

  • modifiers

2 word stage (1.5-2.5)

• Telegraphic speech

  • mommy sock

  • throw ball

Use content words

Semantics and syntax

Between 2-3yo syntax doubles per month

By 6yo, vocab=14,000

• comprehension occurs before production so they many understand more words

• Rate of new word every 2 hours

• use sentence structure to infer meaning

By three Years old

• plurals and possessives

• past tense

• article

Grammar mistakes are very noticeable but rare