psych 102 - week 10 - developmental psychology

stages of development → germinal, embryonic, fetal

GERMINAL: the brief existence of the fertilized egg is called a zygote → the period is from conception to the following two weeks

• the zygote continues to divide and grow and travel from the fallopian tubes to implanting itself on the wall of the uterus.

EMBRYONIC: zygote to embryo → 2nd week-8th week after conception

• although only an inch long, embryo develops arms, legs, and a beating heart, and the beginning of female reproductive organs → if its a male, there will be an increase of testosterone

FETAL: embryo → fetus → 9th week - until birth

• fetus has a skeleton and muscles which allow it to move around; the cells begin to undergo a process called myelination which is when a cover around the neurons develops (similar to plastic covering around the metal wires)

• baby brains are only 25% developed as that way they can pass through their mothers birth canal and also human beings develop as they function

prenatal environment

the womb is the equivalent of an environment and has a very powerful impact on development → although a woman’s bloodstream is separated from her child’s by the placenta, many substances can pass through the placenta

teratogen + examples

any substance that passes from mother to unborn child and impairs development

• ie: mercury in fish, lead in water, and radon in air

  • fetal alcohol syndrome (fas): developmental disorder that stems from heavy alcohol usage by the mother during pregnancy → child has a variety of cognitive deficits an brain abnormalities as they develop

    • tobacco: babies born to mothers who smoke are smaller, more likle to be prematurely, and more likely to have perceptual and attentional problems in childhood and infancy → can result in stillbirth, reduced birth weight, and learning deficits

how does not ingesting enough nutrients impact mothers and their children?

women who dont recieve enough nutrients are more susceptible to having children who have intraterine growth restriction or IUGR → newborns are small and underwight and have higher chances of developing mental and physical illnesses

how does the prenatal environment impact the unborn child?

rich with chemicals that affect the unborn child, but it is also rich with information → fetus can hear mothers heartbeat, the gastrointestinal sounds associated with her digestion, and her voice

• the fetus mimics what they hear when in their mom’s womb → if the mom speaks to someone in their native tongue, the baby will cry in the same pitch as their mom speaks.

nativism (innate) vs empiricism (learned)

nativism: children are born with specific abilities or will naturally gain them with maturity

• perceiving colours, puberty

empiricism: children must learn certain skills with experience and practice and would have never have them without it

• reading

stage theories v continuous theories

stage theories: children deveolp in stages → diff abilities come from different stages in life

continuous theories/fluid: development is fluid and continuous and any ability can emerge at any time

different ways to measure change

cross sectional design: recruit participants of different ages/cohorts at the same time and study them at the same time → MULTIPLE PPL

• pros: quick and relatively easy to do

• cons: cohort effects: a third variable problem is that differences in age results in differences with experiences → we want age to be the only causal factor

Longitudinal design: recruit one group of participants and then re-test them as they get older comparing their performance to past selves → ONE PERSON

• pros: removes cohort effects → causal factors = time or age

• cons: time intensive, expensive, and attrition (ppl might drop out of the study)

four ways to measure behaviour in children (also perceptual)

universal behaviours → everyone has these behaviours

• newborns imitate facial expressions: within days of birth new born babies can imitate facial expressions they see

• newborn language preferences: within hours of birth, babies who hear the language of their parents begin sucking a pacifier harder

looking preferences → visual system matures really quickly as you grow up

• Face preference study: when newborns are shown two paddles with dots on them, the one that resembles a face is the one they will be attracted towards

• habituation: exposing a participant to the same stimulus until they are bored, and then presenting them with something similar but new

  • number study: showing six dots multiple times until child is bored, and then showing them 12 dots to see if they dishabituate → suggesting they have a sense of numbers

searching and foraging→ relying on childrens desire to explore their environments

• sandbox task: toys are buried into sand and the child must look for them → toddler only remembers 3 whereas an adult remembers 8

embedding into games → creating instruments that look like games and toys to have children engage more with them

• when children aren’t given extensive instructions on how to play, they are more likely to truly explore more

domain specific disorder v domain general disorder + examples

domain general: when almost every facet of development are impacted, from language, attention, memory etc → down syndrome

domain specific: when some abilities are impacted, and others aren’t → wiiliams syndrome

motor development + motor reflexes

motor development: emergence of the ability to execute physical actions → reaching, grasping, crawling, and walking

motor reflexes: motor responses that are triggered by specific patterns of sensory stimulation → rooting reflex (moving mouths toward something moving to them) and sucking reflex (sucking anything that enters their mouth)

cephalocaudal principle

motor skills tend to emerge in sequence from their head to the feet → top to bottom

• gaining control of heads, then arms and trunks, and legs last

proximodistal principle

motor skills emerge in sequence from centre to the periphery→ inside to outside

• controlling their trunks, then elbows and knees, then hand and feet etc.

scale error

when the perceptual and motor skills don’t work seamlessly together

• ie: treating a small object as a regular sized one or trying to fit into a miniature car

  • this occurs as the Childs perceptual knowledge based on the object they have usually seen does not match with what they would be with a regular sized object