PSY Exam 2

Describe the directions in which growth occurs

Two directions of control and growth

Infancy and toddler years

\-rapid growth

\-Infants and toddlers don't have same proportions as older children and adults

Preschoolers and elementary kids

-grow but at a slower rate than infants and toddlers

growth spurts

\-girls:10-14

\-boys:12-16

Growth during puberty

\-changes differ for females and males in hormones

inches grown

sexual maturation and sex characteristics

\*(Puberty is impacted by nature{heredity}and nurture{ex stress}

Secular Growth Trends

We have been getting taller and heavier with each generation

Psychology of Puberty

differences in self-image between girls and boys

timing of puberty(girls mature earlier and boys mature later)

mechanisms of physical growth

\-Sleep releases Growth Hormones (in teen years too!)

\-Eating: meeting caloric needs (in teen years too!)

\-Input from the environment (in teen years too!)

\*Obviously genetics, then natural unfolding (maturation)

Brain Specialization

Occurs early in development and Hemisphere differences

Successful requires environmental stimulation

• ex. language

• Brain immaturity means more plasticity

Two specific forms of brain specialization

processing areas become more focused

activity shifts from being triggered by general stimuli to specific stimuli

Brain Specialization Systems

Different systems specialize at different rates

• sensory vs higher-order vs self- control

Frontal Lobe

The system controls many complex functions, which are referred to as executive functions. These include planning, control of impulses, initiation, attention and emotion.

parietal lobe

This lobe is vital for sensory perception and integration, including the management of taste, hearing, sight, touch, and smell. It is home to the brain's primary somatic sensory cortex, a region where the brain interprets input from other areas of the body.

temporal lobes

They are most commonly associated with processing auditory information and with the encoding of memory. This lobe is also believed to play an important role in processing affect/emotions, language, and certain aspects of visual perception.

occipital lobe

This lobe is the visual processing area of the brain. It is associated with visual processing, distance and depth perception, color determination, object and face recognition, and memory formation.

Neurons

The neuron structure is specially adapted to carry messages over large distances in the body quickly in the form of electrical signals. Individual cells in the nervous system receive, integrate, and transmit information.

All neurons have three different parts

dendrites, cell body and axon.

Pruning

• we don't keep all the neurons

constant organization of what we have vs. what we need

• language examples

brain neural growth

Making connections

becoming specialized• becoming speedier

gaining skills and control

brain development is nature AND nurture

babies sleeping

lots of sleep

\-but not all the time

consolidating sleep periods

Childhood sleeping

setting good routines

consistency

adolescence sleeping

often don't get enough sleep

melatonin changes

need for later school start times

Rem sleep

Brain activity increases, your eyes dart around quickly, and your pulse, blood pressure, and breathing speed up. This is also when you do most of your dreaming. REM sleep is important for learning and memory.

SIDS

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

low birth weight & preemies at risk

Back to Sleep campaign (1992)

Shared sleeping or co-sleeping

it keeps their baby close, making nighttime care and breastfeeding more efficient and offering intimacy, togetherness, and attachment.

Jean Piaget

Known for his theory of cognitive development in children

Piaget's Theory stages

sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

Sensorimotor stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) of motor activity is key• To your physical actions in the world

Development of language important • New representation of the world

• Learn: Object permanence, Causality, Means-end analysis

preoperational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 7 years of age) Have developed language, symbolic play, deferred imitations

no longer based on senses and motor skills, language-driven, creating use of better symbolic skills and richer mental representations

concrete operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) is class-inclusion• seriation• conservation, which can do mental actions that are reversible. Transition points: focus on end states versus transformations

Formal Operations stage

Piaget's last stage of cognitive development has reason abstractly independent of semantic content • Can think of all possibilities• Can systematically approach problems• Inter-propositional reasoning and this stage is 11 years of age through adulthood

What's Piaget's goal was regarding studying thinking

Piaget's main idea is that it is essential to understand the formation of the child's mental mechanisms in order to acquire their nature and their functioning in adult life.

the mechanisms that Piaget

According to Piaget, cognitive development occurs from two processes: adaptation and equilibrium. Adaptation involves the child's changing to meet situational demands. Adaptation involves two sub‐processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the application of previous concepts to new concepts.

Weaknesses of Piaget's Theory

• Underestimates cognitive competence in infants • Overestimates in adolescence• Mechanisms too vague to test• Stage model doesn't account for variability

• Undervalues influence of sociocultural forces\*

Piaget's Contributions to Child Development

• Focused on Cognition of kids - NOVEL!• So a new view of kids• Fascinating, often counterintuitive, discoveries • Changed the face of teaching - constructivism

Object Permanence first part

Have existence independent of our perceptual contact (can't see it but it still exists)

Look for hidden objects (under clothes or in containers - multiple hiding places) - PIAGET's definition requires that babies MOVE things to get to the hidden object

Between babies can search for hidden objects

But it's not full knowledge according to Piaget

• babies think they are making the toy appear somehow

Object Permanence second part

Babies think things don't exist if they are not visible

Piaget said that during the Sensorimotor period they overcome this and develop object permanence

First step: don't look for hidden objects

Second step: they search for hidden objects, between 8-12 months

BUT they make the A not B error - look in last place found even if they watch a new hiding place

Third step: overcome A not B error, between 12-18 months

Thus the concept of object permanence is achieved sometime after your first birthday

Baillageron's work on object permanence

what do babies know and how early on?

Data suggests babies seem to know A LOT more about objects at an earlier age than Piaget thought.

it is measured by facial expressions in reaction to surprising and not surprising events

by 4 months

Elkind's descriptions of adolescent thought

Adolescent Egocentrism

• imaginary audience• everyone cares about everything that I do • social media??

• personal fable• "You haven't experienced anything like what I'm going through"

• invulnerability?• risk-taking behaviors

Vygotsky's

sociocultural Perspective

Cognitive development is inseparable from culture & contexts. Development in thinking is driven by social interactions

examples:• navigation

What did Vygotsky think are important influences on thinking

he believed that cognitive development was founded on social interaction. According to Vygotsky, much of what children acquire in their understanding of the world is the product of collaboration with others.

Cultural Values & Beliefs & Tools

Social Interactions

Language

Zone of Proximal Development

• social interactions - guided participation

the space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a learner can do with adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.

Scaffolding

is breaking up the learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk. When reading, for example, you might preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and then read and discuss as you go.

Piaget overall theory

little emphasis

cognitive constructivist

strong emphasis on stages

schema, assimilation, accommodation, operations, conversation, classification

language has a minimal role

education merely refines the Child's cognitive skills also views the teacher as a facilitator and guide and not a leader.

Vygotsky overall theory

Strong emphasis

Social constructivist

No general stages of development proposed

Zone of proximal development

A major role; language plays a powerful in shaping thought

Education plays a central role

Teacher is a facilitator and guide not a director

Information Processing approach

approach to the study of cognitive development by observing and analyzing the mental processes involved in perceiving and handling information

Piaget and Information Processing

Learning within each child

(vygotsky) information processing

Learning between people

Cognitive resources and how changes occur

Precise measured and analyzed of thought

Computer metaphor

Capacity

Speed of processing

Encoding

Automaticity

Strategy Construction

Core knowledge

Objects—— object permanence

Living things———- animism

Theory of mind——— egocentrism

object knowledge

knowledge in the sense of being acquainted with or recognizing someone or something.

theory of mind

False belief tasks, False contents ,False knowledge

3 year olds do not pass false belief tasks

Mis attribute what they know to others who don't have that knowledge

lack of social skills, interaction, lack of eye to eye gazing, empathy, lack of enjoyment and cannot appreciate other points

How memory processed the brain

Improvement in memory are related to brain growth

But we don't remember everything

Infantile amnesia

Hippocampus

Creating long term memories

infantile amnesia

Language and sense of self

Rovee-Collier

Did an experiment by tying a ribbon to a babies ankle and connecting it to a mobile. When the infant shakes its leg it moves the mobile, and it learns this quickly. Also tested how long the infant would recall being able to perform this task (implicit).

memory changes in brain

Memory starts early and develops well

2-3 months:past events remembered

But recall decreased over time

Mechanisms of change

encoding, automaticity, strategy construction

Memory for chess

Children have a smaller digit span and gets bigger

But using knowledge which affords them strategies they can do better than their age and better than adults

Digit span and memory for chess board

Childhood thinking

Executive function- goal directed behaviour and self control

Critical thinking- more flexible thinking

Problem solving- understanding rules

Counting skills develop

Counting aloud and finger counting strategies at first

With age things become automatic this processing speeds up

Ziegler's overlapping model

Strategy use

Helps to understand memory and why you need strategies

Use theses as a good way to think about how kids are thinking about thinking

Binet

Late founder of modern iq test

Identified children with academic problems

Not interested in intelligence per se

Standford-Binet

Focus on fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, working memory

Can be used from age 2 through r adulthood

Terman

The study of termites and largest longitudinal study genius

If you score at a super high level of iq does your overall life function look different than others-nope

Math for iq

Mental age/chronological age) x 100

Average =100

Gardner theory

Draws on research in child development, brain damaged adults, and exceptional talent

Proposes 9 intelligent

Proposes school should foster all intelligences

How to test babies

Baileys scales

Cognitive, language, motor, socioemotional, adaptive

1-43 months

Get a developmental quotient

Not iq

Developmental issues of scores

Bayley doesn't predict later iq scores (infancy)

Some impressive stability from age 5 and with age,major changes are less likely

Scores can vary either up or down points(15)

Due to random variables in the environment

Scores do predict school success and occupational success

Describe the directions in which growth occurs

Two directions of control and growth

Infancy and toddler years

-rapid growth
-Infants and toddlers don't have same proportions as older children and adults

Preschoolers and elementary kids

-grow but at a slower rate than infants and toddlers

growth spurts

-girls:10-14
-boys:12-16

Growth during puberty

-changes differ for females and males in
hormones
inches grown
sexual maturation and sex characteristics
*(Puberty is impacted by nature{heredity}and nurture{ex stress}

Secular Growth Trends

We have been getting taller and heavier with each generation

Psychology of Puberty

differences in self-image between girls and boys
timing of puberty(girls mature earlier and boys mature later)

mechanisms of physical growth

-Sleep releases Growth Hormones (in teen years too!)
-Eating: meeting caloric needs
(in teen years too!)
-Input from the environment
(in teen years too!)
*Obviously genetics

Brain Specialization

Occurs early in development and Hemisphere differences
Successful requires environmental stimulation
• ex. language
• Brain immaturity means more
plasticity

Two specific forms of brain specialization

processing areas become more focused
activity shifts from being triggered by general stimuli to specific stimuli

Brain Specialization Systems

Different systems specialize at different rates
• sensory vs higher-order vs self- control

parietal lobe

This lobe is vital for sensory perception and integration, including the management of taste, hearing, sight, touch, and smell. It is home to the brain's primary somatic sensory cortex, a region where the brain interprets input from other areas of the body.

temporal lobes

They are most commonly associated with processing auditory information and with the encoding of memory. This lobe is also believed to play an important role in processing affect/emotions

occipital lobe

This lobe is the visual processing area of the brain. It is associated with visual processing, distance and depth perception, color determination, object and face recognition, and memory formation.

Neurons

The neuron structure is specially adapted to carry messages over large distances in the body quickly in the form of electrical signals. Individual cells in the nervous system receive, integrate, and transmit information.

All neurons have three different parts

dendrites, cell body, axons

Pruning

• we don't keep all the neurons
constant organization of what we have vs. what we need
• language examples

brain neural growth

Making connections
becoming specialized• becoming speedier
gaining skills and control
brain development is nature AND nurture

babies sleeping

lots of sleep
-but not all the time
consolidating sleep periods

Childhood sleeping

setting good routines
consistency

Rem sleep

Brain activity increases

SIDS

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
low birth weight & preemies at risk
Back to Sleep campaign (1992)

Shared sleeping or co-sleeping

it keeps their baby close

Jean Piaget

Known for his theory of cognitive development in children

Piaget's Theory stages

sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

Sensorimotor stage

in Piaget's theory

preoperational stage

in Piaget's theory

concrete operational stage

in Piaget's theory

Formal Operations stage

Piaget's last stage of cognitive development has reason abstractly independent of semantic content • Can think of all possibilities• Can systematically approach problems• Inter-propositional reasoning and this stage is 11 years of age through adulthood

What's Piaget's goal was regarding studying thinking

Piaget's main idea is that it is essential to understand the formation of the child's mental mechanisms in order to acquire their nature and their functioning in adult life.

the mechanisms that Piaget

According to Piaget