Child Psychology Exam 1

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Child Development

Child Development

a field of study focused on understanding constancy and change from conception to adolescence

Stages of Child Development

1. Prenatal

2. Infancy

3. Early Childhood

4. Middle Childhood

5. Adolescence

6. emerging adulthood

Prenatal Period

• conception to birth

• one-celled organism is transformed into a human baby with remarkable capacities for adjusting to life in the surrounding world

Infancy and Toddlerhood

• birth to 2 years

• dramatic changes in the body and brain

• beginning of language and the first intimate ties to others

Early Childhood

• 2 years to 6 years

• make-believe play and thoughts and languages expand

• morality begins

Middle Childhood

• 6 years to 11 years

• improved athletic abilities, more logical thought process, mastery of fundamental reading, writing, math and other academic knowledge

• advances in understanding self-morality and friendship

Adolescence

• 11 years to 18 years

• puberty leads to changes in body and sexual maturity

• person establishes autonomy from family and defines personal values and goals

Continuous or Discontinuous Development ?

• Continuous = a process of gradually adding more of the same type of skills that were there to begin

• Discontinous = new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times

One Course of Development v. Many

unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can result in different changes in patterns

Nature v Nurture

• are we shaped by our environment or our biology?

• stability (nature) = individual differences maintained throughout development

• plasticity (nurture) = open to change in response to influential experience

John Locke

• children being as “blank slates” and shaped entirely by experience

• relates to continuous

Rousseau

• disagreed with Locke

• believe children are born with an innate sense of right and wrong + maturation

Maturation

genetically determines, naturally unfolding course of growth

Charles Darwin

• theory of evolution

• natural selection

• survival of the fittest

Stanley Hall

• founder of the child study movement

• believed in the normative approach

Normative Approach

measures of behavior are taken from large samples and age-related averages are computed to represent typical development

Alfred Binet

• need to identify school children with learning problems in order to provide accommodations

• believed intelligence was based on good judgment, planning and critical reflection

• developed the 1st intelligence test

Psychoanalytic Perspective

children move through a series of stages in which they confront conflict between biological drives and societal expectations

Psychosexual Theory

• how parents manage their child’s sexual aggressive drives in the first few years are crucial for healthy personality development

• developed by Sigmund Freud

Id

• the largest portion of the mind

• the sources of basic biological needs and desires

Ego

• the conscious, rational part of personality

• emerges in early infancy to redirect the id’s impulses so they are discharged in acceptable ways

Superego

• also known as our conscience

• develops as parents insist that children conform to values of society

Psychosocial Theory

the ego makes a positive contribution to development by acquiring attitudes + skills that make the individual an active contributing member of society

Behaviorism

• developed by Watson

• directly observable events (stimuli + responses) are the appropriate form of study

Social Learning Theory

social behaviors is learned by observing and imitating the behavior of others

Social Cognitive Learning Theory

further emphasizes the importance of how children think about themselves

Applied Behavior Analysis

observations of relationships between behavior and environmental events, followed by systematic changes in those events

Cognitive Developmental Theory

• developed by Piaget

• children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore the world

• environment doesn’t impact the child

Stages in Cognitive Developmental Theory

1. Sensorimotor

2. Preoperational

3. Concrete Operational

4. Formal Operational

Sensorimotor

• birth to 2 years old

• child begins to use senses

Preoperational

• 2 years to 7 years

• development of language and make-believe play

Concrete Operational

• 7 years to 11 years

• children begin to use reasoning and logic only with info they can perceive directly

Formal Operational

• 11 years on

• begins to use problem solving

Info- Processing

human mind is alike a computer in that info is actively coded, transformed and organized in brain

Developmental Neuroscience

studies the relationship between changes and developing child’s cognitive processing and behavior patterns

Developmental Social Neuroscience

relationship between brain change, emotional and social development

Ethnology

study of a behaviors adaptive value and evolutionary theory

Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

adaptive value of species-wide cognitive, emotional and social competencies as the change with age

Sociocultural Theory

• developed by Vygotsky

• culture is transmitted to the next generation through the social interactions between elders and youth

• emphasis on biology and mutually influential relation

Ecological Systems Theory

• developed by Bronfenbrenner

• children develop within a complex system of relationships affected by Mutiple levels of the surrounding environment

Stages of Ecological Systems Theory

1. Mircosystem

2. Mesosystem

3. Exosystem

4. Marcosystem

5. Chronosystem

Mircosystem

activties and interactions with parents

Mesosystem

immediate experiences connect with child (childcare and playing with children)

Exosystem

family, extended family, health services, parents workplace

Macrosystem

different cultural values, laws and resources

Chronosystem

aspects of theory that considers time

Naturalistic Observation

• observation of behavior in natural setting

• lack of control compared to lab setting

• reflective children’s everyday life

Structured Observation

observations of behavior in a lab, where conditions are all the same for all participants

Self-Report

• structured interviews and questionnaires

• unstructured interviews

Case Study (clinical study)

• comprehensive picture a child’s psychological functioning

• combination of interviews, questionnaires, observations and test scores

Ethnography

descriptive, qualitative technique to understand a culture or a distinct social group through participant observation.

Correlational

investigators gathers information on individuals without altering their experiences and then examines relationships between participants characteristics and their behavior or development

Experimental

researcher directly controls or manipulates change in a variable of interest and assess the impact on another variable

Confounding Variable

a factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect in an experiment (3rd variable problem)

Longitudinal

particpants are studies repeatedly, and changes are noted as they get older

Downsides to Longitudinal Studies

• biased sampling

• selective attribution

• practice effects

• cohort effects

Biased Sampling

the failure to enlist participants who adequately represent the population of interest

Selective Attribution

participants drop out of a study for reasons that are relevant to the research question

Practice effects

performance improves not because of development, but because participants are familiarize themselves with the study tests

Cohort Effects

results based on 1 cohort may not apply to children developing at other times due to historical changes

Cross-Sectional

groups of people differing in age are studied at the same point in time

Ethnical Consideration

• children are more vulnerable than adults to physical and psychological harm

• inability to provide informed consent (adults must consent for ages 7-17)

• increased risk when using deception and debriefing

Chromosomes

rodlike structures in the nucleus of the cell that store and transmit genetic info

DNA

long, double-stranded molecule

Bases

chemical substances that provide genetic instructions

Genes

segments of DNA along the length of a chromosome

Protein-Coding Genes

directly affects our body’s characteristics

Regulatory Genes

modify the instructions given by protein-coding genes

Phenotype

directly observable traits

Genotype

complex blend of genetic info that determines our species and influences our unique characteristics

Gametes

• sperm and ovum combined

• 23 chromosomes

Meiosis

• cell division which halves the number of chromosomes normally present in body cells

• chromosomes pair up and exchange segments so that genes from one are replaced by genes from another

Zygote

results from union of the sperm and ovum that has 46 chromosomes

Monozygotic Twins (Identical)

form when a zygote that has started to duplicate seperates into 2 clusters of cells that develop into 2 clusters that develop into 2 individuals

Dizygotic Twins (Fraternal)

release and fertilization of 2 ova

Allele

each form of gene

Homozygous

if the alleles from both parents are alike

heterozygous

if the alleles are different, the relationship between the alleles influence the phenotype

Dominant-Recessive Pattern

• only 1 allele affects the child’s characteristics, and the 2nd allele has no effect

• carriers = heterozygous individuals with just 1 recessive allele that can pass that their trait to their children

Incomplete-Dominance Pattern

both alleles are expressed in the phenotype, resulting in a combined trait

X-linked Pattern

recessive gene that is carried on the X chromosome that lead to males being more likely than females to display the recessive trait

Genetic Imprinting

alleles are completely marked within the ovum or sperm in such a way 1 pair member are silenced, leaving the other to be expressed of its makeup

Mutation

a sudden but permanent change in a segment of DNA

Germine Mutation

takes place in cells that give rise to gametes, so when the infected individual reproduce, the defective DNA is passed on to the next generation