development

• Developmental psychology


  examine how people change (physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally) - from infancy to old age
• 2 Questions in Developmental psychology

  1. what development happens ins stages and what happens continuously

  2. what are the effects of nature and nurture on development
• stages (definition)


  distinct segments of an organisms life (anatomical features, description of change in others, and age differences)
• Qualitative Development


  assumes psychology changes abruptly from one stage to the next
• Quantitative Development


  changes in a person occurs gradually and continuously across time (ex: steady improvement of memory skills)
• maturation


  series of genetically determined biological processes that enable orderly growth
• Cross sectional Design


  compares participants of different ages directly to one another at one point in time (ex: 6,8 and 12 m/o testing)
• Longitudal design


  tracks different time pints and looks for differences across (ex: track children for 6-12 m/o)
• sequential design


  tracks multiple age groups across multiple time points
• zygote


  fertilization of an egg
• neural tube


  structure that develops the brain and spinal cord in fetus
• 3 parts of neural tube

  1. develop into spinal cord (brainstem & cerebellum

  2. develop midbrain

  3. develop forebrain
• variations in early development

  differences in genes/chromosomes alter development
• teratogens


  environmental agents that interfere with development
• Down Syndrome


  extra chromosomes slow development of abilities and increase health problems
• fetal alcohol syndrome


  pregnant person drinks alcohol it enters blood stream of the person and the fetus
• early capabilities in new born

  reflexes, habituation, dishabituation
• reflexes


  automatic pattern of motor responses that trigger sensory stimulation (rooting, sucking and grasping)
• Habituation vs. Dishabituation


  habituation is decreased response to repeated stimuli, dishabitutation is increase response after something novel (habituation)
• motor development


  change in abilities to perform motorized movement
• 2 general rules of motor development

  1. emerge in sequence from head to feet

  2. emerge from centre of the body outward
• Piaget's theory


  theories of developmental psychology especially in cognitive development
• cognitive development


  changes in all mental activities inthinking, knowing, remembering and communication
• schemas


  Piaget argued that understanding comes from schemas -- unit of knowledge the represent experiences and help interpret info
• 2 key processes in aligning exp. with understanding of the world according to Piaget

  assimilationandaccommodation-- Piaget argued that children construct/recontruct their knowledge
• assimilation


  child uses existing schemas to interpret new experience
• accomodation


  revising their schemas to incorporate information from ew experiences
• 4 universal cognitive stages

  1. sensorimotor stage

  2. pre-operational stage

  3. concrete operational stage

  4. formal operational stage
• sensorimotor stage


  (birth - 2 yr) develop knowledge throughsenses/actionsbut cannot think with symbols/ namely language
• pre-operational stage


  (2-7 yr) master symbols, but cannot see situations from diff. perspectives/ imagine how situations can change
• concrete operational stage


  (7-10) use multiple perspectives and imagination to solve complex problems, can only apply to concrete objects/events
• formal operational stage


  (12+ yr) can reason about abstract problems/ hypothetical propositions
• Role of Developing Brain according to Piaget

  learning of objects, understanding of physical world and demonstrating knowledge -- infants limited to what is phsycially infant of them
• object permanence


  aware of objects exist even when temporarily out of sight
• violation of expectation


  babies (like adults) are surprised of things they don't expect
• 3 main points of organization of infant prefrontal cortex

  neural proliferation. synaptic pruning and myelination of axons
• neural proliferation


  creation of new synaptic connections
• synaptic pruning


  trim back of unnecessary synapses -- connections used are maintained, unused are eliminated
• myelinated axons


  processing of insulating axons in myelin -- info spread rapidly through body
• social referencing


  rely on facial expression of their caregiver as a source of info on how to react