Development Across the Life Span
Development is best understood in terms of a continuous interplay of biology and experience.Human development is the scientific study of the changes that occur in people as they age, from conception until death. It is examining the physical, emotional, cognitive, and social aspects of development.Three Developmental Research Designs:1) Longitudinal design – observes the same people repeatedly over time. Longitudinal studies are done to see, e.g., how personality and behavior change over time. Do shy children become shy adults. The major strength of longitudinal research is that it allows investigators to examine developmental processes by observing changes in the same individuals over time. A drawback is that the study sample may not be representative of the larger population, which limits the ability to generalize the results beyond the study group.
2) Thecross-sectionaldesignobserves people of different ages at the same point in time. A problem with this method is the possibility of a cohort effect – the differences between age groups as a function of historical or social influences affecting those groups rather than age per se.3) The cross-sequential design is a combination of the longitudinal and cross-sectional designs in which participants are first studied by means of a cross-sectional design but are also followed and assessed for a period of no more than six years.
What is the relationship between heredity and environmental factors in determining development?
Nature(heredity-that which comes from within the person) refers to the influence of inherited characteristics on personality, physical growth, intellectual growth, and social interactions.Nurture(refers to things that occur outside of the person)refers to the influence of the environment on personality, physical growth, intellectual growth, and social interactions, along with parenting styles, physical surroundings, economic factors etc.
__________________ is the science of heredity, dealing with resemblances and differences of related organisms resulting from the interaction of their genes and the environment._______________ is a special molecule that contains the genetic material of the organism.___________ is the basic physical unit of heredity; a linear sequence of nucleotides along a segment of DNA that provides the coded instructions for synthesis of RNA (ribonucleic acid), which, when translated into protein leads to the expression of hereditary character.
_______________ is a threadlike body consisting of chromatin (a substance of a cell nucleus, consisting of DNA, RNA, and various proteins, that forms chromosomes during cell division), that carry the genes in a linear order; the human species has 23 pairs, designated 1 to 22 in order of decreasing size and X and Y for the female and male sex chromosomes respectively._______________ refers to a gene that actively controls the expression of a trait._______________ refers to a gene that only influences the expression of a trait when paired with an identical gene.
There are several genetic disorders that are carried byrecessivegenes. Diseases carried byrecessivegenes are inherited when a child inherits two recessive genes, one from each parent, e.g.,cystic fibrosis– a disease of the respiratory and digestive tracts, causing progressive disability and death. It’s an inherited disease that causes the body to produce mucus that is extremely thick and sticky. This thick, sticky mucus clogs passages in many of thebody’s organs and infection sets in.
Genetic and Chromosome Problems
Tay-Sachs disorder– Is a rare genetic disorder that causes waste to build up in the cells of the brain due to a lack of Hex-A enzyme attacking the neurological functions.There is no cure for infantileTay-Sachs.An example of a chromosome disorder is Down syndrome, a disorder in which there is an extra chromosome in what would normally be the twenty-first pair.Klinefelter’ssyndrome – the twenty-third pair has an extra sex chromosomes, XXY. Having the extra X produces a male with reduced masculine characteristics.Turner’s syndrome– the twenty-third pair is missing an X, so that the result is a lone X chromosome, making the female sexually underdeveloped.
From Conception to Birth
Conception – Is the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation orboth. Can also refer to the originating of something in the mind.The female sex cell is called____________.The union of the ovum and sperm is _______________.The cell resulting from the uniting of the ovum and sperm is called _________________ and it has 46 chromosomes.
The male of the species carries both an X and a Y chromosome, whereas the female carries two X chromosomes. Each reproductive cell, the sperm (germ cell) in males and the ovum (egg cell) in females – contains only one sex chromosome. All other body cells have two sex chromosomes. Thus, a sperm cell carries either one X or one Y sex chromosome, and an ovum carries only one X. During ovulation, an ovum is released from an ovary and then begins a slow journey through a fallopian tube. If fertilization occurs, the resulting combination (XX for females or XY for males) of the sex chromosomes in the fertilized ovum determines the baby’s sex. The fertilized ovum is a single cell, called a ____________________, that soon undergoes cell division.
A pregnancy typically lasts _________ days, or about nine months, which are commonly divided into three trimesters. Three major prenatal stages can be identified: thegerminal stage,embryonic stage, andfetal stage. The germinal periodcorrespondsto roughly the first two weeks afterconception. Theplacentaalso begins to form during this period.Itis a specialized organ that provides ______________ and _______________ away waste products from the developing baby. Also, theumbilical cordbegins to develop at this time, connecting the organism to the __________________. It is during the germinal stage that cells develop into specialized cells in preparation for becoming all the various kinds of cells that make up the human body.
The embryonic stage covers the period from ____________________ to about the eighth week of pregnancy. The major organ systems begin to take shape in the developing organism, which we call the embryo. About three weeks into pregnancy, two ridges fold together to form the neural tube, from which the nervous system will develop. The head and blood vessels also begin to form at this time. By the fourth week, a primitive heart takes shape and begins to beat. The embryo is suspended in a protective environment within the mother’s uterus called theamniotic sac. By the end of eight weeks following conception, although no organ is fully developed or completely functional, nearly all are “there.”
The Embryonic Period
Critical Periods – The embryo becomes vulnerable to hazards such as diseases of the mother as soon as the embryo begins toreceive nourishment from the mother through the placenta.
Nutrients and waste materials are exchanged between the mother and embryo through the ______________________, which is connected to the embryo by the umbilical cord. The placenta allows nutrients and oxygen to pass from mother to fetus. Their blood streams do not mix. The fetal stage, or stage of the fetus, begins around the ninth week of pregnancy and continues until the birth of the child. All of the major organ systems, as well as the fingers and toes, are formed by about the twelfth week of prenatal development, which roughly corresponds to the end of the first trimester.
By the end of the ____________________________ , the fetus approaches the age of viability, the point at which it becomes capable of sustaining life on its own.THREATS TO PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT : Maternal malnutrition is associated with a greater risk of premature birth (birth prior to thirty-seven weeks of gestation) and low birth weight (less than 5 pounds). Folic acid greatly reduces the risk of neural tube defects such asspinabifida (the child is born with a hole in the tube surrounding the spinal cord), but only if it is taken early in pregnancy.________________refers to an environmental influence or agent that may harm the developing embryo orfetus, causing a birth defect.
Rubella or German measles is a common childhood disease that can lead to serious birth defects, including heart disease, deafness, and mental retardation, if contracted during pregnancy.SMOKING: Maternal smoking can lead to miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight, and increased risk of infant mortality, increased risks of SIDS, childhood asthma, as well as developmental problems such as reduced attention span, lower IQ, and hyperactivity.ALCOHOL AND DRUGS: FAS is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation, affecting as many as 40,000 babies in the United States.
The Fetal Period
The fetal period begins around the ninth week of pregnancy and continues until the birth of the child. The most likely time for a miscarriage, or spontaneous abortion, is in the first __________________, as the organs are forming and first becoming functional. Typically the mother will feel the first fetal movements around the middle of the fourth month.By the end of the second trimester, the fetus approachesthe age of viability, the point at which it becomes capable of sustaining life on its own.
Infancy and childhood Development
Fig. 8.4 - Areflex is an unlearned, automatic response to a particular stimulus.Rooting reflexis the reflexive turning of the newborn’s head in the direction of a touch on its cheek.Moro reflexis when the infant extends its arms, arches its back, and brings its arms toward each other as though attempting to grab hold of someone.Palmargraspreflex is the reflexive curling of the infant’s fingers around an object that touches its palm. Maturation refers to the biological unfolding of the organism according to the underlying genetic code. SENSORY AND PERCEPTUAL ABILITY: Shortly after birth infants begin making meaningful sensory and perceptual discriminations among various stimuli. Birth to 1 month the child has blurry vision, but sees more clearly at short distances and shows preferences forfacelikestimuli and responds to certain facial features. Their sense of touch is the most well developed; whereas their sense of vision, is least developed at birth.
Six Motor Milestones
1) Raising head and chest – 2 to 4 months.2) Rolling over – 2 to 5 months.3) Sitting up with support – 4 to 6 months.4) Sitting up without support – 6 to 7 months.5) Crawling – 7 to 8 months.6) Walking – 8 to 18 months.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development:A schema is a mental framework for understanding or acting on the environment.According to Piaget, adaptation is a process by which people adapt or change to meet challenges in the environment more effectively. Adaptation consists of two complementary processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the process of incorporation new objects or situations into existing schemas. Accommodation is the process of altering existing schemas or creating new ones to deal with objects or experiences that don’t fit readily into existing schemas.
Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years): During this stage, the infant explores its world by using its senses and applying its developing motor skills. The infant’s intelligence is expressed through action and purposeful manipulation of objects.Object permanence – Refers to the recognition that objects continue to exist even if they have disappeared from sight.Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years): This stage describe the cognitive abilities of children who lack the ability to perform basic logical operations-to apply basic principles of logic to their experiences. During this period, the child has the ability to form mental or symbolic representations (symbols that stand for names and experiences; specifically, the words in a language) of the world. The preoperational child demonstratesegocentrism, the tendency to view the world only from one’s own perspective.
Egocentrism leads to animistic thinking which is the child’s belief that inanimate objects have living qualities. Irreversibility is the inability to reverse the direction of a sequence of events to their starting point. Centration is the tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation at a time to the exclusion of all other aspects. Conservation is the ability to recognize that the quantity or amount of an object remains constant despite superficial changes in its outward appearance.Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years): The stage of concrete operations is marked by the development of conservation.Formal Operational Stage (begins around age 11). The stage of formal operations is the final one in Piaget’s theory- the stage of full cognitive maturity. This stage is characterized by the ability to think logically about abstract ideas, generate hypotheses, and think deductively.
Egocentrism – The tendency to see the world only from one’s own perspective.Centration– The tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation at a time.Conservation – The ability to recognize that the quantity or amount of an object remains constant despite superficial changes in its outward appearance.Irreversibility – Is the inability to reverse the direction of a sequence of events to their starting point.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development
Vygotskywas concerned primarily with how children come to understand their social world. He believed that learning is acquired through a gradual process of social interactions between children and parents, teachers, and other members of the culture.Vygotskyemphasized that social learning occurs within a zone of proximal development which refers to the range between the skills children can currently perform and those they could perform if they received proper guidance and instruction from people with greater expertise. Scaffolding is tailoring the degree and type of instruction to the child’s current level of ability or knowledge.
Early views of language development were based o Skinnerian principles of reinforcement. Noam Chomsky, however, proposed a LAD (language acquisition device), an innate program that contained a schema for human language.Newer theories of language development are focusing on environmental influences on language such as “child-directed speech” – the way adults and older children talk to infants with higher pitched, repetitious patterns. Also, infants seem to understand far more than they can produce, a phenomenon known as the “receptive-productive lag”.
Stages of Language Development
1. Cooing: vowel like sounds at around 2 months.2. Babbling: infants adding consonant sounds to the vowels at about 6 months.3. One-word speech: The saying of actual words just before or around age 1.4. Telegraphic speech: Is the stringing of words together to form short simple sentences using nouns, verbs, and adjectives at around a year and a half.5. Whole sentences: Is the use of grammatical terms as the child moves through the preschool years.
Temperament is a characteristic style of behavior or disposition. Three general types of temperament that could be used to classify about two out of three of the children in the study group: 1. Easy children – These children are playful and respond positively to new stimuli. 2. Difficult children – Are children that react negatively to new situations or people; 3. Slow-to-warm-up children – These children have low activity levels; avoid novel stimuli; require more time to adjust to new situations than most children; and typically react to unfamiliar situations by becoming withdrawn.Children with more adaptable or flexible temperaments interacted more effectively and cooperatively with their peers than did children with less adaptable temperaments. Temperament is also link to early language acquistion.
Attachment is the enduring emotional bond that infants and older children form with their caregivers. Bonding is the process by which parents develop strong ties to their newborn.ATTACHMENTIN HUMAN INFANTS: Ainsworth and colleagues noted three basic attachment styles plus one more discovered by researchers: 1) Securetype;2)Avoidanttype (Type A);3) Ambivalent type(Type C); and4) Disorganized/disoriented.
Secure type attachment, infants use their mothers as a secure base for exploring the environment, periodically checking on her whereabouts and limiting exploration when she was absent.Avoidanttype, these infants paid little attention to the mother when she was in the room and separated easily from her to explore the environment.Ambivalenttype, were infants who clung to the mother and were reluctant to explore the environment despite the presence of desirable toys.Disorganized/disoriented attachment, these infants appeared to lack a consistent or organized strategy for responding to separations and reunions.
Attachment and Later Development
Attachment behaviors affect development throughout life. A lack of solid attachments in adult life is linked to poorer physical and emotional health. Internal working models refers to the generalized expectations, developed in early childhood, about how others are likely to respond in close relationships. The more securely attached infant is likely to have higher self-esteem, to show greater co-operativeness and independence, to have fewer problem behaviors and to exhibit better overall emotional health.CHILD-REARING INFLUENCES: Many factors influence a child’s intellectual, emotional, and social development, including genetics, peer group influences, and the quality of parenting. The Father’s Influence: 1) Children whose fathers share meals with them, spend leisure time with them, and assist them with schoolwork tend to perform better academically than those with less engaged fathers; 2) Fathers are more likely than mothers to encourage children to be independent and assertive and to take risks, and 3) Fathers tend to engage in more physically active play with their children.
Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
Erikson believed that our personalities are shaped by how we deal with a series of psychosocial crises or challenges during the each of the stages.Trust vs. Mistrust – Is the first psychosocial challenge the infant faces in its social environment. Birth to 1 year old.Autonomyvs. Shame and Doubt – In this stage, the central psychosocial challenge faced during the second and third years of life concerns autonomy.Initiative vs. Guilt - This stage, corresponding to the preschool years of 3 to5,is a time of climbing gyms and play dates, a time at which the child is challenged to initiate actions and carry them out.Industry vs. Inferiority - At this stage, which corresponds to the elementary school period of5to 12 years, the child faces the central challenge of developing industriousness and self-confidence.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development
Identity vs. Role Confusion – Adolescents are faced with deciding who or what they want to be in terms of occupation, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior patterns. Age 13 – early 20’s.Intimacy vs. Isolation – The task is trying to share who they are with another person in a close, committed relationship. Age 20’s- 30’s.Generativityvs. Stagnation - The challenge to be creative, productive, andnurturantof the next generation. Age 40’s – 50’s.Ego Integrity vs. Despair – The focus is on whether a person will reach wisdom, spiritual tranquility, a sense of wholeness, and acceptance of his or her life. Age 60 and higher.
Gender Role Development
___________ - Is the behavior associated with being male or female.____________ - Is the perception of one’s gender and the behavior that is associated with that gender.__________________ - The period of life beginning at puberty and ending with early adulthood.____________ - The stage of development at which individuals become physiologically capable of reproducing.
Personal fable – The common belief among adolescents that their feelings and experiences cannot possibly be understood by others and that they are personally invulnerable to harm. *Not in crime ridden neighborhoods- kids feel that they may not live to see 25y.o.Imaginary audience – Young people believe that other people are just as concerned about the adolescent’s thoughts and characteristics as they themselves are.
Development of Morality –Lawrence Kohlberg
Preconventionalmorality – the consequences determine morality; behavior that is rewarded is right; that which is punished is wrong.Conventional morality – Conformity to social norms is the right thing to do.Postconventionalmorality – Moral principles determined by the person are used to determined right and wrong and may disagree with societal norms.Carol Gilligan – proposed that men and women have different perspectives on morality. Men tend to judge as moral the actions that lead to a fair or just end, whereas women tend to judge as moral the actions that are nonviolent and hurt the fewest people.
DianaBaumrindidentified three basic parenting styles: Authoritative, Authoritarian, and Permissive.1) Authoritative parents set reasonable limits for their children but are notovercontrolling. The parent is the authority figure, firm but understanding, willing to give advice, but also willing to listen to children’s concerns.2) Authoritarian parents are rigid andovercontrolling. They expect and demand unquestioned obedience from their children.3) Permissive parents have an anything goes attitude toward raising their children. They may respond affectionately to children but are extremely lax in setting limits and imposingdiscipline (permissive indulgent).Permissive neglectfulis when the parents are uninvolved with their child.
Theories of Physical and Psychological Aging
Cellular clock theory – States that cells are limited in the number of times they can reproduce to repair damage.Wear-and-tear theory of aging – States that the body’s organs and cell tissues simply wear out with repeated use and abuse.Free Radical Theory – Free radicals are oxygen molecules that have an unstable electron that steal electrons from other molecules thereby increasing the damage to structures inside the cell.Activity Theory - People live longer and seemingly are happier that are actively involved with other people; helping people.
Stages of Death and Dying –ElisabethKubler-Ross
1) Denial2) Anger3) Bargaining4) Depression5) AcceptanceTHE ENDStudyStudyStudy