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CHAPTER 3 CHILD DEVELOPMENT
I. Heredity and Environment – Nurture vs. Nature
A. Heredity – transmission of physical and psychological characteristics from parents to offspring through genes.
1. chromosomes – thread-like “colored bodies” in the nucleus of each cell that are made up of DNA.
2. DNA – a molecular structure that contains coded genetic information.
3. genes – specific areas on a strand of DNA that carry hereditary information.
4. polygenic characteristics – personal traits or physical properties that are influenced by many genes working in combination.
5. dominant gene – gene whose influence will be expressed each time the gene is present.
6. recessive gene – gene whose influence will be expressed only when it is paired with a second recessive gene.
B. Genetic Programming
1. human growth sequence – pattern of physical development from conception to death.
2. temperament – physical core of personality, including emotional and perceptual sensitivity, energy levels, typical mood, and etc.
a. easy child – child who is temperamentally relaxed and agreeable.
b. difficult child – child who is temperamentally moody, intense, and easily angered.
c. slow-to-warm-up child – child who is temperamentally restrained and unexpressive.
C. Environment – nurture – the sum of all external conditions affecting development, including especially the effects of learning.
1. sensitive periods – during development, a period of increased sensitivity to environmental influences. Also, a time during which certain events must take place for normal development to occur.
D. Prenatal Influences
1. congenital problems – problems/defects that originate during prenatal development in the womb.
2. genetic disorders – problems caused by defects in the genes or by inherited characteristics.
3. fetal vulnerability
a. fetal alcohol syndrome
b. exposure to drugs
c. hiv
d. cigarette smoking
4. teratogens – radiation, drug, or any other substance capable of altering fetal development in ways that cause birth defects.
5. healthy pregnancies/healthy babies
E. Childbirth
1. medicated birth – common practice (you bet!) in Western medicine of giving painkilling drugs during labor and birth.
2. prepared childbirth – collection of techniques designed to manage discomfort and facilitate birth so that the use of painkilling drugs can be avoided or minimized.
3. professor’s note – this section was obviously written by a male who never had to face childbirth and appears somewhat bias. Although research has found some benefits for it, it didn’t address the impact that pain has on issues related to healing and other factors. Also the retrospective (vs. prospective) research may have some inherent extraneous factors, which influenced the findings. The bottom line is that the use of modern painkillers have no impact on the baby and can by used in varying amounts to make the childbirth experience extremely rewarding, a celebration of life, and without the necessity of experiencing pain.
F. Deprivation and Enrichment
1. dendrites – nerve cell fibers that receive incoming messages from other nerve cells.
2. synapse – connection point between two nerve cells, over which messages pass.
3. deprivation – in development, the loss of withholding of normal stimulation, nutrition, comfort, love, and etc.; condition of lacking.
4. enrichment – deliberately making an environment more novel, complex, and perceptually or intellectually stimulating.
G. Nature-Nurture Interactions
1. developmental level – an individual’s current state of physical, emotional, and intellectual development.
II. The Newborn Baby
A. Neonate – term used for newborn infants during the first weeks following birth.
1. grasping reflex – neonatal reflex consisting of grasping objects placed in the palms.
2. rooting reflex – neonatal reflex elicited by a light touch to the cheek, causing the infant to turn toward the object and attempt to nurse.
3. sucking reflex – neonatal reflex elicited by touching the mouth, whereupon the infant makes rhythmic sucking movements.
4. moro reflex – neonatal reflex evoked by sudden loss of support or the sounding of a loud noise; in response, the arms are extended and then brought toward each other.
B. The World of the Neonate
1. looking chamber – experimental apparatus used to test infant perception by presenting visual stimuli and observing infant responses.
a. infants vs. 2 yr-olds – looking at faces
b. why belief that babies try to make sense of their surroundings?
C. Maturation – physical growth and development of the body and nervous system. Muscular development/control occurs:
1. cephalocaudal – from head to toe.
2. proximodistal – from the center of the body to the extremities.
D. Motor Development
1. readiness – condition that exists when maturation has advanced enough to allow the rapid acquisition of a particular skill.
2. zones of proximal development – Vgotsky.
E. Emotional Development
1. basic emotions – first distinct emotions to emerge in infancy (anger, fear, & joy).
2. social smile – smiling elicited by social stimuli, such as seeing a parent’s face.
III. Social Development
A. Vocabulary
1. social development – development of self-awareness, attachment to parents or caregivers, and relationships with other children and adults; provides foundation for future relationships.
2. self-awareness – consciousness of oneself as a person; depends upon brain maturation; around 15 months.
B. Social Referencing – observing others in social situations to obtain information or guidance; core of social development if found in the emotional attachments formed.
1. Imprinting
a. ethologist – person who studies the natural behavior patterns of animals.
b. imprinting – rapid and relatively permanent type of learning that occurs during a limited period early in life.
C. Attachment
1. emotional attachment – especially close emotional bond that infants form with their parents, caregivers, or others.
2. separation anxiety – uneasiness displayed by infants when they are separated from their parents or caregivers.
3. security objects
4. separation anxiety disorder – severe and prolonged distress displayed by children when they are separated from their parents or caregivers.
D. Attachment Quality
1. secure attachment – stable and positive emotional bond.
2. insecure-avoidant attachment – an anxious emotional bond marked by a tendency to avoid reunion with a parent or caregiver.
3. insecure-ambivalent attachment – anxious emotional bond marked by both a desire to be with a parent or caregiver and some resistance to being reunited.
4. promoting secure attachment – be attentive, accepting, and nurturing.
5. mother vs. father attachments
E. Motherless Monkeys (use of surrogate mothers)
1. contact comfort – pleasant and reassuring feeling human and animal infants get from touching or clinging to something soft and warm, usually their mothers.
2. breast-feeding
a. colostrums – first milk produced by a woman for a few days after giving birth and is rich in antibodies to disease.
b. studies revealed higher IQ based upon length of time of breastfeeding.
c. studies found a relationship between length of breastfeeding and reduced risk for the development of breast cancer in the mother.
F. Day Care
1. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study – high-quality day care does not adversely affect attachment to parents and tend to have better relationships with mothers, less behavior problems, and better cognitive skills and language abilities.
2. quality – ratio of child to caregiver; small group size (12 – 15); trained caregivers; minimal staff turnover; & stable day care experience.
G. Play and Social Skills
1. solitary play – playing alone.
2. cooperative play – play in which two or more children must coordinate their actions; if children don’t cooperate the game ends.
IV. Maternal and Paternal Influences
A. Affectional needs – emotional needs for love and affection
1. maternal influences – aggregate of all psychological effects mothers have on their children.
2. care giving styles – identifiable patterns of parental care taking and interaction with children.
B. Optimal Care giving
1. proactive maternal involvement – sensitive care giving in which the mother actively seeks to interact with her child and to provide educational experiences.
2. goodness of fit – with respect to care giving, the degree to which parents and children has compatible temperaments.
3. parental responsiveness – care giving that is based on sensitivity to a child’s feelings, needs, rhythms, and signals.
4. paternal influences – aggregate of all psychological effects fathers have on their children. (Not in book, research suggests that a very important criteria is the level of perceived attachment by the father, i.e., the more that father feels attached to the child, generally, the stronger the attachment.)
C. Parenting Styles
1. authoritarian parents – parents who enforce rigid rules and demand strict obedience to authority.
2. overly permissive parents – parents who give little guidance, allow too much freedom, or do not require the child to take responsibility.
3. authoritative parents – parents who supply firm and consistent guidance combined with love and affection.
4. role of culture in parenting
D. Ethnic Differences in Child-rearing
1. African-American Families – emphasize loyalty, interdependence, obedience & respect for elders.
2. Hispanic Families – family pride and values, discipline.
3. Asian-American Families – group-oriented, interdependence, pride/shame, greater good of the family.
4. Arab-Families – polite, obedient, discipline, strong father figures, and difference between girls vs. boys????
E. Side Effects of Child Discipline
1. discipline – framework of guidance for acceptable behavior.
2. types of discipline
a. power assertion – use of physical punishment or coercion to enforce child discipline.
b. withdrawal of love – withholding affection to enforce child discipline.
c. management techniques – combining praise, recognition, approval, rules, and reasoning to enforce child discipline.
d. effects of the various types?
1. power-oriented – fear, hatred, lack of spontaneity, can develop into rebellious, defiant and aggression.
2. withdrawal of affection – self-disciplined, possible increase of anxiety, insecurity, & dependent.
3. management techniques – impact positive self-esteem.
3. self-esteem – regarding oneself as a worthwhile person; positive evaluation of oneself.
F. Spanking? No clear benefits and several drawbacks including increased aggression.
V. Language Development
A. Language Acquisition
1. cooing – spontaneous repetition of vowel sounds by infants; begins around 2 mths.
2. babbling – repetition by infants of meaningless language sounds; begins around 4/5 mths.
3. single-word stage – in language development, period during which a child first begins to use single words; between 12 – 18 mths, begins to “talk” using ma, mama, pa, papa; by 18 mths, 25% of children’s one-word sentences are intelligible.
4. telegraphic speech – language development, the formation of simple two-word sentences that “telegraph” (communicate) a simple idea; 24 – 36 mths, 66% of two-word sentences are intelligible.
B. Language and the Terrible Twos – role of developing independence
C. Roots of Language
1. biological predisposition – presumed hereditary readiness of humans to learn certain skills, such as how to use language, or a readiness to behavior in particular ways.
2. early communication
a. signal – any behavior, such as touching, vocalizing, gazing, or smiling, that allows nonverbal interaction and turn-taking between parent and child; foundation for later language use.
b. turn-taking – tendency of parent and child to alternate in the sending and receiving of signals or messages; establish a pattern of behaviors.
3. parentese – pattern of speech used when talking to infants, marked by a higher-pitched voice; short simple sentences; repetition, slower speech; and exaggerated voice inflections.
VI. Cognitive Development
A. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
1. transformations – mental ability to change the shape or form of a substance and to perceive that its volume remains the same.
2. mental adaptations
a. assimilation – the application of existing mental patterns to new situations (new situation is assimilated to existing mental schemes).
b. accommodation – the modification of existing mental patterns to fit new demands (mental schemes are changed to accommodate new information or experiences).
3. sensorimotor stage (0 – 2 years) – stage of intellectual development during which sensory input and motor responses become coordinated.
a. object permanence – concept, gained in infancy, that objects continue to exist even when they are hidden from view.
4. preoperational stage (2 – 7 years) – period of intellectual development during which children begin to use language and think symbolically, yet remain intuitive and egocentric in their thought.
a. intuitive thought – thinking that makes little or no use of reasoning and logic.
b. egocentrics thought – thought that is self-centered and fails to consider the viewpoints of others.
5. concrete operational stage (7 – ll years) – period of intellectual development during which children become able to use the concepts of time, space, volume, and number, but in ways that remain simplified and concrete, rather than abstract.
a. conservation – mastery of the concept that the weight, mass, and volume of matter remains unchanged (conserved) even when the shape or appearance of objects change.
b. transformation
c. reversibility of thought – recognition that relationships involving equality or identity can be reversed.
6. formal operations stage (11 years up) – period of intellectual development characterized by thinking that includes abstract, theoretical, and hypothetical ideas.
a. abstract principles – concept and ideas removed from specific examples and concrete situations.
b. hypothetical possibilities – suppositions, guesses, or projections.
B. Piaget and Parenting
1. forced teaching – accelerated learning at a pace dictated by an adult.
C. Piaget Today – underestimated thinking abilities of infants during the sensorimotor stage.
D. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
1. zone of proximal development – refers to the range of tasks a child cannot yet master alone, but that she/he can accomplish with the guidance of a more capable partner/teacher.
2. scaffolding – process of adjusting instruction so that it is responsive to a beginner’s behavior and supports the beginner’s efforts to understand a problem or gain a mental skill.
VII. Genetic Counseling – providing guidance and testing to prospective parents regarding the risks of bearing a child with a genetic disorder.