Life-span development

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Developmental psychology

• The study of the changes that occur in people from birth through old age.

Enduring issues and methods

• Individual characteristics versus shared human traits

• Stability versus change

• Heredity versus environment

Enduring issues and methods

• Cross-sectional study : A method of studying development changes by comparing people of different ages at about the same time.

• Cohort : A group of people born during the same period in historical time.

Enduring issues and methods

• Longitudinal study : A method of studying developmental changes by evaluating the same people at different points in their lives.

• Biographical ( or retrospective ) study : A method of studying developmental changes by reconstructing people’s past through interviews and inferring the effects of past events on current behaviors.

Prenatal development

• Prenatal development : Development from conception to birth.

• Embryo : A developing human between 2 weeks and 3 months after conception.

• Fetus : A developing human between 3 months after conception and birth.

Prenatal development

• Critical period : A time when certain internal and external influences have a major effect on development; at other periods, the same influences will have little or no effect.

• Fetal alcohol syndrome : A disorder that occurs in children of women who drink alcohol during pregnancy; this disorder is characterized by facial deformities, heart defects, stunted growth, and cognitive impairments.

Critical period

• 孩子 4 ～ 6 个月是吞咽咀嚼关键期； 8 ～ 9 个月是分辨大小、多少的关键期； 7 ～ 10 个月是爬的关键期； 10 ～ 12 个月是站走的关键期； 2 ～ 3岁是口头语言发育的关键期；也是计数发展的关键期； 2.5 岁 -3 岁是立规矩的关键期； 3 岁是培养性格的关键期。 4 岁以前是形象视觉发展的关键期； 4 ～ 5 岁是开始学习书面语言的关键期；5 岁是掌握数学概念的关键期；也是儿童口头语言发展的第二个关键期； 5 ～ 6 岁是掌握语言词汇能力的关键期。

The newborn---reflexes

• Rooting reflex : the baby’s tendency to turn his or her head toward anything that touches the cheek.

• Sucking reflex : The tendency to suck on anything that enters the mouth.

• Grasping reflex : the tendency to cling vigorously to an adult’s finger or to any other object placed in the baby’s hands.

Temperament

• Temperament : Characteristic patterns of emotional reactions and emotional self-regulation.

Infancy and childhood

• Physical development

Motor development

• Motor development : It refers to the acquisition of skills involving movement, such as grasping, crawling, and walking.

• Motor development proceeds in a proximodistal fashion---from nearest the center of the body to farthest from the center.

Motor development milestones

The normal sequence of motor development

• At birth, babies have grasping and stepping reflexes. At about 2 months, they can lift their head and shoulders. They can sit up by themselves at about 6.5 months and can stand ( while holding on to something ) at about 9 months. Crawling begins, on average, at 10 months, and walking at 1 year.

Maturation

• Maturation refers to biological processes that unfold as a person grows older and that contribute to orderly sequences of developmental changes, such as the progression from crawling to toddling to walking.

Cognitive development

Sensory-motor stages

• In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development between birth and 2 years of age in which the individual develops object performance and acquires the ability to form mental representation.

Preoperational stage

• In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development between 2 and 7 years of age in which the individual becomes able to use mental representations and language to describe, remember, and reason about the world, though only in an egocentric fashion.

Concrete-operational stage

• In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development between 7 and 11 years of age in which the individual can attend to more than one thing at a time and understand someone else’s point of view, though thinking is limited to concrete matters.

Formal-operational stage

• In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development between 11 and 15 years of age in which the individual becomes capable of abstract thought.

Social development

• Learning to interact with others is an important aspect of development in childhood.

Imprinting

• The tendency in certain species to follow the first moving thing (usually its mother) it sees after it is born or hatched.

attachment

• Emotional bond that develops in the first year of life that makes human babies cling to their caregivers for safety and comfort.

Autonomy

• Sense of independence; a desire not to be controlled by others.

Socialization

• Process by which children learn the behaviors and attitudes appropriate to their family and culture.

The end