1. VCE Psychology Unit One Area of Study 2: Lifespan Psychology
Chapter 5: Lifespan development

2. AOS2: Lifespan Development
Chap 4: Lifespan Development
Chap 5: Theories on Psychological Development
Chap6: Mental Illness Across Lifespan:
Autism
ADHD
Anorexia
Anxiety
Schizophrenia
Dementia

3. Chapter 4: Lifespan Development
Lifespan Development: Age related changes that occur from birth, throughout a person’s life, into and during old age.
Maturation: The orderly and sequential developmental changes which occur in the nervous system and other bodily structures controlled by our genes.
‘Principle of readiness’
Nerves, bones, muscles need to be developed enough for the behaviour to occur

4. Lifespan Infancy – birth to 2 years Childhood – 2 to 10 years
Adolescence – 10 to 20 years
Early adulthood – 20 to 40 years
Middle age – 40 to 65 years
Older age – 65 years and beyond
Watch ‘the developing child’

5. Task
Read pages Complete Learning Activity 4.2

6. Areas of lifespan Development
Physical development: changes in the body and its various systems.
Social Development: involves changes in an individual’s relationships with other people and their skills in interacting with others
Cognitive development: involves changes in an individual’s mental ability
Emotional development: involves changes in how an individual experiences different feelings and how these feelings are expressed.

7. Human development is influenced by simultaneously occurring changes in each area
Social
Development
Cognitive
Development
Emotional
Development
Physical Development

8. Heinz Dilemma
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that ... So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

9. Task Complete Learning Activity 4.3
Visual Presentation-Personal Timeline

10. How Development proceeds: 1.Continuous V Discontinuous
Continuous Development: gradual and ongoing changes throughout the lifespan without sudden shifts, with abilities in the earlier stages of development providing the basis of skills and abilities required for the next stages.
Discontinuous: involves distinct and separate stages, with different kinds of abilities occurring in each stage. Specific ways of thinking, feeling or socially interacting have identifiable start and end points.
Adulthood
Infancy
Adulthood
Infancy

11. 2. Sequential Nature of Development
The development of many thoughts, feelings and behaviours occur in an orderly sequence. Sequences of development usually begin with simple thoughts, feeling and behaviours and progress to more complex ones.
For example:
-A baby moves from squealing and gurgling through to uttering individual words and then onto using sentences
- A child learning to count and then progressing to adding numbers together

12. 3. Individual Differences in Development
No two individuals develop at exactly the same rate or in exactly the same way, even if they are identical twins

13. Nature vs Nurture
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviourism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioural traits.
Complete Learning Activity 4.9 on page 146

14. Sensitive Periods
Periods of rapid change when individual is more vulnerable to the environment
Eg: second 6 months of life sensitive to attachment
Eg: years sensitive to language acquisition

15. Different Perspectives on Development
Biological
Cognitive
Behavioural
Socio-cultural

16. Task
Complete Learning Activity 4.14 on page 153

17. Research Methods for Developmental Studies
Cross sectional-selects & compares groups of participants of different ages over a short period of time
Longitudinal- a long term investigation that follows the same group of people over an extended period of time.

18. Research Methods for Developmental Studies
Cohort-Sequential- combines the cross-sectional & Longitudinal.
Eg 3 cohorts of adolescents aged 14, 16 & 18 every 2 years over a 4 year period.

19. Advantages & Disadvantages
Longitudinal
Advantages
Permanence in development over time
Disadvantages
Expensive
Takes time with participants (and researchers) not being available
Cross Sectional
Advantages:
relatively inexpensive
easy to undertake
not too time-consuming.
Disadvantages:
Differences maybe due to other variables
Eg: generational influences

20. Twin Studies
using identical (mono-zygotic) and non-identical (fraternal/di-zygotic) twins as participants.
Identical especially for nature vs nurture BUT danger (eg more likely to be treated the same by parents)
Personality and intelligence investigations
Discuss 4.17 ranking

21. Adoption Studies & Selective Breeding
Children raised by different parents – nature vs nurture
IQ score studies indicate heredity plays a large role
Selective Breeding
Using animals with short gestations to study traits longitudinally, with control of genes
Unethical in humans but can use

22. Tasks
Complete Learning Activity 4.20