1. Developmental Psychology
A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.
From womb to tomb

2. Prenatal Development Prenatal = “before birth”
Begins at conception, ends with birth of the child.

3. Conception

4. Zygote Newly fertilized egg
First 2 weeks = period of rapid cell division
Attaches to mother’s uterine wall
End of 14 days becomes an embryo

5. Embryo Developing human 14 days until end of 8th week
Most major organs formed
End of 8th week, fetal period begins.

6. Fetal Period
The period between the beginning of the 9th week until birth
Unmistakably human in form

7. Placenta
Cushion of cells in the mother; fetus receives oxygen and nutrition
Acts as a filter to screen out substances that could harm the fetus

9. Teratogens
Agents that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development & cause harm
Pass through placentas screen
Include: radiation, toxic chemicals, viruses, drugs, alcohol, nicotine, etc.

11. Smoking and Birth Weight

12. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
Series of physical and cognitive abnormalities due to mother drinking large amounts of alcohol
Difficulties with social interaction
Epileptic seizures
In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions.

15. The Competent NEWBORN

16. What can my baby see, hear, smell?
Prefer sights/sounds that facilitate social responsiveness
Gaze longer at face like image than at a bull’s eye pattern
Turn heads toward human voices
Suck on pacifier more vigorously when it is our mothers voice
Prefer to look at objects 8-12” away
Approximate distance between a nursing infants/mother’s eyes
Within days after birth, know our mother’s scent
Nursing pad in mother’s bra

17. Perceptual Development

18. Rooting Reflex In 1st half hour.
Infant will move face in direction of touch and open their mouth
Automatic, unlearned response
Looking for nourishment.

19. Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation
Habituation
Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation
As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, interest wanes and they look away sooner

20. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

21. Infant, Toddler, Child Infant: 1st year Toddler: 1 to 3 years
Child: Span between toddler and teen

22. THE DEVELOPING BRAIN

23. Neural Development

24. Maturation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior
Relatively uninfluenced by experience
Programmed into your genes

25. MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

26. Motor Development
All physical skills and muscular coordination

28. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

29. Cognition
Mental activities associated w/ thinking, knowing, remembering & communicating
Children vs. Adults

30. Jean Piaget (pee-ah-ZHAY)
Developmental psychologist
Proposed a theory of four stages of cognitive development

31. Schemas Concepts used to organize and interpret information
“Picture of the world”
Develop mental plans via:
Assimilation
Accommodation

32. Assimilation Accommodation
Interpreting new experience within the context of one’s existing schemas
New is similar to previous experiences
Accommodation
Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information
New is so different must be changed to accommodate it

33. Assimilation/Accommodation

34. Scale Error
18-30 months fail to ttake the size of an object into account
Try to perform impossible actions

35. #1: SENSORIMOTOR STAGE Birth – 2 years
Child gathers info about the world via senses and motor functions
Learns object permanence
Continue to exist when they can’t be seen.

36. #2: PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
2 – 6/7 years
Use language but not able to think logically
Egocentrism
Theory of mind

37. The preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
Egocentrism
The preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
“Don’t you remember Gma, you were in it with me.”

38. Theory of Mind
People’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states
About their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict

39. #3: CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
6/7 – 11 years
Learns to think logically about concrete events
Comprehend math concepts and jokes
Learn Conservation
Mass, volume and number remain the same even if you change an object’s form.

40. Types of Conservation Tasks

41. #4: FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE
12 and beyond
Think logically about abstract concepts
Solve hypothetical problems
(What if…. problems)

42. Cognitive Development Piaget’s Theory and Current Thinking

43. Module 4: Prenatal and Childhood Development
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

44. Stranger Anxiety Fear of strangers infant displays
Around 8 months of age.

45. Separation Anxiety Infants are separated from their mothers.
Peaks between months.

46. Attachment Emotional tie
Seeking closeness to caregiver and showing distress on separation
Body contact, familiarity, and responsiveness all contribute to attachment.

47. Separate to eliminate disease, equalize experiences
Harry Harlow
1950’s bred monkeys
Separate to eliminate disease, equalize experiences
Cheesecloth blanket
Food source vs. Comfort source
Wire mother vs. Terry Cloth mother…

48. Wire monkey to eat and then back to the cloth monkey.
Attachment doesn’t derive from the association of nourishment.

49. Sense of contentment with that which is already known
Familiarity
Sense of contentment with that which is already known
Infants are familiar with their parents and caregivers.

50. IMPRINTING & CRITICAL PERIOD
Konrad Lorenz
A process by which certain animals, early in life, form attachments
The imprinted behavior develops within a critical period
Goslings are imprinted to follow the first large moving object they see.

51. Responsive parents: aware of what their children are doing.
Responsiveness
Responsive parents: aware of what their children are doing.
Unresponsive parents: ignore their children, helping only when they want.

52. Securely or Insecurely Attached
will explore their environment when primary caregiver is present
Caregiver leaves they appear distressed
Go to caregiver as soon as they return
Insecurely attached
Clingy and less likely to explore
Caregiver leaves, cry loudly

53. Attachment

54. Deprivation of attachment: A responsive environment:
Effects of Attachment
Secure attachment:
More outgoing, confident, persistent solving challenging tasks.
Deprivation of attachment:
Withdrawn, frightened
A responsive environment:
Trouble sleeping, eating, relating
Eventually adapt

55. Temperament Characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity: Happy
Slow to warm up
Difficult
Temperament in infancy carries through a person’s life.

56. PARENTING PATTERNS

57. Baumrind’s three main parenting styles Authoritarian Permissive
Parental Patterns
Baumrind’s three main parenting styles
Authoritarian
Permissive
Authoritative

58. Authoritarian Parenting
Low in warmth
Discipline is strict and sometimes physical.
Communication high from parent to child and low from child to parent
Maturity expectations are high.

59. High in warmth but rarely discipline
Permissive Parenting
High in warmth but rarely discipline
Communication is low from parent to child but high from child to parent.
Expectations of maturity are low.

60. Authoritative Parenting
High in warmth with moderate discipline
High in communication and negotiating
Parents set and explain rules.
Maturity expectations are moderate.

61. Parenting Styles