1. Developmental Psychology
Infancy and Childhood
Physical & Cognitive Development

2. Infancy and Childhood
Infancy and childhood span from birth to the teenage years. During these years, the individual grows physically, cognitively, and socially.
Stage
Span
Infancy
Newborn to toddler
Childhood
Toddler to teenager

3. How do brain and motor skills develop?
Good News
While in the womb, you produce almost ¼ million brain cells per minute.
Bad News
That is basically all you are ever going to develop.

4. The Brain and Infancy
Although the brain does not develop many new cells, the existing cells begin to work more efficiently- forming more complex neural networks.

5. The Brain and Infancy
lack of neuron connections reason why earliest memories rarely earlier than third birthday (experiences help develop neural connections)
For optimum development, early years critical –use it or lose it; but development exists through life as neural tissues changes –experiences nurture nature
plasticity: brain ability to reoganize pathways to compensate damage;
children brains most “plastic” –surplus of neurons
when neurons are destroyed, nearby ones may partly compensate by making new connections
experience influences motor behavior

6. Maturation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.
To a certain extent we all maturate similarly, but the time can vary depending on the person.

7. Motor Development Sequence is the same- but once again timing varies.
First learn to roll over, sit up unsupported, crawl, walk etc…

8. Motor Development
Babies only 3 months old can learn that kicking moves a mobile--and can retain that learning for a month

9. Walking
Walking- in US 25% learn by 11 months, 50% within a week of 1st birthday, 90% by 15 months.
Varies by culture- if the culture emphasizes walking then babies can walk at younger ages (NURTURE).
But identical twins tend to learn to walk on the same day (NATURE).

10. Toilet Training
NO MATTER WHAT, THE BABY NEEDS THE PHYSICAL MATURATION TO HOLD HIS OR HER BLADDER OR BOWEL MOVEMENTS BEFORE TOILET TRAINING.
NO TRAINING WILL WORK IF THE CHILD IS NOT PHYSICALLY READY.

11. Cognitive Development
This field is dominated by a man named Jean Piaget.
He was developing IQ tests and noticed that many children got the same answers wrong.
Thought to himself, “maybe these kids are not stupid, but instead think differently than adults.”

12. Piaget’s important concepts
Children are active thinkers, always trying to make sense of the world.
To make sense of the world, they develop schemas.
Schema- a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information; Organized units of knowledge about objects, events, and actions

13. Piaget’s important concepts
Assimilation- interpreting one’s new experiences into one’s existing schemas.
Accommodation- adapting one’s current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.

14. Schemas
For example, a child may call all four-legged creatures “doggie”
The child learns he needs to accommodate (i.e., change) his schemas, as only one type of four-legged creature is “dog”
It is through accommodation that the number and complexity of a child’s schemes increase and learning occurs

15. Cognition
All mental activities associated with thinking, knowing and remembering.

16. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor
Birth - age 2
Preoperational
2 - 6 years
Concrete Operational
years
Formal Operational
12+ years

17. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

18. Sensorimotor Stage
The Sensorimotor Stage is from approximately birth to 2 years of age.
Babies take in the world purely through their senses- looking, hearing, touching, tasting and grasping.

19. Sensorimotor Stage
At 4 to 8 months of age, your child will learn that she can make things move by banging them and shaking them. (Example--shaking a rattle, banging on toys, banging on tray of high chair)

20. Sensorimotor Stage 0-2
Infant learns about the world through their sensory and motor interactions (including reflexes)
Early on, kids lack object permanence, the knowledge than an object exists independent of perceptual contact.
Before Object Permanence-
what is out of sight, is gone
from the universe forever.
Symbolic representation of
objects and events starts to
develop during the latter part of the
sensorimotor stage (e.g., use of
telegraphic speech)
Click for video

21. Object Permanence the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

22. 21 month old tries to slide down a miniature slide
Scale Errors
21 month old tries to slide down a miniature slide
24 month old opens a door to a miniature care and tries to step inside

23. The Preoperational Stage is from approximately 2 to 7 years of age.

24. Preoperational Stage
At the early part of this stage, a child will develop the ability to use symbols.

25. Preoperational Stage
Between the ages of 3 and 4, your child will be able to apply this ability to symbolize with objects, to people (names represent people).
they learn to use symbols (know the meaning of the word “ball” w/o having it right in front of them) Representational Thought

26. Preoperational Stage
By the end of this stage, the child will understand the concept of conservation.

27. Conservation

28. Tests of Conservation

29. Preoperational Stage
Children in the preoperational stage are egocentric - the inability to distinguish one’s own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings from those of others
Cannot perceive the world from another person’s perspective
Click here for video

31. Theory of Mind
people’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict
Diagram illustrates how researchers explore children’s presumptions about other’s mental states

32. Concrete Operational Stage
About 7-11 years old
Understand concept of conservation.
Can think logically, use analogies, and perform mathematical transformations (5+9 is the same as 9+5) also known as reversibility.
lacks abstract thinking ability
Video

33. Formal Operational Stage
We can reason abstractly.
Reasoning expands from concrete (involving actual experiences) to abstract thinking (involving imagined realities and symbols)
Children able to solve hypothetical situations and its consequences
If John is in school, then Mary is in school. John is in school. What can you say about Mary?
God is love.
Love is Blind
Stevie Wonder is Blind.
Stevie Wonder is god.
video

34. Formal Operational Stage
In one scientific thinking task, the child is shown several flasks of what appear to be the same clear liquid and is told one combination of two of these liquids would produce a clear liquid
The task is to determine which combination would produce the blue liquid
The concrete operational child just starts mixing different clear liquids together haphazardly
The formal operational child develops a systematic plan for deducing what the correct combination must be by determining all of the possible combinations and then systematically testing each one

35. Criticisms of Piaget Not all people reach formal operational thought
The theory may be biased in favor of Western culture
There is no real theory of what occurs after the onset of adolescence
Despite refinements, recent research has indeed shown that cognitive development seems to proceed in the general sequence of stages that Piaget proposed