1. Child Development

2. Lecture Outline: What develops? How does it develop? How do we know? What drives development? ----- break----- Nature vs. Nurture? How to make a better baby?

3. What Develops?

4. What do babies have at the start? Reflexes grasp, sucking Perception hearing (loudness, pitch, mom) vision (brightness, color, faces?) < 4ft. integration of both (head-turns)

5. So, where do they have to get to?

6. How does it develop?

7. How does development happen? Differentiation cell division & behavior Growth bigger brain, bigger body more connections

8. How does development happen? Orderly and Sequentially… Motor Development (sit up, crawl, walk, etc.) LanguageDevelopment (coo, babble, one-word,etc.)

9. How does development happen? In stages? According to Piaget: sensory-motor stage (0-2) preoperational stage (2-7) concrete operations (7-11) formal operations (11-on)

10. Sensory-Motor Stage (0-2) Child is dealing with: “object permanence” (peek-a-boo) “A not B” problem (objects--actions) “lay physics” (magic & Baillargeon) beginning of representational thought (words & gestures)

11. Preoperational Stage (2-7) Child is dealing with: conservation (liquid, mass, number) egocentrism (not in an obnoxious way) “theory of mind” (false-belief, a/r) What do these have in common?

12. Formal & Concrete Operations Child (adolescent) is working on: mentally relating representations (4+1= odd & 6+1= odd) then abstract and hypothetical thoughts (any even number + 1= odd) plus, puberty…

13. How do we know?

14. Sucking (HAS) Looking (preferentially) Habituation (distinction) Pointing Answering questions (task demands) Affective response (qualitative?) Brain imaging (ERP’s)

15. What drives development?

16. Mechanisms Biological maturation gene expression (proteins) information processing (packing the trunk) Learning Piaget-- assimilation and accomodation Vygotsky--scaffolding

17. THE BIG DEBATE: NATURE VS. NURTURE

18. NATURE? GENETIC TRANSMISSION: 23 PAIRS OF CHROMOSOMES EACH HAS CA. 1,000 GENES GENE PAIRS--recessive/dominant POLYGENIC INHERITANCE

19. NATURE? FROM GENOTYPE TO PHENOTYPE GENES --> PROTEINS --> BIOCHEM SEQUENCES --> TRAITS, HORMONES, & NEUROCHEMICALS --> CHARACTERISTICS & BEHAVIOR

20. What is inherited? tiger

21. Twin studies monozygotic dizygotic

22. NURTURE? EARLY EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT How does each cell with same genes develop into different parts? Physical environment! (salamander) How does each baby with same structures develop into different people?

23. NURTURE? AFTER BIRTH Social environment (family, peers) Economic environment Cultural environment Etc…

24. HOW TO MAKE A BETTER BABY…

25. In parents’ the genes…

26. Or in the parents’ hands…

27. “BETTER?” Smarter? Happier? Healthier? More creative? More athletic? Earlier?

28. How?

29. From rat studies to baby toys… (Turner & Greenough, 1985) What about pre-natal Mozart? (UC Irvine, 1993)

30. What does the child need? nutrition stimulation care & interaction from parent certain exposure during sensitive (critical?) periods good childcare & social interaction

31. What doesn’t the child need? The “perfect” experiment… …your homework.