Developmental Psychology

Frage	Antworten
Continuity vs Discontinuity Debate	Debate of whether development is a continuous process or occurs in stages. Research design can influence position on this (e.g. comparing far-apart age groups suggests a stage model). No solid answer, skills can overlap (waves)
Stability vs Change Debate	Debate of whether behaviours and traits stay the same or change, and the importance of early experience (e.g. deprivation experiments with Romanian orphans)
Baltes' Conceptualisation Model of Development (3 Influences on Development)	Highlights the importance of later life events on development as well as early life. 3 important influences on development: 1. Normative age-graded - most people go through these at a specified age e.g. school 2. Normative history-graded - a cohort will all be impacted by a historical event e.g. WWII 3. Non-normative life events - individual non-shared experiences
Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model (4 Nested Systems)	4 nested systems in the environment impact development: 1. Microsystem: individual's experience in a given setting e.g. school 2. Mesosystem: links among settings in which the individual directly participates e.g. home affects school 3. Exosystem: links between settings that are not interacted with but affect the child e.g. parents' employment 4. Macrosystem: social institutes and society that the individual lives in e.g. government legislation Changes to to system affects the others within it and therefore changes to the environment are important challenges the child must adapt to.
Cross-Sectional Study Design: Method, Uses, Evaluation	Testing different participants at different ages at the same point in time. Useful for finding milestones and typical behaviours. +Quick and cost effective -Possible demand characteristics and individual differences - No causal explanations can be found with this method
Longitudinal Study Design: Method, Uses, Evaluation	Testing the same participants at different ages over time. Useful for studying the development of abilities. - High attrition rate, may lead to a biased sample (confounding) - Original question may not be viable upon completion - Time consuming
Cohort Study Design: Method, Uses, Evaluation	Looking at different participants of the same age, compared over different historical times (e.g. 8y/os in 1980, 90, 2000). Useful for monitoring generational changes. - Time consuming and hard to locate funding - Risk of question becoming obsolete - Studied age may act as a confound
Cohort Sequential Study Design: Method, Uses, Evaluation	Monitors both same and different participants, at the same and different ages over time and through different historical periods. Involves following up longitudinally while also collecting cohort and cross-sectional data. + Covers many bases - Highly time consuming and impractical (thus rarely used) - High attrition rate and risk of question becoming obsolete
Nature vs Nurture: Twin, Adoption and Cross-Fostering Studies	Twin studies compare MZ and DZ twins. If MZ are more similar on a trait, it is considered more heritable. Possible confounds in that MZ twins are often raised more similarly than DZ twins. A solution to this is adoption studies, but there is an issue of selective placement and choosing children that look like you. Animal research can use cross-fostering - swapping two infant animals of interest to study development of a trait.
Interactions of Nature and Nurture and Sibling Differentiation (Feinberg & Hetherington)	Nature and nurture interact (e.g. innate temperament affects how the outer world interacts with us). For example, epigenetics - environment moderates gene expression. Sibling differentiation may also occur (siblings try to differ in order to form their own identity) - Feinberg & Hetherington: siblings close in age are less similar in measures of adjustment
Studies of Heritability (Taylor et al., Van Ijzendoorn et al.)	Studies of heritability focus on 3 factors: genetics, shared and non-shared experience. Recent research suggests shared environment may be more important than thought (e.g. delinquency in adolescents, Taylor et al.) Van Ijzendoorn et al. - shared and non-shared environment are more important than genetics for mother-infant attachment type.
DNA Studies: Lakatos et al. (Attachment)	Examining DNA structure allows us to focus on specific genes. Lakatos et al. 7-repeat allele in the DRD4 gene is more common in disorganised attachment (79% of disorganised infants vs 29% non-disorganised).
Evolutionary Developmental Psychology	EDP studies how evolution shapes development such as suggested play differences in genders (debated). EDP sees behaviour as adaptive to the ancestral environment: - Children overestimate competence to give them more learning opportunities - Love of sweets suggests a search for nutritional food. - ADHD (hyperactive and lack of attention span) is adaptive in a hunting environment.
Culture and Anthropology: Cole and Children as Members of a Culture	Culture can have an impact on development and can also affect developmental studies and measures (culture bias) Cole - development should be studied in the context of children learning culturally-appropriate behaviour. Individualistic views of mental development lack cultural context. Induction into culture is achieved through shared joint activity.
The Developmental Niche: 3 Major Components	Both the child and environment are interactive systems - the child brings their temperament and species-specific factors to the niche of its culture. 3 components to the developmental niche: 1. Physical and social settings of the child's daily life (e.g. the home) 2. Culturally regulated customs of child-rearing (e.g. scheduling activities) 3. Psychology and beliefs of caregivers (e.g. parents' beliefs in what makes a good caregiver).
Social Constructionism Definition/ James and Prout's New Paradigm (6 features)	Social constructionist approaches: treat childhood as a social construction and discount biological influences - childhood is not natural. James & Prout's new paradigm for studying development: 1. Childhood is a social construct, separate from biological immaturity 2. Childhood can be socially analysed and is inseparable from other variables like gender. 3. Children's relationships and cultures are worthy of study. 4. Children are active in the construction and determination of their social lives. 5. Ethnography (participant observation) is useful to study childhood. 6. Childhood should be reconstructed.
Deconstructing Developmental Psychology	Some psychologists are challenging the underpinnings of mainstream developmental psych by scrutinising the dominant themes (moral & political) and how research fits into societal convention. In particular they challenge parenting assumptions due to a focus on (and blame of) the mother for deficits. Deconstructive writers aim to find issues with mainstream researchers are historical and political context makes objectivity impossible (e.g. Bowlby's work on maternal deprivation).
Development of Visual Perception: Visual Acuity, Visual Tracking and Object Focus, Colour Vision	Visual acuity - the ability to understand precise detail. Poor at birth and rapidly improves during the first 6 months. By 1 year it is near-equal to adult ability. Visual scanning - ability to smoothly track moving objects, not there for 2-3 months. 1 month - focus on limited features (edges). 2 months - focusing on features. Colour vision - underdeveloped at birth. Newborns can only distinguish white and red. 1 month - looking at bright, bold colours. 4-5 months - colour vision is close to adult ability.
Testing Perceptual Abilities: Preference Tests Complexity and Face Patterns (Fantz 1961); Complexity at 1m and 2m (Fantz & Fagan); Curved Outer Contours (Fantz & Miranda)	Researchers present 2 stimuli at once and measure looking time for each stimulus. Looking more at one stimulus suggests they prefer it. Fantz 1961: Infants prefer to look at complex, face-like patterns (young as 2 days). Fantz & Fagan: 1m old infants prefer simple displays and 2m prefer complex, irrespective of light levels (as acuity improves details are more interesting). Fantz & Miranda: infants only prefer curves when the outside is curved (not inner curves).
Testing Perceptual Abilities: Habituation Tests	Present the same stimulus repeatedly until habituation. Once habituated, present a new stimulus to see if the infant dishabituates (meaning that can discriminate).
Testing Perceptual Abilities: Conditioning Studies	Infant is rewarded for a target behaviour by a specific event or stimulus, until the infant habituates to the reward. Once habituated the reward is altered. If target behaviour is not resumed then the infant sees both rewards as the same.
Innate Face Perception: Face Panel Studies Progression (Fantz 1961; Maurer & Barrera 1981; Goren et al. 1975; Johnson et al. 1991)	Fantz 1961: 1-15w babies prefer both schematic and jumbled face panels to control panels. Maurer & Barrera 1981: 3 face panels (schematic, jumbled, symmetrical jumble). 1m - no difference in preference. 2m - prefer schematic face. Goren et al. 1975: Moving face-like and control stimuli (reflects real life). Infants track schematic faces over jumbled and blank panels. Johnson et al. 1991: Replication of Goren, 3m olds no longer track the face panel more.
Innate Face Perception: Twin Studies and Johnson & Morton's 2-Process Model (Vanishing Face Preference)	Innate early system in subcortical structures biases infants to faces (CONSPEC). Early bias is later taken over by the maturer visual cortex with focus on precise recognition due to experience (CONLEARN). Explains vanishing preference for face panels at 3m - infants are beginning to focus on precise recognition.
Innate Face Perception: Reasons for Face Preference (Simion et al.)	Showed infants patterns on both square and face-shaped panels. Patterns had more features on the top (face-like) or bottom. Infants preferred curved panels and panels with more detail in the top half. The combination of these preferences could lead to face preference.
Innate Face Perception: Innate Abilities (Turati et al. 2008; Faroni et al. 2002; Field et al. 1982; Walton et al. 1992; Pascalis et al. 1995; Turati et al. 2006)	Turati et al. 2008: infants can recognise novel individuals. Faroni et al. 2002: Infants prefer direct eye contact to averted gaze. Field et al. 1982: infants recognise expresions and dishabituate to new ones. Walton et al. 1992: infants can discriminate mother's face at 1-4 days. Pascalis et al. 1995: preference for mother face disappears when outer features are masked (outer features used to identify). Turati et al. 2006: Infants can still use inner features or outer features only to identify, but processing is best with full face and then outer features.
Role of Experience in Face Perception: Human Specialisation (Pascalis et al.) and the Other-Race Effect (Sangrigoli et al. 2005).	The environment is also important due to greater ability in adults. As we age, perception becomes specialised to human faces. Pascalis et al.: 6m infants distinguish between both monkey and human faces. 9ms could not distinguish monkey faces unless exposed to them previously (e.g. in books). Other-race effect: we are able to discriminate the race we grew up with better than others. Sangrigoli et al. 2005: Korean children adopted by Caucasians can recognise Caucasian faces better.
Role of Experience in Face Perception: Caregiver Gender (Quinn et al.), Institutionalised Children (Wismer Fries & Pollak), Children Raised in Abusive Environments (Pollak et al. 2000)	Some evidence suggests that humans are better at recognising female faces, but others think this is due to caregiver exposure as the preference only appears at 3m and infants with a male primary caregiver prefer male faces (Quinn et al.). Wismer Fries & Pollak: institutionalised children have deficits in emotional recognition of facial expression. Pollak et al. 2000: Children raised in abusive environments show preference for angry faces.
Maturation of Face Perception: Adult Recognition & Face Memory and Main Theories of Maturation	Adults have better face perception: can recognise faces in 0.5s, and can retain up to 90% of the yearbook in classes up to 900 in size, 35y after graduation. Debate as to when maturation occurs (early or late). 2 main theories: 1. Face-specific perceptual development: ongoing development into late childhood and adolescence with experience. 2. General cognitive development theory: earlier maturation of 4-5y, performance increases with age due to general cognitive mechanisms involved to improve.
Maturation of Face Perception: Qualitative Changes in Adult Ability (Inversion, Holistic Processing, Other Cognitive Abilities, Susilo et al. 2013)	Qualitative changes in perceptual ability may occur later in childhood/adolescence (though some evidence suggest they occur earlier): - Adult mechanisms like disproportionate inversion effect (inability to recognise inverted faces). - Holistic processing of the face by adults. - Increases in ability reflect growth of other ability e.g. attention and memory. - Susilo et al. tested 18-33y, positive association between age and facial recognition but not other visual recognition (after controlling for sex and own-race biases).
Abnormal Face Perception: ASD, WS and Prosopagnosia	People with ASD have deficits in social cognition and difficulties recognising people, remembering faces and interpreting eye-gaze/emotions. People with WS process unfamiliar faces atypically and are more interested in faces. They have prolonged face gaze and perceive strangers as friendlier. Prosopagnosia (congenital or caused by damage to the right fusiform gyrus) leads to inability to recognise faces (even own face in severe cases).
Features of Human Language in Comparison to Animals	Human language follows rules but is creative (limitless amount of possible sentences). Other animals can communicate (vervet monkeys have referential calls; chimps like Washoe with ASL; cultural song learning in dolphins and whales), but animal communication lacks the same features as human language: - Phonology (individual sounds) - Semantics (morphemes and systems of meaning by combining phonemes) - Syntax (rules of word arrangement changes meaning) - Pragmatics (language use in different contexts and genres)
Sequence of Language Development: Speech Perception (Prenatal and Neonatal)	- Foetal reactions to sound occur at 20w. - Foetuses can distinguish male and female voices nearer to term (measured by perceived movement, ultrasounds and FHR). - Neonates prefer uterine version (muffled) of mother's voice after birth, as well as preferring speech over non-speech, native language and their mother's voice. - Neonates can discriminate content (nouns/verbs) and function words (conjunctions), tested through habituation.
Sequence of Language Development: Word Production Milestones (1-2m, 6-10m, 10m+, 9-12m, 18-24m)	1-2m: Cooing and laughing 6-10m: Canonical babbling (sounds like words), screaming for anger attention, specific sounds reserved for caregiver. 10m+: Modulated babbling (intonation sounds like speech), overlapping with meaningful speech development. 9-12m: First words as consistent labels. Holophrases (1-word) condense meaning. 18-24m: Word explosion - vocab goes from 20 at 18m to 200+ at 24m. Most words and nouns with some actions, states and functions.
Sequence of Language Development: Multi-Word Speech Milestones (18m, 24-27m, 3y, 5y)	18m: 2-word utterances develop. Telegraphic speech condenses meaning. Scaffolding helps this by expanding sentences and give feedback. 24-27m: 3-4-word utterances, there is some evidence of grammatical rules: logical errors, use of preposition and irregular verbs, making questions and negatives. 3y: Multi-word speech develops, vocab of 1,000. Speech can be understood by others, using relative clauses. Still perfecting some systems (pronouns/verbs). 5y: Language is similar to adults, still perfecting some tenses (passive and conditional) and constructions.
Sequence of Language Development: Pragmatics (Differing Communication by Listener; Convention of Genres; Listener Perspectives)	The ability of being able to adjust to different contexts (formal and informal). Children can express differences in communication to different listeners at 2y. 3y: mastering convention of genres (using specific conventions in different contexts e.g. telling a story). Taking the listener's perspective happens at 4-5 years.
Language Acquisition World Learning Biases	Infants acquire nouns first. Word learning biases include: - Whole object constraint: words refer to the whole object rather than the parts. - Shape bias: words generalise to object of the same shape, but not colour (may aid early noun learning).
Barrett's Multi-Route Model of Language Acquisition	Focuses on how meanings of words expand in different contexts. Referential words can be used in a variety of contexts (e.g. 'more') and are mapped onto mental representations of objects and actions. Context-bound words are used in a specific context and are mapped onto a global construction of the entire event surrounding the object. Words are gradually analysed into individual categories in order to understand and extend language and word meanings.
Gleitman's Syntactic Bootstrapping Hypothesis of Language Acquisition	Focuses on how children learn language quickly by being in tune with syntactic and semantic structure from an early age. Sensitivity allows them to use syntactic rules to extract meaning from sentences and make sense of the world. Tested using artificial language experiments (extracting meaning from nonsense nouns and verbs).
Theories of Language Acquisition: Chomsky's Innate Language Acquisition Device	We are born with the basic capacity for language production and comprehension - human language has deep universal features and we have an innate knowledge of basic grammar. ILAD perceives regularities in heard utterances and uses these to test predictions about language. Support: fast language learning in children, similar sequence of language acquisition and logical errors made by children across cultures, correct ordering of words is present early on (innate syntax).
Theories of Language Acquisition: Cognitive/Constructivist Theories	Cognitive and language development are interdependent and are considered together. Cognitive abilities enable an understanding of human language and things like the word explosion. Universal features can be explained by cross-cultural similarity in cognitive development. Support: First words are familiar objects and activities and appear at the same time as object permanence. Words about the present tense appear first and past/future tenses appear when time concepts occur.
Theories of Language Acquisition: Cognitive Functional Linguistics	Consider social environments and suggest there is no innate grammar - language is acquired gradually through feedback. Syntax develops from experience and social interaction - children struggle learning verbs due to the need for feedback about each specific verb. Support: early vocabularies include more nouns than verbs because each verb requires feedback. Adult-child speech is higher pitched and simpler, which infants prefer, suggesting adults intuitively aim to give feedback on the child's level. Importance of scaffolding as feedback and guidance develops ability. SES also impacts language development due to lack of time and resources of low SES parents (lower vocabularies and processing in low SES children).
Case Study: Genie Wiley	Extreme deprivation - locked up for 13 years. Beaten for communicating and was never spoken to. After being saved, a few months later she could recognise words and later used 1-2 word utterances and some multi-word sentences. Had many deficits with pronouns, questions and complex sentences. Relied mainly on gestures.
Object Permanence	Out of sight objects continue to exist and also retain their spatial and physical properties and are still subject to the laws of physics. Mental representation is necessary for this, which can be tested through object permanence experiments, observations of planning (coordinating behaviours for a goal) and deferred imitation (imitating behaviour seen some time ago).
Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage: Age and Overview	0-24m, children learn about the world through sensory information and interaction with the environment. Infant develops behaviour schemas by assimilating different actions and combining them. Infant learns to differentiate the self from the environment and understand causality through trial and error to form internal mental representations. Object permanence supposedly achieved at 12m. The ability to plan and know about other people and their actions occurs at 18-24m (full internal mental representation).
Piaget's Sensorimotor Substages: 1. Reflex Activity 2. Primary Circular Reactions 3. Secondary Circular Reactions	1. 0-1m. Baby practices reflex movements that cannot be controlled (e.g. rooting). 2. 1-4m. Infant builds on reflexive movement to consciously repeat behaviour for pleasure, movements usually focused on the body. 3. 4-10m. Infant conducts non-reflexive, willingly repeated actions and focuses more on influencing the external environment. Occurs at the same time as sitting up and gaining more control over the own body. Trial and error learning establishes connections between body and environment.
Piaget's Sensorimotor Substages: 4. Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions	4. 10-12m. Engaging with object with a variety of actions. Can combine actions to solve novel problems (mainly trial and error). Some evidence of means-end behaviour through trial and error. At 12m A not B errors stop occurring due to reduced egocentrism - visibly displace an object in hole B instead of the usual hole A, and younger children will still look in A.
Piaget's Sensorimotor Substages: 5. Tertiary Circular Reactions 6. Internal Representations	5. 12-18m. Infant uses repetitive circular behaviours but with different variations to accommodate the established schema to new contexts. Discovers object and environmental properties through trial and error. Improvements in problem solving through experimentation and modification of old strategies. 6. 18-24m. Infant has a mental representation of the world, meaning they can succeed in invisible displacement tasks (object is hidden behind a block but the subject knows where it should move and can find it). Mental representation allows for thinking and planning actions to solve novel problems with insight. Deferred imitation is present.
Piaget's Observation on Mental Representations (A not B Error, Goal-Structured Planning and Deferred Imitation)	Infants begin to search for objects at around 8-9m. A not B error is observed to occur until 12 months. Goal-structured planning behaviour does not occur until 18-24m. Deferred imitation of actions made by others also was thought to occur at 18-24m.
Critiques of Piaget's Views on Mental Representation	Piaget is criticised for observing his own children and for using a clinical (tailored) rather than a standardised method. Notable confounds to some experiments: - Motor coordination and planning deficits could be blamed for A not B errors. - Children are reinforced for picking A over B and it may also be difficult to remember the toy location. - Risk of subconscious cuing (the Clever Hans Effect). Simplifying the A not B procedure could allow younger infants to succeed.
Basic Object Permanence: Changes to the A Not B Experiment (Butterworth 1977; Smith & Thelen 2003)	Butterworth 1977: 3 conditions - normal design (object permanence), clear covering (measures cognitive processes), object visible and uncovered (cognitive processes). Found errors in all conditions, suggesting that object permanence in not the issue, may be lack of coordination. Smith & Thelen 2003: infants stand during the test trial. 10ms performed like 12ms. Standing made the sitting A condition less salient - able to suppress learnt behaviours.
Other Indicators of Basic Object Permanence (Use of Darkness and Violation of Expectation - Bower 1982)	Use of darkness instead of occlusion found that 5m infants will reach for out of sight objects (suggests a mental representation, though reaching may be an extended action from when the lights were on). Violation of expectation paradigm shows infants 2 events. If they understand that 1 is impossible, they will look longer at it/have a faster heart rate. Bower 1982: Screen covered an object and when it was raised the object was either still there or gone. Infants a few months old had a faster HR when the object was gone.
Violation of Expectations: Baillargeon (1985)	5m infants shown 2 events: occluded box prevents drawbridge from fully lowering, or drawbridge lowers fully despite the box (control condition shows drawbridge lowering next to box to control for any natural preferences). Infants looked longer at the impossible event, suggesting object permanence.
Violation of Expectation Studies (Baillargeon & DeVos 1991; Baillargeon 2004) Criticisms of VoE	Baillargeon & DeVos 1991: 3m infants watch a short and a tall object move past a screen with a window near the top. Infants cannot see the short object (possible) or cannot see the tall object through the window (impossible). Infants looked longer at the impossible event. Baillargeon 2004: evidence of VoE in infants as young as 2.5m. Ability of object permanence may be innate (inborn ability to acquire knowledge about object properties). Criticisms of the paradigm: - Paradigm only indicates a limited awareness of events (i.e. there is some difference). - There may just be a preference for novelty with no actual understanding.
Planning (Clifton et al. 1991; Claxton et al. 2003; Willatts 1989)	Clifton et al. 1991: 6m infants presented with small and large objects, requiring a 1- and 2-handed grasp respectively. Each object is paired with a sound. Hearing each sound in darkness elicited the appropriate grip - indicative of a mental representation. Claxton et al. 2003: Adults have slower motor actions for precise movements. 10m infants encouraged to throw a ball (not precise) or fit it into a hole (precise). Infants reach more slowly for the precise action (evidence of planning). Willatts 1989: 9m infants shown a toy on a cloth, blocked by a barrier. Many infants could get the toy 1st time (moving barrier and pulling cloth), suggesting novel planning indicative of mental representation.
Deferred Imitation Studies: Meltzoff & Moore 1994 Meltzoff 1995	Meltzoff & Moore 1994: Neonatal imitation in 6w infants. Adult makes a facial gesture at them or a neutral face. 1 day later, infants who saw the facial gesture are more likely to perform it to a neutral face (may be a way to work out if it is the same person). Meltzoff 1995: 14 and 16m infants see an experimenter perform a series of actions. Both ages were more likely to reproduce the actions than control subjects. Effect persist for even 4 month delays.
Deferred Imitation Studies: Barr et al. 1996 Patel et al. 2013	Barr et al. 1996: Infants shown a series of actions with a puppet that they were to repeat in 24h. When given 3 repetitions, 6m olds showed no difference to controls. When shown 6 repetitions, test infants showed more imitations than controls Patel et al. 2013: 6, 9 and 12m olds tested with a typical puppet paradigm and 24h delay, while varying the auditory (type of music) and visual (type of room) contexts of learning and retrieval. Full flexibility and generalisation (results irrespective of context) did not occur until 12m
Gelman & Gallistel's 5 Principles of Counting	One-to-one principle: every item only gets one number label, it cannot be counted twice. Stable-order principle: the number line sequence is always the same. Cardinal principle: the last item's number label represents the total amount. Order irrelevance principle: the result of counting is the same no matter what order items are counted in. Abstraction principle: principles of counting can be applied to anything.
Children's Knowledge of Counting Principles (Knowledge of Children, Age of Attainment and Testing Method)	Children have implicit knowledge of counting principles as the knowledge is present but cannot be articulated. All principles are attainable by age 5, and some by age 3. Knowledge is tested indirectly as children cannot articulate the knowledge and are limited by set size.
Children's Knowledge of Counting Principles: Gelman & Meck 1983	3-5y olds tested by pointing out error's in a puppet's counting (relieves performance demands). One-to-one - 3 trials (correct, error, pseudoerror). 100% were right on correct, 67% 3y and 82% 4y on error, and 95% on pseudo error (some being able to show understanding of order-irrelevance). Stable order: 96% on correct, 76% 3y and 96% 4y on error. Cardinal: 96% on correct, 85% 3y and 99% 4y on error. Experiment 4: older children outperform younger on direct counting. Smaller sets are easier to count and it is harder when they cannot touch the objects.
Criticisms of Gelman & Meck: Baroody 1984	Understanding how tags can be assigned arbitrarily (pseudo-error trial) does not imply understanding of order-irrelevance. Gelman & Meck have not tested the principle that the order of counting does not affect the cardinal value (second definition of order-irrelevance). Tested this in 5-7y olds, asked to count 8 objects themselves from left to right and indicate cardinal value. They were then asked to count from right to left, making the right-most item '1'. Set is covered and they are asked what N would be going from right to left. All but 1 child could recount right to left but only 45% of 5y and 87% of 7y made a successful prediction. Conclusion that Gelman & Meck overestimated children's ability.
Response to Baroody: Gelman, Meck & Merkin (1986)	The task in Baroody's experiment affected performance - complex instructions may have been misinterpreted, and being asked again about cardinal value could lead to the child expecting they had to respond differently. New experiment with 3 conditions: Baroody replication, count 3 times group (boost confidence), altered question (better understanding).
Testing Innate Number Concept: Habituation Studies (Xu & Spelke 2000)	Habituation to a number of dots on a screen. The infant is then exposed to a different display size to see if they dishabituate. Debated whether this shows numerosity (judging quantities) or pattern discrimination. Xu & Spelke 2000: controlled for pattern discrimination with large arrays and by exposure to the same size in different patterns. 6m olds could discriminate between 1:2 ratios (6/12, 8/16, 16/32) but it took 9m to discriminate 3:2. The ability to detect more precise ratios develops with age. Findings have been replicated in animals and different stimuli.
Testing Innate Knowledge: Arithmetic (Wynn 1992)	Used VoE and looking times with 32 5m olds for mathematical outcomes. Infants see an object in a case, a screen comes up and adds/removes an object. Screen lowers leading to a different experiment result: 1+1=2 or 1, 2-1=1 or 2, 1+1=2 or 3 (control for expecting change). Pre-test trials confirmed there was no natural preference. Infants looked longer at impossible events, suggesting some innate ability of arithmetic. Results replicated with larger sets (McCrink & Wynn, 2005).
Response to Wynn: Wakeley et al. 2000 Wynn's Response - Methodological Criticisms	Wakeley et al. 2000: replicated Wynn experiments 1 and 2 (1+1 and 2-1) as well as subtraction counterpart to experiment 3 (3-1=2 or 1). Unable to replicate Wynn's findings, and point out methodological inconsistencies in research in a following lit review. Numerical confidence is not a robust innate feature and develops with age. Wynn responds suggesting that procedural differences can affect attentiveness: Wakeley used a computer programme, researchers did not ensure infants saw each full trial, there was less exclusion of fussy infants.
Animal and Cultural Studies in Number Concept: Quantity Estimation, Case Study Evidence, Cultural Number Lines, VoE (Santos et al.) and Monkey Working Memory	Some animal studies show abilities of quantity estimation, there may be an evolved component in discriminating between amounts. Some case study evidence: Alex the Parrot can count and has a concept of absolute zero. Some cultural evidence of differences in counting (e.g. linear vs logarithmic number line). VoE studies in lemurs (Santos et al.) show violation of expectation for arithmetic. Some counting studies suggest monkeys can remember a number sequence better than humans (more working memory than numerical capability). Outperformance may be due to a trade-off in humans for language.
Modern Views of Number Concept	Nativist view is dominant – infants thought to be born with some innate ability, developed with experience. Inborn ability may also be shared with other animals. Education and experience are vital to increase precision.
Information Processing: Piaget's Pre-Operational Stage, Conservation Failures and Criticisms	Piaget's theory: complete each stage before moving forward. Pre-operational stage (2-7y) is passed once conservation is present (quantity of an object/substance does not change when it is manipulated). Piaget: children under 7 fail at conservation because they cannot apply multiple logical principles at once. Criticisms: superficial design changes in results have led to younger successes. The task may also be measuring other cognitive limitations than conservation.
Memory: Atkinson & Shiffrin and Limitations Affecting Conservation	The Modal Model (Atkinson & Shiffrin): 3 memory stores with different control processes acting on them. Various strategies are used for encoding, retrieval and maintenance in STM and LTM. Various limitations in memory could affect conservation ability: encoding limitations, computational strategies (lack of strategies to apply information), retrieval limitations (retrieve the wrong strategy), storage limitations in WM, work-space limitations (small capacity).
Brainerd 1983 vs Piaget & Inhelder 1951: Memory and Conservation in Piagetian Probability Tasks	Piagetian probability - a disproportionate array of animal cards (e.g. 7 dogs 3 birds) placed in a bag and one taken at random. Child is asked what it should be. Card is then replaced and procedure repeated. Piaget & Inhelder 1951: children are correct on the first trial but not on others - children are not probabilistic. Brainerd 1983: 2 hypotheses about memory limitations: 1. Storage limitation, forgetting the ratio. Restore by having a second set on display. No change in results. 2. Retrieving the incorrect strategy for logic. Restore by making the most recent item in WM the ratio of cards. Led to success in all trials.
Piagetian Perspectives in Comparison to the Information Processing Approach	Piagetian perspectives only say what children cannot do until a certain age. Information processing approach looks for patterns in performance to judge abilities while considering limitations and how these are overcome.
Developing Attention: Co-developing Skills/Accompanying Studies - Vurpillot 1968 (Windows); Miller & Seier 1994 (Box Labels); Roebers et al. 2010 (Distraction).	Attention develops alongside the ability to focus and identify crucial aspects of a task. Vurpillot 1968: 3-5y olds only examine some windows in spot the difference while 6-9y olds compare all. Miller & Seier 1994: Children presented with a box that had an animal or appliance symbol, told to report frequency of animals or appliances. 3-4ys open all boxes while 9-10ys open only appropriately labelled boxes. Roebers et al. 2010: eye tracking in 7-8 and 9-10ys. Children shown pictures of household items and an animal (told the animal is irrelevant) and asked to focus on particular-coloured items, followed by recognition test. Both age groups were able to focus. In distractibility tasks, children focused on smiley and frowny faces in a control or distracting background. Both could focus but younger children were more distracted.
Memory Development: Different Encoding Strategies: Rehearsal (Ornstein et al. 1975), Organisation, Elaboration	Rehearsal (mental repetition of info): Ornstein et al. 1975 find older are better as they lump information together (A B C, A B C) and younger children rehearse each unit alone (A A A, B B B...). Organisation (grouping info together): More effective - 10+y olds are more successful at organising effectively e.g. by category. Elaboration (making associations between information): Thought to be the best strategy. Younger children are able to do this but are not proficient until late primary school.
Memory Development: Retrieval Strategies (Kreutzer et al. 1975; Kobasigawa 1974) Conclusions on Memory Strategy Development	Retrieval strategies become more effective with age. Kreutzer et al. 1975: children asked to help a boy remember when he got a puppy. 10y olds could use appropriate strategies e.g. associated memories and questions to trigger memory, while only 1/2 of 5y olds did this. Kobasigawa 1974: 6, 8 and 11y olds asked to learn 24 images and recall them using 8 cue cards containing categories. Older children used cue cards as an aid more than younger children, and used them more systematically. Older children spontaneously use more sophisticated strategies while younger children need to be prompted. Development with age may occur due to limited processing capacity at young ages.
Metacognition: Definition, Age of Development, Typical Tests	The awareness of your own cognitive limitations - knowledge of what you do not know. Thought to develop at 4 years and above as younger children overestimate abilities more. Tested with a memory test: child/animal presented with 2 similar containers, one has 2 treats, one has 0. Location of treats is either shown or not shown. Safe option is also presented with 1 treat. Metacognition is present if the subject chooses the safe option when the 2 treat location is unknown.
Metacognition Studies: Flavell et al. 1970 (Recalling Items); Ringel & Springer 1980 (Memory Aids)	Flavell et al. 1970: Younger children are more unrealistic about the number of items they can recall. Children are more aware of memory capacity with age. Ringel & Springer 1980: Older children have more awareness of strategy appropriateness and can come up with better memory aids.
Constructive Memory: Definition, Testing, Younger Children's Abilities (Nelson & Gruendel 1981)	The ability to infer novel info using scripts (sequences of actions that are appropriate for a given context) and schema (all known information about a place/scene/object). Tested by bringing participants into a room (e.g. an office) and then asking them later what they remember. Participants should more easily recall relevant objects e.g. office appliances. Nelson & Gruendel 1981: Going to a fast food restaurant (less common in 1981) disrupted the schemas of younger children as you order before sitting - younger children are less flexible in their use of constructive memory.
Knowledge and Memory: Role of Experience (Chi 1978)	Older children are more experienced so it's easier to process/encode novel info as it is more likely to link to relevant info. Chi 1978 - children are better at remembering chess positions than adults who are better at remembering digits (due to respective experiences).
Social Context: Vygotsky (Culture and Language)	Learning is the result of interaction between the child and a more knowledgeable individual. Culture provides context and language allows a way to share info (not a common thought at the time due to the behaviourist era). Culture and cultural-environmental factors directly influence development of cognitive processes such as different cultural values and access to formal education.
Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development	The difference between actual and potential performance - beyond the current level of ability but not too far as to cause disengagement. Child can progress through the ZPD with help of an adult or more competent peer.
Vygotsky: Language and Thought (External Monologues and Inner Speech)	External monologue (talking to the self) is a thought process that has not yet been internalised (not a sign of egocentrism). Children talk to themselves to make sense of the world and to organise and plan behaviour. Children eventually internalise their monologues at around 7 years (inner speech). Adults use external monologues when stressed or during difficult tasks.
Bruner's Scaffolding	Explains how knowledge is passed from an expert to a child: - Recruitment (engaging interest) - Expert then reduces degrees of freedom (complexity of method). - Carry out direction maintenance (maintain motivation). - Expert highlights critical features. - Expert uses demonstrations and model solutions as an example.
Vygotskian Learning as Uniquely Human: Social Learning, Cumulative Culture, Imitation Over Emulation, the Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis	Unique nature of human learning may be different due to the unique method of human social learning. Many distinguishing features of human behaviour are supported by social learning. Humans are very attentive to even small details, leading to high accuracy of replication - leads to culture, technology and tool development (imitation over emulation - humans imitate exact procedure, even irrelevant features, while other animals use other means to reach the same end). Many animals socially learn but learning and tool use is not as complex - no cumulative culture. Cultural intelligence hypothesis: humans evolved special social-cognitive skills to enable effective learning (e.g. ToM, imitation, cooperation, teaching).
Self-Recognition (Lewis & Brooks-Gunn 1979) Temporal Sense of Self (Povinelli et al. 1996)	Mirror-test (Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979) - surreptitiously placing rouge on 96 infants from 9-24m. Touching self when seeing it in mirror indicates self-recognition. Significant increase in this at 21m. Temporal sense of self - knowing that you are the same self over time. Povinelli et al. 1996 placed stickers on a child's head and showed them photos later. 2y olds recognised themselves but did not reach for the sticker. 3&4y olds did - temporal sense of self develops at 3-4ys.
Recognition of Others: Person Permanence and Lewis & Brooks-Gunn's Social Dimensions	Person permanence (people do not disappear when out of sight, an internal representation of a social being) occurs at 18m. Lewis & Brooks-Gunn's Social Dimensions: - Differing behaviour to familiar and unfamiliar adults at 7-9m, can discriminate familiar and strange peers at 10-12m. - Discriminate children from adults at 6-12m, use verbal age labels at 18-24m. - Gender discrimination (male and female) at 9-12m and verbal gender labels at 19m.
Emotional Development: Production Neonates; Basic Primary Emotions; Izard et al. 1987 - Pain and Anger; Secondary Emotions	Neonates only communicate positive and negative affect (cooing and crying) - sensitivity increases detection of affects e.g. hungry and tired crying. Primary emotions of joy, interest, anger and sadness occur at a few months. 7m, basic fear and anger responses occur. Izard et al. 1987: 2-8m innoculation studies. Responses go from pain to anger at 7m. 2-3y - secondary emotions occur as a combination of primary emotions (embarrassment, pride, etc.)
Emotional Development: Recognising Emotion and Social Referencing Ages	Haviland & Lelwica 1987 - infants recognise emotions as early as 10w. Social referencing (using caregiver response as a way to gauge the appropriate response) occurs with novel situations. Campos found 9-12m olds are more likely to cross the visual cliff when the mother shows a positive response than a fearful response.
Emotional Intelligence: Ages of Development; External and Internal Management; Coping Mechanisms and Social Acceptance/Competence.	The ability to regulate one's emotions, begins developing in toddler years until late primary school. Regulation of emotions switches from external management (caregiver support) to internal management (regulating the own emotion) with age. Emotional regulation leads to better coping mechanisms and wellbeing. Ties in with social competence through emotional recognition meaning more peer acceptance. Infants with inappropriate emotional responses are more likely to be bullied.
Harris 1989: Precursors to Understanding Others	Self-awareness (18-20m): children can verbally express emotional states at 2y. Capacity for pretence (2-3y): ability to pretend that something is something else - child is capable of having multiple representations. Distinguishing reality from pretence (3-4y): being able to understand that one is pretending and that is separate from reality. Combining abilities helps to understand others' emotions/desires/beliefs.
Theory of Mind and the False Belief Task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)	Development of the understanding that others have a mental representation of the world that is different to ours and others can have false beliefs. Inference about others occurs through perspective taking. Develops with age. False belief task measures ToM (Wimmer & Perner 1983): child leaves a chocolate bar in the cupboard and leaves, then his mother moves it. Where will he look for it? If ToM is present, they will say the old location. 4y olds could answer correctly but good performances only occurred at 6y+
The Sally-Anne Task (Baron-Cohen et al. 1985) The Smarties Task Earlier Evidence of ToM	False belief task criticised for being too vocabulary-heavy. Sally-Anne Task is a simplified version (Baron-Cohen et al. 1985): Sally places a marble in a basket and leaves. Anne moves it to the box. 4y olds now have good performance but 3y olds still cannot do it. Similar Smarties task: Smarties tube filled with another object. Child is asked what another person will think is in there. 4y olds could also do this. Earlier evidence: children aged 2y+ can vocalise internal states e.g. 'want' and 3y+ can use cognitive terms (know/remember).
Seeing and Knowing (Masangkay et al. 1974)	3-4ys - understanding that people know things by seeing them. Masangkay et al. 1974: children shown 2-sided cards and asked what someone on the other side would see. Perspective taking in this task starts at 3y. A variation with inverted images finds responses occurring at 4y due to more knowledge of false belief.
Appearance-Reality Distinction (Flavell et al. 1986)	The ability to hold 2 representations of an object at once e.g. a toy rock may look hard but feel soft. Flavell et al. 1986: 3y olds have a difficulty in understanding that what something looks like can be different to what it is.
Theory of Mind: Predicting Behaviours at 2y and 3y	Indicator of ToM. 2y olds can understand that others have desires - e.g. Sam wants to find his pet and therefore he will not leave until he has found it. 3y olds understand that others have beliefs - will understand that a child will look in the bookshelf if they think the book is there. However, they do not understand that others can act on false beliefs.
Simplified ToM Tasks: Wellman 2001 Review; Implicit Knowledge; Onishi & Baillargeon 2005 VoE; Southgate & Vernetti 2014 Motor Cortex	Sally-Anne Tasks criticised as too complex: Wellman 2001 reviewed 180 false belief studies and found majority pass rates at only 4y+. Some argue implicit knowledge preceds ToM success - eye tracking in 2-3ys shows looking at the correct location in Sally-Anne tasks before giving the wrong answer. VoE in false belief tasks (Onishi & Baillargeon 2005) found predictions of behaviour in 15m infants. Southgate & Vernetti 2014 found differing motor cortex activity when participants understood that an actor held a false belief. Found in both adults and 6m infants.
The Curse of Knowledge	The difficulty of suppressing reality - children understand that others have false beliefs but cannot make decisions that override their knowledge of the truth.
Other Impacts of ToM Development: Language and Peer/Family Interactions	Language: children with better language abilities have better performance on false belief tasks. Caregivers who use mental state terms earlier perform better as well. Family interactions: children with older siblings and in larger families with more adult and sibling interaction do better at false belief tasks. Twins perform better on false belief tasks with their twin than other siblings.
Further Developments of ToM: Surprise in False Belief Tasks (Hadwin & Perner 1991). Peskin 1992: Lying at 3, 4 and 5y	Hadwin & Perner 1991: 5y olds understood that the child in the false belief task would be surprised when the item had been moved. Peskin 1992: 5y olds immediately learned to lie about their favourite stickers to prevent them from being stolen. 4y olds learned gradually over trials and 3y olds never learned.
ToM - Levels of Intentionality (Concept and Age)	Typical Sally-Anne tasks involve use of 1st order beliefs about false beliefs (thinking about another person’s false beliefs). There can be multiple levels of intentionality - 2nd order beliefs (thinking about someone else’s belief about another person’s false beliefs) and so on. 2nd order beliefs appear at 5-6y and develop through life.
ToM - Ambiguous Drawing Tasks (Carpendale & Chandler 1996)	Carpendale & Chandler 1996: children shown an ambiguous drawing (can be interpreted in multiple ways) and shown both interpretations. Child is then asked what another person will see (correct answer being ‘I don’t know’ as the drawing is ambiguous). Children aged 5y could not answer correctly, and even some 8y-olds struggled.
How ToM Develops	Some believe there is a qualitative change between 3 and 5y where it suddenly appears alongside meta-representations and the understanding that mental states can be false (evidence from false belief tasks). Others believe that it develops gradually with understanding, but the curse of knowledge and realism override false beliefs (evidence from successes in the reduced-demand tasks).
Prosocial Behaviour Definition	Voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another, such as sharing, helping and comforting. Different to altruism which is a voluntary behaviour that only helps someone else, even at a cost.
Reasons for Prosociality (Eisenberg 1983)	Evolutionary roots to increase survival of relatives - animals are more likely to help their genetic relations. Prosocial behaviour can benefit group survival. Eisenberg 1983: 7-17y olds found they were more likely to help friends, family and those similar in attitudes. Prosocial behaviour should enhance reputation in the group and to follow group norms.
Prosocial Behaviour: Nature vs Nurture	Evidence for innate prosociality: observation of spontaneous prosocial behaviour in young children. Twin studies suggest genetic contributions towards prosocial tendencies. Evidence for nurture: conditioning (reinforcement) and social learning impacts development of prosocial behaviour. Secure attachment leads to more prosocial children. Nature and nurture interact.
Development of Prosocial Behaviour	Prosocial behaviours rapidly increase during toddler and preschool years and slowly increase into adulthood. During development there is a shift from acting for selfish gain/approval to acting according to moral principles.
Prosocial Behaviour: Common Experiments and Issues (Zarbatany et al. 1985)	Studies exploring reinforcement of prosociality: child wins money during a game and is offered to donate some to charity. Prompting and reinforcing both tend to increase prosocial donations. Studies exploring behavioural modelling: child sees a model donating. Children who observe donations are more likely to donate. Observations have a bigger impact than preaching. Donation is more likely if the model is warm and familiar. Issues: - Artificial environment and ethical concerns of deception - Does the study really measure prosociality, or conformity? Follow-up studies can show no persisting effect of modelling after 3w. - Zarbatany et al. 1985: older children are only affected by experimenter influences and not peers (measuring conformity).
Resolving Methodological Issues in Prosocial Behaviour Studies: Zahn-Waxler et al. 2001	Observational studies can remove some methodological issues as they study spontaneous, naturally-occurring behaviour. Zahn-Waxler et al. 2001: 14-36m olds studied reported responses to mother showing a negative emotion. Empathic responses increases with age. 20m+ children tend to be prosocial while younger children usually show emotional contagion.
Warneken & Tomasello 2006 + Criticisms	18m infants were sat in a room with the experimenter. Experimenter has an issue (reaching for something, failing a task) and looks at the child and vocalises problem (experimental) or looks at object with a neutral face (control). Children in experimental condition were significantly more likely to help almost immediately, but were limited if they could not understand the goal. Chimpanzees helped during reaching experimental conditions but not others, possibly due to limited goal understanding. Criticisms: are children helping or playing? They have nothing else to do (no cost).
Factors Influencing Prosocial Development	- Gruesc 1982: Mother's response to prosociality tends to affect how often the child is prosocial. - Parental sensitivity and empathy moderate prosocial development. - Child's perspective-taking ability allows them to understand needs of others. - Emotional regulation is important to suppress emotional contagion. - Cross-cultural differences in what is considered prosocial influence development based on where value is placed (individualism vs support).
Moral Reasoning: Piaget's 3 Stages of Understanding - Observations and Cross-Cultural Evidence (Linaza 1984)	Moral reasoning - how humans judge whether an action is right or wrong. Piaget created theory through observing behaviour in group games (understanding of and adherence to rules). 3 stages of understanding: 1. Premoral (0-4y) - children do not understand rules. 2. Moral realism (4-10y) - rules come from higher authority and cannot be changed. 3. Moral subjectivism (10y+) - children mutually agree upon rules and are able to change rules. Linaza 1984 - cross-cultural test in England and Spain found support for Piaget's stages.
Moral Reasoning: Piaget's Dilemma Methods Criticisms Follow-Up Studies (Smetana 1981)	Dilemma methods: asking children who is the naughtiest out of 2 children. E.g. one child accidentally broke 12 glasses by accident and one broke 1 glass while disobeying another rule. Up to 9-10y children choose the naughtiest based on damage, not intentions. Criticisms: - Damage is very unequal (12:1), very distracting. - Bad intentions are very vague. - Possibility of overloaded memory capacity. Further studies suggest Piaget underestimated children. When damage is equal, children as young as 5 can understand who is naughtiest. Smetana (1981) - 2-5y olds can differentiate social convention violations and moral violations and understand breaking moral conventions is worse.
Kohlberg's Moral Development: Building on Piaget and Methods	Expanding on Piaget's theory across the adult lifespan, not just childhood. Carried out a 30-year study presenting complex moral dilemmas and asked them to explain if and why each action is right/wrong. E.g. a man with a terminally ill wife stealing the cure as he cannot afford it and the druggist will not give him it.
Kohlberg's Preconventional Level of Moral Reasoning (Stages 1 and 2)	Reasoning in relation to the self, with little understanding of shared rules. Reasoner seeks pleasure and avoids punishment. Found in children under 9y, some adolescents and adult offenders. Stage 1. Individual is concerned with authority to avoid punishment. Stage 2. Individual is more nuanced by weighing risks and benefits of behaviour. Recognising that others have different interests and will then use this to optimise their interests. Actions are still determined by their own needs.
Kohlberg's Conventional Level of Moral Reasoning (Stages 3 and 4)	Understanding the importance of moral rules, expectations and societal conventions. Occurs in most adolescents and some adults. Stage 3. Focus on interpersonal relationships and those closest to you. Motivation to be good and a focus on living up to expectations - approval by others is very important. Stage 4. Focus on society as a whole. Performing duties in order to maintain social order.
Kohlberg's Postconventional Level of Moral Reasoning (Stages 5 and 6)	Looking beyond the laws to understand the reasons they were created and their underlying moral principles. Stage 5. Understanding the importance of a functioning society. Everyone has individual rights and should be treated fairly. Does not appear until 20y+, some do not achieve this. Stage 6. Purely philosophical - people do not reach it. Following universal ethical principles (difficult to determine and stick to due to realities of society). If a law violates an ethical principle, people at stage 6 will act in accordance with principles, not laws.
Criticisms of Kohlberg: Methods, Culture (Snarey 1985) and Feminism (Gilligan 1982)	Dilemmas are criticised as artificial and unreliable. Kohlberg used a clinical (individually tailored) method, too subjective. Too much focus on urban, industrialised cultures, despite cultural differences in moral reasoning. Snarey 1985: Reviewed Kohlberg's stages in 27 cultures. Stages 1-4 were found in all but stage 5 was only in industrial cultures. Work is culturally biased towards individualist cultures. Male-oriented theory and research (all male participants). Stages reflect a more justice-oriented 'male morality'. Gilligan 1982: real-life dilemmas such a pregnancy loss. Female participants tend to be more concerned with the impact behaviour has on others. Proposed difference between male and female principles; principles before people (♂) and people before principle (♀)
Developmental Disorders: Definition, Types, Manifestation and Examples	Disorders that manifest before adulthood that disrupt normal development. Can be cognitive, motor, or socio-emotional and can be specific (one area) or pervasive (many areas). Manifest in either delays or deficits. Examples: ASD, intellectual disability, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy, Down's Syndrome.
Causes of Developmental Disorders	- Chromosomal abnormalities and genetic mutations (e.g. DS caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21) - Prenatal factors and damage in the womb (e.g. oxygen deprivation and Cerebral Palsy). - Many disorders caused by an unknown combination of factors e.g. ASD.
Early Descriptions of Autism: Kanner & Asperger (1940s) Wing & Gould Triad of Impairments (1970s)	Kanner & Asperger (1940s): Autism is characterised by low IQ, inability to relate to others, being upset by change. Wing & Gould 1979: Triad of Impairments: A. Impaired social interactions (lack of eye contact, struggling to develop peer relations) B. Impaired communication (language delay, lack of varied/make-believe and group play). C. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour - narrow interests and ritualistic behaviours.
Autism Spectrum Disorder: DSM-IV and DSM-V Changes - Spectrums, Sensitivity, and Impact	DSM-IV (1990s): 4 separate disorders e.g. Autism and Asperger's Syndrome. This raised concerns of inconsistent diagnosis, leading to later interventions. DSM-V (2013) removed separate diagnoses and mapped onto a spectrum, severity being gauged by the amount of help required. Combined the Triad of Impairments into 2 (social communication/interaction impairments, and repetitive patterns of behaviour) and added sensory reactivity - both hyper- (oversensitive) and hypo-reactivity (undersensitive). DSM-V changes allow for more nuanced and individualised treatment but led to concerns of personal identity loss and affecting access to care/insurance.
Autism Spectrum Disorder in the ICD-11	ICD-11 (2018) recently changed to reflect the changes of the DSM-V. ICD-11 also distinguishes between ASD with and without intellectual disability (not done by the DSM-V). Diagnostic criteria are more flexible across cultures.
Difficulties in Diagnosing ASD: Variability; Islets of Ability; Gender Gap; Behavioural Criteria Identification; Public Health Scares	Individuals exhibit differing characteristics and criteria of varying severity, as well as developmental outcomes for ASD being widely varied. Individuals can show islets of ability - being as good as or better than typical individuals at a skill e.g. rote memory (not the majority). ASD seems to be 4x more common in males (possibly genetic), and some females may be less likely to be diagnosed. Children are diagnosed with behavioural criteria (requires extensive training). Some signs appear at 12-18m (language delay) but most children are diagnosed at 3-4y. Recent increase in cases of ASD due to better understanding of impairments. Public concern due to falsified theories like MMR vaccines.
Causes of ASD: Hereditary, Neural and Chromosomal	A. Hereditary components identified from twin and family studies: - Twins show more ASD traits if their twin also exhibits them. - Close relatives of an individual with ASD are more likely to show subclinical signs. B. Possible structural abnormalities in the brain and neural networks, and possible sex differences. Some cases show more or less development in some areas of the brain (no consistent patterns). C. Possible chromosomal deletions such as chromosome 16 (only a small percentage of cases).
Executive Function Theory of ASD	Executive function - umbrella term for planning, organising, impulse control, etc. Repetitive behaviours explained as it is difficult to plan future actions or control impulses. May not be a causal role but may affect developmental outcomes - early difficulties with EF may influence outcomes as they are also correlated with ToM skills.
Weak Central Coherence Theory of ASD: Tests and Islets of Ability	The tendency to processing incoming info globally in typically developing people. Individuals with ASD are biased to featural/local information and details instead of seeing the whole picture. Tests will assess whether the individual is looking at the whole picture or the individual components (e.g. an E made up of A's), or if they can pinpoint typically hidden aspects in photos. May explain some aspects like islets of ability as there is heightened focus on individual aspects - a superiority in detail as opposed to a deficit in global processing
Theory of Mind Deficit Theory of ASD: Resulting Social Impairments	- Limited ToM subsequently limits effective understanding of others and peer relationship development. - Difficult to interpret others’ behaviour and understand the reasons for behaviour. - Difficult to communicate with others. - Difficulties in understanding and prediction others' behaviour may lead to a reliance on repetition in order to cope.
ToM and Autism Testing: False Belief Tasks (Baron-Cohen et al. 1985; Perner 1989)	ToM in ASD is tested in the same way as typical ToM (false belief tasks). Baron-Cohen et al. 1985: Sally-Anne task with ASD and DS children of mental age 4 (controlling for the social impairments of ASD), and typically developing (TD) children of chronological age 4. 80% of TD and DS children could solve the task but 20% of ASD children could not. Perner (1989) - similar results for the Smarties task.
ToM and ASD Testing: Baron-Cohen et al. 1986: Story-Order Task Sodian & Frith 1992: Deception Task	Baron-Cohen et al. 1986: Children with ASD asked to order 3 types of story: mechanical (object motion), behavioural (simple person-based story), mentalistic (requiring a mental representation of a person's surprised reaction). Children with ASD could not order mentalistic stories as well as the others and struggled to understand the character's surprise. Sodian & Frith 1992: TD and ASD children given a sticker by a good puppet that is stolen by the bad puppet. - Sabotage condition - children could lock the sticker away safely (both groups did this). - Deception condition - children could lie about the sticker being locked away (give a false belief) (only TD children did this - ASD children cannot understand that others can have false beliefs).
Reasons for Poor ToM Performance: Non-Mental Representations (Leslie & Thaiss 1992)	Proposed that children with ASD have problems with both mental and non-mental representations. Compared TD and ASD children matched in mental age on different tasks. - Smarties task: TD > ASD as usual. - Non-mental photograph task: photo of one puppet is shown then placed face-down. Puppet is swapped. Child is asked what is in the photo. Equal performance by both groups - children with ASD do not struggle with non-mental representations.
Reasons for Poor ToM Performance: Curse of Knowledge (Hughes & Russell 1993 + Criticism)	Children with ASD may fail Sally-Anne Tasks due to the curse of knowledge. Alternative windows task developed - children told to point to windows not containing a sweet. Subjects could not do this. 50% of children would point to the sweet every time. Conclusion - children with ASD struggle to disengage from the focused object. Criticism - children are encouraged in life to point at what they want and the sweet is too salient a stimulus.
Limitations to ToM Deficit Theories	- Not all children are failing tasks and high-functioning children can perform at TD levels. Theory may not be universal. - Happe 1995: children are matched by mental age and older children with ASD have more extensive experience and learned strategies to overcome difficulty. - Tasks are too simple and do not match the chronological age of participants. - Second-order beliefs can be solved by high-functioning individuals - evidence of some ToM ability.
Happe 1994: Strange Stories ToM Test for ASD (+ Criticism)	Aimed to create a more natural and complex task. Participants read a short story where a character says something they don't mean e.g. a white lie or a joke. Individuals who passed second-order belief tasks were still impaired in ability to understand why they did this. Method is criticised for being word-heavy when many children with ASD have language delays and processing deficits.
Subtle Eye-Reading Tests in ToM and ASD: Baron-Cohen et al. 1997 (+ Criticism)	Tested TD children and children with ASD or Tourette Syndrome. Participants are asked to read a pair of eyes to infer emotions and mental states. Aims to test ToM beyond age 6 without being vocabulary-heavy. ASD group was significantly impaired in comparison to TD and TS groups. Measures ToM as it only measures difficulties in emotional processing and correlates with performance on Strange Stories as well. Criticised for being artificial and excluded other cues such as posture.
Adolescence and Puberty: Physical, Neural and Psychological Changes 3 General Stages and Age it Ends	Physical changes: sexual maturity and a large growth - 5/6cm per year in childhood to 9-10cm/year in adolescence. Brain development: prefrontal control, planning and inhibition, social cognition are remodelled. Increased white matter allows for more connectivity and info processing. Synaptic pruning occurs. Psychological changes: increased risk-taking, moodiness and aggression. Identity transition from child to adult. 3 general stages: early (11-14), middle (15-17) and late (18+). Thought to end at 25y.
Erikson's Stage Theory and Identity Crisis (Marcia 1966; O'Connell 1976)	Varying stages of life. Each stage has a conflict to pass. Adolescence has identity vs identity crisis - trying to find a subjective sense of personal sameness in the self and as perceived by the world. Marcia 1966: Interview techniques show 4 statuses in identity crisis: 1. Diffusion: not yet thinking about identity. 2. Foreclosure: forming commitment to an identity without considering others. 3. Moratorium: considering alternative identities. 4. Achievement of identity: solution. Achievement can occur at different stages in life, even into adulthood. Criticised because identity is not cohesively achieved - it is more piecemeal. Achievement may vary with culture/history. O'Connell 1976: women only reach achievement when children go to school (historical context).
Storm and Stress in Adolescence (Laursen et al. 1998; Rutter et al. 1976)	Predicts increased parental/authority conflicts and higher mood disruption in adolescence - viewed as a period of turbulence. Laursen et al. 1998: increased conflict during 14-18y, peaking in middle adolescence. Evidence suggests it is over-exaggerated. Rutter et al. 1976: only 1/6 of parents and 1/3 adolescents report conflicts with the other during adolescence, with most conflicts being over mundane issues e.g. chores (possibly occurs to achieve autonomy in a safe environment). Though adolescents report more mood disruption, there is only a modest peak compared to 10y and only 1/5 of adolescents reported disruption.
Young Adulthood (20-40): Peaks and Erikson's Conflict	Peak in the acquisition and utilisation of knowledge, young adults reach maturity. Conflict: intimacy vs isolation - forming an intimate relationship with another person or becoming isolated.
Middle Adulthood (40-64): Stability and Decline, Career Deveopment and Erikson's Conflict	Some cognitive decline in processing/perceptual speed. Intellect is still stable. Experiencing peak career achievement. Conflict: generativity vs stagnation - passing on knowledge and helping younger generations or not helping and feeling stagnant.
Late Adulthood (64+): Declines and Erikson's Conflict	Memory and other abilities decline more seriously, some abilities may remain stable. Conflict: integrity vs despair – feeling that you have achieved what you wanted to achieve or feeling that it is too late to achieve your goals.
Cognition and Ageing: Piaget's Formal Operations and Kramer's Postformal Thinking	Piaget's final stage is formal operations (11y+) but cognition improves beyond this. Kramer's postformal thinking focuses on 3 stages after formal operations: realising knowledge is relative and can change, ability to accept contradictions, and integrating contradiction into the whole concept.
Cognition and Ageing: Cognitive Gains from Adolescence to Young Adulthood (Vetter et al. 2012)	Gains in information processing and social cognition (due to rewiring of the brain in puberty). Vetter et al. 2012: performance on strange stories and emotional eyes tasks was better in 18-22y olds than 12-15y olds regardless of individual differences.
Cognition and Ageing: Stability and Declines from Young to Middle Adulthood (Seattle Longitudinal Study; Soederberg et al. 2000)	General cognitive stability from YA to MA with some declines in areas like perceptual speed. Seattle Longitudinal Study: found increases in inductive reasoning, vocabulary, verbal memory and spatial orientation peaking at 40-60y. Soederberg et al. 2000: no declines found when comparing middle adults (40-59) to young adults (25-39). Middle adults outperformed young adults on vocab tests (crystallised knowledge).
Cognition and Ageing: Declines from Middle to Late Adulthood and Crystallised Knowledge (Finkel et al. 1998)	General decline in cognitive ability. Found in 14 cognitive abilities by Finkel et al. 1998 (largest being perceptual speed). Decline in all areas apart from verbal recall (crystallised knowledge held in LTM) at age 60-67. Some abilities remain intact - analytical reasoning declines but vocabulary and verbal recall increases (NY Times Crossword Puzzle). Little evidence of a relationship between age and functioning in society. Terminal decline - decline in general cognitive functioning in the years/months prior to death.
Cognition and Ageing: Moderators of Age-Related Cognitive Decline (Deary et al. 2012)	- Type of task - novel problem-solving declines while accumulated knowledge grows. - Physical health. - Individual's job (role of experience) - commonly utilised skills are maintained for longer. - Deary et al. 2012: longitudinal study of cognitive ability from age 11 and then age 65-79. Found a genetic influence of 24% in cognitive decline.
Hoffman et al. 2011: Nurture and Gender Differences	Women are significantly underrepresented in science, suggested that this is due to naturally poorer spatial representation. Comparison of two genetically similar tribes: Karbi (patrilineal and majority male education) and Khasi (matrilineal and equal gender education), on spatial ability with a puzzle. Women in Khasi society are equally fast as men while women in Karbi were much slower. Education is a mechanism in the interaction between gender, society and ability (access to education and social hierarchy determines gender differences).
Pascalis et al. 2011: Facial Processing Review: Automatic Processes; Tanaka-Farah Effect; Trade-Off in Other-Race Effects; Brain Areas in Children and Adults	- Viewing a face triggers 2 automatic processes: categorisation of group/species and facial recognition. - Face-specific Tanaka-Farah effect: face parts are better recognised in intact faces in comparison to non-face objects. - Other-race effect in recognition makes it easier to recognise same race, trade-off with other-race categorisation advantage (can categorise other races faster). O-R Categorisation Advantage is correlated with O-R Recognition Deficit. - fMRI studies identified 3 important areas in adults: inferior occipital gyrus, middle fusiform gyrus and superior temporal sulcus. PET scans in 2m infants show similar areas.
Turati et al. 2006: Facial Recognition by Inner and Outer Features	Experiment 1: Habituation study of 1-3d infants. Newborns can discriminate and recognise faces. Full-face is best but inner and outer features work too. Experiment 2: Habituated to inner or outer features and shown a full face etc. Outer features habituation led to better recognition than inner. Experiment 3: Inverted faces with inner, outer and full features. Outer and full features were able to give significant recognition, but inner features could not.
Sugita 2009: Innate Face Processing with Monkey Studies, and the Significance of Meltzoff & Moore	- Deprivation studies show an innate preference for face-like stimuli in monkeys even without having ever seen face-like stimuli. - Human newborns spontaneously orient towards faces. - Meltzoff & Moore’s work: infants as young as 42min can imitate gestures -though they cannot see their own face, they have some innate representation about the face and its movements. The same effect was also found in chimpanzees and macaques.
Tomasello et al. 1997: Differing Productivity for Nonsense Nouns and Verbs	- Children under 2y tested. Experimenters model nonsense nouns or verbs (2 of each). Each child heard each word at least once - heard a roughly equal rate of nouns and verbs. - Children are more productive with new nouns and were more varied in how they produced them. Verbs were produced in noun-like or ambiguous ways. - Children could pluralise nouns but could not add past tense to verbs.
Doherty-Sneddon 2008: Baby Signing Review: Definition; Consequences of Language Delays; Benefits of Makaton in SEN; Case Studies and Benefits of BS	- Method employed to improve communication with infants through a form of sign language. - Issues with language delays: children who talk later are shier and less outgoing at 6y, so hearing children could still benefit from added support through BS. - Research with Makaton and BSL for SEN children suggests augmentative signing can boost language, communication and speech intelligibility. - Most studies of BS benefits are limited by poor methodology, but case study evidence suggests that BS can lead to more representational gesture usage when speaking, though there is no boost to vocabulary (may not boost acquisition but could help communication).
Hoff & Tian 2005: SES and Language Development	Analysed SES and monitored interactions with the mother and child. High SES children produced more word types than SES. SES accounts for 5% of variability in vocab size. SES is related to maternal speech - high SES mothers use richer vocabs and longer utterances (significant predictors of vocabulary). Conclusion - language learning is mediated by SES as SES leads to differing maternal speech.
Baillargeon 2004: Violation of Expectation in Infants Review: Explanations and Response to Criticism	2.5m infants show some expectation of object motion in occlusion, containment and covering events - from a young age infants have principles of continuity and solidity. At 3.5m, infants are no longer surprised when a mouse is occluded and does not appear in the window but comes out the other side. They have generated an explanation that there are 2 mice. Disproving the explanation in a follow up then causes VoE. VoE is criticised as the expected event is used to habituate the infant. However, even in test-only trials, 4m infants will show VoE to the impossible event. Testing other possible explanations has also not disproved VoE.
Schöner & Thelen 2006: Issues with Habituation Studies	- Habituation effects vary with trial frequency: infants prefer familiar objects up until a certain point (habituated) where they then prefer novelty. Individual differences in time taken to habituate call into question if all infants are truly habituated. - Very small changes such as timing, metric differences, number of trials, habituation criteria can drastically affect whether an infant dishabituates or not. In many studies such variables are not reported.
Göbel et al 2011: Cultural Effects on Number Concept	Countries with formal education (which tend to be good at arithmetic) are more likely to use a linear number line, whereas an indigenous tribe in Brazil with no formal education (tend to be poorer at arithmetic) use a logarithmic number line. - 5-6y olds also work logarithmically in America until the transition to later education: the linear number line may be a result of different approaches to learning/education in some cultures.
Elkind 1967: Criticisms of Piaget’s Writings on Conservation	Concept of conservation is split into two definitions in writings: conservation of equivalence (equivalent volume remains the same when one object is altered) and conservation of identity (the water in the first glass is the same when when it is put into the second glass). Conservation of identity is necessary for equivalence but it is only inferred. Piaget often seems to talk about equivalence, but his discussions actually address identity and studies test equivalence - writings are unclear and misunderstood.
Guiso et al. 2008: Effects of Culture on Gender Differences in Maths Ability	Compared the gender gap in maths test scores in different countries (Turkey, Norway, Korea, etc.). Cultures with a more gender-equal culture have virtually no gender difference, showing the importance of culture and socialisation/social context in cognitive development.
Birch & Bloom 2007: The Curse of Knowledge in Adults	Advanced Sally-Anne setup - Denise moves Vicky's violin from the blue container into one of 3 locations: - Untold location (ignorant). - Red box (knowledge-plausible). - Purple box (knowledge-implausible). Denise shuffles the containers so the red one is where the blue box was. Participants indicate the likelihood of Vicky looking in each box. Percentage of looking in the red box was significantly higher in knowledge-plausible condition than in ignorance and knowledge implausible (curse of knowledge).
Song & Baillargeon 2008: False Beliefs and Violation of Expectation	14.5m infants saw agent reach for the blue doll over the skunk puppet. Agent either leaves or stays and doesn't see/sees experimenter place the doll in a plain box and the skunk in a blue hairy box. Agent then returns if they left, and picks either the hairy box (hair-box event) or the plain box (plain-box event). VoE and higher looking times were observed when the hair-box event occurred in the stay condition (as agent knows the skunk is in there) and when the plain-box event occurred in the leave condition (as the agent should expect the doll to be in the hair box) - shows the infants expected the agent to have a false belief earlier than the expected age for false beliefs.
Rehberg & Richman 1989: Environmental Impacts on Prosocial Behaviour	Analysed helping/prosocial behaviour and comforting behaviour in preschool children in reaction to distressed peers. - Males with an absent father were most comforting. - Comforting behaviour was related to mother's dependency on children for emotional support. - Helping behaviour is related to amount of chores done in the house. - Smaller family sizes led to higher comforting scores.
Hur & Rushton 2007: Genetic Effects of Prosocial Behaviour	Twin study in South Korea, found increasing genetic effects on prosociality with age, though both genetic and environmental factors were found to be important.
Research on Mirror Neurons and Empathy: Rizzolatti et al. 1996; Singer et al. 2004	Rizzolatti et al. 1996: Mirror neurons activate both when observing an action and performing an action and may be the neural basis of empathy (innate predisposition to empathy). Singer et al. 2004: Mirror neurons activate when observing pain of loved ones in the same areas that activate when given an electric shock ourselves.
Happe et al. 2006: Issues with the 3 Impairments in ASD	3 behavioural deficits are only modestly correlated in autistic-like behaviours and many threshold ASD children only have severe difficulties in 1 area, though they are more likely to present difficulty in another area. Genetic studies show each trait is heritable but are determined largely independent genes (explains subclinical presentation in relatives as they only have the gene for 1 deficit). Neuroimaging also suggests different localisation of each impairment. Neurocognitive explanations for all deficits are less accurate - do not explain the full picture for all 3. Current theories are deficits in social cognition or domain-general processing, none can explain all 3. Social deficits do not explain rigid behaviours, even as a coping mechanism as they are also seen in high-social-functioning individuals. More likely to be a self-soothing mechanism. Domain-general theories claim social interaction is too complex without any evidence or formal measurement.
Oberman et al. 2005: Mirror Neuron Deficits in ASD	Mirror neuron activity measured when performing and observing hand movements, using TD and high-functioning ASD groups (age- and gender-matched). TD children showed significant mirror neuron activation for performing and observing actions, but ASD children only showed significant activity for performance, suggesting a mirror neuron dysfunction in high-functioning ASD.
Krahn & Fenton 2012: Criticisms of Baron-Cohen's Extreme Male Brain Theory	Baron-Cohen - people with ASD have an extreme male mental profile (high drive to systemise and low drive to empathise). Cited evidence for the different brain profiles is criticised as showing overt gender stereotyping and ignoring socialisation/culture - there is no need to label each one as male or female. EMB Theory leads to female under-diagnosis of ASD because they do not present the typical clinical picture of ASD. Suggestions that girls' earlier language development can mask social and communicative deficits. Can lead to identity issues and low self-esteem in undiagnosed women.
Salthouse 2012: The Consequences of Cognitive Decline on Societal Functioning	Combined correlations of age & cognitive ability and ability & life outcomes to create an expected correlation between age and functional effectiveness of -0.2. Data suggests an inverted U model for career achievements by age (though age of peak and speed of decline differs by field - novel problems like physics have an earlier peak and decline than accumulated knowledge like history). Little evidence suggests consequences for functioning in real life, 4 possible reasons: 1. Daily life reflects typical level of ability, cognitive tests assess maximal ability with fewer extraneous variables. Lab studies overestimate impacts of age-related decline. 2. Shift from novel processing to reliance on experience with age, which makes up for declining novel processing (which is what tests measure). 3. Cognition is not the only determinant of success (e.g. personality, attitude). 4. People make accommodations with age to minimise consequences, such as older people driving less in rush hour.
Constantinidou et al. 2014: Moderators of Verbal Learning Decline	Multiple factors measured in relation to age-related decline in verbal episodic memory. Working memory capacity was found to significantly moderate the decline of verbal EM with age.
Hall et al. 2001: Aerobic Exercise and Executive Function in Older Adults	Meta-analysis of studies suggests that aerobic exercise improves executive function in older adults.

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