Book one chapter summaries

Chapter one : Children and development

* The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is designed to promote the well being of the worlds children.

* The convention seeks to promote the idea of children developing and their development must be protected.

* There are different ideas and beliefs about children that depend upon persons age, gender, and social background, influenced by their time and place in history.

* Definitions of childhood differ between societies, now and through history, and this is shown by laws through history defining the end of childhood.

* Adults have a role in defining children’s experiences of childhood, with the children being ‘social actors’ with their own ideas and beliefs.

* Historians have argued childhood is a recent concept, after the 15th century when art and literature depicted them as different from adults.

* In the West industrialisation led to a demand of child labour, social reformers questioned the effects of work on child’s well being.

* Universal schooling changed beliefs and expectations of children, and they became removed from the adult world of work.

* New theories about human evolution led to an increase in interest in scientific studies of child development.

* These early scientific theories offered valuable knowledge and tools that were the foundation to how new professionals have continued to study children’s psychological development, care and education.

* Development is concerned with rule-governed patterns of change towards a more advanced level of organisation.

* Early developmental research was concerned with identifying normal patterns of physical/psychological development.

* Physical growth/mobility studies highlight developmental issues especially if changes are continuous/discontinuous and develop idea of developmental stages.

* Childhood development is debated in the areas of Biology v experience, hereditary v environment. These lead to questions what causes children to develop.

* The west has produced many development theories which have been applied to all cultures and societies.

* The modern challenge in developmental research is to add cultural diversities in children’s environments, experiences and expectations to explanations of development.

* These themes are represented by looking at work, play, learning, in young children, develop the concept of developmental niche.

Chapter 2 : Theories of development

* developmental psychologists develop theories of children’s behaviour/development leading to informed discussion of these issues.

* the four ‘Grand Theories’ important = behaviourism, social learning theory, constructivism, social constructivism.

* Behaviourism - all behaviour learned and maintained by its consequences, not allowing for ‘mental events’

* Classical conditioning - reflex behaviours become associated with neutral stimuli in the environment.

* Operant conditioning - behaviours are increased or decreased as result of pleasant/unpleasant consequences - how behaviour can be shaped by use of rewards.

* Punishment as means of behavioural control only effective if severe, contingent, consistently applied. Will only temporarily suppress behaviours in specific contexts.

* Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) uses reinforcement to help children with learning difficulties to make progress at home/school.

* Social learning - children can learn by observing other people.

* Bandura - pre school children copied aggressive behaviour modelled by another person, especially if behaviour went unpunished.

* social learning research looks at the effects of positive and negative effects of TV watching for children.

* social learning theory does not explain importance of cognitive development.

* Piaget - all children go through ordered sequence of cognitive stages in development. Occurs through processes of intrinsic motivation, assimilation, accommodation, equilibration.

* development occurs due to the actions of children on their environment.

* Piaget - children egocentric as mental representations centred on own perceptions/experiences of world. They reason different from adults. As the child interacts in more complex ways with the environment their cognitive development occurs therefore they are active in constructing understanding from initial innate behaviours.

* these ideas led to development of ‘discovery learning’ - the teacher becomes a facilitator of an appropriate learning environment not active tutor.

* Piaget - critic = does not account for social context of cognitive activities.

* Vygotsky - learning is a cultural/interpersonal process using ‘cultural tools’

* he believed language is a social tool for interpersonal communication. Once the child internalises it for thought processes the social environment becomes reflected in their reasoning.

* adult tuition is important as child needs contact with more able to achieve what may be beyond them. Increasing new levels of reasoning.

* cognitive development can be produced in a ‘zone of proximal learning’ created through sensitive teaching.

* Vygotsky - ideas used to help in teaching of children with [special] education needs such as the teaching of communication skills for Deaf/blind children.

* these approaches felt to be too formal, teacher orientated.

Chapter 3 : Sensation to Perception

* Infants are born with immature sensory/nervous system - psychologists look at how this immaturity effects infants perceptions of their world.

* developmental theories are therefore based on assumptions of infants world perceptions. Piaget - child learns through relationship of their sensory experiences and their actions in the world. Whereas others view infants are born with an understanding of the physical/social aspects of their world.

* sensation/perception/cognition/behaviour make up an integrated dynamic system.

* the visual system in humans is immature at birth, developing over early years.

* after a few days from birth infants can show a preference for some images over others.

* at birth infants show they are sensitive to depth info and this ability develops up to six months.

* infants find the face attractive, due to infant being attuned to the features faces have

* information rich stimuli have been provided from lab studies, showing that infants show visual competence such as knowing mum’s face from stranger.

* the preference for attractive faces, and ability to imitate, show that as infants enter the world they have innate ability to discriminate between individuals. Allows bonding with caregivers.

* the human auditory system is more mature in structure than visual system at birth.

* they can show preferences in auditory preferences as well as visual ones.

* infants can recognise own mothers voice, and sensitive to intonation from birth. This is thought to occur in utero.

* infants are born sensitive to international phonemic distinctions in speech.

* before communicating their first word infants have to learn about the speech characteristics of native tongue.

* the infant at birth have basic ability to co ordinate different info from different senses.

* these sensitivities include synchrony/asynchrony/auditory-visual associations.

* intersensory redundancy indicates data from two senses can go together.

* ecologically valid situations will provide richer evidence of infants perceptual abilities than unnatural situations, in experimental world.

* in the womb postural control and kinaesthetic feedback develop, and continue to develop in later life in response to new experiences.

Chapter 4: Early Cognitive Development

* Piaget’s findings at first proved to be well founded but subsequent researchers are challenging the interpretations.

* studies have shown that at 5 months infants act in ways that imply an understanding of object permanence.

* some more ambiguous findings have shown infants at 2 months having appreciation of object properties.

* due to demands on various parts of the developing cognitive system tracking moving objects may be harder problem than object permanence.

* infants lack of object permanence may be a result of the underdeveloped short term memory processes available to them in infancy.

* Piaget - stated that knowledge of the world is constructed as a result of interaction between infants and environment.

* some researchers feel infants born with more comprehension than what Piaget believed.

* Piaget - development of imitation is not complete till 9-12 months.

* Meltzoff and Moore - infants have capacity to imitate adult in first few days after birth. Infants of six weeks can store ‘to be imitated’ behaviours to be acted out 24hours later.

* to carry out planned actions we require ability to hold in the mind representations and we need to be able to understand them. Representations = words, numbers, gestures, expressions.

* the development of understanding representations occurs in first year of life. Including understanding existence of objects out of sight, and ability to store/replicate actions of others.

* significant developments also occur in later life such as understanding models as representations of real world.

Chapter five: temperament and development.

* developmental psychologists are not only concerned with patterns of normal development but also the importance in individual differences between children.

* the study in history of adult personality theories two approaches favoured either traits or types.

* today’s theories of personality use traits as a means of measurement.

* Bates defined temperament as “biologically rooted individual differences in behaviour tendencies that are present early in life and are relatively stable across various kinds of situations and over the course of time”

* children’s behavioural styles reflect temperamental differences.

* temperament is independent of individual differences in cognitive abilities.

* traits are psychological dimensions which people vary, they are examples of areas of temperament in children.

* the ideas that there are types of children based on specific profiles of traits.

* three main characteristics used to describe temperament : emotional responses; attentional orientation; motor activity.

* stability is the extent which individual differences remain constant over time. Continuity is the way a particular characteristic is always linked to another characteristic later in life.

* as the child ages we can see a developmental progression in temperament components.

* temperament is considered a quality of child behaviour deduced from measuring behaviours in different situations/times.

* genetic differences have been considered to influence temperamental differences.

* during the first year we can detect temperamental differences, yet not related to differences at 3-4.

* as child ages the more stability in temperament.

* there are links between child temperament and specific adult personality types.

* mother is usually asked to record /observe behaviours for temperament measures to be conducted.

* are parent reports reliable sources of data.

* there is evidence parents reports can agree with direct observations of children.

* Thomas and Chess - first systematic theory of temperament = nine dimensions. The dimensions may not be independent so is a less complex procedure needed.

* the term ‘difficult temperament’ may be a category that will identify individuals with risk of later behavioural problems.

* Buss and Plomin - was simpler and consisted of emotionality; activity; sociability. Also it can be related to adult personality theory.

* Kagan - behavioural inhibition to unfamiliarity is more stable temperament dimension.

* Dunn and Kendrick - temperament and social contexts influence behaviour responses in child at birth of new sibling.

* temperament influences other aspects of development .

* temperament has an influence on parents responses to child.

* the child’s attachment and long term social adjustment can be influenced by a goodness of fit between temperament of child and parental styles.

* the vulnerability of adverse effects of life events can be influenced by child’s temperament.

* temperament can influence type and range of experiences to which child is exposed to.

Chapter 6 : Origins of Development

* The gene is the unit of inheritance

* genes exist in different forms = alleles

* combinations of alleles = Genotype. The expression of physical/behavioural characteristics = phenotype.

* Mendel - genes are passed on through generations and can be predicted, but differences genetic make up results in individual differences.

* the structure and function of the body are influenced by genes.

* Epigenetic development = interaction between genes and environment.

* Behavioural geneticists use family, adoption, twin studies to examine relationship of genes or environment to expressed phenotypes foe a population.

* Heritability = statistic describing contribution of genes on phenotype variation in a given population.

* selective breeding in animals explains how genes influence physical/behavioural development.

* behavioural geneticists study gene disorders to show effects on cognitive and behavioural development. Can show importance of environmental influences, and interactions of genetics/environment/development.

* some theories say development is process where environment influences a trigger gene into action. Others show development is a process altering how genes and environment can interact in a complex system.

* modern genetics research can raise ethical and moral issues.

* Evolutionary developmental psychology = emerging discipline still finding best way to investigate approaches and core principles.

* the approach highlights the importance of childhood other than a stage of immaturity to adult.

* evolutionary psychology applies to several areas of social/cognitive development.

Chapter 7 : First Relationships

* caregiver-infant dyads are universal with cultural variations.

* developmental psychologists argue infants are pre-tuned for social interactions.

* psychological development is based on social interactions.

* the study of early relationships was based on the Psychoanalytical theory.

* psychologists feel relationships between infants/caregivers are essential for development.

* these relationships between adults/infants are based on several psychological processes on different levels.

* the psychoanalytic concept of projection is used to describe certain aspects of infant relationships.

* In this course ‘mother’ is used as shorthand for adult caring for baby.

* important not to idealize mother-infant relationships or ignore there are positive/negative emotions in infant care.

* mother-infant interaction studies show conversation like exchanges happening, thought to be basis leading to development of proper conversation.

* turn taking is apparent in how mothers interact with baby during feeding.

* adults and young children use motherese, a special form of speech used when interacting with babies.

* mothers imitate as much as infants and these imitations are important feature of early relationship.

* a key feature to early relationships is the development of intersubjectivity.

* The simple and stereotypical interaction patterns between mam and baby is described using the joint-action format concept.

* Scaffolding = the adult uses techniques enabling infant to elaborate on their behaviour.

* caregivers help their infants develop using Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.

* experimental studies to date provide a partial picture of different emotional states of the infants lives.

* when caring for a baby dealing with stress is a way of life for caregiver.

* babies development may be influenced by how mothers deal with babies distress.

* Object-relationships = how baby forms representations of other people and relationships with them.

* infants can be seen as active agents in constructing their social world.

* a cause and effect model is limited to explaining how mam and babys behaviours affects each other.

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