CHILDHOOD: THE WONDER
YEARS
MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
 Refers to progression of muscular coordination
required for physical activity
 Grasping, reaching, crawling, walking, etc…
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF MOTOR
DEVELOPMENT
 1: Cephalocaudal trend: head-to-foot direction of
motor development
 Children tend to gain control of their upper body
before the lower
 2: Proximodistal trend: center-outward direction of
motor development
MATURATION
 Early motor dev. depends partially on physical
growth; uneven in infancy
 Early motor dev. attributed to Maturation:
development that reflects the gradual unfolding of
one’s genetic blueprint
DEVELOPMENTAL NORMS
 DEF: the median age at which individuals display
various behaviors and abilities
 Useful as benchmarks in the life span
CULTURAL VARIATIONS AND THEIR
SIGNIFICANCE
 Cross-cultural research shows a relationship btwn
experience and maturation
 As age increases, maturation becomes less influential
and experience is more critical
EASY AND DIFFICULT BABIES
 Temperament:
characteristic mood,
activity level, and
emotional reactivity
 Alexander Thomas and
Stella Chase studies
 Longitudinal study:
observe one group
repeatedly over a period of
time
 Cross-sectional study:
compare groups of
differing age at a single pt.
in time
THOMAS AND CHASE FINDINGS
 Temperament is established btwn 2 or 3 months old
 3 basic styles:
1) Easy children: 40%; happy, regular sleep and
eating, adaptable, not easily upset
2) Slow-to-warm-up: 15%; less cheery, less regular
sleep and eating, slower adaptation to change
3) Difficult children: 10%; glum, erratic sleep and
eating, irritable, resistant to change
--remaining 35% were a mix
OTHER RESEARCH
 Jerome Kagan
 15-20% of infants: inhibited temperament: shy,
timid, wary of unfamiliar
 25-30% of infants: uninhibited temperament: not
shy, approach unfamiliar
EARLY EMOTIONAL AND
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
ATTACHMENT
 DEF: close, emotional bonds of affection that
develop btwn infants and their caregivers
 Usually to the mother
 Not instantaneous
 Separation anxiety: emotional distress seen in many
infants when they are separated from people with
whom they have formed an attachment
PATTERNS OF ATTACHMENT
 Secure attachment: infant is comfortable when
mother present, visibly upset when she leaves,
calmed when she returns
 Anxious-ambivalent: anxious when mother present,
protest when she leaves, not calmed when she
returns
 Avoidant attachment: seek little contact w/mother,
not distressed when she leaves
EFFECTS OF SECURE ATTACHMENT
 Children tend to become competent toddlers w/high
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self-esteem
Preschool years: leaders, self-reliant, better peer
relations
Age 11: better social skills, more close friends
More advanced cognitive development
All correlational data
BONDING AT BIRTH
 Some believe that skin-to-skin contact btwn
newborn and mother is important
 Can create a more effective attachment
DAY CARE
 Do infant-mother separations effect attachment?
 2/3 of children under 5 are in day care
 Research by Belsky shows 20+ hrs per week
increases development of insecure attachment
CULTURE AND ATTACHMENT
 Separation anxiety emerges c. 6-8 months
 Peaks about 14-18 months
 Attachment is culturally universal
 Differences occur due to child-rearing practices
EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES ON
ATTACHMENT
 Attachments may depend on the character of the
environments
 Secure environments create sensitive parents, which
leads to secure attachment
 Harsh environments create unresponsive parents;
leads to insecure attachment
BECOMING UNIQUE: PERSONALITY
DEVELOPMENT
 Freud came up w/1st theory of personality
development
 Erik Erikson revised the stage theory of Freud
 Stage: developmental period during which
characteristic patterns of behavior are exhibited and
certain capacities become established
ERIKSON’S STAGE THEORY
 8 stages
 Each has a psychosocial crisis involving transitions
 Personality is shaped by how we deal with these
crises
STAGE 1
 Trust vs. Mistrust
 In the 1st year of life
 Babies rely on others for care
 If biological needs are seen to, secure attachments
form
STAGE 2
 Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
 2nd and 3rd years of life
 Toilet training and other ways of regulating behavior
 Child must begin to take some responsibility
 Parent-child conflicts may create shame and self-
doubt
STAGE 3
 Initiative vs. Guilt
 Ages 3-6
 Children take initiatives that conflict with rules
 Overcontrolling parents may instill feelings of guilt,
damaging self-esteem
 Be supportive while maintaining control
STAGE 4
 Industry vs. Inferiority
 Ages 6-puberty
 Learning to function socially beyond the family
 Effective functioning leads to higher sense of
competence
GROWTH OF THOUGHT:
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: TRANSITIONS IN
CHILDREN’S PATTERNS OF THINKING,
INCLUDING REASONING, REMEMBERING,
AND PROBLEM SOLVING
OVERVIEW OF PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
 Jean Piaget
 Wanted to study how children use intelligence
 Believed the way children think is altered by
interaction w/environment and maturation
 4 major stages…
STAGE 1
 Sensorimotor Period
 From birth to age 2
 Development of coordination of sensory input
 Transition from innate reflexes to use of mental
symbols
 Object Permanence: recognition that objects
continue to exist even when no longer visible
STAGE 2
 Preoperational Period
 Age 2-7
 Principles:
1: Conservation: awareness that physical amts remain
constant in spite of changes in shape and appearance
2: Centration: tendency to focus on one feature of a
problem, ignoring others
STAGE 2 CONTINUED
3: Irreversibility: inability to envision reversing an
action
4: Egocentrism: limited ability to share another
person’s point of view
---notable feature of egocentrism: animism: belief that
all things are living
STAGE 3
 Concrete Operational Period
 Development of mental operations
 Reversibility and decentration occur
 Leads to decline in egocentrism and mastery of
conservation
 Problem solving skills enhance
STAGE 4
 Formal Operational Period
 C. 11 yrs old
 Abstract operations
 Problem solving becomes systematic, logical, and
reflective
ARE COGNITIVE ABILITIES INNATE?
 Habituation: gradual reduction in strength of a
response when a stimulus is presented repeatedly
 Dishabituation: occurs if a new stimulus elicits an
increase in the strength of an habituated response
CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE
MIND
 Age 2: distinguish btwn desires and emotions
 Age 3: realize other’s thoughts and beliefs
 Age 4: begin to understand how thoughts and desires
effect behavior
PROGRESS IN INFORMATION PROCESSING
 Info. processing theory focuses on how people
receive, encode, store, organize, retrieve, and use
information
 Has shown developmental changes in attention and
memory
ATTENTION
 Attention span lengthens as age increases
 More conscious control is acquired
 Gradually able to filter out irrelevant data
MEMORY
 Infantile Amnesia: inability to remember
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experiences from early years
Memories usually start around 3 or 4 yrs old
Development of language skills improves memories
Strategies for enhancement of information storage
and retrieval:
Rehearsal: repetition; verbal or thinking (age 5)
Organization: grouping based on similarities(age 9)
Elaboration: building additional associations(age
11)
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL
REASONING
KOHLBERG’S STAGE THEORY
 Lawrence Kohlberg
 Theory focus: moral reasoning
 Three levels: Preconventional, Conventional,
Postconventional
 Each as 2 sublevels (6 stages in all)
KOHLBERG’S LEVELS
 Preconventional: thinking in terms of external
authority---based on punishment or reward
 Conventional: internalize rules to be virtuous and
win approval---rules are absolute
 Postconventional: working out personal code of
ethics; moral thinking is flexible