The Developing Person
Through Childhood and Adolescence
What we will cover?
What is child development?
What theories have been developed about the
developing human?
What about genetics?
How does it all begin? What happens during
pregnancy and birth?
How does a child grow:
Physically (biosocial)?
Cognitively?
Socially and emotionally (psychosocial)?
Chapter One: Introduction
The Science of human development:
To understand how and why people –
all kinds of people, everywhere, of
every age – change over time.
Issues to consider:
The Nature-Nurture
Controversy
Nature: from the moment of
conception, your genetic
inheritance.
Nurture: All the environmental
influences that affect your
development, beginning the
moment of conception.
What’s the issue?
How much influence does either
one of these have on you.
Study of human development is divided
into 3 domains: biosocial development,
cognitive development and psychosocial
development
Though scientists
study humans
through these
domains,
development is a
holistic experience.
Biosocial: How the body grows and changes
related to genetic, nutrition, and other health factors
– the social factors that can influence the biology of
one’s body, including motor skills.
Cognitive development: perception, imagination,
judgment, memory, and language – and how people
think, decide, and learn through formal and informal
education.
Psychosocial: How family, friends, the community,
the culture, and the larger society impact emotions,
temperament and social skills.
MULTIDIRECTIONAL
Multidirectional
• Butterfly effect – unpredictable (any one moment
can change a person’s life)
• Linear: life continues to move forward
• Continuity: characteristics that are basically
stable over time and discontinuity: a change that
occurs, such as quitting an addiction or learning a
new language
• Growth and decline
• Stages of growth
• Critical periods of growth and sensitive periods
MULTICONTEXTUAL
Multicontextual
• I was born in the 50’s – We had a black and
white TV – but no electronics.
• My daughter was born in the 70’s – Atari,
pong were the first computer games, phones
were still attached by a cord. My next
daughter was born in mid-80’s. Cordless
phones, more video games, pagers, then cell
phones. Consider how many of you have cell
phones and use them during class…what are
the norms that society generates?
Multicontextual
• Young children have technology that you
sitting here didn’t have when you were young.
• Families deal with the issues of technology
and are impacted by socioeconomics status.
Those who have and those who do not – how
is a child’s future impacted by his/her
economic status.
Multidisciplinary
To study humans, all fields of
science need to be used.
BIOLOGY
Sociology
MULTICULTURAL – if video does not work – open link
“North Korean children…” in ch. 1 of the media resource.
Multicultural
• Race: distinguished by how we look
• Ethnicity: people whose ancestors come from the
same geographic area and share a common
language, culture and religion.
• Culture: values, customs, clothes, homes, foods,
assumptions…
• Social Constructs: terms like “race” are built by a
groups of people to define others…Another
example: teenagers, yuppies, hippies, etc.
PLASTIC
Plasticity
• In 2005, Eric Edmundson was injured in Iraq –
sustaining brain injury from schrapnel. His
family was told that he would live in a
vegetative state for the rest of his life. His
family didn’t accept that – and 1 year later he
walked out of the hospital with help. The
uninjured parts of his brain were adapting. He
still cannot speak, but uses a computer to
communicate. It took months for him to learn
how to eat.
The scientific method is a way to answer
questions that requires empirical research
and data-based conclusions.
scientific method:
–
–
–
begins with curiosity
develop a hypothesis
test the hypothesis
–
draw conclusions
18
Please view the following series on how the scientific
method impacts our lives...
If link does not cooperate Copy and paste – this is a 3 part series that
aired on PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/expose_2007/episode205/watch3.html