LIST OF REFERENCES FOR LASER (1,500 word) ON:
“CRITICAL PERIODS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT”
Tutor: Dr Fabia Franco
See notes on critical/sensitive periods on a separate file in this folder.
Your laser should be based on at least 4-5 papers chosen from the list of papers below, but feel free to add relevant papers published in the last ten years. For each paper, there is a brief description. All papers can be found either in the university library resources or via Google Scholar as PDFs.
Journal papers are often hard to read – do not get discouraged! You will need to get over each paper more than once, probably. Take notes. If you feel you are getting lost / not quite understanding the statistical analyses, go to the Discussion section of the paper where the findings are summarized and interpreted. You may then go back to the Results and try to understand them better. Do not skip the Method section  - here you find details about HOW was the study conducted; if you understand this, you will have more ideas to develop for critical appraisal of the research and possibly to develop further studies.
Remember to include your references.
PAPERS:
A
Fox, S.F., Levitt, P., and Nelson, C.A. III (2010). How the Timing and Quality of Early
Experiences Influence the Development of Brain Architecture. Child Development, 81
(1), 28–40.
A very good review paper – like the one below, more specifically focused on the effects on brain development.
B
Knudsen, E.I. (2004). Sensitive Periods in the Development of the Brain and Behavior.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16 (8), 1412–1425.
This paper presents a general discussion of the concept of critical/sensitive periods and provides examples from both behavioral data and brain studies.
C
Skuse, D. (1984). Extreme deprivation in early childhood-II Theoretical issues and a comparative review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 25 (4), 543–572.
Published online (scanned) 2006.

This paper is somewhat a ‘classic’ – it summarises well known cases in a narrative way, and then discusses why it is difficult to generalize from such extreme cases.
D
Tottenham,N., Hare, T.A., Quinn, B.T., McCarry, T.W., Nurse, M., Gilhooly, T., Milner,
A., Galvan, A., Davidson, M.C., Eigsti, I., Thomas, K.M., Freed, P., Booma, E.S.,
Gunnar, M., Altemus, M., Aronson, J., and Casey, BJ.. (2010). Prolonged institutional rearing is associated with atypically larger amygdala volume and difficulties in emotion regulation. Developmental Science, 13 (1), 46-72.
Yes, brain scan studies, particularly with children, are very complicated – look how many people had to be involved! This paper should be not-too-difficult for you if you read also the Lubya et al. paper see G below. Feel free to make connections. The research is about institutionalized children and the measures discussed are mostly brain-related.
F
E
Nelson, C.A. III, Zeanah, C.H., Fox, N.A., Marshall, P.J., Smyke, A.T., Guthrie, D.
(2007). Cognitive Recovery in Socially Deprived Young Children: The Bucharest Early
Intervention Project. Science, 318, 1937-1940.
This paper is short – it makes explicit reference to ‘sensitive periods’. Similarly to the previous paper, it also concerns institutionalized/fostered children, but it mostly reports cognitive measures.
Kuhl, P.K., Conboy, B.T., Padden, D., Nelson, T., and Pruitt, J. (2005). Early Speech
Perception and Later Language Development: Implications for the “Critical Period”.
Language Learning and Development, 1 (3&4), 237–264.
One way of looking at the question of ‘critical periods’ in language acquisition.
G
Lubya, J.L., Barcha, D.M., Beldena, A., Gaffreya, M.S., Tillmana, R., Babba, C.,
Nishinoa, T., Suzukia, H., and Botterona, K.N. (2012). Maternal support in early childhood predicts larger hippocampal volumes at school age. PNAS, 109 (8), 2854-
2859. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/8/2854.short
(open access article)
You need not to worry about providing specific details of brain structures or fully report all measure used in this study. The main aspects to concentrate on are the research strategy and how the study has been conducted: is this a good way to investigate the existence of critical/sensitive periods in human psychological

development?
H
Almasa, A.N., Degnan, K.A. Radulescu, A. Nelson, C.A. III, Zeanah, C.H., and Fox, N.A.
(2012). Effects of early intervention and the moderating effects of brain activity on institutionalized children’s social skills at age 8. PNAS, vol. 109 no. Supplement 2,
17228-17231.
Paper with similar structure to paper G above. This is focused on children’s social skills, comparing time and type of foster care. Implications for intervention.
I
J
Trainor, L. (2005). Are there critical periods for musical development?
Developmental Psychobiology , 46, 262–278.
This paper review the evidence for the existence of critical/sensitive periods in one specific domain: music, a form of human communication which is universal yet deeply affected by cultural variations. An interesting paper to pair with paper F.
Neville, H.J., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., Bell, T.A., Fanning, J., Klein, S.,and Isbell, E.
(2013). Family-based training program improves brain function, cognition, and behavior in lower socioeconomic status preschoolers. PNAS, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1304437110
Focusing on neuroplasticity, this paper illustrates an educational intervention aiming to “correct” adverse effects of early disadvantage. Very novel type of study, based on the assumption that early development represents a ‘sensitive period’….