Prepared by Debbie Laffranchini, Instructor
Child Growth and Development
Authors: Papalia, Olds and Feldman
 Child development
 Scientific study
 Darwin
 Studying the lifespan
 Physical development
 Growth of the body, growth of the brain, sensory
capacities, motor skills, health
 Cognitive development
 Learning, attention, memory, language, thinking,
reasoning, creativity
 Psychosocial development
 Emotions, personality, social relationships
 Social constructs
 A concept that appears natural and obvious
 But not to all
 Invention of society
 Adolescence
 Chippewa Indians have only two periods of childhood
 Birth to walking
 Walking to puberty
 Western industrial societies follow five periods
 Before birth
 Infancy and toddlerhood
 Early childhood
 Middle childhood
 Adolescence
 Heredity, Environment, Maturation
 Contexts of Development
 Family
 Nuclear
 Step parenting
 Single
 Childless
 Unmarried
 Gay and lesbian
 Extended
 Contexts of Development (cont)
 Culture and Race/Ethnicity
 Culture: way of life, customs, traditions, laws, knowledge,
beliefs, values, language, products, behaviors, attitudes
 Ethnicity: united by a distinctive culture, ancestry, religion,
language, and/or national origin, shared identity, shared
attitudes, beliefs, values
 Socioeconomic Status and Neighborhood
 More than half the world lives on less than $2 a day,
international poverty standard
 Poverty is stressful
 Increased risk factors
 Historical Context
 Normative and Non-normative Influences
 Normative age-graded: puberty, education
 Normative history-graded: Depression, Viet Nam (historical
generation)
 Cohort: born at the same time
 Non-normative: major impact on individuals
 Timing of Influences: Critical or Sensitive Periods
 Imprinting: automatic and irreversible
 Critical period: has specific impact on development, must
occur
 Plasticity
 Sensitive periods, especially responsive to certain experiences
 Studying the Life Course:
Growing Up in Hard Times
 What major cultural event in
your lifetime shaped the lives
of families and children?
 All domains of development are
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interrelated
Normal development includes a wide
range of individual differences
Children help shape their
development and influence other’s
responses to them
Historical and cultural contexts
strongly influence development
Early experience is important, but
children are remarkable resilient
Development in childhood affects
development throughout the lifespan
“Children are human beings to whom respect is due,
superior to us by reason of their innocence and of
the greater possibilities of their future.”
Maria Montessori