Intro Activity: Handout 8-4 Developmental Landmarks:
Physical, Cognitive, Language, Social
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1-Laugh-2 months
Pedal a tricycle-24 months
Sit without support-5-6 months
Feel asahmed-2 years
Walk unassisted-12 months
Stand on 1 foot for 10 seconds-4 ½ years
Recognize and smile at mother or father-4-5 months
Kick Ball forward-20 months
Think about things that cannot be seen-2 years
Make two-word sentences-20-22 months
• Did you overestimate? underestimate?
Motor Milestones
Developmental Psychology
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Issue
Details
Nature/Nurture
How do genetic inheritance (our nature) and experience
(the nurture we receive) influence our behavior?
Continuity/Stages
Is development a gradual, continuous process or a
sequence of separate stages?
Stability/Change
Do our early personality traits persist through life, or
do we become different persons as we age.
Cross-sectional: uses participants of different ages to compare how variables
change over lifespan
– Advantage: immediate comparison of developmental differences
– Disadvantage: cannot tell if an individual stays the same or changes over time.
Longitudinal: same group of individuals studies repeatedly over time.
– Advantage: allows the study of developmental patterns or changes over time.
– Disadvantage: time; must wait many years for results, subjects "drop out" of
study (death, move, etc.)
– Preferred method
Prenatal Development
• Prenatal: germinal, embryonic, fetal stages
– Germinal: first two weeks after conception
• Zygote – a fertilized egg
– Embryonic: weeks three through eight after conception
• Stage when most miscarriages occur & when most major birth defects take place
• Placenta & umbilical cord
– Connects blood supply of mother to the fetus
– Filter: allows oxygen & nutrients thru while keeping out some toxic substances
– But: some viruses (HIV) & drugs (caffeine, nicotine, pot, cocaine, heroin) can get
through, which are called TERATOGENS
» diseases (herpes)
» drug (alcohol)—FAS
» other environmental agent (chemicals)
– Fetal: two months after conception until birth
• Neurological development
– Neural connections are very few at birth, but # in the 1,000s by 2 months
– Partial explanation for brain weight increase from 340-900 grams
Newborn: Sensory Abilities
• All are present at birth; vision is the one that changes the most
• Hearing
– Prefer mother’s voice to other female’s voices, but do not prefer
fathers voice to other males
• exposure during gestation
• Touch
– Many reflexes are triggered by touch, and sensitivity increases as
neonates mature
• rooting (turn head toward touch/stroke)
• sucking
• moro (the "startle" reflex= drawing up limbs when startled, or
"dropped")
• withdrawal (from painful stimuli)
• grasping ("palmar")
• babinski (spread toes when feet are stimulated/stroked)
• sphincter (pooping)
– Touch creates emotional bonds between people
• Taste
• Neonates prefer liquid solutions such as sugar and milk and grimace
when given bitter or salty tastes. inborn preference for sweet & salt;
inborn dislike for bitter
Prenatal Development
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While most nerve cells are produced during the first few months of prenatal development, the senses cannot work
until these cells make synapses. Early reflexes and movements seem to function in making these connections, molding
the senses, and training the fetal brain to perceive.
Chronological summary of sensory development:
1. Nerve growth begins when a sheet of cells on the back of the embryo folds in the middle to form the future
spinal cord. At one end, the tube enlarges to form the brain’s major sections.
2. First responses are reflexes, some of which occur even before the sense of touch is developed. The fetus will flex
its head away from stimulation around the mouth as early as 71⁄2 weeks. By month’s end the ears begin to take
shape.
3. Touch receptors around the mouth are developed by the twelfth week and elsewhere by the fifteenth. Touching
the palms makes the fingers close, touching the soles of the feet makes the toes curl down, touching the eyelids
makes the eye muscles clench. Nerve cells have multiplied, synapses are being formed.
4. At 15 weeks the fetus can grasp, frown, squint, and grimace. It may suck its thumb and swallow. These
movements correspond to the development of synapses in the brain.
5. At 20 weeks nerve-cell production slows as the existing cells grow larger and make more complex connections.
The senses of taste and smell are now formed. The nerve cells serving each of the senses are developing into
specialized areas of the brain.
6. The fetus can feel movement and may respond to sound as early as 24 weeks.
7. At 25 weeks some babies born prematurely can survive. Nerve supply to the ears is complete. Brain scans show
response to touch at 26 weeks and to light at 27 weeks. A light shone on the mother’s abdomen will make the
fetus turn its head, indicating some functioning of the optic nerve.
8. The eyes open in the womb and the fetus may see its hand and environment. Some researchers put the start of
awareness at the 32nd week, at which time neural circuits are as advanced as a newborn’s. Brain scans show
periods of deep sleep.
9. The fetus begins to develop daily activity cycles. At 35 weeks hearing is mature. At birth the baby can see shapes
and colors within 13 inches of its face; can distinguish loudness, pitch, and tone; and may even show a preference
for sweets and for the scent of its mother’s skin.
Newborn: Sensory Abilities
• Vision
– Infants are born with immature visual system
• can detect movement and large objects
– At four months visual acuity is the same as an adult
20/20
– Response to complex stimuli and the human face
• 8-12 weeks: Neonates prefer stripes to featureless blobs, and
curvy lines to straight ones
• 2 months: Neonates prefer human faces
– Depth perception
• 6-8 months: respond to monocular and binocular cues
• Gibson "visual cliff" experiment (6-8 months)
– Crawling infants would not cross visual cliff even when beckoned by
mother
– 1-month old infants showed no emotion in response to a visual cliff, 55day old infants showed interest, and 9-month olds showed fear
Newborn: Sensory Abilities
• Smell
– 1 day old can differentiate citrus/floral odors
– Can discriminate distinct smells shortly after birth
– Infants breathe more rapidly when presented with a strong smell 16
hours to 5 days after birth, and will turn away from fowl smells
– Infants prefer similar smells to children and adults
– Infants are drawn to the smell of their mother
– Auxiliary: underarm
• Within 15 days infants prefer their mother’s auxiliary odors to
those of other women
Developmental Norms
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Development Norms - average age at which individuals display various behaviors and abilities.
– Variations from average are normal. EX: 25% of all babies walk by 11 months, 50% walk within a
week after their first birthday, and 90% by age 15 months
• 30 percent rule – developing motor skills more than 30% later than average might warrant
attention.
– Occurs in a predictable sequence
• Proximodistal principle: parts closer to the center of the body develop before parts further
away.
– EX: activities involving the trunk are mastered first (roll over before walking or holding a
bottle)
• Cephalocaudal principle: parts of the body closer to the head develop before parts closer to
the feet.
– EX: head lifts before roll over, sit up before (controls legs to) crawl
– Most heavily influenced by maturation
• Biological growth processes that enable orderly developmental changes that are RELATIVELY
uninfluenced by experience.
– Development of the brain pathways fire up nerve endings and muscle groups to perform
specific tasks
– For example, can’t roll over until three brain structures develop more: the motor cortex,
which initiates movement and the cerebellum, which excites motor nerves and regulates
balance.
• However, the timing can be sped up/slowed down by experience/learning (nurture)
– A child that is always held by their parents will be slower to learn how to crawl
– Each stage has critical periods - the period before humans must be exposed to a skill/experience or
they lose much of their innate ability to learn it
• EX: have to be exposed to language before puberty in order to learn language)
– Development is lifelong and NEVER ends – it is plastic, flexible and malleable
Maturation
At birth
3 months
Cortical Neurons
15 months
Cognitive Development
• Cognition = all the mental activities associated with thinking,
knowing, remembering, and communicating
• Methods for studying infants:
– Infant reflexes provide insight into their mental life
• Gaze = preference looking and duration related to visual
perception
• Head turning = related to auditory attention
• Sucking , reaching, kicking can be used to measure
interest
– Habituation = decreasing responsiveness with
repeated stimulation
– Dishabituation = increasing responsiveness to
something new or impossible
• http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=1502 (8 minutes – 20
minutes)
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
• Schema--mental structure or framework that permits
classification/organization of new information.
• Assimilation--inclusion of new event into existing schema.
• Accommodation--modification of schemas to allow for new
information can be integrated.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive
Development: Sensorimotor Stage
Age
Major Developmental Hallmarks
Range
0-2 yrs - All knowledge is acquired through senses and
movement (such as looking and grasping).
3½
- Baby Mathematics – infants stare longer at a
mos
numerically impossible event
6-8
mos
- Visual Cliff – infant hesitates and shows fear;
depth perception
- Object Permanence - exhibit memory for
things no longer seen.
Cognitive Development
• Baby Mathematics
– Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants stare
longer (http://vsx.onstreammedia.com/vsx/pbssaf/search/PBSPlayer?assetId=68933&ccstart=0&pt=0&preview= (5:39)
4. Possible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
one object.
1. Objects placed
in case.
2. Screen comes 3. Object is removed.
up.
4. Impossible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
two objects.
Cognitive Development
• One study had 1 month
old babies suck one of
two pacifiers without
ever seeing them
• When shown both
pacifiers, infants stared
more at the one they
had felt in their mouth
• This requires a sort of
reasoning
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive
Development: Preoperational Stage
Age
Range
Major Developmental Hallmarks
2-7 yrs - Language development
3 yrs
- Symbolic Thinking - ability to think in symbols
- Animism – all objects have thoughts and feelings.
- Egocentric Thinking – unable to see world from
others’ points of view (your thoughts are public
knowledge rather than private, everyone thinks like you).
4-5yrs - Theory of Mind – start to understand people’s
ideas about their own and others’ mental states
(feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the
behavior these might predict)
Theory of Mind
http://vsx.onstreammedia.com/vsx/pbssaf/search/PBSPlay
er?assetId=68935&ccstart=0&pt=0&preview= (start at 2:55
or at 7 minutes for sticker game)
Autism & Theory of Mind: Video:
“Breaking the Shell”
Developmental Abnormalities: Autism
http://vsx.onstreammedia.com/vsx/pbssaf/search/PBSPlayer?assetId=68299&ccstart=925659&pt=0&vid=pbssaf1205&entire=No
Cognitive Deficit
Brain Abnormality
Lack Theory of Mind (see others as separate beings
with own feelings, thoughts, perceptions):
-Social Relationship Difficulties (hard to relate to
people)
-No eye contact when communicating
-No imitation
Dysfunction of mirror neurons – subset
of motor neurons that also fire when
person watches another person
perform the same action (helps one
determine intentions of others by
mentally stimulating their actions)
Brain does not light up to faces
Problems with emotional reciprocity and trivial act
can set off an extreme emotional response
Larger Amygdala
Heightened emotional response
-Preoccupation with trivial info (train schedules)
-Avoids novel sensations
-Repetitive motions – rocking, self stimulating
(head banging)
-Hypersensitivity
-Aversion to sounds
Salience landscape – created by
amygdala – map that details emotional
significance of everything in
environment, helps determine how we
should respond emotionally
Language Deficits – cannot interpret proverbs and
metaphors
Larger Brain?
Treatments for Autism
• Intervene early with autistic children to
stimulate brain systems
• Squeeze vest  device to monitor arousal
• Intensive therapy – 40 hours a week: speech
pathologist, imitation, repetitive actions,
provide routine
• Correct chemical imbalance that disables
mirror neurons; teach how to suppress Mu
wave
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development:
Concrete Operations Stage
Age
Range
711/12
yrs
Major Developmental Hallmarks
- Logical thinking develops, including classifying
objects and mathematical principles, but only
as they apply to real, concrete objects.
- Conservation of liquid, area, volume
- Seriation – mentally arrange items along a
dimension (height, weight, time or speed)
- Classification – sort objects into groups, class
inclusion
Conservation
 Number: In conservation of number tests, two equivalent rows of coins are
placed side by side and the child says that there is the same number in
each row. Then one row is spread apart and the child is again asked if there
is the same number in each.
 Length: In conservation of length tests, two same-length sticks are placed
side by side and the child says that they are the same length. Then one is
moved and the child is again asked if they are the same length.
 Substance: In conservation of substance tests, two identical amounts of
clay are rolled into similar-appearing balls and the child says that they both
have the same amount of clay. Then one ball is rolled out and the child is
again asked if they have the same amount.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development:
Formal Operations Stage
Age
Range
Major Developmental Hallmarks
11/12 - Logical thinking extends to
yrs + hypothetical and abstract concepts.
up
- Can reason using metaphors and
analogies
- Can explore values, beliefs,
philosophies
- Can think about past and future
- Potential for mature moral reasoning.
Maturation
• Cognitive development is a process of maturation
= developmental changes that are genetically or
biologically programmed rather than acquired
through learning or life experiences.
– Object Permanence  hippocampus
– Theory of mind mirror neuron network
– Proliferation of neurons within the frontal lobe 
moral reasoning; hypothetical thinking
• Due to maturation, the four stages of cognitive
development always occur in the same sequence
and at approximately the same ages
Criticisms of Piaget
• Development is seen as more continuous
without any particular sequence built into the
process rather than discrete stages
• Cognitive abilities result from modeling and
learning rather than maturation.
• Age ranges are incorrect – some 3 months old
have object permanence.
• Studied his own children - biased and not big
enough sample
David Elkind: Adolescent Egocentrism
• A heightened self-consciousness of adolescents. Thinking becomes
very introspective and teens often go through periods of extreme selfabsorption. Can lead to cognitive limitations:
– Imaginary Audience = belief that everyone is watching and the tendency
to overestimate the degree to which one’s behavior will lead to social
acceptance or social rejection
• EX: Wrapped up with appearance – everyone will notice pimple, new
hair do, etc
• EX: Drink alcohol at party because he/she believes his/her friends will
think less of him/her for not drinking
– Personal Fable = perceptions of one’s own uniqueness (experiences,
perspectives, feelings, values) and that one is destined for greatness
• EX: “No one has been in love like this before!”; “You don’t
understand… you have never had this much work to accomplish in one
night!”
• EX: Write in journals about their future as the next great novelist or
rock star
– Invincibility Fable = belief that one is invincible and can never be hurt.
Regardless of what happens to others, believe no harm will come to them
• EX: drinking and driving ; won’t get pregnant, etc…
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
• Vygotsky - children learn to think through guided
participation in social experiences that explore the world.
Adult instruction and encouragement are crucial to the child’s
intellectual growth
– Zone of proximal development - a range of skills that the
child can perform with assistance but not quite
independently
• mastering important skills is partly linked to the willingness of
others to provide scaffolding, or sensitive structuring of children’s
learning encounters.
– Words are part of the scaffold – words bridge the child’s current
understanding and what is almost understood
• What children can do with the help of others may be more
indicative of their mental development than what they can do
alone
– Critical thinking based on dialogue with others who
challenge ideas. Believed language to be the foundation
for social interaction and thought