Childhood Development
Prenatal Development
Concerns/Issues
1. Use of teratogens: substances taken by the
mother that can have a detrimental effect on
the child during development in the uterus.
Examples: thalidomide, fetal alcohol syndrome
(FAS).
2. Maternal nutrition/exposure to toxins.
3. Fetal origins of disease
4. Congenital illnesses (e.g. cerebral palsy)
Temperament
• Landmark studies by Alexander Thomas and
Stella Chess identified three types of
temperament seen in young children.
1. Easy: happy, regular in sleep/eat
2. Slow-to-warm up: difficulty adjusting
3. Difficult: glum, irritable.
Temperament styles in three-month old babies
stayed stable over the next decade.
Temperament
Jerome Kagen (1991, 1992) found that children vary
in willingness to approach strangers
15-20% inhibited
20-25% uninhibited
Rest in between
Those who displayed inhibition more likely to have
anxiety disorders in adolescence/adulthood
(Kagen, 2008)
Cognitive Development (i.e. thinking)
Throughout early childhood, children change:
• 1. in the amount that they learn
• 2. in their manner of thought
Jean Piaget: Considered the pioneer in
discovering how children’s learning abilities
change over time.
Jean Piaget
• Every person possesses schemas, which are
ways that we mentally understand the world.
• When new info comes into our pre-existing
schemas, we work to adapt that info by:
• assimililation: fitting new info into the
schema, or
• accommodation: change the schema to fit the
info
• Both methods help the intellect develop
Piaget’s Theory of Development
1. Sensorimotor (birth>18 months)
• Motor responses to info (stimuli)
• Senses primary way of exploring world
• Does not understand concept of object
permanence
2. Preoperational (18 months> 7yrs)
• -Lacks ability of reversibility
• -Egocentric in thought
• -Simple symbolic thought arises
Piaget’s Theory of Development
3. Concrete operations(7>11 yrs)
• -Understands idea of conservation (the ability to
question perception)
• -Can classify objects
• -Difficult to think abstractly (what if, complex
math)
• - What about Santa/EB/Tooth Fairy?
4. Formal operations (11 yrs>up)
• Understanding of the abstract and hypothetical
• Can think logically
Criticisms of Piaget
1. Research shows that Piaget underestimated
ability of children to master concepts, especially
object permanence.
2. Rather than having distinct stages of
development, children display behaviors that go
across two or more stages.
3. While research generally support Piaget’s stages
of development, children are not uniform in
how long they take in the stages.
4. Underestimation of the role of environment.
Sociocultural Theory
• Developed by Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), in U.S.S.R.
• Theory unknown in the West until the 1960s, and not
fully known until the 1980s.
• Vygotsky believed that children learn primarily from
other people (parents, older siblings, caretakers)
• Culture plays a key role in development, making the
development non-universal
• Acquisition of language plays a vital role in cognitive
development, which can be seen when young children
talk to themselves (private speech).
• “Through others we become ourselves.”
MKO and ZPD
• Vygotsky developed two terms to demonstrate
how cognitive development took place
• More Knowledgeable Other: The person/entity
who possesses more ability/skill than the learner.
Under the theory, the teacher can be a thing (e.g.
computer).
• Zone of Proximal Development: the difference in
time between a task can be completed by a
learner with an MKOs help, compared to the time
taken if the learner does the task independently.
Cognitive Development Research
• Recent research (Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009) indicate that children at
14 months whose parents demonstrate large amounts of “gesture”
language will:
-have larger gestures than those children who did not gesture as often; and
-will have a larger vocabulary at 4.5 years
- research also found that parents from a higher socioeconomic classes use
gestures more often
- And…
• “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that
you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
• Dr. Seuss (summary: read to your children)
What about:
• 1. Baby Einstein/Classical Music?
• 2. Television?
Emotional Development
• Konrad Lorenz: The idea of imprinting: that certain
responses are inherited and of critical period: crucial
time where certain skills abilities are most easily
learned.
• -Think about the Genie video
• Harry Harlow: Experiments with monkeys showed that
the monkeys sought and needed contact.
• Studies suggest that attachment to the mother
especially strong from 6-36 months.
Ainsworth: Levels of Attachment
Using a method known as the strange situation
procedure, Mary Ainsworth used a series of
different separation/reunion scenarios to gauge
the level of mother-child attachment.
Results:
1. Most children were examples of secure
attachment, using their mother as a base to
explore their surroundings. Children upset when
she leaves, but comforted when she returns.
Ainsworth, continued
2. A smaller number showed anxious-ambivalent
attachment. Anxious when mother is present, very
upset when she leaves, not comforted by return.
3. Some are avoidant attachment. Not seeking mother
when she is there, not upset by her absence.
4. Over a decade after initial research, the disorganizeddisoriented was added to describe children who
appeared confused over to approach or avoid the
mother. These children are typically insecure (LyonsRuth & Jacobvitz, 2008)
Additional Development Theories
1. Freudian Psychosexual Theory
2. Eric Erikson: Psychosocial
• -individuals seek to acquire social goals throughout
their life
Examples:
• (1-3) Independence v. Dependence
• (6-12) Identity v. role confusion
• (Young adult) Intimacy v. Isolation
• (Old Age) Ego integrity v. despair
Additional Development Theories
3. Cognitive-Developmental Theory: Learning
through doing.
• The importance of play. Play is used as a training
ground for the adult world.
• “Everything I needed to learn I learned in
kindergarten.”
• - recent findings (Dyson, 2009) support that
young school-age children learn best by having
the opportunity to manipulate their environment
around them.
•
Additional Development Theories
4. Lawrence Kohlberg: Moral Development:
Developing an individual sense of right and wrong.
- According to Kohlberg, people evolve from
behaving according to obedience to authority, to
behaving based on what is best for overall
society.
- Criticized by Carol Gilligan as too male-oriented,
and too focused on ideas of social justice v.
caring.