Lifespan Development Chapter 4

Areas of lifespan Development Physical development: changes in the body and its various systems. Social Development: involves changes in an individual’s relationships with other people and their skills in interacting with others Cognitive development: involves changes in an individual’s mental ability Emotional development: involves changes in how an individual experiences different feelings and how these feelings are expressed.

Lifespan Infancy Childhood Adolescence Early adulthood Middle Adulthood Old Age

Human development is influenced by simultaneously occurring changes in each area Emotional Development Social Development Cognitive Development Physical Development

Cognitive – eg: Language

Social & Emotional

Movement & coordination Example:

thompson.com/ED TECH/506/summ ary.php

How development proceeds: 1.Continuous V Discontinuous Continuous Development: gradual and ongoing changes throughout the lifespan without sudden shifts, with abilities in the earlier stages of development providing the basis of skills and abilities required for the next stages. Discontinuous: involves distinct and separate stages, with different kinds of abilities occurring in each stage. Specific ways of thinking, feeling or socially interacting have identifiable start and end points. Infancy Adulthood Infancy Adulthood

2. Sequential nature of Development The development of many thoughts, feelings and behaviours occur in an orderly sequence. Sequences of development usually begin with simple thoughts, feeling and behaviours and progress to more complex ones. For example: -A baby moves from squealing and gurgling through to uttering individual words and then onto using sentences - A child learning to count and then progressing to adding numbers together

Quantitative and qualitative changes Quantitative changes: changes which are variations in the quantity (or amount) of a thought, feeling or behaviour. These are usually described in numbers. -For example the number of words spoken in relation to age. As one grows older, their vocabulary grows. Qualitative changes: Changes which vary in ‘quality’, ‘kind’ or ‘type’. These are usually described in words. -For example, as a child you don’t understand the concept of honesty, but now as adolescence you do.

3. Individual Differences in Development No two individuals develop at exactly the same rate or in exactly the same way, even if they are identical twins What does that tell us about ‘Nature vs Nurture’? Discuss activity 4.5

Hereditary & Environment Hereditary- characteristics are passed on from parents to off-spring via genes. Environment – all the experiences, objects & events to which we are exposed in our life times Heredity? Environment? Mixture of both? Create a table with two columns ‘environment’ and ‘hereditary’. While watching the clip on the ‘wild child’ list all the characteristics that are influenced by either heredity or environment.

Maturation Sequential changes in the nervous system & other bodily structures Automatic, internal Controlled by our genes ‘Principle of readiness’ ▫Nerves, bones, muscles need to be developed enough for the behaviour to occur

Examples of maturation of nerves & bones

Examples of Maturational developments Sit before stand Sounds before words Adding numbers before starting algebra When should a child start school? html html

Sensitive Periods Periods of rapid change when individual is more vulnerable to the environment Eg: second 6 months of life sensitive to attachment Eg: years sensitive to language acquisition

Different Perspectives on Development Biological Behavioural Socio-cultural Cognitive

Longitudinal study repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time to study developmental trends across the life span Advantages Permanence in development over time Disadvantages Expensive Takes time with participants (and researchers) not being available Research methods in development

Advantages: relatively inexpensive easy to undertake not too time-consuming. Disadvantages: Differences maybe due to other variables ▫Eg: generational influences Cross-sectional study designed to look at a variable at a particular point in time. To study developmental differences/similarities between groups eg: memory at different ages

Research Methods Twin Studies using identical (mono-zygotic) and non-identical (fraternal/di-zygotic) twins as participants. Identical especially for nature vs nurture BUT danger (eg more likely to be treated the same by parents) Personality and intelligence investigations Discuss 4.17 ranking

Research Methods Adoption Studies Children raised by different parents – nature vs nurture IQ score studies indicate heredity plays a large role Selective Breeding Using animals with short gestations to study traits longitudinally, with control of genes Unethical in humans but can use

Ethics in developmental research Remember: Fully informed Consent – how with a child? How with a dementia patient? Confidentiality Safety Debrief

Resources development/dev_flash.htmlhttp:// development/dev_flash.html