 Lifespan Development Chapter 4

Developmental Psychology A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the lifespan.

Developmental Stages  Prenatal Development and Newborn  Infancy and Childhood  Adolescence  Adulthood  Biological and Cultural Notions of Gender Shaping Experience

Milestones A set of functional skills or age- specific tasks that most children can do at a certain age range. These can be physical, cognitive, emotional/social, or relating to communication.

Prenatal Development: Conception Fusion of the nucleus of a sperm and the nucleus of an egg to form a zygote

Conception  1 out of 200 million or more sperm  1 out of 5000 eggs  Accounting for the age of the universe, the types of sperm, and the probability of sperm fertilizing eggs in your family generation, the chances you exist are…  1/1.8 X  If you go back 1 million years, it would take 42 X universe lifetimes to make you.  Essentially, the probability of you existing are virtually 0.

Prenatal: Conception to 2 weeks Zygote : a fertilized egg that undergoes 2 weeks of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo You began as 1 cell

Prenatal: 2 to 8 weeks Parts of the zygote become the embryo Embryo – the developing organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month Organs form and function and the heart begins to beat

Prenatal: 9 weeks to birth 9 weeks after conception the embryo looks human and is a fetus Fetus – the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth Fetus is responsive to sound atch?v=fKyljukBE70 atch?v=fKyljukBE70

Prenatal Development  The placenta transfers nutrients and oxygen from mother to fetus and screens out potentially harmful substances  Teratogens – harmful agents that can bypass the placenta and reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development  Ex) Viruses and chemicals (heroin, AIDS, nicotine, alcohol)

Prenatal Development  Alcohol  Can kill millions of fetal brain cells  Enters the bloodstream and depresses central nervous system activity  Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)  Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking; in severe cases symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions

Prenatal Development  A woman’s psychological state may affect her fetus  Stress in rodents and primates can lead to delayed motor development, increased emotionality, learning deficits, and alterations in neurotransmitter systems Humans…?

Competent Newborns Newborns are equipped with reflexes Rooting reflex : a baby’s tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn toward the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple

Newborns How can I find out what you know? How can I find out what a newborn baby knows?

Newborns Habituation  Our responsiveness decreases with repeated stimulation  As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner Dishabituation  To recognize a new stimulus as different, an infant must remember the initial stimulus  If we had just been habituated (bored), and our attention is renewed, then we have been dishabituated

Developmental Stages  Prenatal Development and Newborn  Infancy and Childhood  Adolescence  Adulthood  Biological and Cultural Notions of Gender Shaping Experience

Infancy and Childhood Brain development  On the day you were born, you had most of the brain cells you will ever have  BUT…the brain is still immature at birth  Maturation : biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behaviour, relatively uninfluenced by experience

Infancy and Childhood Motor Development  As muscles and nervous system mature, more complicated skills emerge  Babies roll over  Sit unsupported  Creep on all fours  Walk  Sequence is the same, but the timing may be different  Genes have a major effect  Experience has a limited effect

Infancy and Childhood Memory  Average age of earliest conscious memory is 3.5 years  As we gain a sense of self, our long-term memory increases

Infancy and Childhood Cognitive Development  Cognition : refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating Jean Piaget

Cognitive Development: Piaget  Schema – a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information  ex) cats, dogs, concept of love  Assimilation : we interpret a new experience in terms of our existing schemas  Accommodation : we adapt our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

Schema DogsCat

Assimilation Peacock Mantis ShrimpYeti Crab

Accommodation

Piaget’s Theory  Sensorimotor Stage  Preoperational Stage  Concrete Operational Stage  Formal Operational Stage

Sensorimotor Stage  Birth to 2 years of age  Experience the world through senses and actions  Stranger Anxiety  Evaluates people as unfamiliar and possibly threatening  Helps protect babies 8 months and older

Sensorimotor Stage  Infants have object permanence  Infants under 6 months old lack object awareness  The awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not perceived

Preoperational Stage  Age 2 – 6 or 7 years  Represents things with words and images; use intuition rather than logic  Pretend play  Egocentrism – difficulty perceiving things from another’s point of view

Preoperational Stage  Lack the concept of conservation – properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects  Language development  Theory of Mind

Theory of Mind  People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states (feelings, perceptions, and thoughts)  Empathy  Infer feelings

Autism Spectrum Disorder  Impaired theory of mind  Difficulty inferring others’ thoughts and feelings  Difficulty deducing facial expressions  le_grandin_the_world_needs_all _kinds_of_minds.html le_grandin_the_world_needs_all _kinds_of_minds.html

Concrete Operational Stage  Age 7 – 11 years  Thinking logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations  Mathematical transformation  What is 8 + 4?  Conservation

Formal Operational Stage  Age 12 through adulthood  Abstract reasoning  Abstract logic  Potential for mature moral reasoning