1. Developmental Psychology
Topic 2
Developmental Psychology
What does the term ‘developmental psychology’ mean to you? You should write down what you think it involves including some examples.

2. An understanding of how individuals change throughout their lives, with a particular focus on childhood and how both nature and nurture can affect individuals

3. Stages of Development Prenatal Childhood Adolescence Adulthood
What labels do we give to the stages we go through as we get older?
Prenatal
Childhood
Adolescence
Adulthood

4. Stages of Development Prenatal Stage
Development begins at the time of time of conception, all the way through to the time of birth

5. Stages of Development Childhood Stage
Childhood sees the development of intelligence, morals, personality and lots of other very important things!

6. Stages of Development Adolescence Stage
Adolescence involves puberty. Lots of this development involves physical development, but also social development and development of intelligence

7. Stages of Development Adulthood Stage
Development doesn’t stop at adolescence. Development continues all through our adult lives.

8. Stages of Development
What are the key milestones, or significant events that happen during the following stages?
Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence
E.g. In adolescence, we develop physically into a more adult-like body

9. What is physical development?
What changes are there to the body at each stage?
Brain
Body size
Puberty related

10. What is social development?
How does the way in which children relate to other people change?
How does the way in which children see themselves change? Are they self-centred?

11. What is emotional development?
What emotions do children develop at each age?
How do children express emotions at different ages?

12. What is intellectual development?
How does children's’ understanding of the world change over time?
What skills do children learn at different ages?

13. Task
You need to know the physical, social, emotional and intellectual developments that occur at each stage.
On your own, try and come up with some ideas about what developments occur at each stage of development.
With the person next to you, come up with some ideas about what developments happen at each stage of development
Use the information sheet to inspire ideas about developments that occur at each stage
Use the bank of ideas and sort the ideas into the correct boxes.

14. INFANCY PHYSICAL Growth occurs quickly over two years
Brain develops quickly in response to new environments and experiences.
SOCIAL
Starts to respond to caregiver by 2 months – smiling, babbling, peek-a-boo
Attached to caregiver.
EMOTIONAL
Emotions are the basic raw emotions and are expressed non-verbally. For example, crying to convey needs.
INTELLECTUAL
Learning through experiences.
Babbling and cooing until first word which is usually said by 1 year.

15. CHILDHOOD
PHYSICAL
Children often has growth spurts and grow a great deal by age 12.
Muscle development supports running, walking etc.
Brain is still developing, but is also cutting away some of the connections that aren’t being used.
SOCIAL
To begin with, children are self-centred and do not start sharing happily until around age 4.
Develops wide group of friends by age 9
Often one best friend.
EMOTIONAL
Early childhood sees emotions coming out in different ways e.g. temper tantrums
New emotions are appearing such as embarrassment
Begin to use language to communicate emotions by age 5.
INTELLECTUAL
Learning to read and write at around 4/5
Development of higher-order skills as progressing through childhood.

16. ADOLESCENCE
PHYSICAL
Related to puberty. Become more ‘womanly’ and ‘manly’.
The areas of the brain dealing with high order skills is developing
Unused connections are cut away
SOCIAL
Large group of friends with a few best friends
New types of romantic relationships start to develop
EMOTIONAL
New emotions appear – Shame, doubt etc.
Teenagers become more concerned with self image and self-esteem is often lower.
Hormones can cause mood swings.
INTELLECTUAL
Development of critical thinking skills, mathematical and language skills

17. The secret life of the babies brain
Brain Development
Our brain begins developing a few weeks into pregnancy, and continues to change and develop all they way through our lives.
The secret life of the babies brain

18. What you need to know
The structure and function of a neuron cell, including a synapse
Be familiar with some key areas of the human brain

19. The Neuron
The brain is made up of millions of cells called neurons, or nerve cells.

20. The Neuron
Synapses
Dendrites
Nucleus
Cell Body
Axon

21. The Neuron
Using your diagram, create your own model of a neuron, including labels.
Synapses
Dendrites
Nucleus
Cell Body
Axon

22. The Synapse The place where two neurons meet is called the synapse.
Chemicals move across the space between the two neurons to pass the message on.

23. The Synapse

24. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

25. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Piaget’s main interests:
Which quantity would you prefer?

26. Piaget’s stages of development
Piaget believed that children go through 4 universal stages of cognitive development.
A child's cognitive development is about a child constructing a mental model of the world.
All children go through each stage
All children progress through the stages in the same order
Some children never reach the last stage
Children don’t progress through the stages at the same rate

27. 4 stages of development Sensorimotor stage Pre-operational stage
Birth – 2 years
2 – 7 years
7 – 11 years
11 years and over
Concrete operational stage
Formal operational stage

28. Piaget believed that the quality of children’s thinking changes as they grow older.
While other researchers agreed that older children think about different things than young children do
Piaget was convinced that they also think in different ways than younger children do.

29. Children’s thought processes are QUALITATIVELY different to adult thought processes
Piaget proposed a maturational theory of cognitive development
NATURE not NURTURE

30. Cognitive development takes place through FOUR fixed stages

31. Over to you
Read the information on the sheet and answer the following questions:
What is meant by the term schema? How did Piaget believe schemas were involved in children’s development.
What is assimilation?
What is accommodation?
What is equilibrium?
How does the process of disequilibrium lead to development?
Draw a table to show the 4 stages of development. Leave some spaces in each row that we can add to.

32. The sensorimotor stage
From birth to 2 years
Child learns from interaction with environment
Only at about 6 months does OBJECT permanence occur

34. Pre-operational stage
2 to 7 years
Child is egocentric - unable to understand the world from another’s perspective
Child unable to CONSERVE

36. What does CONSERVE mean?
Children can CONSERVE when they understand that quantity does not change when appearance changes

37. CONCRETE operational stage
7 – approx. 11 years
Child now able to conserve and can perform quite complex operations
But only if ‘real’ objects are ‘at hand’

38. Aged 11+ ‘Formal Operations’
Stage 4
Aged 11+ ‘Formal Operations’
The child can now perform logical operations and abstract reasoning
According to Piaget not all achieve the stage of FORMAL OPERATIONS

39. Evaluating Piaget’s theory
Reductionism/Holism

40. Key study: Piaget. Conservation of number

41. Dweck’s learning theories

42. Mindsets

43. Mindsets

44. Intelligence, personality and abilities are fixed
If you have to put in a lot of effort, your ability must be lower
Failure is catastrophic
The focus is on proving ourselves and our abilities
Intelligence, personality and abilities are open to development
Effort makes the difference in our success
Failure is an opportunity to learn
The focus is on improving ourselves

45. How to promote a growth mindset

46. “Effort makes the difference in our success”
We should always reward and praise the effort that someone puts in.
We should avoid praising someone on their ability or their intelligence

47. “Failure is an opportunity to learn”
Ensure that children are not scared of failing. Promote the idea of not being able to do something ... YET

48. “Focus on improving ourselves”
We can improve our body by working our muscles. We need to promote the same concept for our mind! If we work and train our brain, we can always get better.

49. Mindsets and learning
Which is the best mindset to have for learning?

50. Blackwell Study

51. Blackwell Study

52. Blackwell Study

53. Blackwell Study

54. Learning Styles
“I learn best by looking at things, like a diagram”
“I learn best by doing something, like a science experiment.”
“I learn best by listening to information, like when I listen to the teacher describe something”
Do you believe that there are different styles of learning for different people?

55. Learning Styles
Do they really exist?
Rather than learning things best through sight, hearing or ‘doing’, it is the meaning we give to something that makes the difference.

56. Nature-Nurture debate
Dweck’s growth mindset learning theory suggests we can all succeed with a little more effort.
The idea of learning based on giving information meaning also suggests that we can learn information merely by attributing meaning to what needs to be learnt.
BUT
What about genetics? Is intelligence also influenced by our DNA?

57. Application – The changing role of education