Physical & Motor Development

Question 1

Girls/boys experience puberty before girls/boys do.

Answer 1

girls/boys

Question 2

True or False:
The year of age girls get their first period is dropping.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

True or False:
A child’s size and motor abilities has no influence on their psychological development.

Answer 3

False
It can affect things like testing of wills, social interaction, attachment behaviors, boldness, agency, etc.

Question 4

Why is puberty called the “renaissance of the brain?”

Answer 4

• period of rapid development
• new behaviors and unctions
• reinduces nerual plasticity

Question 5

How does puberty affect the brain?

Answer 5

new environmental experiences that become available by living in an adult body affect the brain

Question 6

How does the decline of age of puberty onset affect the brain?

Answer 6

• “an engine without a skilled driver”
• brain exposed to environmental stimuli for adult world, but does not have the skill to navigate

Question 7

What experience do boys who are late maturers tend to have?

Answer 7

• more anxious and attention seaking
• feel socially adequate
• lower academic aspirations

Question 8

Boys who are late maturers often have parents who do not have high academic aspirations for them. Why?

Answer 8

parents view child as a kid, and not a “big strong man” who is capable of such achievement

Question 9

True or False:
Development is an evocative process.

Answer 9

True
If you see a person who looks like a kid, you’ll treat them like a kid.

Question 10

What experience do girls who are early maturers tend to have?

Answer 10

• more anxious and depressed
• less outgoing and popular
• not as appealing to underdeveloped male counterparts
• sexualized by older boys; drawn to activities that they are not cognitively ready to handle

Question 11

Why do girls and boys undergoing puberty have opposite trends?

Answer 11

girls are sexualized, boys are not

Question 12

What is the nature theory of motor development?

Answer 12

unfolding of a genetically programmed sequence of events
* cephalocaudal/proximodistal development
* as brain gets bigger, it instructs body to do more complex things

Question 13

What is the nurture theory of motor development?

Answer 13

children who have more opportunities and encouragement to exercise and practice motor movements can better develop these skills

Question 14

What is the dynamic systems theory of motor development?

Answer 14

The body needs to be thought of as a system; body ⇆ brain

Question 15

How did Thelen study the dynamic systems theory?

Answer 15

examined the number of steps infants take at different weights
* control
* added weight
* removed weight (in water)

Question 16

What phenomenon did Thelen study when exploring the dynamic systems theory?

Answer 16

stepping reflex disappears a few weeks after birth and reappears a few months later

Question 17

What were the results and conclusion of Thelen’s study?

Answer 17

• heavier infants stepped less
• as infants get older, they carry more weight on their legs, so the stepping reflex disappears

Question 18

Why is Thelen’s dynamic systems experiment so important?

Answer 18

shows that changes as simple as physical growth could affect the phenotype
* the brain isn’t always the boss!
* through problem-solving, the body instructs the brain

Question 19

What is another experiment that supported the dynamic systems theory?

Answer 19

• babies were offered toys with both their feet and hands
• learned to first reach toys with their feet since it was more easily accessible and vailable to them