Developmental Psychology Flashcards
(40 cards)
1
Q
What six areas of function are involved in normal development?
A
- Perception
- Mobility
- Cognition
- Communication
- Socialisation
- Emotional regulation
2
Q
What is the natural developmental trajectory of vision?
A
- 0-4 Months
- Range of focus 15-25m: Distance to caregiver correlation/interaction
- Eyes wander - inability to retain focus
- only sensitive to high contrast: no colour vision
- 5-8 months
- depth perception - allows for grabbing
- colour vision
- 9-12 months
- ability to judge distance
3
Q
What is the natural developmental trajectory of hearing?
A
- Inner ear fully developed by 3rd trimester: born with preference for mothers voice
- Tested at birth using: EOAE: tiny microphone detects cochlear hairs movement or just reaction to noise
- Newborns are sensitive to patterns and organised sound. Preferential orientation to speech and music
4
Q
What is the normal developmental trajectory of gross motor skills?
A
- Variations on a theme: movements are not identical
- eg children who never crawl (such as bum shuffle)
- 1-4 months: Reflex movements, lifts head when prone, sits with support
- 5- 9/10/11 months: Sits without support, Pulls to standing, crawls
- 10-17 months: Stands then walks alone
- 18-30 months: Runs, jumps
5
Q
What is the normal developmental trajectory of fine motor skills?
A
- 2months: Holds object briefly if placed in hand
- 3-4 months: Reaches for dangling object, inspects fingers, moves object towards mouth
- 4-5months: Holds two objects, transfers object from hand to hand
- 5-6 months: Bangs objects together
- 6 months: Reaches for, grabs and retains objects, manipulates and examines objects
- 7-8months: “four finger grip” grasps with thumb and fingers
- 8-10months: Can grip and release objects
- 10-12 months: “pincer grip”
6
Q
What is the difference between gross and fine motor skills and how do motor skills as a whole develop?
A
- Gross = large movements involving arms, legs, feet, whole body
- Fine = smaller movements involving hands, toes, facial muscles, tongue
- Motor skills develop in two directions
- Cephalo-caudal (head-to-toe)
- Proximo-distal (midline to extremities)
- Requirements for motor skill development:
- Each new skill builds on the previously learnt skills
- Stimuli
- Interaction
- Motivation
- Personality
7
Q
What are Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?
A
8
Q
What are ego-centricity and object permanence?
A
-
Ego-Centricity (until age 7ish)
- Lack of theory of mind - assume others know what they know
- eg assuming same preferences, using pronouns not names
-
Object Permanence (achieved by 2ish)
- Ability to understand things exist when not directly observable
- associated with separation anxiety
- Overlap development: associated with increasing motor abilities
-
The A-not-B Error: Partially developed object permanence
- Perservation error: look in last place object was not new place
9
Q
What are the subtypes of language development and their milestones?
A
- Vocalisations = sounds made by the infant in an attempt to communicate
-
Expressive “language” = communication bids made by the infant (includes verbal and non-verbal)
- 15m: 4-6 words, combines sounds and gestures
- 18m: 20words, respond to Qs, still nonsense words
- 21m: 20-50words, words> gestures, fast learning
- 24m: 50+ words, 2word phrases (frustration)
-
Receptive “language” = evidence of the infant receiving or understanding communication bids made by another
- 15: follow simple instructions
- 18: responds to Y/N Qs with nod, early direction words
- 21: understands some emotion words, pronouns
- 24: understands 300+words, stories
10
Q
What is cultural transmission?
A
- Cultural transmission refers to the way people or animals within a society or culture tend to learn and pass on information
- Learning styles are greatly influenced by how a culture socializes with its children and young people
- Massive difference for humans: completely dependent for much longer (unable to walk until 10months)
11
Q
How did Morton and Johnson explain mixed baby facial preference results?
A
- Birth to 2 months, looking at angle of presentation compound
- Experimental design changed results from younger older children
- Concluded: mechanism present from birth that detects “face” stimuli in the periphery and directs attention towards it
- 2-4 months old
- automatic processes begin to be replaced by learned processes
- discriminate between facial and non-facial configurations (learned)
- After 4 months
- By this time, children have learned enough about faces, prefer novelty to known stimuli
12
Q
What is Trevarthans explanation of why infants have emotional understanding?
A
- Baby is responding to adult needs while also providing for its own
- Innate subjectivity = The infant is born with an awareness specifically receptive to the subjective state of others
-
Intersubjectivity = This natural sociabilty serves to intrinsically motivate companionship and caregiving
- “dance of communication”
- Under normal conditions:
- Communication has a conversational quality (turn taking, contingeny)
13
Q
What is the still face procedure?
A
- Murray and Trevarthan experiment that perturbing maternal behaviours will affect the emotional responses of the baby
- Intensive study of small number of children
- Still face condition: mother instructed to maintain completely neutral face, no talking, no response
- Delayed replay: normal reaction, but delayed and over a monitor
- interuption: experimenter interupts
- Results:
- Babies in still face display high distress
- Delayed show confusion without distress
- interruption not distresed but quiet/waiting
14
Q
How can early mother-infant relationships affect emotional development?
A
- Early, prolonged post-partum depression can put children at higher risk for emotional problems even into adolesence
- Maternal sensitivity and intrusiveness/remoteness levels can also predict attachment security patterns
15
Q
What is stranger wariness/stranger anxiety?
A
- Commonly observed change in infant behaviour around 9 months old
- Typically doesnt show strong fear response, more subtle actions like avoidance, sticking close to mother
- Normal developmental trend - response to having built very strong bond with only 1 or 2 primary caregivers
- indication of other developmental trends such as object permanence/attachment
- Why would this occur
- Confidence that attachment figure is safe
- Reunion strengthens bond, increases feelings of protectiveness
16
Q
What is empathy and how does it differ from sympathy and personal distress?
A
- Empathy is an affective response that stems from apprehension or comprehension of anothers emotional state, that is identical or very similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel
- Requires theory of mind (differentiation between minds to some level)
- People experience empathy differently depending on cognitive understanding of the others emotion
- Not
- Emotional contagion: doesnt involve differentiation
- Sympathy: sorrow or concern for other (usually response to empathy)
- Personal distress: self focussed response to anothers distress
17
Q
How does empathy develop between 10months and 5 years?
A
- 10-12 months: children watch distress, unresponsive or copying
-
12-24 months Egocentric Empathy
- understanding of other/self distinction, but not of other’s inner-states
- active interventions increase (approach/console), less personal distress
- 24+months: children respond to distress regardless of their causal role, individual differences emerge
-
3 years: Empathy for anothers feelings
- Understand other peoples emotions differ from theirs, can make overtures
-
5+ years: Empathy for anothers plight
- understand other people have individual history and identity
- actions informed by others persons life story
18
Q
How can you test empathy in infants?
A
- Decide what is being tested
- affective response
- behavioural response
- Create scenarios: eg hurt, lost teddy,
- Real life
- Actors
- Puppets
- How do you code responses?
- Empathy/sympathy/personal distress
- scale to age
19
Q
What are the physical manifestations of empathy?
A
- Physiological measures: changes depending on context
- acceleration or decceleration of heart rate
- Observational data eg facial expression
- good correlation with physical measures
- good level of sensistivity
- Eisenberg Model
- Well modulated arousal: sympathetic response, action
- Over-arousal: personal distress, inaction
20
Q
What is affective empathy? Give an experimental example
A
- Affective responses to observed distress that they cannot act upon
- emotional elicitation program - watching videos/stills
- Cole et al. watching distressed video
- Classified children into inexpressive, concern or sad group
- These groups show distinct variance
- Inexpressive group heartrate slower
- Different groups didnt show changes in heartrate response pattern
- Classified children into inexpressive, concern or sad group
- Inexpressive children rated higher social skills in classroom
- Disengagement (looking away) and worry/concern rated as more socially troublesome, less behaviourally controlled than empathy/sadness
21
Q
What is cognitive empathy? Give an experimental example
A
- When children don’t see the distressing event but infer or have knowledge of it
- Experiment: empathy in absense of emotional input
- 18m olds & 2 experimentors: watching E1 admire an object
- E2 either destroys admired object or neutral object, E1 no reaction
- Will child subsequently share with E1 (prosocial behaviour)
- Concerned and checking looks to E1 significantly higher in harm condition
- Harm condition higher rates of sharing balloon, or helping to retrieve
- Shows that infant was able to infer empathy requirement even when emotion was not displayed
22
Q
What is False-Belief (FB) understanding? What is required for FB?
A
- A form of socio-cognitive understanding, subtype of ToM: involving the understanding that others can possess false information/have false beliefs
- Represents a fundamental shift in representational thought
- Is involved in many other areas of insight
- Requirements
- Distinction between real state of the world and represented state of the world
- Representation of mental states: actions are determined by (1.) desires and (2.) beliefs.
- Realisation of the “self” and “other”: babies tend to recognise themselves and their bodies around 18-24m (bodily awareness/mirror dot test)
23
Q
What is Theory of Mind (ToM) comprehension?
A
- Socio-cognitive understanding, primarily understood through FB
- However FB is a subset, now considered too narrow to account solely for ToM
*
- However FB is a subset, now considered too narrow to account solely for ToM
24
Q
What is the Sally-Anne Task and what does it show about childhood development of false belief understanding?
A
- The Sally-Anne Task:
- Sally puts her ball in a basket. Sally then goes away, while she is gone, Anne moves her ball. Where is Sally going to look for her ball when she returns?
- Children start getting the answer right around age 4
- Consistent results in verbal and non-verbal versions
- Children tend to develop FB around age 4 (across all cultures)
- However may show FB implicitly before being able to pass testing
- Mastery takes time, between 3.5-5 mixed results, effects of presentation of task
- Children with autism struggle with FB
25
What did the experiment by Onishi et al show about false belief in infants?
* Experiment: Green/yellow watermelon
* Familiarisation phase: all watch watermelon put in green box, then see lady reach for it in green box
* Divided into Y-true, Y-false, G-true, G-False conditions
* Measured staring time (assuming longer staring for suprise), if lady reaches for box she shouldnt know the melon is in
* Findings:
* Suprised when she went for the wrong box in true condition
* Suprised when she went for the right box in false belief condition
* Explanations:
* Inplicit understanding of intention (not FB), observation of cause/effect
* automatic pathway not cognitive effort
26
What are some proposed predictors of Socio-cognitive understanding?
* **Linguistic competence**: child characteristic
* Strong relationship with FB
* definitely associated but in which causal direction?
* **Conversational environment:** environmental characteristic
* Many aspects of conversational input are associated with boosted SCU
* *_Mental-State discourse:_* 3 factors that contribute when all present
* ambiguous mental verbs (believe), ambiguous mental comments (happy, sad), mothers articulating thoughts of protagonists
* *_Mind-Mindedness_*: treating infant as intentional agent
* Both conversational environment and linguistic competence impact SCU but seem to be largely independent
27
What is the current rate of obesity in australian children?
* BMI calculation in children:
* Overweight = BMI 85-95 percentile of same age/sex
* obese = BMI 95+ percentile of same age/sex
* Current rates 1/4
* Mixed results on future projections in rates, but divide predicted to grow
* But unevenly distributed in population (poor SES higher, country higher, time spent using technology)
28
What are potential negative outcomes associated with childhood obesity?
* Psychological risks
* Poor self esteem
* Bullying
* Physical outcomes
* Endocrine: diabetes II risk, precocious puberty, polycystic ovary
* Pulminary: Sleep apnia, asthma
* Cardiovascular
29
What are the primary causes of childhood obesity?
* Food advertising aimed at children, higher avaiability of junk food
* Sedentary behaviour: screen time, reduced safety in "roaming", apartments
* Larger portion sizes, higher sugar/fat percentages in food
* Medication/genetic side effects
30
What are the primary techniques and obstacles in treating childhood obesity?
* Obstacles
* Children should not lose weight since they are still growing
* Children have poorer planning, inhibition, understanding
* Children are dependent on caregivers
* Family issues: poverty, time for exercise, stress
* Techniques
* target family as a whole
31
What have been the main effects of screen time on childhood development?
* Screen Time: a very contentious issue
* No actual evidence yet of the effect of screens, type of screen/activity
* Pediatrics guideline: Video chatting good, no screen at meals or before bed, importance of family engagement/interaction and educational
* Effects of excessive screen time
* Sleep problems
* sedentry behaviour
* Limited active time for develpmental milestones
* indicative of other problems (dysfunction/stress of mother)
32
What are the benefits and problems e-learning has on childhood development?
* Benefits
* Massive potential for learning
* More flexibility/individuality in learning
* Great reach: anyone with internet access can learn (evens SES)
* Problems/mediating factors
* motivation required to work
* Issues of incorrect/biased information
* Lack of error correction
* Reduces self-control for "normal" learning
33
What are the reasons for focussing on detecting lower end abnormal development and high end abnormal development respectively?
* Deficiency Focus
* Intervention
* Early detection
* Diagnosis
* Other problems
* "Giftedness" focus top 2%
* Difficulty fitting in - isolation, loneliness
* Inadequate abilility of school to cater to needs
* Can be a large discrepancy between different skills
* Pressure placed on child - fear of failure, perfectionism,
34
What are common symptoms, causes and treatments of expressive language impairment?
* **Symptoms**
* Difficulty putting words and sentences together to express thoughts/ideas
* Reduced vocabulary, Grammatical errors
* Inability to engage in a conversation
* **Treatment**:
* Early identification
* Speech pathology
* Special education assistance
* **Potential causes**
* Other developmental disorders (e.g. Down’s Syndrome, Autism)
* Head trauma
* Unknown – can be familial
35
What are common symptoms, causes and treatments of receptive language impairment?
* **Symptoms**
* Difficulty understanding the meaning of words
* Difficulty understanding what is said (comprehension):
* Not answering questions appropriately, Not following instructions, Not seeming to listen, Disinterest in story books
* **Treatment**
* Speech therapy
* Classroom assistance
* Information for families to increase language use at home
* Psychological treatment (if also behavioural/cognitive problems)
* **Causes**
* Global developmental delay
* Insufficient exposure to language
* Attention disorders
* Hearing or Vision impairment (including chronic ear infections)
36
What are some of the potential outcomes for non-treated linguistic deficits?
* **Expressive**:
* Frustration: temper tantrums, difficult behaviours,
* Parent attributions: difficult child, behaviour problems,
* Peer problems: bullying, feelings of inferiority,
* Self esteem: under-achievement, academic failure
* **Receptive**:
* Apparent misbehaviour, not following instructions
* Patterns of behaviour problems, difficulty engaging in structured activities
* Disinterest in literacy, falling behind academically
37
What is the definition and causes of child neglect?
* Neglect is a deficit in meeting a child's basic needs as well as their physical, emotional, social, educational and safety needs
* Can be an act of omission, either intended or unintended
* Absense of "serve and return" communication
* Categories
* Occasional neglect;
* Chronic understimulation:
* Severe Neglect: lack of responsiveness + basic need deprevation
* Institutional Neglect: orphanages/residential care, total lack of primary caregiver
* Causes
* Poor parenting skills
* Drug dependency, psychopathy, developmental issues in parents
* low income
* lack of care
38
Give an example of how abnormal and normal development research can be reciprocal
* Aquisition of language: skill order
* Due to very short time frame difficult to monitor
* Simultaneously study
* How and when normal language is developed. The order of skills/prerequisites
* Aphasia – loss of language in dementia/brain trauma
39
What are the key issues in developmental research design?
* Three questions to ask
1. How much time you have
2. How much money you have
3. How large a group is required for testing
* These can be used to determine the research design:
* Longitudinal: ideal
* Cohort-sequential: most common
* Cross-sectional: least ideal
* More things to measure/included more power required, measurement methods determined by money,
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