human development Flashcards
Nature and nurture influence human growth in which three domains
Physical, socio-emotional and cognitive.
What are the 3 periods of physical growth in the prenatal period?
The germinal period (when sperm unites with the egg from the female) (2 weeks) if pb-> miscarriage ;
- The embryonic period (6weeks) Most important time of physical dvlpmt of spinal cord, brain, all internal organs.
- Fetal period
What is spina bifida
a birth defect occurring during the embryonic period when spinal cord and brain don’t develop properly.
What are the substances that can cause birth defect
Teratogens:
Legal drugs: Alcohol (facial malformations), nicotine (miscarriage, still birth, low birth weight, metal retardation, learning difficulties), caffeine;
Recreational drugs:cocaine (seizures), marijuana; Infections: German measles Rubella (deafness), Syphilis;
Env: radiation X-rays, mercury.
What disorder results in abnormality such as small head, malformation of the face and limbs, heart defect, and abnormal brain development?
Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)
What are the time range for infancy and childhood?
Infancy (birth to 18-24 months)
Childhood (2 to 11-14 years old)
What happens when infants’ brain are not stimulated enough?
Very few synaptic connections are made. Less capacity to process complex info, solve problem, develop advanced language skills.
What are the inborn reflexes?
rooting reflex
sucking reflex
grasping reflex
How is called the process of developing motor skills as a sequence of steps that usually occur within a predictable range of ages
maturation
What is the dynamic systems theory of development?
children often achieve developmental milestones at different paces, depending on the culture in which they are raised.
What are the senses already operational for the infant’s survival just after birth?
taste (sweet) to make them want to drink nutritious milk;
smell (especially for scents associated with feeding.
Hearing (at 6 months babies hear nearly as well as adults)
What senses are poor in infants?
Vision (see only 8-12 inches from their head and cannot make difference bw colors, prefer high contrast patterns) (like adults at about a year)
Describe Harlow’s finding about attachment
infant rhesus monkey experiment showed that the mother-as-food theory was wrong. comforting touch is critical in the socio-emotional dvlpmt of infants
What is separation anxiety
when an infant are separated from their attachment figures at about 8 months of age. this increases dramatically as the infants approach their first year of life.
What did reveal the Ainsworth’s strange situation test?
3 attachment styles: Secure attachment (get upset when caregiver leaves and seek the caregiver's comfort when he returns; Avoidant attachment (do not cry when caregiver leaves and do not seek comfort when he returns) ; ambivalent attachement : cry a great deal when caregiver leaves but when he returns there is both seek and reject caring contact.
What future outcomes are related to secure attachment?
better socio-emotional functioning in childhood;
better peer relations,
successful adjustment at school.
if not: depression and behavioral pb.
how is called the ability to understand that other people have minds and intentions
theory of the mind. Thus by the time they are 1 year old, they can understand another person’s intentions, another person’s mental state, another person’s beliefs and another person’s desires.
when are infants able to read the intentions of other people?
in the first year of life. by the end of the 2nd year, 13-15 months they become very good at it even if they tend to view the world based only on their own perspectives.
according to piaget what modify the way one thinks?
schemas (ways of thinking about how the world works).
What are the 2 ways we use to develop a schema?
Assimilation (new exp. in a existing schema)
Accommodation (create a new schema or dramatically alter an existing one to include a new crucial info)
What are Piaget’s 4 progressive complex stage of cognitive dvlpmt?
- sensorimotor (birth-2 years) ->mentally represent info acquired through senses, begins to act intentionally, achieve object permanence.
- Preoperational (2 -7 years) -> use language and represent object by image and words , egocentric thinking, think intuitively not logically, classic objects by a single feature.
- Concrete operational (7-12 year): think logically about concrete events, achieve conservation of number, volume, mass and weight, classify object by several features
- Formal operational (12 years and up): think logically about abstract, test hypothesis, concerned with hypothetical pb.
Define the law of conservation
Even if the appearance of a substance changes in one dimension, the properties of that substance remain unchanged. impossible before stage 3.
Due to centration: a child cannot think about more than 1 aspect of a pb at a time.
It depends of the understanding that an action is reversible.
In what ways do we have to consider Piaget’s theory more flexibly?
- He underestimated the ages at which certain skills develop. (ex object permanence occurs sooner than he thought.)
- Not really stages but trends. (sometimes children can even be at different stages simultaneously).
What is the order of organization of language?
p135
phoneme Morpheme words phrases sentences.
