PSYC205 Developmental Psychology Flashcards
(138 cards)
1
Q
Pedagogy
A
Theory of learning
2
Q
Piaget’s approach to child development
A
Constructivist and empiricist proposed four stages of development. Ignores social influence children may experience.
3
Q
Vygotsky’s approach to child development
A
Sociocultural theory of development with social interactions at the centre. Involves the utilisation of more knowledgeable others to move towards the Zone of Proximal Development.
4
Q
Dynamic Systems Theory
A
There are so many domains of children’s development and they can interact.
5
Q
Bioecological systems theory
A
Theory of child development with an emphasis on interactions between inherited material and the environment. There are interactions between the microsystem (family, school etc), mesosystem, exosystem (neighbours, social groups) and macrosystems (culture).
6
Q
Behavioural markers of autism in infancy (6)
A
Atypical eye contact
“very good babies”
Failure to respond to name calling (despite good hearing)
Difficulties interpreting non-verbal conversation
May not show interest in people
Language regression (usually in second year of life)
7
Q
Visual interest test (Fantz, 1961)
A
Scientists could determine where infants were looking through a “looking chamber”, time spent gazing at certain objects was recorded.
8
Q
Habituated
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Bored - not paying attention to the stimulus anymore
9
Q
Eye-tracking studies
A
Use infrared light to measure eye motion, including saccades and fixations, to study areas of interest.
10
Q
Autism early screening eye studies
A
Decline in attention to eyes across 6 months, despite no difference to TD at 2 months.
11
Q
fNRIS
A
Functional Near InfraRed Spectroscopy - neuroimaging method to investigate haemodynamic response
12
Q
Age of viability
A
22-26 weeks of gestation
13
Q
Teratogens
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Environmental stimuli which could be harmful to the development of fetuses
14
Q
How old is the fetus when its auditory system is almost completely developed? They can respond to internal and external stimuli
A
23-25 weeks
15
Q
True or false: maternal food changes the “flavour” of amniotic fluid
A
True
16
Q
Dummy sucking paradigm
A
Baseline sucking is determined before sound stimuli are presented. Habituation is demonstrated through a reduction of high amplitude sucking.
17
Q
How far can newborns see?
A
20 cm - low visual acuity
18
Q
At what period of gestation were sensorimotor actions seen?
A
5-9 months of gestation: as the fetus moved its arm towards its mouth, its mouth opened, suggesting anticipatory movements.
19
Q
Stage perspective of motor development
A
A descriptive viewpoint which explores biological changes in an orderly and sequential which builds skills upon skills. But these are not universal e.g. 20% of infants skip crawling and go straight from sitting up to walking.
20
Q
Process perspective of motor development
A
A dynamic model (aka dynamic systems theory) which explains HOW changes can occur. Reorganisation is fundamental to the development of new skills by finding effective new opportunities etc. This perspective explores the interactions between the task and environmental factors.
21
Q
4Es of motor development
A
Embodied refers to the way that development can be seen in the body e.g. in terms of gait.
Embedded refers to the way the infant can perceive different affordances so they modify their actions.
Enculturated explores how developmental behaviours can be hindered or facilitated by socio-cultural practices e.g. being encouraged to learn how to walk.
Enabling refers to how movement leads to new development e.g. new environments and new skills can be acquired.
22
Q
At what age does the universal phonetic perception (across languages) leave?
A
10-12 months
23
Q
At what age is full visual permanence acquired?
A
18-24 months
24
Q
At 4 months what kind of object permanence do infants develop?
A
Partial, search for partially visible objects but not entirely hidden ones.
25
What is the A not B error?
It requires infants to search for hidden objects. Below the age of 8 months, infants do not search at all. Between 9 and 12 months, infants search but not in the right place (in A).
26
What is the Violation of Expectation paradigm?
Developed from the A not B error paradigm limitations, infants are shown something “impossible” (e.g. a ball going through a “wall”) and they react to whether actions seem plausible or not. There are consistent (real) or inconsistent (impossible) events and infants typically react longer at the impossible tasks.
27
VoE studies suggest infants aged this many months may have some version of object permanence, but struggle to search for hidden objects in A not B errors.
2.5 months
28
Ostensive communication
Adult/child communication, eye contact, child-directed language etc etc
29
What is mobile contingency experiment?
Infants as young as 3 months can remember how to work mobiles one week after training, and at 6 months the learning can last two weeks.
30
Why can infants learn skills and remember them, but adults cannot remember their infancy?
- **brain development**: the hippocampus is not fully formed until the age of 3-4 and frontal lobe growth is necessary for full conscious memories
- **linguistic development**: the ability to speak about memories is necessary for their consolidation/ the awareness of them
- **emotional development**: emotional schemas are vital for the consolidation of memories.
31
What kind of communication can a 3 month old display?
COOING AND GURGLING At this stage there is evidence of neural associations forming between words and objects. Infants of this age prefer speech over other types of complex sounds.
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What kind of communication can a 6 month old display?
BABBLING The infant repeats certain combinations of sounds (phonemes).
33
What kind of communication can a 12 month old display?
FIRST WORDS: simple words, usually nouns
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What kind of communication can an 18 month old display?
They can use two word utterances and know 5-40 words.
35
What kind of communication can an 18 month old display?
2 - 3 month sentences and new different types of words, 150-300 word vocabulary.
36
What are the steps of the beginnings of non-verbal communication from infants?
Mutual gaze/averted gaze
Gaze following
Joint attention
Shared attention
Theory of Mind
37
Still face Paradigm
A study where infants are encouraged to interact with an adult who does not use visual communicative cues. The infant tends to become very distressed.
38
Social referencing
When an infant looks to their parent (or another adult) and uses their understanding of the adult's emotion to assess a novel situation. It allows them to make quick judgements.
39
What is joint attention?
JA emerges between 9 and 12 months and is vital for language development.
40
Stages of joint attention
Responding to JA bids from others
Initiating JA e.g. social referencing, pointing, vocalising
Initiating behavioural requests and regulation
Responding to behavioural requests.
41
What are conversational turns and why are they important?
When the person talking switches in a conversation. They are massively influential in neural connectivity and can predict future language development and IQ.
42
At what age does pointing emerge?
12 months
43
Decorated Room paradigm
A room full of objects to investigate infant initiation of communication e.g. pointing or information/interest sharing
44
What kind of verbal communication does a 3 year old have?
900-1000 words and can ask short questions
45
What kind of verbal communication does a 4 year old have?
2000+ words, 5 word sentences and many questions demonstrating consistent curiosities about topics, active learning attempts and follow-up understandings
46
Why do children ask so many questions?
Attention, permission, help, information
47
At what age does stranger anxiety emerge?
7 months
48
When do infant social smiles emerge?
6 weeks
49
In what position may infants lose the infant smile cue? (used for the reinforcement of attachments)
Severe deprivation
50
At what age do anger expressions tend to increase in infants?
4 - 6 months
51
At what ages can infants begin to discriminate emotions?
4-6 months
52
What is the visual cliff paradigm?
A study to investigate how infants perceive depth. Later variations include the mother stood on the other side either expressing joy or fear, and the infant responded accordingly.
53
At what age do children learn that people can react to situations in different ways?
8 years
54
At what age do children understand that more than one emotion can be held simultaneously?
10 years
55
What are the two types of false belief tasks, used to assess ToM?
Deceptive box test e.g. smarties task
Unexpected transfer task e.g. Sally-Anne Task
56
At what point do children begin to pass false-belief tasks?
4 years
57
What are the two key characteristics of ToM?
The ability to theorise about other's minds
The ability to simulate other minds
58
What evidence is there against strict theories of ToM? (2)
- Performance Issues: inconsistent progress, variation in stages and 3 year olds also struggle with understanding questions
- Infant competence: different studies suggest that even 15 month olds have some concept of others mental representations by differential looking times at different boxes
59
What factors impact the development of ToM?
- Language development: bidirectional prediction of success, complex syntax of FB tests may be relevant here
- Maternal Mind Mindedness: at 6 months, predicted FB performance at 4 years
- Family Size: more interactions with older family members provides more opportunities to learn
60
What is a lexicon?
Vocabulary
61
Why are speech streams difficult to decipher?
They are quick with unclear discrete units and contain other noises e.g. coughing
62
At what age is the onset of babbling?
4 - 7 months
63
By what age have children usually acquired all sounds and sound clusters?
7 - 8 years
64
What is the reference problem with regards to acquiring words?
Children must understand that words mean or represent objects and events. This is slowly resolved between about 6 months and 2 years of life, after which there is a rapid growth in vocabulary.
65
What is the extension problem with regards to acquiring words?
While the words may refer to both objects and categories, there are limits to what they can represent e.g. "dog" may represent labradors and poodles but not tabby cats.
66
What are typical extension errors children may demonstrate during word learning? (4)
- underextension errors → child says ‘dog’ to refer to only ‘Spot’, the pet.
- overextension errors → child says ‘dog’ to refer to all dogs, other 4-legged animals, all soft toys, pictures of animals.
- overlap errors → child says ‘dog’ to refer to pet dogs, cats, cows, and bears but not toy dogs.
- mismatch errors → child says ‘dog’ to refer to their teddy bear.
67
What is the syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis in language learning?
Children use their current knowledge of language to learn more language. E.g. using the syntactic structures of events to learn more about them. e.g. some events require two nouns (holding/helping/chasing) while others don’t (running/thinking/sliding). This means the verbs have effects on each other.
68
What did Chomsky suggest about language acquisition?
Experience cannot explain all aspects of language acquisition (speed and uniformity of development despite poverty of stimulus), there must be an innate universal grammar (nativist theory).
69
How can preferential looking measures investigate how children understand words?
Children are shown sentences which may match a video/make more or less grammatical sense. Children look towards the video which best matches what they hear.
70
At what age can children pass tests which test their syntactic understanding of novel words (e.g. verb conjugation/matching videos)?
19 months
71
What is syntactic priming?
The repetition of specific syntactic structures across utterances following specific infants. E.g. more likely to reproduce passive sentences when primed with passive sentences.
Even children who struggle to understand or produce passive sentences because they are too young, can be primed to use them in experimental settings.
72
What is meant by bilingualism?
The regular use of two or more languages or dialects in everyday life
73
What is simultaneous bi/multi-lingualism?
2+ languages learnt at the same time
74
What is sequential bi/multi-lingualism?
One language is learnt first, a second added later
75
What is balanced bi/multi-lingualism?
Equal competence in both languages
76
What is meant by a heritage language speaker?
A person whose first language is often superseded by a second language, often more societally prevalent e.g. used in schools, so the first language becomes less used.
77
True or false: bilingual children's vocabulary may appear to lag behind monolingual speakers?
True - but this then catches up, bilingual (total) vocabularies do not differ from monolingual vocabularies.
78
What is the unitary language hypothesis (Volterra & Taeschner, 1978)?
Bilingual children have two lexicons with one syntactic system and do not distinguish between languages early on. This becomes two systems later on. Some say language mixing is evidence of this.
79
What is the autonomous systems theory of bilingual development?
Aka the seperate development hypothesis, children learn two languages independently with limited impact on each other
80
What is the interdependent systems theory of bilingual development?
Two language systems interact and can influence the development of each other.
81
What is the evidence for crosslinguistic inferference?
Bilingual Italians use more pronouns than monolingual Italian children because Italian is a pro-drop language.
Cross-linguistic syntactic priming of passives between English and Spanish.
82
What are Piaget's four stages of development?
Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
Preoperational (2-7 years)
Concrete operational (7-12 years)
Formal operational (12+ years)
83
What is Piaget's Sensorimotor stage of development?
0-2 years, children are bound to here and now based on specific sensorimotor experiences
84
What is Piaget's Preoperational stage of development?
2-7 years: able to start presenting experiences in language and more abstract terms but not able to perform complex mental operations
85
What is Piaget's Concrete operational stage of development?
7-12 years: children develop their ability to reason logically, but still struggle to reason abstractly or test hypotheses
86
What is Piaget's Formal operations stage of development?
12+ years, the final stage, able to reason hypothetically, generate and test hypotheses and consider abstractions
87
What is the conservation task?
It presents children with two different quantities. One is transformed (e.g. moved into a new container) and before the age of about seven, children fail this. Piaget suggests that this is because children’s reasoning is primarily visual/appearance-based.
88
What is the mountains task?
It tests children’s abilities to see perspectives e.g. when certain animals are blocked from the experimenters view by a mountain etc. Piaget suggests that at a young age we are too egocentric to take another perspective.
89
What is the hierarchical classification test?
It involves showing children a number of pictures and then asking something like “are there more animals or dogs?” But of course dogs are animals. Younger children cannot focus on both subsets at the same time, while in the pre-operational stage so they make errors.
90
What are criticisms of Piaget's stages of development?
It underestimates children's abilities e.g. 14 month olds can imitate adult behaviour
May test linguistic understandings
May overestimate the role of logical/deductive thinking
91
What is the information processing theory?
One of the more modern theories for the development of cognitive processes. As we age, our memory storage gets larger and our processing gets faster. This means it is a more gradual, constructivist theory of development.
This theory explains a lack of consistency for cognitive development: children root through many memory and cognitive strategies and must find effective ones.
92
What is the difference between recursive or finite numbers?
Recursive keep going e.g. 1,2,3...
Finite do not e.g. in Oksapmin numbers are represented by body locations
93
What is meant by cardinality in regards to number development?
Each quantity described by any one cardinal number is of the same magnitude as a completely unrelated set described by the same number.
94
What is meant by ordinality with regards to number development?
Numbers come in an order of magnitude - numbers which come later are larger.
95
True or false, infants have no concept of number at birth?
False, infants are born with an innate understanding of number:
Starkey & Cooper (1980) used a habituation procedure for different numbers of dots with 4 month olds. When the number of dots changed, there was a longer looking time (especially with smaller numbers) which indicates infant discrimination and a novelty preference.
96
What is meant by subitising in the context of numbers?
How we can perceive a small number without actually counting them. Infants might be able to do this up to about 3, whereas adults can do this to about 7.
97
What are two types of counting?
Abstract counting (reciting order sequence)
Object counting (determining a quantity)
98
Gelman's counting principles (nativist)
1. one-to-one = count each item in the set, but only once
2. stable order = produce the number words in the same agreed upon order
3. last number = the last number counted represents the value of the set
99
Carey's individuation hypothesis (2004)
Children gradually develop number understanding through a combination of innate knowledge and experience.
100
Enriched parallel individuation hypothesis
Children use bootstrapping principles to expand what they already know about numbers e.g. "three-knowers" can already tell the difference between 1, 2 and 3 so they can use this to work out four.
101
What is the "give n" task?
Tests how far children understand quantity/numbers. E.g. asking them whether sets of objects are equal
4 year olds fail to understand cardinality
102
How do you calculate IQ?
Mental age / chronological age * 100
103
What is general intelligence (g) (Spearman, 1904)?
A theoretical representation of intelligence, generated through factor analysis with two key facets: specific intelligence (e.g. maths, verbal) and general intelligence (e.g. patterns, inferences etc).
This is also known as the two-factor theory of intelligence.
104
Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence - Revised (WPPSI-R)
Verbal and non verbal measures of intelligence including verbal fluency or memory span
105
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PVVT-R)
Tested verbal ability and a quick evaluation of receptive vocabulary.
106
How can habituation paradigms determine early stages of intelligence in infants?
Short-lookers may be faster at processing stimuli
107
What is the Flynn effect in intelligence?
An increase in IQ scores over time (approx 3 points per decade), potentially reflective of better schooling or health
108
What are dynamic tests of intelligence?
Intelligence tests based on Vygotsky's theories of social scaffolding. These tests allow examiners to help the children using things like leading questions to measure both willingness to learn and intelligence potential.
109
What is meant by the term "exploration"?
A motor-sensory activity which can be an independent or social activity. It is an observable behaviour which is seen as a manifestation of curiosity.
110
What is meant by "curiosity"?
An intrinsically motivated behaviour which occurs in order to seek information. It is not driven by external rewards.
111
What are types of explorative behaviours in children? (4)
Visual: preferential looking, gaze following etc
Manual/haptic: touching, mouthing
Spatial/locomotor: moving towards interesting information
Social-communicative: social referencing, questions etc
112
Little scientists vs. little anthropologists
Little Scientists: Piaget: learning through self-discovery when developmentally ready
Little Anthropologists: Vygotsky: learning through social interactions
113
What are the four main theories of curiosity?
DRIVE: similar to other biological drives e.g. hunger, all animals spontaneously explore, even when not in an aversive state of uncertainty
INCONGRUENCY: curiosity is an expression of a preference for novelty
INFORMATION GAP: we only explore to fill in mental gaps, but we must know enough to know there is a knowledge gap
LEARNING PROGRESS: learning is intrinsically rewarding
114
Goldilocks Effect of curiosity
Infants prefer visual or auditory sequences of intermediate complexity
115
What is meant by "play"?
A voluntary behaviour which occurs in a safe environment. It appears universal and can support social, cognitive and physical development.
116
What is meant by "social learning"?
A type of fast and adaptive learning through the accumulated experiences of others which allows for pre-verified and tested information in simple packages.
117
What are the two perspectives to social learning?
rich learning (more complex, higher-order, involves sensitivities to social cues and a predisposition to learn from others) DOMAIN-SPECIFIC EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS
lean learning (simpler associative learning) DOMAIN-GENERAL MECHANISMS
118
What are four types of social learning?
OBSERVATION: non-verbal learning without necessary prior knowledge
IMITATION: copying behaviour from others to move towards a goal
ACTIVE INFORMATION SEEKING FROM OTHERS: asking questions, sustained curiosity
TEACHING
119
What is the Natural Pedagogy Theory?
Humans are uniquely predisposed to social learning and an early sensitivity to ostensive cues demonstrates a readiness to learn.
120
What is WEIRD?
Western
Educated
Industrialised
Rich
Democratic
121
What is Gahvora cradling?
A method of restricting infant movement from Tajikistan. At 1 year old, almost half of these infants would be diagnosed with motor delays by the WHO, but by 3-4 years they had sped past the development of their Western peers.
Evidence of cultural variations.
122
What is meant by adolescence?
A period of physical, social and psychological change beginning with the onset of puberty and defining the transition between childhood to adulthood. Adolescence is described to end anywhere between 18 and 25 depending on the definitions and the individuals.
123
What are three key neural changes which occur during adolescence?
- Changes to the ratio of grey-white matter in PFC: synaptic pruning reduces grey matter and myelination occurs to improve efficiency
- Increase in connectivity: the limbic system has greater control on behaviour as connectivity increases between cortical and subcortical areas
- Changes to subcortical processes: dopamine receptors are remodelled, resulting in an increase in dopaminergic activity in the prefrontal-striatal-limbic pathways, linked to an increase in reward-directed behaviours
124
What is meant by the dual system of risk taking and decision making of adolescent behaviour (Steinberg, 2010)?
A temporary imbalance where the limbic system is fully developed while the PFC develops more gradually.
125
Adolescents as "intuitive scientists" (Kuhn)
Adolescents can construct theories and use domain-specific thinking styles. In this theory, metacognition is important for the development of our logic and understanding.
126
What is Siegler's Overlapping Waves Model of development?
Children use different cognitive strategies and rules at different stages of their lives and these can compete and overlap. The most successful ones are more prevalent.
127
What is the difference between prosocial behaviour and altruistic behaviour?
Both are voluntary behaviours which produce a benefit to another person, but altruistic behaviours involve a cost to the actor.
128
At what age do spontaneous prosocial behaviours develop?
2 - 4 years (although this may be related to praise-seeking)
129
What are three components on morality?
Affective
Cognitive
Behavioural
130
What is Piaget's Theory of Moral Development?
< 4-5 years: Premoral Judgement Stage, rules of morality are not yet understood
4 - 10 years: Moral Realism Stage, rules cannot be changed and punishment is an inevitable retribution
9 - 10 years + : Moral Subjectivist Stage: rules are created, but can be changed by mutual consent, evaluation of actions by intention
131
What is Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development?
A revised version of Piaget's theory, based on responses to moral dilemmas by 50 American males every three years.
LEVEL 1: PRECONVENTIONAL MORALITY: morality is determined in relation to the child, under the age of 9
Stage 1: heteronomous morality: punishment orientation
Stage 2: instrumental morality: conformity to rules to gain rewards
LEVEL 2: CONVENTIONAL MORALITY: behaviour should uphold rules and conventions, most adolescents and adults are here
Stage 3: interpersonal normative morality: "good boy/girl" orientation
Stage 4: social system morality: rules maintain social order
LEVEL 3: POST CONVENTIONAL MORALITY: moral judgements are based on universal morals rather than social norms, suggested this is reached by a minority of adults
Stage 5: social contract orientation: rules support the majority of human welfare, rules can and should be changed
Stage 6: universal ethical principles: moral standing is self-determined
132
Domain approach of morality
Turiel (2002) suggested that while moral concepts are universal, social conventions and expressions differ.
This suggests that moral rules are fixed and binding while social conventions are negotiable.
This means that social experiences are very important for moral learning.
133
What are the key principles of cognitive interviews?
Cognitive reinstatement
Recall everything
Change perspective
Change order
134
How has Piaget's work influenced current education systems?
Child-centred education allows for children to "discover" things themselves
Curriculum design is developmentally appropriate
Peer interaction as a key method to learning
135
How has Vygotsky's work influenced current education systems?
Opportunities for play
Teachers utilising ZPD for learning
Collaborative learning from peers as a type of scaffolding
136
What is Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)?
A significant deficit in language ability, unrelated to language exposure, hearing loss or neurological damage. It affects 7% of children and seems to be both heritable and persistent (some permanent effects).
136
What is William's Syndrome?
A microdeletion on chromosome 7, occuring in 1 in 20,000 births. Associated with an early, short-lasting language delay, but a lasting IQ delay.
Can be associated with hypersociality.
137
In what proportion of one year olds is their primary attachment figure not the same as their primary caregiver? (Shaffer & Emerson)
39%
