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PYC2602 – CHILD DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: STUDYING A CHILD’S WORLD
,The Study of Development: Then and Now
Child development focuses on the scientific study of processes of change and
stability in human children.
Developmental scientists study two kinds of change: Quantitative and
Qualitative.
Quantitative: Change in number or amount: Height, weight, size of vocab, or
frequency of
communication. Largely Continuous.
Qualitative: Change in kind, structure or organisation. Discontinuous: It is
marked by emergence of new
phenomena that cannot be anticipated easily on the basis of earlier functioning.
Eg. Change from a
nonverbal child to one who understands words and can use them to
communicate.
Most people show an underlying stability in aspects of personality and behaviour
i.e. most shy children
generally display shyness to a moderate degree throughout their life.
Charles Darwin was the first theorist to emphasize the developmental nature of
infant behaviour.
The Study of Child Development: Basic Concepts
Domains of Development *Study table 1-1 pg 11*
Physical Development: Growth of body and brain, the development of sensory
capacities and motor
skills and health. All influence other aspects of development. Eg. Child with
frequent ear infections may
develop language more slowly than a child without this physical problem.
Cognitive Development: Change and stability in mental abilities, such as
learning, memory, language,
thinking, moral reasoning, and creativity. Closely related to physical, social and
emotional growth.
Ability to speak depends on the development of mouth and brain. A child who
has difficulties in
expressing herself in words may bring negative reactions in others, affecting her
popularity and sense of
self worth.
Psychosocial Development: Change and stability in personality, emotions,
and social relationships. Can
affect cognitive and physical functioning. Anxiety about taking a test can worsen
performance. Social
support can help children cope with stress on physical and mental health.
Physical and cognitive
capacities affect psychosocial dev by contributing to self-esteem and social
acceptance.
Development is a unified process.
Influences on Development
Heredity, Environment, and Maturation
Heredity: Inborn traits or characteristics inherited from biological parents.
Environment: The world outside of the self beginning in the womb and the
leaning that comes from
experience – incl. socialisation, a child’s induction into the value system of the
culture.
Research points to a blend of inheritance and environment in the development of
specific traits. Thus,
,even though intelligence is strongly affected by heredity, environmental factors
such as parental
stimulation, education, and peer influence also affect it.
Many typical changes of infancy and early childhood, such as the emergence of
the abilities to walk and
talk, are tied to maturation of the body and brain – unfolding of universal,
natural sequence of physical
changes and behaviour patterns, including readiness to master new abilities
such as walking and talking.
These maturational processes, act in concert with the influences of heredity and
environment. Even in
maturational processes that all children undergo, rates and timing of
development vary.
Contexts of Development
Family
Nuclear Family: is a two-generational kinship, economic, and household unit
consisting of one or two
parents and their biological children, adopted children, and/or stepchildren.
Extended Family: a multi-generational kinship network of grandparents, aunts,
uncles, cousins and more
distant relatives. This is the traditional family form.
Many people live in extended family households, where they have daily contact
with kin. Adults share
breadwinning and child raising responsibilities, and children are often
responsible for younger siblings.
Often these households are headed by women. Extended families are less typical
in developing countries
due to industrialisation and migration to urban centres.
Socioeconomic Status and Neighborhood
Socioeconomic status (SES) includes income, education, and occupation.
SES is related to developmental processes (such as mothers verbal interactions
with their children) and to
developmental outcomes (such as health and cognitive performance). SES
affects these outcomes
indirectly, through factors such as the kinds of homes and neighbourhoods
children live in and the quality
of nutrition, medical care, supervision, schooling and other opportunities
available to them.
Poverty is harmful to the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial well-being of
children and families.
Threats to well-being multiply if several risk factors – conditions that increase
the likelihood of a
negative developmental outcome – coexist.
Culture and Race/Ethnicity
Culture refers to a society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs,
traditions, laws, knowledge,
beliefs, values, language, and physical products, from tools to artworks – all of
the behaviour and
attitudes that are leaned, shared and transmitted among members of a social
group. Culture is constantly
changing, often through contact with other cultures.
An Ethnic group consists of people united by a distinctive culture, ancestry,
religion, language, and/or
, national origin, all of which contribute to a sense of shared identity and shared
attitudes, beliefs and
values.
Ethnic and cultural patterns affect child development by their influence on the
composition of a
household, its economic and social resources, the way its members act toward
one another, the foods they
eat, the games children play, the way they learn, how well they do in school, the
occupations adults
engage in and the way family members think and perceive the world.
The term Race, an identifiable biological category, is now agreed to be a social
construct. There is no
clear scientific consensus on its definition and it is impossible to measure
reliably. Race as a social
category makes a difference in how individuals are treated, where they live, their
employment
opportunities, the quality of their health care, and whether they can fully
participate in their society.
Categories of culture, ethnicity and race are fluid, continuously shaped and
redefined by social and
political forces.
The Historical Context
Historical context: The time period in which people live and grow.
The historical context is an important part of the study of development. How
certain experiences, tied to
time and place, affect the course of children’s lives.
Normative and Non-normative Influences
Normative influences are those that impinge on many or most individuals.
Normative age graded influences are highly similar for people in a particular
age group. They include
biological events (eg puberty) and social events (eg entry into formal education).
The timing of
biological events is fixed (you don’t hit puberty at age 3). The timing of social
events is more flexible
and varies in different times and places, within maturational limits.
Normative history-graded influences are significant events (such as the
Great Depression or 9/11) that
shape the behaviour and attitudes of a historical generation: a group of
people who experience the event
at a formative time in their lives.
*Cohort: a group of people born at about the same time*
A historical generation is not the same as an age cohort. A historical generation
may contain more than
one age cohort, but not all cohorts are part of historical generations unless they
experience major, shaping
historical events at a formative point in their lives.
Non-normative influences are unusual events that have a major impact on
individual lives and may
cause stress because they are unexpected.
They are either typical events that happen at an atypical time of life ( eg
marriage during teens, loss of a
parent when young) or atypical events (eg having a birth defect or being in a
plane crash). They can also
be happy events (eg winning the lotto).
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