Early Development: Chances and Risks - lectures
Week 1: Introduction and biology
Learning objectives:
After completing this course, the student will:
1. have knowledge and understanding of
- early child development within the context of the child’s social environment,
- the effects of early life experiences on later health and well-being,
- potential (biological) processes underlying these effects,
- the possibilities to prevent negative developmental outcomes by early caregiving and
preventive interventions;
2. be able to critically analyze literature and video materials on the course subjects by reflecting on the
literature/videos, drawing his/her own conclusions, and commenting on them in writing.
3. be able to translate research findings in the field of early development to practice
Final Exam = 65%
- 70-75% will be lecture material!!!!!
- Content: lectures + papers + videos
- Example: Choose the (most) correct statement:
- A: Identical twins can have monochorionic and dichorionic arrangements during pregnancy.
- B: Identical twins can only have monochorionic arrangements during pregnancy
Focus of course:
- Is going to focus on socio-emotional development (not so much cognitive)
- First 1000 days
- The period spanning between conception and one's second birthday
- Then the development proceeds at a breathtaking pace
- In this course we are going to talk about how we view the role of nature versus nurture (environment)
during this developmental period change over the years
Nature vs. nurture
It is all nurture
➔ Watson said that he could get to any baby to become any type of profession he wanted the person to
become. He said that it is all about nurture.
➔ Watson’s ideas are an example of behaviorism: the environment is the supreme force in the child
development
➔ There are some examples in biology in which this is really the case, of where it is based on
behaviorism:
◆ Example 1: Bees
, ● You see 2 bees and these are identical in DNA and whether they grow up to become
a worker or a queen depends only on the type of diet (environment) they get!
◆ Example 2: sleep trainings (i.e. crying it out) are examples of behaviorism: the environment
(i.e. parental behavior) is the supreme force in child development → when crying the baby
learns that the mother/father shows up, so he/she will do that all the other nights as well.
➔ Nowadays, what we getting more and more interested in, is trying to understand how the
environment impacts the expression of our biology
◆ Example: range of reaction: biology gives a range of developmental possibilities.
● In an experiment there were 3 types of children. First they were in a restricted
parental environment, and then they moved to an enriched environment: all their
achievement test scores went up. But, they were either improving with 20-50, 30-
70, or 40-100 points → this shows the child susceptibility to the environment (L4)
➔ So: biology also shapes the environment
◆ Example: child with Down syndrome or child with difficult temperament (more on this in
lecture ‘role of the infant’) → this triggers different behaviors from the parents for example
◆ Example: children high in anxiety → when your child is for example extremely anxious for
dogs, this is eliciting behaviors in the parents: asking friends to put away the dog when they
are coming.
● You will see very different parenting behavior for their sibling without anxiety for
example
➔ So, the question is not whether biological OR environmental factors are more important, but how the
expression of our biology is shaped by the environment we meet (programming)
➔ This notion is central to this course, because development will never be so susceptible to the
environment as during the first 1000 days!
◆ So this then provides risks, but also provides ways to boost children's development
,Critical and sensitive periods
➔ If you are talking about how susceptible we are for the environment, we talk about critical and
sensitive periods
➔ The environment will have more or less influence depending on the developmental period:
◆ Critical periods =
● Environment only has an impact during a particular window, and if it is not
happening during that specific window it will never happen again.
● Effects are irreversible
● Examples of critical periods:
○ When little chickens come out of their eggs and the first being they see is a
human: they will keep following that human like a mother.
○ If you glue one eye of a cat and will keep it glued for some months, and
then you will open the eye again, then the cat will never be able to see with
that eye anymore. It needs visible input in the first weeks/months.
○ The son of the teacher was born with crossed eyes. He had surgery, so he is
seeing straight now. But because he was seeing with crossed eyes for the
first 3-4 years, he is never able to see in depth anymore. Even though he
had surgery!
◆ Sensitive period =
● Environment shapes a given trait or behavior to a larger extent than in other periods
or stages
➔ The first 1000 days the susceptibility (or also referred to as plasticity) is decreasing over the lifespan.
You will get less and less plastic and more and more rigid.
◆ The developmental plasticity is the capacity to adapt to different environments and that is
from an evolutionary point of view very good that we have that in us
● This is a period of chances and risks
◆ Adapting to the environment makes infants both versatile and vulnerable
◆ The first 1000 days of life therefore contains:
● Risks with lifelong consequences for health and wellbeing
○ It can even predict lifelong cardiovascular diseases
● Chances to ‘get things right’ and to boost childrens’ development
, ➔ Factsheet about how important the first 1000 days are
➔ They focus on how nutrition is so important in the first 1000 days, even predicting later outcomes.
They say for example that if you get good nutrition, that you have higher grades, earn more money,
and have a healthier family when you have a family yourself. So, health, wellbeing, cognitive
development and academic achievement.
This is also fitting with the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) Hypothesis
➔ Exposure to certain environment influences during critical or sensitive periods of development may
have significant consequences on an individual’s short and long-term health
Developmental time is most important time to intervene to prevent disease:
➔ What you see is when we get older, the higher the chance is that you get a chronic disease
➔ And that you see when you do an intervention during adulthood, the effect of that intervention is
small/minimal.
➔ And what you also see is that if you do something in the very first 1000 days then you can really make
a substantial risk reduction. But people often do not think about those first 1000 days to prevent
cardiovascular diseases, or diabetes etc.
◆ But there is much evidence for this claim: James Heckman won a Nobel prize in economics.
He found that if you invest early in life that that is a smart investment: the earlier you invest,
the greater the return on investment.
◆ If people do not get sick, you don’t need healthcare, for example.
