HDFS201 Exam 1 Notes Ch 1 5 Class 1 8 28 12 Life Span Perspectives Understanding development is critical for provision of optimal services to clients patients students and families Beneficial for enhancing your own development life satisfaction and relationships Understanding the inter relatedness of choices actions contexts and development in a practical applied perspectives allows you to navigate and process life and development in more positive ways Practical Why are you the way you are o My parents o My friends o Education o Religion Categories o Conditions o Events o Relationships Development in personal context You can change some relationships and some events and some conditions so you CAN influence development to a point Personal Professional Interfaces While these factors are common ways for laypersons to make meaning of and describe their lives o Neither the language o Nor the primary lenses that developmental scientists use Professional perspectives must interface with this framework for it to be valid and practical keep it real o Common framework and language needed Shaping Human Development in Applied Perspective Not a first day s hype Approach and present the course material Not enough to memorize facts o Now that we know this so what o What does it mean for your life o How can you use the theories to shape life Understand differences between deterministic and probabilistic thinking Important Features of Human Development Data observations studies research facts Theories Guidelines for best practice policies Applied to different realms of development physical growth health intellectual development sexuality morality gender friendships etc with implications for health education social work parenting and lfie Applied to eras stages of development prenatal old age o Certain things happen readily and only in certain periods of life Toolbox Different theories Principles Facts Understanding about ages stages Understanding about realms of development and their interactions with one another o Biological psychological social and spiritual Checking mastery questions are important similar to exam questions Fact to ponder Worldwide somewhere between 1 and 6 7 of the population attain a college university degree Class 2 9 30 12 Life Span Principles The Developmental Manifesto to help study do online questions Nuggets Development entails multi faceted systematic change Change happens over the entire lifespan in principle governed ways There are more important recurring controversies in Life Span Development Your assumptions make a difference in how you view development A Course About Change Many people resist or hate change but love development Development without change is impossible by definition o Development implies change Not all change is developmental o Difference Development takes times and is gradual more positive moving forwards Developmental change is relatively permanent and functionally significant it means something What is Development Development involves gains losses neutral changes and continuities in each phase of the lifespan pg3 o Includes growth Physical changes that occur from conception to maturity o Includes stability o Includes aging Range of positive and negative physical cognitive and psychosocial changes Biological aging deterioration that leads inevitably to death physical component Qualities of Development Quantitative easily counted or numericized o Age weight height Qualitative having to do with the quality of functioning o Learning how to speak walk o Overall state of health mental health Realistically all development entails both to some degree o It s a matter of focus or emphasis Development is correlated with but is NOT caused by age o Just because you re a certain age does not mean something is definitely going to happen Conceptualizing the Lifespan Age grade socially defined age group in a society o Confers statuses roles privileges responsibilities o Rites of passage mark transitions o Socially constructed Age norms behavioral expectations by age o Basis for the social clock which influences Our sense of when things should be done Our adjustment to life transitions o Age norms in our society have weakened Not as clear about when and what o Conceptualizations of the lifespan vary from culture to culture and from subculture to subculture o Ethnicity Classification or affiliation with a group based on common heritage or traditions Ethnic groups have different age norms and different developmental experiences o Socioeconomic status SES Standing in society based on such indicators as occupational prestige education and income Can influence age at which milestones of adulthood are reaches Phases of the Lifespan in History Childhood view emerged in the 17th century of children as innocents to be protected and nurtured o Children viewed as mini adults Adolescence emerged as a distinct phase of the lifespan in the late 19 th early 20th centuries o G Stanley Hall focused on adolense o Storm and stress Emerging adulthood the most recently defined phase from age 18 to age 29 Middle age recognized in the mid 20th century Old age defined in the 20th century TABLE 1 1 Overview of Lifespan The Life Span Perspective Some elaborations on Paul Baltes page 12 13 1 Development is a lifelong process 2 Development is multidirectional 3 There are both gains and losses 4 Lifelong plasticity ability to change 5 Historical and cultural embeddedness o Contextualized or situated 6 Development is multiply influenced 7 Understanding development requires different disciplines Systems Thinking Human beings are developing systems in the context of other developing systems o You are your own system Bio psyc social spiritual Changing one component of the system has an effect of all parts of the system Example o Stone in your shoe can influence where you go and how you et here Sometimes there are interactions between your microsystems This is called the mesosystem Exosystems impact how you live your life Macrosystems broader culture Recurring Issues in Human Development Nature vs Nurture o Genes vs environment o Issue involves the degree to which genetics and environment influence various aspects of development o In general theorists and researchers view nature an nurture as mutually interactive o Development is always shaped by both Continuity vs Discontinuity o Focuses on whether the same explanations continuity or different explanations discontinuity must be used over time