HDFS201 Review of Exam One Developmental Theories o Are tools that organize knowledge or facts to prove ideas about behavior changes over time Theories don t prove ideas o Can be proven supported or rejected Cant be proven o Narrow our attention to particular aspects of situation this is both a o With the greatest number of underlying untestable assumptions are strength and weakness True the best False huge faith Not just mental o Are only explanations of how the mental capacities of people develop Dr Jordan wants to know if people who are 20 in the year 2005 can jump like people who were 20 in 1985 the best research design for him would be o Field time lag experimental o Time lag Physical Development Learning Objectives How much do school age kids grow How do motor skills improve during elementary school years Are American children physically fit What are the consequences of participating in General Body Development Average infant about 7 5lbs at birth Double birth weight by 3 months Triple their birth weight by 12 months By age 2 you are about 30 lbs By 3 you are about 33 lbs Decelerating curve from birth on Slow weight gain of about 10 percent per year in early elementary school years Prepubescent Growth Spurt Right before puberty increase to about 20 weight gain per year Corresponds to height spurt Increase in skeletal size weight Increase in musculature not before prepubescent growth spurt Increase in internal organs in size Increase in fat breast development Growth years Boys and girls are about the same size during elementary school years Girls are moe likely to enter puberty toward the end of the elementary school At ages 11 12 the average girl is about inch taller than the average boy The average 7 to 10 year old needs a well balanced diet about 2400 per day o Breakfast should comprise of that Sex and gender o There are social consequences or correlates of physical changes that are socially prescribed by different cultures Gender Differences in Motor Skills On average girls are better than boys in fine motor skills handwriting and certain gross motor skills flexibility and balance On average boys do better in other gross motor skills strength throwing catching jumping running o Boys better strength is due to their bodies having relatively less fat o Boys better remaining skills reflect the activities in which they are but more muscle more involved On average girls may spend less time on sports and fitness related activities Participating in Sports Sports involvement can promote social skills and self esteem helps children learn initiative Children playing sports use cognitive skills to devise new game strategies system views Cognitive Development Children lose interest in sports if these are too stressful and when adults overemphasize competition instead of skill development What are the distinguishing characteristics of thought during Piaget concrete operation and formal operational stages How do children use strategies and monitoring to improve learning and remembering More Sophisticated Thinking Piaget Version Concrete operational period 7 11 o Can perform REVERSIBLE mental operations actions that can be performed on objects or ideas that yield a consistent result o Mental operations are limited to concrete problems in the here and now Cannot deal effectively with abstract or hypothetical problems Formal Operational period 11 years to adult o Can reason abstractly and hypothetically Understand that a hypothetical problem need not correspond to the real world o Use deductive reasoning to draw logical conclusions from the facts from premises to conclusion o Engage in combinatorial reasoning generating all the different ways a given number of items can be arranged The Information Processing view Strategies for Learning and Remembering o Working memory WM the temporary storage and use of information that one needs to perform a task e g looking up and dialing a new phone number taking a test Limited in capacity and how long it lasts Most thought takes place in working memory o Long term memory LTM the storehouse for memory that is permanent and of unlimited capacity Information is transferred into LTM stored in it and retrieved from it forgetting could reflect malfunctions in any step The Information Processing View Memory Strategies o 7 to 8 year olds use less effective learning and memory strategies such as rehearsal simple repeating new information over and over in a rote fashion o Older children use more effective learning and memory strategies including Taking notes and keeping a calendar Organization structuring new information into related Elaboration making new information memorable by categories embellishing it The Information Processing View Metacognition o Metacognition being aware of how perception cognition intentions and knowledge work and adjusting strategies related to each o Metacognitive knowledge understanding connections among goals strategies monitoring and outcomes o Cognitive self regulation identifying goals selecting effective strategies and monitoring accurately Successful learners better cognitively self regulate o Metamemory Our intuitive understanding of memory Diagnosing memory problems accurately and monitoring their effectiveness Family Systems Theory Family systems theory is a body of knowledge that has arisen out of the observations of clinical and counseling psychologists as they work with individuals and their family Families are SYSTEMS of interconnected and interdependent individuals To understand the individual we must understand the family system of that individual People cannot be understood in isolation from one another Beginnings o IN the 1950s Dr Murray Bowen introduced a transformation theory Family Systems Theory o Principles apply independent of race gender cohort What does it mean to say a family is a system o To understand this better consider the example of mobile o When you move any one piece of mobile all other pieces move too o They do not exist in isolation from one another and movement in any one part of the system will affect all the rest of the parts of the system Family Systems Theory Basic Elements The family is a structure of related parts or subsystems Each action or change affects every other person in this family The family structure has elements that can only be seen in its interactions Individual people are part of a family system but a family system is a complex whole that cannot be understood by examining