FSU DEP 3103 - Chapter 1: The Nature of Child Development

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DEP3103 NOVELL TANICHILD DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2013Textbook OutlineChapter 1: The Nature of Child Development1) Child Development – Yesterday and Today• Development – The pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues through the life span.Historical Views of Childhood• Original Sin View – Advocated during the Middle Ages, the belief that children were born into the world as evil beings and were basically bad.o The goal of child rearing was to provide salvation, to remove sin from the child’s life.• Tabula Rasa View – The idea, proposed by John Locke, that children are like a “blank tablet.”o Locke believed that childhood experiences are important in determining adult characteristics.o Advised parents to spend time with their children and to help them become contributing members of society.• Innate Goodness View – The idea, presented by Swiss-born French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau, that children are inherently good.o Because children are basically good, they should be permitted to grow naturally, with little parental monitoring or constraint.• Today, the Western view of children holds that childhood is a highly eventful and unique period of life that lays an important foundation for the adult years and is markedly different from them.• Most current approaches to childhood identify distinct periods in which children master specific skills and tasks that prepare them for adulthood.The Modern Study of Child Development• Most of the influential early psychologists were trained either in the natural sciences such as biology or medicine or in philosophy.o The natural scientists valued experiments and reliable observations, but were not sure that people could be studied in this way.o Philosophers of the time debated, on both intellectual and ethical grounds, whether the methods of science were appropriate for studying people.• Near the turn of the century (late 1800s), French psychologist Alfred Binet invented many tasks to study attention and memory.o Eventually he collaborated in the development of the first modern test of intelligence (the Binet test).• At about the same time, G. Stanley Hall pioneered the use of questionnaires with large groups of children.• Arnold Gesell created a photographic dome in which he could systematically observe children’s behavior without interrupting them.o His views were strongly influenced by Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory.o Gesell argued that certain characteristics of children simply “bloom” with age because of a biological, maturational blueprint.DEP3103 NOVELL TANICHILD DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2013• Evolutionary theory also influenced G. Stanley Hall who argued that child development follows a natural evolutionary course that can be revealed by child study.o He theorized that child development unfolds in stages, with distinct motives and capabilities at each stage.2) Caring For ChildrenSociocultural Contexts and Diversity• Context – Refers to the settings in which development occurs.o Influenced by historical, economic, social, and cultural factors.• Culture – The behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a group that are passed on from generation to generation.• Cross-Cultural Studies – Comparisons of one culture with one or more other cultures. o These provide information about the degree to which children’s development is similar or universal, across cultures, and to the degree to which it is culture-specific.• Ethnicity – Characteristics based on cultural heritage, nationality, race, religion, and language.• Socioeconomic Status (SES) – The grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and economic characteristics.o Implies certain inequalities: Generally members of a society have• Occupations that vary in prestige and some individuals have more access than others to higher-status occupations.• Different levels of educational attainment and some individuals have more access than others to better education.• Different economic resources.• Different levels of power to influence a community’s institutions. These differences in the ability to control resources and to participate in society’s rewards produce unequal opportunities.Gender• Gender – Refers to the characteristics of people as males and females.Resilience, Social Policy, and Children’s Development• Social Policy – A government’s course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens.o The values held by citizens and elected officials, the nation’s economic strengths and weaknesses, and partisan politics all influence the policy agenda.3) Developmental Processes, Periods, and Issues• Each of us develops in certain ways like all other individuals, like some other individuals, and like no other individuals.Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes• Biological Processes – Changes in an individual’s body.DEP3103 NOVELL TANICHILD DEVELOPMENT SPRING 2013o Genes inherited from parents, the development of the brain, height and weight gains, motor skills, and the hormonal changes of puberty all reflect the role of biological processes in development.• Cognitive Processes – Changes in an individual’s thought, intelligence, and language.o Includes the tasks of putting together a two word sentence, solving a math problem, memorizing a poem, imagining what it would be like to be a movie star, etc.• Socioemotional Processes – Changes in an individual’s relationships with other people, emotions, and personality.o An infant’s smile in response to her mother’s touch, a child’s attack on a playmate, an adolescent’s joy at the senior prom, etc.• Biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes are intricately intertwined.Periods of Development• Prenatal Period – The time from conception to birth.o Roughly a nine-month period.o During this time, a single cell grows into an organism, complete with a brain and behavioral capabilities.• Infancy – The developmental period that extends from birth to about 18-24 months.o A time of extreme dependence on adults.o Many psychological activities are just beginning – the ability to speak, to coordinate sensations and physical actions, to think with symbols, and to imitate and learn from others.• Early Childhood – The developmental period that extends from the end of infancy to about 5 to 6 years of age, sometimes called the pre-school years.o During


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FSU DEP 3103 - Chapter 1: The Nature of Child Development

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