NOVELL TANI SPRING 2013 DEP3103 CHILD DEVELOPMENT Textbook Outline Chapter 1 The Nature of Child Development 1 Child Development Yesterday and Today through the life span Historical Views of Childhood Development The pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues 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 the Binet test o Eventually he collaborated in the development of the first modern test of intelligence 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 CHILD DEVELOPMENT NOVELL TANI 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 Children Sociocultural 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 o 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 DEP3103 CHILD DEVELOPMENT NOVELL TANI SPRING 2013 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 this time young children learn to become more self sufficient and to care for themselves they develop school readiness skills following instructions identifying letters and they spend many hours in play with peers o First grade typically marks the end of this period Middle and Late Childhood The
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