Child Development Study Guide Unit 1 CHAPTER 1 Child development an area of study devoted to understanding constancy and change from conception through adolescence 3 basic issues of child development o Continuous vs Discontinuous Continuous quantitative and discontinuous qualitative stages Continuous a process of gradually adding more of the same types of skills that Discontinuous a process in which new ways of understand and responding to the were there to begin with world emerge at specific times Stages qualitative changes in thinking feeling and behaving that characterizes specific periods of development o One course of development or many One course of development is endorsed by stage theorist Many courses of development is endorsed by contemporary theorist Influenced by contexts of development Unique combinations result in different paths of development o Personal contexts heredity and biological make up o Environmental contexts Immediate home school neighborhood Macro community resources historical time period societal values and culture Contexts unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can result in different paths of change o Nature vs nurture stability Nature based on genetic inheritance and theories that stress nature emphasize Nurture physical and social world environment and theories that stress nurture emphasize change plasticity Stability children who are high or low in a characteristic such as verbal ability anxiety or sociability will remain so at later ages Plasticity open to change in response to influential experiences o Medieval times childhood view as separate period of life and at 7 its considered age of reason and expected to work alongside adults o The reformation children seen as innately evil and discipline was harsh original sin o Locke Tabula rasa blank tablet slate Focus on role of environment and experience education makes the man Social approval disapproval powerful shapers of behavior children should be treated with compassion and kindness Associationism association of ideas when young is most important foundation of self o Table 1 3 pg 32 Historical Views of Childhood o Rousseau Noble savage children inherently good but society corrupts Born ready to learn and mature active Would naturally develop into moral adults Introduced ideas of stage and maturation refers to a genetically determined naturally unfolding course of development Adults should be receptive to child s needs at each of 4 stages infancy childhood late childhood and adolescence o Darwin theory of evolution and documenting behavior Kept a baby biography of infant son o Normative Period Hall and Gesell Credited with founding of children development as an academic discipline Believed in maturational development Maturational process a genetically determined series of events that unfold automatically like a flower Launched normative approach measures of behavior are taken on large numbers of individuals and age related averages are computed to represent typical development Gesell provided literature for milestones based on Hall o Mental testing movement Binet and Simon developed 1st standardized intelligence testing to help identify academically at risk children in France o Early developmental Theorist Baldwin natural and nurture equal importance and are interwoven Psychoanalytic perspective o Emphasizes unique history of each child and focuses on emotional and social development and origins of personality traits o Series of stages conflict between biological drives and social expectations and how individuals resolves determines behaviors such as their ability to learn how they get along with others and how they cope with anxiety o Freud Psychosexual theory How parents manage child s sexual and aggressive drives is crucial for healthy personality development Fixation if issues as adults it s from fixation as a child 3 aspects of personality Id largest portion source of biological needs and desires pleasure principal Ego conscious and rational emerges in infancy to control Id Superego conscience develops between 3 6 due to parents o Erickson s psychosocial theory ego also makes positive contributions to development Behaviorism emphasis on directly observable events only stimulus and response through social interaction o Inspired by Pavlov s study of animals o Classical condition stimulus response o No set stages of development o John Watson Behaviorism Only can study directly observable events and by controlling the environment you can control behavior ex Little Albert o B F Skinner operant conditioning theory Shape behavior via reinforcers increase behavior and punishments decrease behavior Social Learning theory based on principles of conditioning and emphasize modeling imitation and observational learning o Albert Bandura refers to his model as social cognitive o Contributions and limitations of behaviorism and social learning theory Behavior modification consists of procedures that combine conditioning and modeling to eliminate undesirable behaviors and increase desirable responses Contributions effective for dealing with serious developmental problems and everyday difficulties Limitations many theorists believe that behaviorism and social learning theory offer to narrow a view of important environmental influences Also underestimate children s contributions to their own development Cognitive developmental theory Jean Piaget influenced child development more than any other o Children actively construct knowledge and the adaptation of mind over time develops to fit with world o 4 stages Sensorimotor birth to 2 years use of sense and movements to explore world Preoperational 2 7 actions then turn into symbolic but illogical Concrete operational 7 11 cognition becomes more organized and logical Formal Operational adolescence to adulthood abstract thinking o Contributions Piaget s theory encouraged the development of educational philosophies and programs that emphasize children s discovery learning and direct contact with the environment o Limitations underestimates competence of preschoolers and infants His stages don t pay sufficient attention to social and cultural influences Information processing emphasis on rigor and precision o Human mind can be viewed a symbol manipulating system through which information flows o Inputs info and outputs behavior o Use of flowcharts maps etc steps of thinking and mental processes o Views developmental change as
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