CHILD DEVELOPMENT PSYC 2290 A04

1
CHILD DEVELOPMENT PSYC 2290 A04
2
Class 1 Outline

• Introductions Syllabus
• Introduction to Child Development
• Film What Matters?
• Themes and Issues in Child Development

3
Course Syllabus

• PSYC 2290 A04
• copy of lecture on my website http//home.cc.uman
  itoba.ca/mckeen/
• TA Samantha Lewycky DRoblin P403
• Text website to be announced!

4
I. Introduction

• Great thing about study of child development is
• we all have some knowledge of it
• Who here has children?

5
This means that

• We all have an
• inkling about how children develop.
• knowledge or belief about what is important for
  kids,
• opinions on what we think helps or hinders their
  development.
• Very good background

6
Why Study Child Development?

• Class survey
• What do you want to learn about the development
  of children?

7
Why study Child Development?

• Can answer specific questions
• When do children learn to crawl, walk, or talk?
• How do children learn to think?
• Is my baby/niece/nephew developing normally?
• How do children learn to get along with others?

8
What are the benefits of learning about child
development?

• for yourself
• for your children
• for society

9
What is this course about?

• How children change and why.
• 1. All aspects of human development
• conception to age 12.
• 2. Change and stability over childhood
• 3. Focus on observations, descriptions,
  theories
• 4. Scientific practical issues

10
Central Goal of Child Development

• How we can optimize development?
• make small children grow up into happy,
  successful adults
• Examples
• When should we start reading to babies?
• What is the best way to discipline children?
• How do we encourage positive values beliefs?

11
A scientific approach needs to..

• describe childrens behaviour.
• What are the facts?
• What can we describe?
• What do we see?
• understand why the behaviour occurs.
• Eg, toddler who does not put toys away
• Is he obstinate? distracted forgets?
• Interpretation critical for understanding!

12
How do we study Child Development?

• Childhood in 4 different periods
• Prenatal period conception to birth
• Infancy and toddlerhood birth - 2 years
• Early childhood 2 - 6 years
• Middle childhood 6 - 11 years

13
and three domains

• Physical
• size, motor development
• Cognitive
• intellectual abilities, knowledge, problem
  solving, imagination, creativity, language
• Social/emotional
• family relationships, feelings, friendships,
  self-understanding, morality

14
What matters in child development?

• Class survey 2
• What factors do you think children need to become
  successful adults?
• What could prevent them from becoming successful
  adults?
• Think about what factors mattered to you when you
  were a child.

15
II. FILM What Matters

• Urie Bronfenbrenner
• Arnold Sameroff
• Jay Belsky

• Mary Ainsworth
• Lawrence Steinberg
• Jerome Kagan

• What are the key 5 things that matter for the
  successful development of children?

16
Film Summary

• Process matters
• How it occurs
• Positive relations with parents is primary
• Reciprocal interactions
• Exploration of objects symbols
• Baby, spoon, highchair
• Listening to a story

17
Film

• Experience matters
• What occurs
• Others provide framing (scaffolding) guidance
• Family, friends, teachers important
• Exposure to new things

18
Film

• Experience matters
• What occurs
• Kids are active participants
• Create their own experiences
• Seen as scientists able to evaluate interpret
  experiences

19
Film

• Attachment matters
• Who occurs
• With mother others
• origin of emotional security
• Child can form close relationships later in life
  develop good social skills
• Offers resiliency
• Where there are serious threats

20
Film

• Others matter
• NB for child to interact with others
• Promotes independence self-confidence
• Develop skills to develop friendships, good peer
  relations

21
Film

• Parenting matters
• No universal right or wrong way to parent
• Goal to be good enough parent, not the
  perfect parent
• Decide what values to nurture

22
Film

• Parenting matters
• Be consistent, act as role models
• Kids should see others treated with respect
  compassion, not indifference insensitivity
• Tell children that they are valued

23
III. Big THEMES ISSUES

• 1. Nature Nurture
• 2. Continuity Discontinuity
• 3. Universal Norms Individual Differences

24
3 Big THEMES

• in Child Development
• Reflect different assumptions about human nature
• understanding whats normal not normal
• influences how we raise, educate our children
• Provide broad context for understanding
• theories and findings

25
1. NATURE NURTURE

• Issue
• To what extent is behaviour development the
  result of
• biological (genetic) make-up
• or experience with the world?
• Is heredity or environment more NB?
• In what domains?
• At what ages?

26
Whats nature whats nurture?

• 1st son Paul easy-going, cheerful, easily
  consoled by holding or rocking
• Parent thinks must be my good parenting
• 2nd son John spent 1st year being cranky fussy,
  easily irritated, hard to soothe
• Is it insensitive parenting?
• No.
• Good parenting biological influences

27
Nature Nurture

• Major aim of research in Child Development
• to identify how each contributes to CD.
• Influences how we raise our children

28
NATURE

• Maturationists say behaviour is determined mainly
  by genes biology.
• Implications
• would think preschool programs not beneficial.
• Shy children not expected to be sociable
• Parents work with the temperament

29
NURTURE

• Environmentalists emphasize role of experience,
  social environment, and school.
• Implications
• Focus on parenting practices education
• Believe early education is beneficial
• Shyness - we can encourage a shy child to be
  more outgoing

30
2. CONTINUITY DISCONTINUITY

• Issue How does change occur?
• Smooth and gradual with no abrupt shifts along
  path (continuous)?
• Or divided into qualitatively different stages?

31
CONTINUOUS

• Emphasize quantitative change in the amount,
  frequency, or degree
• Eg, Growth in size, growth of memory
• Eg, increase in number of steps infant takes
• Each new change builds on earlier ones in an
  orderly way in small increments
• gradual expanding, nothing abrupt

32
DISCONTINUOUS

• Emphasize qualitative change
• Each stage different from previous ones.
• Results in new characteristics emerging
• can't be reduced to previous elements
• eg. egg ? caterpillar ? cocoon ?butterfly
• Eg, Piaget's theory of cognitive development
• Emphasizes change in quality of childs thinking
• Eg, Difference in the quality of thinking between
  a toddler and a school-age child

33
Implications for how predictable development is
over age

• Continuity
• Early development related to later development
• Discontinuity
• less predictable over age.
• Is the happy, cheerful 5-yr old same at 12?
• If so, great
• If not, are there similar, additional problems?
• or qualitative changes?

34
3. UNIVERSAL NORMS INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

• Issue
• Does development follow the same sequence of
  events?
• Or unique developmental pathways?

35
UNIVERSAL NORMS

• Same developmental sequence
• All children develop in same sequence regardless
  of culture and experiences.
• Examples
• Motor milestones sit, stand, walk
• Language coo, babble, single words, phrases

36
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

• Unique developmental pathways
• Different paths based unique personal experiences
  
• Eg., not all infants crawl, but all walk
• Eg, IQ - varies at different ages
• Leapfrogging sometimes low, middle, top of pack
  
• Take different pathways
• Implications
• How do the different pathways predict outcomes?
• Eg, Does development follow stable or volatile
  paths?
• Eg, Child who does well one year and poorly next
• versus child who does average the whole time

37
Conclusion

• Weve gone through some basic ideas
• Why do we study development
• Saw experts views
• Talked about big themes and issues
• Lots more details in coming weeks!
• Next Week
• Read Chapters 1 2
• Hand out first assignment