Intro To Developmental Notes

Nativist	Descartes Chomsky Spelke	Innate Pre-programmed
Empiricist	Locke Bandura Gopnik	Environmental influence observing/ culture
Neuro-Constructivist	Plomin Karmiloff-Smith	Nature AND Nurture reciprocal influence

Critical Periods

Lorenz = degree of imprinting depends on distance travelled and age

Active Experience

Held & Hein: active > passive learning

passive kittens failed tests

Methods

Observations	Eg Strange Situations
Looking tasks	Eg Fantz: if child looks longer at 1 side tell diff between patterns Preference and habituation tasks ie preverbal
Neural measures	EEG/ NIRS/ fMRI

Individual differences important

PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT neural measures

Orientation Perception	Braddick	3wks	Certain cells look out for certain orientations
Motion Perception	Wattam-Bell	10wks low speeds 13wks high speeds	Direction/ Distance/ Speed
Depth Perception	Braddick & Atkinson	11-13wks Improves w/in 4-5wks onset	Stereopsis ie binocular disparity

MOTOR DEVELOPMENT: Thelen Adolph

Previously thought MD = progress through rigid stages

Now = dynamic: flexible but limited by physical development 2 stages simultaneously/regress/skip = continuous

Gesell & Ames: 23 stages

Cross-cultural diff eg Jamaica – buried up to knees in sand; Bali – bamboo rail for balance

Role of Experience

Adolph: infants 9000 steps/day

Whether a baby will walk down a slope/cross a barrier depends on walking experience, not age

Visual Cliff: Gibson & Walk

Visual cues = depth drop

Touch cues = safety

Animals who walk earlier = success earlier by avoiding drop

Edge avoided by 7-8 months: 35% inexperienced crawlers

65% experienced crawlers

Experience necessary for learning visual cues

Role of Context

Does physical context determine motor behaviour? Thelen, Fisher & Ridley-Johnson

• Baby held over table usually 4wk old stepping reflex gone

• Stepping with weights reduces stepping frequency

• Stepping in water increases stepping frequency

stepping limited by muscle strength

Does visual context determine motor behaviour? Lee & Aronson

• Swinging/moving room – mvt creates illusion infants are swaying

• Infants sway/fall use visual info to keep balance

ATTACHMENT

Bowlby: attachment to primary caregiver = innate: monotropy

Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis: breaking bond before 5y/o, especially 6m/o-3y/o aggression/depression etc – even PT work

Birth-6wks	Pre-attachment	Orineting to anyone
6wks - 6-8mnths	Making attachment	Orienting to primary CG
6-8mnths – 18-24mnths	‘Clear cut’ attachment	Close to primary CG Separation protest Stranger fear
18-24mnths	Forming reciprocal rel	Accommodates mother’s needs

Internal Working Model: child’s beliefs of trust, own value and social effectiveness

Strange Situation: Ainsworth & Bell

Scored on:

• Proximity and contact seeking

• Contact maintaining

• Avoidance of proximity

• Resistance to contact

Type A: Insecure Avoidant	Independent – not distressed by Mum absence No M play but plays with stranger
Type B: Secure	Mum = secure based Distressed on M absence Happy on M return
Type C: Insecure resistant/Ambivalent	Little exploring, afraid of stranger V distressed when M leaves M returns clingy yet resistant Mum = inconsistent
Type D: Insecure disorganized Main & Solomon	Inconsistent/ contradictory – fear of parent Parent = fear, yet only source of safety (van Ijzendoorn) Related to drug abuse/ maltreatment

	% infants in each category
	Original	Newer
Secure	70	62
Avoidant	20	15
Resistant/Ambivalent	10	9
Disorganised	x	15

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Genetics	14%
Shared family environment	32%
Non-shared environment	53%

O’Connor & Croft: 70% MZ 64% DZ concordance attachment style

NICHD:

High quality care = high linguistic and cognitive scores until 11y/o

Lots of childcare = high aggression

Maternal Sensitivity Hypothesis: mother’s response to infant determines attachment

correlated with attachment r=0.24

MIND-MINDEDNESS: Meins

Mother responds with appropriate content to child

Eg response to gaze change/ object-directed action

M talks about object of infant’s attention

Maternal responsiveness related to attachment security

Appropriate comments strongly related to attachment security

discriminates between insecure avoidant and ambivalent

FIRST YEAR: BASIC PHONOLOGY

Phonology = ability to make sense of incoming speech stream

Innate: DeCasper & Prescott:

8/10 3day olds sucked more when hearing Mum’s voice

learned rhythm/ intonation/ accent in utero no preference for Dad’s voice

Preferred ‘cat in hat’ over other stories rhythm

Early learning 1^st year

Eimas: by 1-2m/o can discriminate phonemes b d g

Perceptual Narrowing: Werker & Tees = lose ability to discriminate speech sounds which are not in own language

Motherese = high pitch, slow pace, exaggerated intonations aids understanding

infants prefer to normal speech

Before 1y/o = first speech-like behaviours:

• Echolalia (mamama)

• Babbling

• Gesture

• Turn-taking

not to convey meaning - aids social interaction

FIRST WORDS usually concrete nouns

May group thigs with same function (spoon/ fork) or share features (moon/ ball)

Little grammar gestures supplement for this

Gleitman: Synaptic bootstrapping = children use a grammatical distinction to assign meanings to words use grammatical context

Context helps learn meaning

GRAMMAR

Vocab spurt = 18m/o

Telegraphic speech = combine words into 2 word utterances who dat?

Parents recasting improves grammar ie respond and expand on child’s comment

encourages more complex utterances: Nelson

Berko: children showed 1 item with novel name will automatically label 2

Rules leads to overregularisation: rigidly apply rules elsewhere

U-shaped development pattern: use correct forms, overregularise, use correct forms again

Chomsky: some language innate – nouns/ verbs and plurals

Language Acquisition Device = extract grammar regularities from speech hypotheses

...

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Intro to Social and Developmental Psych (1st year) Notes.