DEP 3103 Exam 1 - Lecture notes 1-3 PDF

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Chapter 1: Enduring Themes in Child Development Seven Enduring Themes: ➔ Nature vs Nurture ➔ The active child: how do children shape their own development? ➔ Continuity/discontinuity: In what ways is development continuous or discontinuous? ➔ Mechanisms of change: how does change occur? ➔ The sociocultural context: how does the sociocultural context influence development? ➔ Individual differences: how do children become so different from one another? ➔ Research and Children’s welfare: how can research promote children’s well being? Nature vs. Nurture: ➔ Nature is biology, you cannot change ➔ Nurture is your environment, your culture, society ◆ What you are exposed to ➔ How do we study it? ◆ Twin studies, identical vs fraternal twins ➔ Individual choices also play a part in nature and nurture ➔ Who wins in nature vs nurture? ◆ They work together ◆ Genome influences nurture ◆ Environment influences genome ◆ “Developmental outcomes emerge from the constant bidirectional interaction between nature and nurture” The Active Child: ➔ How do children shape their own development? ◆ Depends on where they are in development ➔ Children play with things that catch their attention, whatever keeps their attention helps them learn ➔ Language use ◆ They really can shape their own development when it comes to this ◆ The more language they use and is reinforced by their environment helps them learn it ➔ Play ◆ Huge part in how they influence their own development ◆ Imaginal play helps development as well

Continuity vs. Discontinuity ➔ Continuous is something that happens gradually ➔ Discontinuous is something that is in clear cut stages (caterpillar to butterfly) ➔ Stage theories (Piaget’s theory of Cognitive development) which is discontinuous ◆ Development of thinking and reasoning ➔ Continuous is changes between the stages are more gradual ➔ Evidenced by children being able to act in one stage on one task and another on another task ➔ Depends on how you look and how often individual Mechanisms of Change: ➔ Already said that genes and environment work together but how ➔ Interplay between brain structures and genes allowing for the expression of neurotransmitters and brain processes. ➔ Brain structures The influence of sociocultural context: ➔ Components of sociocultural context which influence the child’s life ◆ The people with whom they interact ◆ They physical environment in which they live ◆ The institutions that influence their lives ◆ The general characteristics of the society ➔ Study this through cross cultural comparisons ◆ Take two cultures and two cultural rituals and compare them Individual DIfferences: ➔ Factors that contribute to individual differences? ◆ Genetic differences ◆ Differences in treatment by parents and others ◆ Differences in reactions to similar experiences ◆ Different choices of environments Research and Children’s Welfare: ➔ Research can help with education, making sure educational system that promotes learning in children ➔ Can be used to develop tools ➔ Help medical advancements

➔ Could be detrimental if research comes out with misinformation or says something unusual that many people believe that can be wrong. The Scientific Method: ➔ Starts with a theory which turns into a hypothesis (testable statement of what we predict) ◆ Null or alternate hypothesis is a prediction that there is no relationship between these two variables ( you want to reject the null hypothesis) ➔ Then that bring us to our study (case study, experimental, correlational) ➔ Then we perform our experiment, then we have our observation ➔ Empirical evidence is based on structured observation, experience or experimentation… not theory. ➔ Keys to conducting scientifically sounds research: ◆ Reliability (consistency repeatability of a measure) inter-rater reliability. Test-retest reliability (test someone later to see if get the same results) ◆ Validity (how accurately the measure captures characteristics the researcher is trying to study. ●

Internal validity: study conditions (how was the study conducted) the degree to which conditions internal to the design of the study. Do these conditions permjit an accurate test of the resear’s hypothesis?\

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External validity: the degree to which researchers findings are generalized to settings and participants outside the original study

➔ Why is it important to have good methodology? ◆ Replication, replication, replication ◆ Having a diverse sample ●

Generalizability

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Eliminating pre-existing noise variables

◆ Famous example: The Chicago Tribune ➔ Common methods of gathering data: ◆ Systematic observation ●

Naturalistic observation

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Structured observation

◆ Self-reports (sometimes impossible to observe specific behaviors) ●

Interviews or questionnaires

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Survey Data- can provide more specific info about life as it really occurs ○

Unstructured= conversational, flexible

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Structured= same questions, same way

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Clinical interviews= semi-structured (ask follow up questions)

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Drawback- people can lie

➔ Correlational Designs: ◆ Tend to be used when not possible or feasible to assign participants to conditions ◆ Looks at association between participant characteristics’ and behavior/development ➔ Experimental Designs: ◆ Random assignment, dependent variable (the outcome we’re looking for, what we measure), independent variables (what experimenter manipulates) ➔ Research designs for examining child development: ◆ What is the unique challenge facing researchers who are studying child development? ●

Children age and mature

◆ Designs for examining development ●

Longitudinal (the same participants are studies at least two times over a length of time) ○

Pros: common patterns and individual differences in development relationship between early and later events and behaviors

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Cons: age related changes may be distorted due to: biased sampling, selective attrition (quitting), practice effects, (participants remember how to do task) cohort effects (

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Cross sectional (research method in which participants at different ages are compared on a given behavior, a characteristic over a short period of time)

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Microgenetic (same participants over short period of time) ○

How scientists watch certain skills develop

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Repeated test sessions with a child who is about to develop a certain skill

Chapter 2: Prenatal Development Early Theories of Prenatal Development ➔ Preformation- originally accepted by the mass ( a set of really tiny body parts) ➔ Second early theory is epigenesis: ◆ Introduced by Aristotle and it was the idea against preformation Genetics ➔ Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, 23 from mother, 23 from father

➔ XX- sex chromosomes- biologically females ➔ XY- biologically male ➔ Each parent provides a gamete (an egg or sperm) ➔ When egg is fertilized by sperm, becomes zygote getting all 46 chromosomes ➔ Zygote starts to rapidly multiply and split apart (first two weeks) ➔ Zygote turns into an embryo ➔ After 9 weeks, becomes a fetus until birth The Course of Prenatal Development ➔ Prenatal development: ◆ Lasts approximately 38-40 erred ◆ Begins with fertilization, ends with birth ➔ Period of zygote: ◆ Lasts approximately two weeks ●

Implantation occurs between 7th and 9th day

◆ Starts out as a single cell, by the fourth day there could be 60 to 70 cells ◆ Placenta- permits food, oxygen and water to reach developing organism, carries waste away ●

Also acts as a barrier (semi permeable)

◆ Umbilical cord- delivers blood and nutrients, removes waste ➔ Embryonic Period: ◆ Starts around week 3 ◆ Most rapid period, things start to form ➔ Fetal Period ◆ Starts about the 10th week ◆ Growing and finishing phase, longest prenatal period ◆ From about the 9th week to end of pregnancy ◆ Increases rapidly in size ◆ Third month ●

Lungs begin to expand contract as if they're breathing, but not really

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Behavioral capacities (kick, bend arms, open and close hands, open and close mouth, thumb sucking)

◆ 12 week can see sex of baby ◆ Completion of first trimester ●

One of three equal periods of prenatal development

Zygote to baby: ➔ Step 1: Mitosis ◆ DNA replicated, then cell division and form two identical daughter cell ◆ Cells in mitosis are identical to each other, just cell division ➔ Step 2: Cell Migration ◆ When new cells from mitosis move away from their point of origin ◆ They're starting to move from where they started ➔ Step 3: Cell Differentiation ◆ Cells start to become different and get their own functions ◆ Stem cells that start all the same, start to find their purpose and change shape ◆ They may be interchangeable (theory- depends on which genes just become ‘switched on’, which genes becomes expressed) ●

Other theories believe its the location of the cell

➔ Step 4: Apoptosis ◆ Programmed Cell Death ◆ If apoptosis does not happen may leave people to have webbed fingers Development: ➔ All of fetal development occurs in the cephalocaudal way ➔ Head starts to form first ➔ Brain is the most important, that’s why it has to start forming early Fetal Behavior: ➔ The fetus is an active participant in and contributor to its own development ◆ Movement ●

Reflexes ○

Swallowing

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Hiccups

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Kicking

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Sucking thumb

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Fetal breathing

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Many more

➔ By 12 weeks old, fetus has almost all the movements present at birth ➔ Some fetuses are much more active, while others are more sedentary ◆ Individual differences ◆ Continuity

Fetal Experience: ➔ Five senses, hearing and touch come first ➔ A lot of tactical stimulation ➔ Minimal vision experience ➔ Taste: amniotic fluid contains a variety of flavors, and a fetus can detect them ◆ Fetus tends to have a sweet tooth ➔ Smell: fluid has smell as well ➔ Fetus gets a lot of auditory stimulation Learning: ➔ Basic concepts of learning: ◆ Habituation (getting used to something) ◆ Dishabituation ➔ How can we sense learning? ◆ If you shake something near a newborn baby, it’s head will turn towards it, indicating interest ◆ Also, heart rat4e slowsl. ◆ Habituation would occur if this shaking continued, the baby’s heart rate increased again and it would likely turn away ◆ Dishabituation would occur if the rattle started shaking to a different beat ◆ The heart rate would slow again, showing continued interest ➔ Can also learn mother’s voice ➔ Smells from in the womb ➔ Flavors and foods that the mother ate while pregnant Placenta ➔ Permits the exchange of materials carried in the bloodstream to the fetus and it’s mother ➔ Semipermeable, acting as a barrier ◆ Allows some elements through and not others ➔ Defensive barrier- but not perfect ➔ Some hazards can get through it also ◆ Teratogens: any environmental agent causing damage during prenatal period ◆ Influencing factors: ●

Dose, hereditary, other negative influences, age at time of experience

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Embryonic period is the most damage that can be done by teratogens, minor during fetal period

Teratogens: ➔ Timing is everything ➔ Sensitive period: a limited time span when a body part or a behavior is biologically prepared to develop rapidly ◆ Especially sensitive to surroundings ◆ Damage during these periods are more difficult to recover from ➔ Dose- response relation ◆ Depending on dose the more severe that damage can be ➔ Examples: ◆ Mercury poisoning ◆ Thalidomide- a drug used in the 60s to treat morning sickness and was believed to be safe and not pass placenta ●

Women gave birth to children with severe birth defects (limb issues)

◆ Drugs, alcohol, accutane, birth control, pollutants ➔ Sleeper Effects: ◆ When baby is not born with defect but comes after a while Maternal Factors: ➔ Characteristics of the mother can affect prenatal development ➔ Maternal age ➔ nutrition ➔ Diseases

Chapter 3: Biology and Behavior Basic Definitions: ➔ Genotype: ◆ The complex blend of genetic info that determines species and influences unique characteristics ➔ Phenotype: ◆ Directly observable features and characteristics Genetic Code: ➔ Genome: ◆ An organism’s complete set of DNA, including all genes ◆ Each genome contains all info needed to make an individual member of a species ➔ Chromosome:

◆ Where DNA and genetic material is packaged ◆ 46 chromosomes, 23 pairs ➔ Autosome ◆ 22 autosomes ➔ Sex chromosomes ◆ XX or XY determines biologically male or female (XX) ◆ 23 pair of chromosomes Pattern of Genetic Inheritance: ➔ Allele: a variant form of gene ◆ Dominant and recessive alleles ➔ Homozygous: having two identical alleles at the same place on a pair of chromosome ➔ Heterozygous: having two different alleles at the same place on a pair of chromosomes ➔ Some genes are dominant and some are recessive ➔ Dominant recessive inheritance: ◆ Only 1 allele affects a child’s characteristics ●

example/ hair color: blonde recessive

➔ Carrier: a heterozygous individual with one recessive trait ◆ Can pass trait to offspring ➔ Punnett squares: ◆ (B)rown and (b)lue eyes at top, B and blue at left ●

First box left: BB

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Right box top: Bb

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Left box bottom: Bb

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Right box bottom: bb

◆ In order to have recessive phenotype, you have to be homozygous ●

Because there's a 50% chance the child will be heterozygous

◆ If two heterozygous parents, there's a 75% chance, child will have same phenotype as them ●

25% chance that there’ll be homozygous, but 75% chance that they’ll have the same phenotype as the parents

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25% chance that they will have the recessive phenotype because both parents are carriers

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If you have recessive phenotype, means you are homozygous recessive

◆ Two heterozygous parents (Bb), one of their four kid will be BB (25% homozygous) two will be Bb(50% chance, two of their children heterozygous), one of their four children homozygous recessive bb, blonde hair (25%)

Dominant Recessive Inheritance: PKU Example: ➔ Phenylketonuria: a rare inherited disorder that affects how the body breaks down certain proteins founds in various foods ➔ Typically genetic ➔ A lot of it is nurture as well, need to eat certain things ➔ You have to have recessive trait to have it ➔ Two parents that are carriers (runs in family), both heterozygous (neither have it because you have to have recessive trait to have it) ◆ 75% chance that their children won’t get it (normal= no chance of passing it on to their children) ◆ 50% chance that a child would not have PKU but have availability to carry it on to their children if later their partner is a carrier ●

50% of their children are going to be homozygous, one is going to be homozygous dominant, and one homozygous recessive.

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50% of their chance that their child will be heterozygous as well

◆ 25% chance one of their children will get homozygous recessive allele and have PKU ◆ You have to be homozygous recessive in order to have PKU and both parents have to be carriers. The odds are pretty low is why it's a rare inherited disorder ◆ Neither dad nor mom has PKU, but both carry the trait. On Average, 25% of their children will have PKU Gene Environment Interaction: ➔ Parents have a certain genotype that is passed onto the child ➔ Determines the child's genotype which then determines child’s phenotype ➔ Often times, phenotype interacts with environment ➔ Parents phenotype can affect child’s environment ➔ Environment can affect a child’s genotype (environment can cause depression, affection genotype) ➔ More affects a child development, beyond his or her genes, environment matters too Polygenic Inheritance: ➔ Characteristics inherited on a continuum ◆ Heigh, weight, intelligence, personality ➔ Determined by many genes ➔ Most characteristics are polygenic inheritance ➔ Environment can affect polygenic traits Heredity, Environment and Behavior:

➔ All contemporary researchers agree hereditary and environment influence every aspect of development ➔ Behavioral genetics= field that studies the contributions of nature and nurture to diversity in human traits and abilities ➔ Heritability = extent to which individual differences in a specific population are due to genetic factors ◆ Between .00-1.00 How are genetics best tested? ➔ Twin studies ➔ Fraternal are dizygotic, from two different zygotes ➔ Fertilization cell, zygote ➔ Monozygotic twins start off as a single zygote, then the zygote splits and forms two separe zygote that have exact same genetic material and then form separately Twins: a unique opportunity ➔ Environments ◆ Expected to be very similar ➔ Genes ◆ Identical twins ●

Share all genes

◆ Fraternal twins ●

Share about half geens

➔ If identical twins are more alike than fraternal twins then due to genetics ➔ Alzheimer’s: how alike are they? (genetic influence)

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Identical twins: 60%

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Fraternal twins: 30%

Elementary math: (little genetic influence) ○

Identical twins: 91%

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Fraternal twins: 81%

Genes and Development: ➔ Genes turn on and off throughout development ➔ “Canalization” = non learned skills (babbling) ➔ Learned skills ◆ Heredity and environment ●

Bidirectional influence

How Do genes and environments work together? ➔ Passive gene environment (G-E) correlation ◆ Parents supply the home environment and genes ➔ Active G-E correlation ◆ Individuals select certain environments in part because of genes ➔ Evocative G-E correlation ◆ Others respond to individuals because of their genes Neuron ➔ Dendrite: ◆ part of the neuron that is then connected to other neurons, receiving signals from the neuron. Short branch extension of nerve cell which impulses receive from other cells at the synapse that is transmitted to cell ➔ Synapse: ◆ Signal turns from electrical to chemical. End of an axon connects with dendrite (small gap between them) ➔ Nucleus: ◆ Membrane bound structure that contains all genes and genetic informations, control center ➔ Axon terminal: ◆ End of the axon, that makes connections with other nerve cells. Connects to dentrie to other nerve cell to keep signal going ➔ Soma: ◆ Cell body ➔ Myelin Sheath: ◆ Fatty white substance that surrounds axon and forms an insulated layer for proper functioning of the nervous system. Helps signal go faster ➔ Schwann cell: ◆ Makes myelin sheath Brain Development: ➔ Synaptic Pruning: ◆ Neurons which don’t form a connection with others over time die off ➔ We are born with 100 to 200 billion neurons ➔ Remove excess connection, some die over time because not needed Cerebral Cortex:

➔ Largest, most complex structure in the human rain ➔ Makes possible the unique intelligence of our species ➔ A lot of folds ➔ Accounts for 85% of brain’s weight ➔ Contains greatest number of neurons and synapses ➔ Last brain structure to stop growing ◆ Sensitive to environmental influences for longer than any other part of the brain Regions of Cerebral cortex: ➔ Different regions have specific functions ➔ Development corresponds to emerging capacities in infancy and childhood ➔ Frontal lobes most extended development ◆ Thought: consciousness, reasoning, planning, problem solving Lateralization of cerebral Cortex: ➔ Two hemispheres of brain “left or right” is not true ➔ No research behind it ➔ Lateralization can be a little bit real: ◆ One...