DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCH EXAM 2
Piaget's theory
(birth to 24 months) ****1st to say it encompassed both brain development and experience 1. Greater leap from birth to 2 cognitively than perhaps the rest of life 2. Piaget's assumptions: a. Development is driven by both biological maturation & experience b. Child actively constructs knowledge of the world like a "little scientist"***** certain things are innate: reflexes,
combining(coodination of secondary circular reactions
*** child combines two or more secondary circular reactions to achieve goals. Begins to imitate novel behavior. Video examples (Lauren being tested at the table in Mom's lap): - Smoother secondary circular reactions: Goal Is to get ring in mouth, if not, doing intermediate steps to get there*** Also saw imitating novel behavior, lauren repeated action righ away - Coordination (or sequencing) of secondary circular reactions (goal-directed behavior): Object permanence emerges at 7-9 months, but limited by the A-not-B error. Piaget: the infant doesn't have a full symbolic representation of the object. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhHkJ3InQOE They don't have a full object permananece concept, don't really realize it exists
primary circular reactions
*** primary circular reaction: infant repeats an interesting act centered on her/his own body. Infant will not search for an object if it disappears from view. Video examples: primary because centered on infants body*** Infant repeats an interesting act centered on her/his own body. Infant will not search for an object if it disappears from view. child repeat things over and over once they discover something why is she loosening grasp and grasping it? Simple because she can! So keep doing it
simple reflexes
*** reflexes present from the prenatal period are modified as a result of continued use. Video example: reflexes become smoother and more organized, but still reflexes video:Baby: looked towards noise, grasped rattle, **** reflexes present from the prenatal period are modified as a result of continued use.
Despite early understanding that objects continue to exist when hidden, as demonstrated by Baillargeon's studies, why do babies not search for hidden objects, and why do they make the A-not-B error? Explain how gradual development of working memory and long term memory for events, as well as improvements in executive functions, housed in the prefrontal cortex, such as planning and executing responses and inhibiting old responses, may underlie Piaget's stages of development of the object concept and other skills in infancy.
***If infants understand the object is still there at 3 ½ months why to they make errors in object searching tasks at stage 3 (no search) and 4 (A-not-B error)? Cognitive neuroscientists have alternative explanations for Piaget's stages, as gradual growth of: working memory (ability to maintain object in memory while organizing search) executive functions (ability to plan, execute plan, and inhibit old responses)1 hypothesis: working memory is just getting better*** Several factors at work in the months when searching behavior improves. One factor is the growth of working memory and long-term memory for events. In addition, searching requires the ability to plan and execute responses, and to inhibit responses that previously worked. Planning, and holding information in memory and executing some but not all responses, enlist prefrontal areas of the brain that are undergoing rapid development at 8-12 months.
Explain the concept of object permanence and Piaget's claims about development of this concept (going back through the stages. Describe how experiments using the violation of expectation method (the "possible" and "impossible" events shown in the video with Renee Baillargeon in class) reveal that infants understand that objects have solidity and permanence many months before Piaget claimed that they did.
***Renee Baillargeon challenged Piaget-thought it made no sense that babies had no sense of objects, because tended to remember moms, etc Renee: child expects that block is still there and should stop the train We still cant explain why if they have object permanence, Object Permanence: a test of the infant's ability to find hidden objects. Piaget attracted the baby's attention to an object and hid it. Infants can find the object for the first time at substage 4, by combining two schemas, such as pushing aside a screen then grabbing the object, or pulling a cover off the object in order to retrieve it. Piaget would hide an object in location A and allow infant to retrieve it multiple times. Then he would hide the object in A then hide it in location B within full view of the infant, but infants still search ar A for object. The ability to search for hidden objects indicates infants are beginning to form mental representations. Renee Baillargeon said it didn't make sense that babies have no object permanence because they remember their mothers. Concludes that infants as young as 3.5 months have object permanence and understand that objects continue to exist when hidden (Train with blocked block example)
assimilation
**internal cognitive structure that provides you with procedure for how to behave in specific circumstances *** interpreting experience by means of existing schemas
Cognitive equilibrium
- balancing assimilation & accommodation to better fit the world, child is always trying to reach this the degree to which the infant can act successfully or unsuccessfully on his or her environment
31. What are thought to be the primary reasons for the large increase in the rate of ASD in the population?
-Increased awareness among parents, teachers, and clinicians -Improved identification, i.e., broadening of diagnostic definition in DSM includes milder cases However, no single explanation can account for such a steep rise in ASD rates! Genetic & environmental causes must be studied more extensively...
Explain what is involved in the skill of statistical learning, and what it contributes to the task of learning about language. How did the study of infants responses to Italian sentences discussed in class provide evidence for statistical learning (Lecture and ch. 5)
-Infants hear what seems to be a random string of sounds but they have the ability to segment the sounds into words. Took actual Italian sentences. Statistical learning: infants listening to a string of speech (speaking rapidly in a foreign language) & are capable of segmenting out the words, based on probability that certain sounds occur together. Ex. "hap" & "py" and "ba" & "by" go together more than "py" & "ba". Infants (7-8 months) appear to induce that "happy", "baby", etc are all words although they don't know what the words mean. Italian sentences: read sentences to babies, recorded how long babies looked at speaker with sound, babies looked longer at the speakers who had high transitional probability words.
CHAPTER 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
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Chapter 8 - "Cognitive Development in Early Childhood"
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Describe evidence from experiments on infants concepts of numbers that implicate the existence of an object tracking system. Describe the numerical estimation system and what researchers have found about infant capabilities. (ch. 5)
1 experiment: Wynn showed 5-month-old infants a mouse doll on a stage and a screen was raised to hide the mouse. Next a hand holding an identical doll was behind the screen and reappeared without he dolls. In the possible event the screen was lowered and 2 dolls were revealed. Impossible event- one doll was revealed. Infants look longer when only one doll. 2nd experiment: began with 2 dolls, screened them off, removed one, and then showed 1 or 2 dolls when the screen was lowered. Infants would stare longer at two doll displays. Babies can keep track of up to 3 objects on the stage but can't tell the difference between 2 and 4 objects or 3 and 5 objects. Numerical estimation system: as long as the number of items is in a 1:2 ratio, infants can distinguish approximate number both at a behavioral level and in terms of EEG response patterns of the brain (infants can distinguish between arrays for 8 vs. 16 dots but not 8 vs 12)
summary of ideas on piaget
1. Piaget's sensorimotor stages: good description of normal everyday behavioral abilities 2. Infants begin to understand many of these concepts earlier than Piaget thought 3. But it takes them a while to apply the understanding in many real-world situations
Which aspects of the attachment relationship seem to be found in all countries and cultures studied, and what factors in different cultures might lead to variations in security of attachment or the way in which the attachment behavioral system works (refer class video on Oct 1)?
1. The most common pattern across cultures is secure attachment to the mother. 2. The core features (using mother as a base) are found in all cultures. 3. Particular features of infant behavior related to attachment may vary across cultures. In the Israeli kibbutz, infants are raised in communal kibbutzim, where the practice was for infants to sleep in a common room away from the parents. They had the lowest rate of secure attachment (56%), possibly because they had a variety of caregivers in this setting. Infants in traditional cultures, not North American/Western culture, do not necessarily show stranger/separation anxiety. Beng people of the Ivory Coast, infants trained to be friendly to new people, not much stranger anxiety.
Dyadic coordination
1st of the five phases in emotional development, when infants coordinate their emotional exchanges with another person, infants display three interpretable emotional states: contentment, interest, and distress. They are shown from differences in facial expression, body posture and activity, and vocalizations (crying).
How early can infants form perceptual categories? When does the evidence clearly support the development of conceptual categories (i.e., categories that are based on the functions of a an object, rather than just the visible parts)? (ch. 5).
3-4 month old infants shown a series of pictures of cats reacted to a test stimulus of a dog as novel and another cat as familiar. By 14 months, there is clear evidence that infants can use conceptual categories. Ex. after testing children to see whether they know the names of objects, researchers asked them to put objects into a pile based on category names (children can do this successfully). Few months late, children can use categorical knowledge as they play with toys.
22. What is the association between spending time in childcare outside the home and security of mother-infant attachment? Under what conditions are mothers and infants most likely to be attached? Why might the daycare experience in infancy not lead to a higher rate of insecure attachment to mothers who work outside the home? (Oct 1 and ch. 6)
60% of mothers now work outside of the home. Study conducted by the NICHD, families followed over time, had many different backgrounds. No difference in attachment was found for infants in non-maternal care vs. maternal care. Time spent in non-maternal care was only associated with insecure attachment when it was combined with less sensitive caregiving by mothers. The highest rate of insecure attachment occurred for infants who had both a mother and a primary childcare provider who were low in sensitivity and responsiveness.
What strategies used by parents and what cognitive capabilities help infants figure out the meanings of words between 6 and 12 months of age? (lecture and ch. 5)
A child of 6-8 months likely already knows that "doggie" is a sound-unit. In addition, the child likely has a perceptual category of "dog" by this age. When a parent uses the word "dog" in a joint attention situation, the infant can begin learning the meaning of the word "dog." Hearing the word"dog" in many contexts helps children determine that the word dog refers to the category, and not to a particular dog , or a particular breed of dog. Evidence of comprehension can be seen when asking infants "Where's Mommy?" or "where's Daddy?" 6 month old infants looked longer at the appropriate photo.
7. What is a possible biological difference between boys and girls in temperament and what is it source?
A possible biological difference is in hormones of males and females. There is animal evidence that administering testosterone leads to higher activity levels. Of all of the temperamental traits only activity level shows the strongest gender differences in infancy, with males being more active on the average. However, parents also typically encourage high activity levels with boys and more quiet activities with girls, so the differences could be partly environmental.
17. What does the evidence show about the correlational relationship of sensitivity-responsiveness to later attachment security? Describe evidence from experimental interventions of how sensitivity-responsiveness is linked to attachment security (Oct 1 and ch. 6)
A small but consistent correlation between mother's sensitivity-responsiveness and attachment security has been found in meta-analyses of dozens of studies conducted since Ainsworth's original observational study (De Wolff & van IJzendoorn et al., 1997; van IJzendoorn et al., 2004). The modest correlation suggests that there are additional factors that influence security of attachment. -There is now considerable experimental evidence that sensitive-responsive caregiving can be trained, and that improvements in parental sensitivity lead to a higher rate of secure attachments. The van den Boom (1994, 1995) intervention study discussed in the "Temperament" section shows sensitive-responsive caregiving can be modified by an intervention, with positive effects on later infant behavior, including secure attachments.
32. Is autism thought to be primarily based in biology or the social environment?
ASD is genetically based (heritable) Also some Speculative environmental factors: Insecticides, Air pollution, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)
What is Chomsky's language acquisition device? (lecture and ch. 5)
According to Chomsky, human beings are born with structures and mechanisms in the brain that are specifically designed for acquiring language. General term for this language learning capability was a language acquisition device.
25. What variables in childhood are related to secure and insecure attachments based on the results of longitudinal studies?
At age 4-5 years, children who were securely attached in infancy were rated by teachers as more socially competent, and more emotionally positive than children who were insecurely attached in infancy (either avoidant or ambivalent). At age 8 and 12 years, securely attached children were rated by observers as less aggressive and were more likely to develop close friendships with peers.
30. What are the two main characteristics used in the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)? (Oct 6 lecture and ch. 6)
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): a disorder involving 1. persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction and 2. restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities
What is the function of babbling in learning expressive language, and what transitions in babbling occur in the first 12 months?
Babbling: by 4-6 months infants have achieved enough control to combine consonants with vowel. Infants in all cultures make very similar sounds such as "da-da-da" and "gu-gu-gu". Cooing and babbling involve random discovery and repetition characteristic of Piaget's primary and secondary circular reactions. By 10-12 months, infants string syllables together into fluent streams that have the same rhythm and intonational patterns as their native languages. Scientists speculate that babbling allows the child to improve the coordination of the speech articulators, valuable skills that will be needed to pronounce words.
Emotional regulation
Between 6 and 12 months, infants have only a few strategies for emotional regulation, such as sucking their thumb, or seeking bodily contact with their primary caregiver. During the second year, toddlers develop more strategies due to increasing cognitive skills, as well as pressures from adults to control their emotions. These 6 strategies include communicating an emotion to an adult (as when a toddler points at a frightening object, seeking some sort of reassurance by an adult), distracting themselves by looking away from a frightening object, holding a comfort-object (such as a blanket) when distressed, and using language (such as a loud "mama!" when scared).
11. What function does the attachment behavioral system serve in the evolution of the human species, according to Bowlby? (Oct 1 and ch. 6)
Bowlby proposed that infants evolved to have an attachment behavioral system which is to ensure proximity to the caregiver. This proximity in turn maximized the infant's chances of survival to reproductive age in the early environment of humans.
How are semantic relationships used to describe children's utterances at the two word stage? (lecture, ch. 5)
Children are limited to short combinations of words because they have not yet cracked the syntactic rule system of their language and are using the words in a particular order that expresses semantic relationship between words, such as agent + action (Momma help). Other two word stage relationships include action + object, agent + object, action + location, entity + location, possessor + possession, attribute + entity, demonstrative + entity, negation + X
What basic capabilities of grammar seem to develop naturally in children if they are engaged in social interaction with adults, as shown by the studies of deaf children whose parents refused to teach them sign language? What limitations on their language progress were observed? (lecture, ch. 5)
Children who heard corrective recasts showed both immediate and long-term improvements in their grammatical use. Researchers found that even after using American Sign Language for 20 years or more, some individuals did not use subtle features of sign language grammar. This was more likely to be the case if they had not started learning sign language until adolescence or adulthood than if they started in childhood.
9. Explain the differential susceptibility hypothesis and give a research example (see Fig. 6.3)
Differential susceptibility hypothesis: the hypothesis that certain temperamental traits lead to greater responsiveness to both negative and positive environments Researchers have proposed that certain temperamental traits, such as temperamental difficulty, may predispose a child to be more susceptible to environmental influences. According to this view, temperamentally difficult children respond better than average to a positive environment, and worse than average to a negative environment. Children with a more average temperament do reasonably well in a wide range of environments.
What is explicit memory, and how does it develop from the latter part of the first year through the second year (i.e., to age 2)? What changes in the brain are thought to underlie changes in explicit memory? (ch. 5)
Explicit memory: the conscious deliberate recall of events or experiences. Between 9 - 24 months, infants gradually improve their ability to imitate adult actions after a delay. Example: 12 month olds who were shown adult actions briefly, but did not get a chance to imitate them right away, were able to repeat some of those actions a month later. Two year old were able to repeat the same type of actions up to 3 months after the initial exposure , and memory improves if infants are given practice at imitating actions.. Gradual improvements in explicit memory over this time period correlates with changes that are known to occur in regions of the brain associated with memory ( medial temporal lobes, prefrontal cortex, subcortical structure, hippocampus) between 6 months and 2 years. Undergoes changes including myelination & pruning throughout childhood and adolescence.
What does the case of Genie suggest about the importance of experience in learning language? (lecture, ch. 5)
Genie was locked in her room by her abusive mentally ill father from age 2-13. She was adopted for 4 years by a psychologist & underwent intensive interventions to teach her language and social skills. She learned vocabulary and nonverbal skills but her syntax never progressed beyond the level of the average two-year old child. The deprivation Genie experience made it difficult to determine whether her failure to master syntax was the result of lack of exposure to language, or a general result of extreme deprivation and abuse
8. Define goodness of fit and explain the van den Boom intervention studies showing how goodness of fit may operate in social development
Goodness of fit is the extent to which the environment accommodates for a given child's temperament and helps the child respond more adaptively to the environment. A Dutch researcher worked with economically distressed mothers whose infants were high in the temperamental trait of irritability,. She knew from past studies that many of these mothers would become discouraged about their parenting skills by the time the child reached 6 months of age, due to the child's persistent irritability. Accordingly, at 6 months of age, the researcher randomly assigned half of the infants and their mothers to an experimental intervention featuring three home visits designed to increase sensitivity and responsiveness. The other half did not receive the intervention. Observations showed that the intervention worked: not only did the intervention group of mothers become more sensitive and responsive to their infants, but 4 months after the intervention. One year later the mothers in the intervention group continued to behave more sensitively and positively toward their toddlers, and these toddlers showed more positive interactions with peers than toddlers in the control group (van den Boom, 1995). The intervention group of mothers had shown goodness of fit (responding sensitively to an irritable infant), whereas the control group had not, resulting in dramatic differences in development over the first two years.
What are holophrases, and how are they used by children? Give an example (lecture and ch. 5).
Holophrases: utterances in which a single word is used to capture a variety of meanings. Between 12-18 months, children's single word statements can have multiple meanings that extend beyond just a single words, depending on the context. Ex. Lauren's conversation- the single word utterance "Hold" could have been an instruction to herself, or to her mother, but she could also have been telling the doll to hold on, which is how her mother interpreted the statement
Explain briefly Piaget's stages in the development of imitation (chapter 5, Table 5.1, substages 3-6). What do more recent studies show about infants ability to imitate novel actions and their ability to retain the ability to imitate over time (deferred imitation (Ch. 5)?
Imitation developed with other sensorimotor abilities, with deferred imitation emerging only after 18 months. Ability to imitate novel behaviors after a delay emerges far earlier that Piaget claimed. Babies in an experimental group saw an investigator demonstrate novel actions with objects, such as lifting a flap with a hinge. A day later they imitated more of the target actions when allowed to handle demonstration objects than did a control group exposed to different action or not exposed to objects at all on the previous day. Infants at 14 months imitated up to 6 novel actions and retained ability to do so up to 4 months later. Infants also imitate puppets and people in videos, & improve between 6-19 months in ability to imitate actions in videos
Describe the earliest forms of memory observable in infants - implicit memory, as for example in habituation and operant conditioning (ch. 5)
Implicit memory: the largely unconscious learning of a response or skill. Young infants can become habituated to one type of stimulus in a study of visual or auditory perception and show increased responding to a different stimulus. They remember the first stimulus and can distinguish it from the second. Example with operant conditioning: infant's foot is connected to a mobile with a ribbon. When the infant kicks, the mobile moves. Infants at 2-6 months learn to kick one foot to make the mobile move and they retain this response for up to 2 weeks
Facial expressions of emotion
Infants around 6 months display facial expressions readily interpretable by adults from a variety of cultures.
How is the rate at which infants habituate to a new stimulus related to later cognitive scores, and what is the most common interpretation of this longitudinal correlation? (ch. 5)
Infants who habituate more quickly tend to have higher intelligence, reading, and math achievement scores at ages up to 18 years. No single explanation for this, but most common interpretation is that processes of memory and attention operate more efficiently in certain infants, and this enables them to learn more throughout their childhood, resulting in higher test scores.
24. Define the concept of internal working model and how modern researchers think attachment is related to later relationships such as friendships and romantic relationships?
Internal working model: a set of expectations about the caregiver's availability and reliability as a secure base. Researchers argue arguing that the expectations and habits of social interaction that infants form with their caregiver contribute to the formation of intimate relationships throughout life
What is joint attention and how does it help babies learn about language? (lecture and ch. 5)
Joint attention: adults and infants pay attention to the same object or event. Joint attention is typically observed at 9 months of age, & reflects infants' understanding that other people have intentions and goals. Mothers who have frequent periods of joint attention with their infants, attract the infants' attention to objects, and say the names of objects, tend to have infants who produce meaningful gestures and acquire new vocabulary words at an earlier age.
Chapter 5: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
Lectures: Sept 24 and 29 Readings: Manis Chapter 5
10. Explain Kagan's theory about the physiological (e.g., heart rate) and neurological (e.g., amygdala functioning) bases of behavioral inhibition (shyness) and describe changes with age in how shyness is expressed in behavior (Oct 6 lecture and ch. 6)
Longitudinal studies from infancy to adolescence have revealed higher arousal levels in novel situations for inhibited, as compared to uninhibited children. Inhibited children show greater jumps in heart rate, cortisol levels and blood pressure when moving from familiar to novel laboratory situations. Inhibited children also showed higher EEG activity in the right frontal lobe (associated with negative emotional reactions) and uninhibited children showed higher activity in the left frontal lobe (associated with positive emotions). All of these findings indirectly implicated the amygdala, because of its linkage to emotional response and control systems in the nervous system. Investigators have collected fMRI data on a sample of adolescents who had been classified as inhibited or uninhibited at age 2. The inhibited individuals showed a greater blood-flow response in the amygdala to novel stimulus conditions.
What differences between children's language emerge in low and high SES (socioeconomic status) homes and why are these thought to occur? (lecture, ch. 5)
MAnis:Children in high SES homes talk more and use more vocabulary. They're getting thousands more sentences and words. By kindergarten there's a large gap. Wendy: Children in welfare homes hear less than ⅓ as much language as children in working class families and professional families. By 3 years, the average number of words comprehended and spoken by the children in the two types of home environments differed enormously. Intervention studies with low income children reveal that training their mothers to read to them in an interactive style raised the IQ of children 2-3 years old by an average of 6 points, presumably because of increases in their expressive as well as receptive language and world knowledge.
What are some of the main categories of early words used by infants and how does it differ across language communities?
Main categories: people, familiar animals, body parts & clothing, moving objects, food & drink, household items, actions or refusals to act, games & routines, adjectives and descriptives. Children in all language communities tend to produce far more nouns than any other word type, most likely because concrete nouns are more easily named than actions. In languages that make frequent use of verbs, such as Korean and Chinese, the number of nouns and verbs in infants' speech is more nearly equal
Studies of children who don't learn sign language until later in life, and studies of second language learning provide some information about sensitive periods in language development. What can we conclude from these studies? (ch. 5)
Manis: Found that children who started earlier than age 7 ended up with a better understanding of sign language. They tested the people as adults, still weren't as good as people who started at age 4. Attempting to claim that there's a sensitive period for sign language Wendy: Researchers found that even after using American Sign Language for 20 years or more, some individuals did not use subtle features of sign language grammar. This was more likely to be the case if they had not started learning sign language until adolescence or adulthood than if they started in childhood. Studies of second language learners have not revealed a sharp cut-off age. Data from people who had been in the US for at least 10 years shows a gradual decrease in self rated language competence as the age of immigration increased, from infancy through adulthood with no sharp drop-offs at any particular age. True for people of wide-ranging educational levels.
Define and give an example of a phoneme, and explain infants' abilities to perceive phonemes in the first 6 months. How do these capabilities become refined between 6 and 12 months of age based on the studies of Janet Werker and colleagues? What does the study by Kuhl et al. (2003) of exposure to Mandarin speakers indicate about the kinds of experiences needed for infants to create perceptual categories for foreign speech sounds?
Manis: Initially the baby has the ability to perceive sound in all kinds of languages. Between 6-12 months they become better at perceiving sound in their own languages and worse at perceiving sounds in other languages. They start to specialize and prune out the connections for sound in other languages and strengthen the connections for own languages. Wendy: Phoneme: smallest meaningful units of sound in language. Examples: /b/ & /p/ like in bat and pat. Infants from any language community can make /b/ and /p/ distinction in the first 6 months. Werker and her colleagues have shown that the ability to perceive phonemes in one's own language improves dramatically by 9-12 months. They also have the ability to distinguish among the phonemes of a foreign language diminishes. 9 month old American infants who had heard only English were given a dozen 20-30 minute sessions in which they were exposed to speaker of Mandarin, who spoke in ways that engage the infants' attention to them and to objects and books in the environment. Infants quickly learned Mandarin phoneme distinctions that were not found in English.
Identify three major features of infant directed speech and how they may help infants pay attention to language, identify the words, and understand adult speech. (lecleature and ch. 5)
Manis:Repeated words: If you're talking to the child and you say "Lets play with the dog" "do you want to play with the dog" ... etc, repetition helps the child see how words fit together & grammar, they can put it in a question or statement, different forms of grammar. Also helps them learn vocabulary Wendy:General term for the way adults talk to infants is infant-directed speech. Analyses of adult speech to children reveal a number of features that may help infants learn language. Across many language , IDS has shorter sentences, more clearly articulated words, repeated words and phrases, higher pitch , more variable pitch and exaggerated stress, all of which may help infants notice and separate out words from the stream of speech. Infants pay more attention to this type of speech from an early age.
How does Gottlieb's concept of the developmental manifold help us understand why virtually all children with a normal brain raised in a normal environment become fluent speakers of one or more languages? (ch. 5)
Manis:Whether you're learning one or two languages the same principles apply.The deaf children who invent their own signs shows what the brain can do by itself. You're not going to learn fluent language. Kids get semantic relations with their own signs they invent but they don't get the more complex parts of language (ex. conjunctions). Wendy: Developmental manifold may help organize the information we have at present on biological and environmental contributions to language. Children in all cultures and language communities are born with the capacity to understand and produce language, and they will develop it in a fixed sentence as long as they are in an environment where they can communicate and interact socially with others, and in which they can develop normal cognitive abilities. Some of the techniques children use to learn language may be "built-in" to the human brain. Every culture provides tools that children use to develop mature language, in the form of a complex, fully functional adult language, and a supportive social and communicative environment. The development of language seems effortless and natural but that may be because we "inherit" not only genes for language learning and a brain suited to language, but also the social and cultural environment to support it.
18. What patterns of maternal behavior were associated with insecure-avoidant and insecure-ambivalent attachment patterns? (Oct 1 and ch. 6)
Mothers of insecure-avoidant infants tend to be intrusive into the baby's activities, or rejecting of the infant's social overtures. Mothers of insecure-ambivalent infants tend to be unaffectionate and inconsistent - sometimes they respond, and sometimes they ignore the baby's needs.
29. Describe the evidence that toddlers can form and maintain friendships.
Naturalistic observation studies of playgroups and daycare groups reveal that toddlers can form lasting friendships, and these friendships serve the same function as the friendships of older children. In one study, Howes observed a group of infants in daycare over a year. She defined friendship as responding to at least half of the friendly or playful overtures from another child consistently. On this basis, the majority of infants and toddlers had at least one friend and some of the toddlers had two or more friends. In a follow-up study spanning a 3-year period, Howes found that children tended to continue a friendship they had made a year earlier.
Measures of brain activity (NIRS) show that the infant brain is already specialized for language - in what way? Which brain structures are key to language and how are they involved in children's use of language? (ch. 5)
Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), has shown that in the first week after birth, infants show greater activity in the left temporal lobe for words pronounced normally vs. words spoken in revers. Specific brain areas are allocated for language- Broca's area and Wernicke's area. Broca's area is located in the left frontal lobe & contributes to the production of fluent, grammatically well-structured sentences. Wernicke's area is in the left temporal lobe; patients with damage to this region can speak fluently, but their sentences contain nonsense words, and they have trouble comprehending the meanings of words and sentences.
3. What are the brain bases of negative and positive emotionality and effortful control?
Negative emotionality: stems from the brain circuits involving the detection of threat, including the amygdala, and parts of the temporal and prefrontal cortex. Positive emotionality: reward circuit in the brain, governing goal-directed behavior and tendency to approach positive stimuli Effortful control: based on different circuits within the prefrontal cortex that mature at different times
Note also that there is a bi-directional relationship between cognitive and motor development: explain how crawling is influenced by improvements in memory and executive functions and how crawling helps infants solve the A-not-B problem.
Object permanence studies illustrate an important principle of development, which is that motor and cognitive development are bi-directionally related. THe period between 8 and 14 months is a time when infants are increasingly mobile. Infants who have more crawling and walking experience are more likely to overcome the A-not-B error at an earlier age because they have more experience planning where to go and keeping track of spatial locations of objects
27. What are some negative and positive aspects of early sibling relationships (between toddlers and their older siblings) and how can parents reduce conflict?
Older siblings tend to be jealous of the younger sibling, particularly when the sibling is an infant, because they get more attention. They will cling or behave badly for attention. Parents can use the older sibling for help taking care of the younger child, to promote positive interactions between siblings. Toddlers eventually form attachments to older siblings. Increases in conflict with siblings occur when toddler 12-24 months because the toddlers become more aware of wants and needs. Parents can deal with these at a developmental level. Example: giving a toddler another toy, explaining to older sibling about sharing.
20. What factors are associated with the development of insecure-disorganized attachment?
One hypothesis is that these infants might experience substandard caregiving. Studies have shown that infants who are neglected or abused have a high likelihood of developing a disorganized attachment. In addition, disorganized attachment is more common in low income than middle income families. Institutional rearing is also associated with a high rate of disorganized attachment, in part because caregivers have so few face-to-face social interactions with infants. This was shown to be the case with infants in Romania.
Define overextension errors, give an example, and explain why an infant might make these errors. Do the same for underextension errors. It will help you remember the two if you think that the extension involves extension of the category of the word (e.g., category of dog contains too many members - overextension - category of dog contains too few members - underextension). (ch. 5)
Overextensions: children seem to have extended the adult meaning of a word too far; ex. calling a dog "kitty" or an unfamiliar adult male "daddy". Children are more likely to overextend in production than comprehension; ex. child may call a cow "dog" but when pointing at pictures they get them correct. Child may be commenting on the similarity or using the label as a temporary substitute when the name of the object doesn't come to mind Underextensions: involve using a word in more limited contexts than those used for the adult meaning; ex. child may use "dog" to refer only to the family dog. May be due to retrieval problems or to the child simply not knowing the full range of category members to which a word extends
4. How is temperament measured, and what are some problems in measurement?
Parents are asked to rate children on a questionnaire regarding all the aspects of temperament. Then investigators use observational methods and standardized laboratory procedures to test whether parent ratings are accurate. There is only a moderate correlation between parent and investigator ratings. This may be because parents see their children in a variety of settings while experimenters don't but it shows that our understanding of temperament is still a work in progress.
Give brief definitions of the four main language skills (phonology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics).
Phonology: understanding the sounds of adult speech and producing them accurately enough for adults to understand them Semantics: understanding parent's words, and producing words of her own that make sense in the context Syntax: understanding simple sentences spoken by adults and beginning to arrange words into short sentences of her own that resembled English grammar Pragmatics: beginning to comprehend and use conventional aspects of communication, such as making requests, asking questions, and responding appropriately to another's requests
How stable are specific aspects of information processing from infancy to age 11 in the studies by Rose and colleagues?
Researchers found that infants' scores at age 7 and 12 months correlated with later tests of the same abilities in the toddler years (24 & 36 months) and at 11 years of age. Each fo the four infant abilities (memory, processing speed, attention, representational competence) added something to the prediction of IQ at 11 years of age, indicating that there may be separate aspects of information processing skill from early age. MANIS: More efficient at storing things in memory. Because all your life you're faster at learning new things you develop a higher IQ. Rose looked at 4 types of cognition & gave a habituation test and followed up those babies when they were older and gave a test that is more appropriate for adolescents and if you were fast at habituation when you were a baby you did better on the test as an adolescent. Same with memory.
26. How is attachment related to exploratory behavior, cognitive development and IQ, and why?
Securely attached infants have also been found to exhibit more persistent exploratory and problem solving behavior as toddlers and to show less frustration when they encounter difficult-to-solve puzzles, compared to insecurely attached children. One explanation is that securely attached children have better emotional regulation and an internal working model of themselves as competent in novel problem solving situations. Securely attached infants have also been found to score higher than other subgroups in middle childhood on IQ tests. It is possible that connections between secure attachment in infancy and later cognitive, emotional and social development are due to the continuing high quality of parent-child relationships later in childhood, rather than an effect of social experiences occurring only in infancy (Lamb et al., 1985; Thompson, 2006). The NICHD project examined links between attachment in infancy and measures of parenting quality over time. They found that when parenting quality improved or declined, children's social and cognitive competence improved or declined at the same time, especially with insecure infants.
16. Describe the two components of sensitive-responsive caregiving and how Ainsworth thought it facilitated the development of a secure attachment (Oct 1 and ch. 6)
Sensitive-responsive caregiving: caregiving that is sensitive to the infant's signals, and responsive to the infant's needs and social overtures. includes being sensitive to the baby's signals (such as crying), and social overtures (such as smiling), interpreting these signals correctly, and responding quickly and effectively, without being overly intrusive into the baby's ongoing activities. Sensitive-responsive caregiving increases infants' confidence that their physical and psychological needs will be met, helps infants explore their environments with confidence, and helps them regulate emotions such as anxiety and fear.
mental representations
Sensorimotor schemes now evolve into a new type of scheme that represents objects and actions more abstractly. This is the beginning of symbolic thought (image or word stands for an object or event). Signs of symbolic thought: achieve mental representations, language as a symbolic system, ***make believe- play, deferred imitation***, interiorized problem solving
19. In what ways are father-infant and mother-infant interactions generally similar? In what ways are they different? (Oct 1 and ch. 6)
Similar: fathers and mothers both tend to child's needs such as diaper changing, Different: attachments with fathers formed slightly later, fathers more playful while mothers are more caring usually
28. Describe the four types of play commonly seen among toddlers playing together.
Solitary play: playing all by the themselves (sandbox) Parallel play: playing with another child but not communicating (both using sandbox, no interaction of speaking) Simple social play: engaging in simple communication and reciprocal social exchanges (smiles, talking) Cooperative pretend play: engaging in shared pretend play (two children acting as dogs together)
34. What are some common aspects of social and cognitive development that may be associated with ASD? (Oct 6 lecture and ch. 6)
Some, but not all children who go on to have ASD diagnoses show atypical social behavior by 12 months or earlier, such as decreased social gaze, lack of eye contact, and lack of responsiveness to calling the child's name. Some children who developed normally through 12 months begin showing deviations between 12 and 18 months, such as decreased use of communicative gestures, failure to progress in language, reduced imitation, and unusual levels of repetitive behavior. However, none of these signs are seen in more than about 50% of ASD cases. The findings on predictors have led to a view that the symptoms of autism emerge gradually over the first two years, in different patterns across different skill domains, and across different cases.
explain how parts of piaget's theory work together****
Spoon grasping schema 1 → Assimilate new spoon to schema 1 → fails → Adjusts grip to schema 2 (Accomodation) → Assimilates 3rd spoon to schemas 1 or 2 → Infant acquires generalized schema for grasping spoons (equilibrium) → infant combines schemas (organization)
Explain how changes in executive attention, sustained attention and memory in the second year, can help explain the increasingly goal-directed and flexible behavior observed in Piaget's stages 4, 5, and 6 (ch. 5).
Stages 4,5,6 infants are becoming more flexible in their problem solving. The object searching capabilities become better. Information processing researchers would say you can explain those changes as changes in attention and memory. Those are gradually getting better because the brain is maturing. Executive attention: ability to switch from one thing to another on purpose. Older infants can pay attention on certain materials and not get distracted. Piaget may have been noticing the increased flexibility and ability to switch attention. They may get better on object searching task because of better memory skills.
21. What are some stress factors within the family microsystem (some of them linked to low SES) that are associated with insecure attachment?
Stressors associated with poverty, such as food insecurity, living in a dangerous neighborhood, and parental use of alcohol and drugs have been found to reduce maternal sensitivity-responsivity and increase the chance that infants will have an insecure attachment at 12 months (Posada et al., 1999; Raikes & Thompson, 2005). Attachment relationships are not set in stone, however. Longitudinal studies have found that the mother-child attachment relationship changes over time in association with increases or decreases in the number of stressful events occurring in the family's environment.
6. Explain bi-directional effects involving parent behavior and infant temperament
Studies of parenting influences on temperament have revealed connections between maternal sensitivity and responsiveness at one age and decreases in negative emotionality at a later age. Bi-directional effects may occur. Adults who perceive an infant as having a more positive temperament may pay more attention to that infant, which in turn can influence the infant's future emotional responses.
What types of words are present in telegraphic speech and what types of words or grammatical elements are missing? (lecture and ch. 5)
Telegraphic speech: short sentences containing mostly high-content words (such as nouns, verbs and adjectives and omitting smaller words (such as the, to, with, etc) and grammatical inflections ( grammatical elements that modify the meaning of a noun (such as plurals) or verb (past tense, present progressive (bottles, hugged, running)) Ex. "Norrie rock" instead of "Norrie is rocking"
2. Define temperament, and describe give examples of negative emotionality, positive emotionality and effortful control (Oct 6 discussion of virtual children and ch. 6)
Temperamant is early-appearing differences among infants in emotions, activity and attention that are partly biologically based. -Negative emotionality: behavioral inhibition, which is inhibition of behavior with novel people and ---Positive emotionality: high intensity pleasure, low intensity pleasure, and activity level -High intensity pleasure is pleasure, positive anticipation and excitement in social interaction. (laughter when tickled) -Low intensity pleasure is delight in sensual gratification and comfort. (delight trying ice cream) -Activity level is frequency, briskness and vigor of motor movement -Effortful control: attention/persistence and inhibitory control, which is the ability to inhibit a dominant response and/or activate a sub-dominant response, to plan and to detect errors (cry when toy taken)
12. Explain the baby's and the caregiver's contributions to the attachment behavioral system (Oct 1 and ch. 6)
The attachment behavioral system involves signals from the infants, such as gazing at the mother, social smiles, snuggling, cooing, and crying. The caregiver's contribution to the attachment system includes emotional responses to the baby and behaviors such as feeding and comforting the infant.
5. Explain how genes, nonshared environment and shared environment contribute to variations among children in temperament? Give an example of a gene-environment correlation involving temperament
The gradual emergence of temperamental traits in the first 2-3 years allows time Estimates of heritability range from .2 to .6 across studies and across temperamental traits, and are found at all ages from infancy to adulthood. The same studies also reveal a very small shared environmental component, and a large nonshared environmental component to temperamental traits. A example of a gene-environment correlation for temperament is a child who is genetically prone to be cheerful, positive and enthusiastic will tend to elicit more positive behavior over time from people around him/her than a child low in positive emotionality. It is also likely that children with different temperaments interpret the same events differently. For example, an anxious child might worry more about losing one parent if the parents are arguing, compared with a non-anxious child.
14. Describe the general design and purpose of the Strange Situation (you do not have to list the 8 steps) based on chapter 6 and the video presented in class (Oct 1)
The logic behind the Strange Situation is that the experimenter gradually increases the stress on the infant by repeated short separations from the caregiver. The goal is to determine whether the child uses the caregiver as a secure base, how upset the child becomes when the caregiver leaves the room, and how quickly the child calms down when the caregiver returns. It is the variation in infant/toddler behavior in this situation that determines the child's attachment classification.
33. How is brain development and functioning altered in ASD?
There is a developing consensus that the genes for autism affect basic aspects of brain development and functioning, such as maintenance of appropriate activity at the synapse, and growth of neuronal dendrites. Studies are also beginning to converge around a hypothesis that many ASD children have thinner cortical areas within what is known as the "social brain" (brain areas that process emotions and social stimuli), such as the anterior cingulate cortex and the right anterior insula. with ASD have been found to have poorer connectivity in the white matter tracts within the social brain. Another theory is that a lack of synaptic pruning at some point in early development leads to excessive growth, followed by arresting of growth of certain areas of the brain. One study found up to 67% more neurons in areas of the prefrontal cortex in deceased individuals with ASD, compared to control brains.
Describe the three aspects of attention and the physical and physiological measures used to identify these states of attention in infants (ch. 5)
Visual-spatial orienting Alerting/arousal Executive attention
Separation anxiety
a general wariness and distress in the absence of their primary caregiver
13. Describe the four phases of attachment according to Bowlby (Oct 1 and ch. 6):
a. preattachment phase: (birth to 2 months). Infants exhibit many signals that promote close contact with adults (gazing, smiling, crying, etc.). They can recognize their mother's face, voice and smell, but they are not yet attached to her. They respond the same way to any adult who knows how to interact with infants. b. attachment in the making: (2 to 6 months). Infants begin to signal to and respond more to their primary caregiver than to an unfamiliar adult. However, they do not protest when separated from the caregiver. Others can soothe the infant when s/he is upset. c. clear-cut attachment (including the secure base concept): (6 to 24 months). infants form a special relationship to the caregiver who spends the most time with them, satisfying their needs, and interacting with them socially. Recall memory is stronger, and planning ability increases at the same time that infants become more mobile. Infants begin to exhibit separation anxiety, and seek to regain contact through a variety of means. Infants use the primary caregiver as a secure base -they explore around the caregiver and return for comfort when distressed. By 18 months, most infants have multiple attachments d. goal-corrected partnership: (24 months and up). With the development of secondary intersubjectivity, emotional regulation, and improvements in memory and language, children are capable of sophisticated two-way interactions. Mother and infant can work together to achieve the amount of proximity that the child desires, and children begin to consider the mother's needs and desires. For example, at this age, a child can respond to a request that s/he play while the mother completes a task. Bowlby believed that this type of attachment persisted into adulthood, and characterized any close relationship.
15. Describe the four patterns of behavior in the Strange Situation (Oct 1 video and ch. 6):
a. secure attachment: infant uses the mother as a secure base, shows separation anxiety, and displays positive reactions upon reunion b. insecure-avoidant attachment: infant doesn't use the mother as a secure base, does not show separation anxiety and ignores or avoids her upon reunion c. insecure-ambivalent attachment: infant clings to the mother rather than using her as a secure base, shows strong separation anxiety, and is not soothed by her upon reunion d. insecure-disorganized attachment: the infant and mother do not appear to have a working attachment relationship and the infant becomes confused and upset
secondary circular reactions
actions repeated to cause some effect in external environment. Beginning of object permanence ***Video examples: at this point, have beginnings of object permanence particular object was a cube, doesn't quite succeed, but attempts to do that (accomadation) assimilation is trying her old way by grabbing it trying to pull it in with her mouth, take an object and bring to mouth to explore ***
Visual Spatial orienting
an object appears in the periphery and we make eye movement toward it, engaging neural circuits in the visual and parietal cortex. Present in first 6 months, ex. when a baby turns toward a person approaching his crib
Self-recognition
being aware of yourself. the mirror self-recognition, or "rouge test" a researcher dabs a rouge on a toddler's nose, and puts the child in front of a mirror. Nine- to 12-month old infants often notice the rouge spot in the mirror, but reach out to touch the reflection in the mirror as if it were another child. In contrast, by 18-24 months, most toddlers rub their nose, aware that is their own reflection in the mirror.
Primary intersubjectivity
coordinated emotion sharing during reciprocal social interaction between two partners
Stranger anxiety
distress reactions to strangers
m. Self-conscious emotions (temper tantrums, empathy, pride, shame, guilt, embarrassment)
emotions involving a concept of how the current state relates to the status of the self in relation to a desired goal or outcome
tertiary circular reactions
existing schemes are deliberately varied to observe the effects on objects or people, & multiple schemas can be used to obtain a goal. *** Video example (Lauren trying to get the pin at 13 month moved on to another pin when couldn't have the pin she bent over, tried to scrape it off, was screaming **** Object permanence: progress after 12 months: Video: Caroline & Big Bird, 13 months Searched for object under cup, was stunned the onject wasn't there, later on, hid big bird under bowl and took it, confused to where it was
Social smile
infants smile as a specific response to people, allows for parents to exchange expressions with their child
Secondary intersubjetivity
infants use information from a social partner to guide their actions toward objects and in turn, communicate back to the social partner about objects
Social referencing
infants use the emotional displays of their caregivers to regulate their own behavior. Infants rely on the caregiver's emotional reactions to modulate their fear of novel objects, events and people, leading to greater exploration of their environment, which has benefits for cognitive and motor development.
Alerting/Arousal
involved whenever we want to gain more information about a stimulus such as an infant trying to recognize the face of the person next to the crib. As infant alerts to a stimulus & begins to process it, heart rate initially speeds up and slows down during period of sustained attention to stimulus. As infant disengages with stimulus heart rate returns to normal. As they get older, infants are capable of longer period of sustained attention when they look at a new stimulus. Ex. encounter 12-18 month old baby who doesn't know you, they will stare at your face
organization (chapter)
linking schemas together to form more complex structures in the mind
accommodation
modifying existing schemas to fit experiences, look up something if unsure of answer
What are the basic theoretical assumptions of the core knowledge approach to infant cognitive capabilities? What types of knowledge systems do these theorists think are innate? (ch. 5)
nt from Piaget, Piaget thought all knowledge was caused by infant acting on environment. Core knowledge- some basic knowledge that infants have, have some processing mechanisms (ex. language) they don't have to learn language from scratch, core knowledge theory don't know exactly what infants are born with but they're born with something Experiment with numbers, young children can understand numbers up to 3. Connects to theory theory, core knowledge the same as theory theory. Start with something, then change and build on those assumptions
Schemas
organized ways of acting or thinking about events, objects and people
Still Face procedure
shows young infants expect people to respond to their emotional overtures. In the experimental technique called the still face procedure, the caregiver interacts in a normal manner, and then ceases to respond for a short period of time. Infants act distressed, and use facial expressions, vocalizations, and body movements to re-engage the parent. When these efforts don't succeed, the infant turns away, displays a sad expression and begins to cry.
Sensorimotor substages
simple reflexes primary circular reactions secondary circular reactions combining secondary circular reactions tertiary circular reactions mental representations
e. Four emotional response patterns at 4-6 months (social engagement, object engagement, passive withdrawal and active protest):
social engagement: facial expression of joy, positive vocalizations and gazing at the mother) object engagement: gazing at and mouthing objects, general scanning of the physical environment, facial expression of interest) passive withdrawal: irritable vocalizations, sad facial expressions, and indicators of stress such as spitting up or hiccupping)
Joint attention
the infant and caregiver simultaneously turn their attention toward a particular object. Joint attention is key to infants learning the names of objects, and hence a prime example of how development occurs in multiple domains simultaneously.
Executive attention
young infants' attention seem to be captured by any stimulus that comes into their environment and appear distractible. After 9-10 months of age, infants' attention gradually comes under their own control. Ex. Infant who doesn't know you may look back and forth between you and another person to compare faces. Once she is satisfied you are different, she may look away entirely. When she looks back you may get a smile- indication that baby recognizes you
