Developmental Psych Midterm

"What Do People Live to Do?" Opposing Perspectives

John and Martha, both under age 35, were expecting their second child. Martha's initial prenatal screening revealed low alpha-fetoprotein, which could indicate Down syndrome. Another blood test was scheduled. . . . John asked: "What exactly is the problem?" . . . "We've got a one in eight hundred and ninety-five shot at a retarded baby." John smiled, "I can live with those odds." "I'm still a little scared." He reached across the table for my hand. "Sure," he said, "that's understandable. But even if there is a problem, we've caught it in time. . . . The worst-case scenario is that you might have to have an abortion, and that's a long shot. Everything's going to be fine." . . . "I might have to have an abortion?" The chill inside me was gone. Instead I could feel my face flushing hot with anger. "Since when do you decide what I have to do with my body?" John looked surprised. "I never said I was going to decide anything," he protested. "It's just that if the tests show something wrong with the baby, of course we'll abort. We've talked about this." "What we've talked about," I told John in a low, dangerous voice, "is that I am pro-choice. That means I decide whether or not I'd abort a baby with a birth defect. . . . I'm not so sure of this." "You used to be," said John. "I know I used to be." I rubbed my eyes. I felt terribly confused. "But now . . . look, John, it's not as though we're deciding whether or not to have a baby. We're deciding what kind of baby we're willing to accept. If it's perfect in every way, we keep it. If it doesn't fit the right specifications, whoosh! Out it goes.". . . John was looking more and more confused. "Martha, why are you on this soapbox? What's your point?" "My point is," I said, "that I'm trying to get you to tell me what you think constitutes a 'defective' baby. What about . . . oh, I don't know, a hyperactive baby? Or an ugly one?" "They can't test for those things and—" "Well, what if they could?" I said. "Medicine can do all kinds of magical tricks these days. Pretty soon we're going to be aborting babies because they have the gene for alcoholism, or homosexuality, or manic depression. . . . Did you know that in China they abort a lot of fetuses just because they're female?" I growled. "Is being a girl 'defective' enough for you?" "Look," he said, "I know I can't always see things from your perspective. And I'm sorry about that. But the way I see it, if a baby is going to be deformed or something, abortion is a way to keep everyone from suffering—especially the baby. It's like shooting a horse that's broken its leg. . . . A lame horse dies slowly, you know? . . . It dies in terrible pain. And it can't run anymore. So it can't enjoy life even if it doesn't die. Horses live to run; that's what they do. If a baby is born not being able to do what other people do, I think it's better not to prolong its suffering." ". . . And what is it," I said softly, more to myself than to John, "what is it that people do? What do we live to do, the way a horse lives to run?" [Beck, 1999, pp. 132-133, 135] The second AFP test was in the normal range, "meaning there was no reason to fear . . . Down syndrome" (Beck, 1999, p. 137). As you read in Chapter 3, genetic counselors help couples weigh options before becoming pregnant. John and Martha had had no counseling because the pregnancy was unplanned and their risk for Down syndrome was low. The opposite of a false positive is a false negative, a mistaken assurance that all is well. Amniocentesis later revealed that the second AFP was a false negative. Their fetus had Down syndrome after all. Martha decided against abortion.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

A developmental disorder marked by difficulty with social communication and interaction—including difficulty seeing things from another person's point of view—and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.

Longitudinal Research

A research design in which the same individuals are followed over time, as their development is repeatedly assessed.

Assisted Reproduction/IVF

Fertilization that takes place outside a woman's body (as in a glass laboratory dish). The procedure involves mixing sperm with ova that have been surgically removed from the woman's ovary. If a zygote is produced, it is inserted into a woman's uterus, where it may implant and develop into a baby.

A Case to Study "Finland"

Finland's scores on international tests increased dramatically after a wholesale reform of their public education system (see Figure 12.3). Reforms occurred in several waves (Sahlberg 2011, 2015). Finland abolished ability grouping in 1985; curriculum reform to encourage collaboration and active learning began in 1994. Now, during middle childhood, all children learn together—no tracking—and teachers are mandated to work with each child to make sure he or she masters the curriculum. Learning difficulties are remediated in the early grades, within the regular classroom. Over the past two decades, strict requirements for becoming a teacher have been put in place. Only the top 3 percent of Finland's high school graduates are admitted to teachers' colleges. They study five years at the university at no charge, earning a master's degree in the theory and practice of education. Finnish teachers are granted more autonomy within their classrooms than is typical in other nations. Since the 1990s, they have had more time and encouragement to work with colleagues (Sahlberg, 2011, 2015). They are encouraged to respond to each child's temperament as well as skills. A study of first-graders found that this strategy led to achievement, particularly in math (Viljaranta, et al., 2015). Buildings are designed to foster collaboration, with comfortable teacher's lounges (Sparks, 2012). This reflects a hidden curriculum that teachers are professionals, a valued resource trusted to work together to teach the children well. Unlike the United States, where teachers can be fired if their students' test scores do not improve, Finland has no system-wide tests until high school. Instead, teachers devise their own ways to measure what their students have learned. The teachers also belong to a union, which encourages them all to work for their collective welfare. All children attend public school—there are no schools funded by private tuition. A major emphasis is on the future lives of the citizens. Since those who are poorly educated and who drop out of high school become a burden on the society, counseling for later life is a priority. Children of all ages are challenged and advised "to become engaged learners, fulfilled individuals, and compassionate, productive citizens" (Robinson, 2015, p. 205). High-quality, individualized teaching with long-term goals rather than short-term test scores might be the reason for Finland's success. Critics contend, instead, that success occurs because of Finland's small population (5.5 million—less than the average state of the United States), or culture, or location (between the former Soviet Union and the Scandinavian nations, making political thought over the decades a volatile compromise between ideals and practice). Advocates reply that no other nation or state has instituted these reforms, not because they cannot but because they do not have high expectations for all of their children. In Finland, every child is assumed to have strengths and weaknesses, so teachers seek the right approach to foster learning. Almost no child is designated for special education because all are given individualized attention; they strive to meet expectations. One bit of evidence: Teenagers can choose vocational education, leaving school, or academic high school. Most (94 percent) choose academics. (Sahlberg, 2011, 2015). The Finnish minister of education believes that expectations are crucial, not only for individual children but also for entire nations. He said: "When President Kennedy was making his appeal for advancing American science and technology by putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, many said it couldn't be done. . . . But he had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King a few years later had a dream. Those dreams came true. Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn't be done" (Sahlberg, quoted in Partanen, 2011). According to international assessment, they did it!

Inside the Brain "Neuronal Birth and Death"

In earlier decades, a newborn's chance of survival was pegged to how much the baby weighed. Today we know that weight is a crude predictor—some 1-pound babies live and some 3-pound ones die. The crucial factor is maturation of the brain. The central nervous system is the first body system to begin development. The embryonic stage starts with the primitive streak, which becomes the neural tube even before the facial features are formed and the first pulsating blood vessel appears. Already in the third week after conception, some cells specialize to become neural progenitor cells, which duplicate and multiply many times until some of them create brain cells (neurons). Neurons do not duplicate; some endure lifelong. Those early neurons migrate to a particular part of the brain (brain stem, cerebellum, hypothalamus, visual cortex, and so on) and specialize, such as some neurons dedicated to seeing faces, others to seeing red and green, others to blue and yellow, and so on. By mid-pregnancy, the brain has billions of neurons (neurogenesis). Earlier, the cortex (the outer part, described in Chapter 5) had been smooth, but now folds and wrinkles (ridges and depressions, called gyri and sulci) allow the human brain to be larger and more complex than the brains of other animals (Stiles & Jernigan, 2010). Following the proximodistal sequence, the six layers of the cortex are produced, with the bottom (sixth) layer first and then each new layer on top of the previous one so that the top and outer layer is the last to form. Similarly, first the brain stem above the back of the neck, then the midbrain, and finally the forebrain develop and connect. Detailed study of one crucial brain region, the hippocampus (the major site for memory formation), reveals an explosion of new cells in that area during the fourth month of gestation and then a gradual slowdown of new cell formation (Ge et al., 2015). Although a mid-gestation burst of new neurons and later slowing is characteristic of the entire brain, each part follows its own timetable, as required by the function of each area. By full term, human brain growth is so extensive that the cortex has many gyri and sulci (see Figure 4.2). Although some huge mammals (whales, for instance) have bigger brains than humans, no other creature needs as many folds because, relative to body size, the human brain is much larger. Beyond brain growth, with an estimated 86 billion neurons at birth, another process occurs in the final three months of a normal pregnancy—cell death. Programmed cell death, called apoptosis, occurs in two prenatal waves. The first wave is easy to understand: Abnormal and immature neurons, such as those with missing or extra chromosomes, are lost. Later in development, however, seemingly normal neurons die such that almost half of all newly formed brain cells are gone before birth (Underwood, 2013). It is possible that the final three months are the best time for this normal cell death, part of enabling the remaining neurons to establish connections for thinking, remembering, and responding. It is known that surviving preterm babies often have subtle intellectual and emotional deficits. There are many plausible hypotheses for this correlation. Could lack of normal prenatal apoptosis be one of them? In the final months of pregnancy, the various lobes and areas of the brain are established, and pathways between one area and another are forged. For instance, sound and sight become coordinated: Newborns connect voices heard during pregnancy with faces, recognizing their mothers, for instance. That phenomenal accomplishment occurs within a day or two after birth. Indeed, the fetal brain is attuned to the voices heard much more than to other noises, evidence of neurological plasticity as early as the sixth month after conception (Webb et al., 2015). Although many connections form in the brain before birth, this process continues for years—the human brain is not fully connected until early adulthood. One of the distinguishing differences between the brains of humans and that of other primates is the extensive prenatal and postnatal growth of axons and dendrites, the connecting fibers between one neuron and another (Gash & Dean, 2015; Collins et al., 2016). Also in the final months of pregnancy, the membranes and bones covering the brain thicken, which helps prevent "brain bleeds," a hazard of preterm birth if paper-thin blood vessels in the cortex collapse. Newborns have two areas on the top of their heads (fontanels) where the bones of the skull have not yet fused. This enables the fetal head to become narrower at birth, in order to move through the vagina. Fontanels are larger in preterm babies, making them more vulnerable to brain damage. Fontanels gradually close during infancy. Curiously, some areas of chimpanzee brains are packed with more neurons than human brains, allowing less room for dendrites and axons. Furthermore, myelination, which speeds transmission from one neuron to another, is already about 20 percent complete for the newborn chimp but virtually zero for the human at birth (Gash & Dean, 2015). Thus, brains of the human fetus are designed to be molded by experience after birth.

Insights From Romania

No scholar doubts that close human relationships should develop in the first year of life and that the lack of such relationships risks dire consequences. Unfortunately, thousands of children born in Romania are proof. When Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausesçu forbade birth control and abortions in the 1980s, illegal abortions became the leading cause of death for Romanian women aged 15 to 45 (Verona, 2003), and 170,000 children were abandoned and sent to crowded, impersonal, state-run orphanages (Marshall, 2014). The children were severely deprived of social contact, experiencing virtually no synchrony, play, or conversation. In the two years after Ceausesçu was ousted and killed in 1989, thousands of those children were adopted by North American, western European, and Australian families. Those who were adopted before 6 months of age fared best; the adoptive parents established synchrony via play and caregiving. Most of these children developed well. Many of those adopted between 6 and 18 months also fared well.For those adopted later, early signs were encouraging: Skinny infants gained weight and grew faster than other children, developing motor skills they had lacked (H. Park et al., 2011). However, if social deprivation had lasted a year or more, their emotions and intellect suffered. Many were overly friendly to strangers, a sign of insecure attachment as previously mentioned. At age 11, their average IQ was only 85, which is 15 points lower than the statistical norm. The older they had been at adoption, the worse their cognition was (Rutter et al., 2010). Some became impulsive, angry teenagers. Apparently, the stresses of adolescence and emerging adulthood exacerbated the cognitive and social strains of growing up (Merz & McCall, 2011). These children are now adults, many with serious emotional or conduct problems. Other research on children adopted nationally and internationally finds that many develop quite well, but every stress—from rejection in infancy to early institutionalization to the circumstances of the adoption process—makes it more difficult for the infant to become a happy, well-functioning adult (Grotevant & McDermott, 2014). Romanian infants are no longer available for international adoption, even though some are institutionalized. Research confirms that early emotional deprivation, not genes or nutrition, is their greatest problem. Romanian infants develop best in their own families, second best in foster families, and worst in institutions (Nelson et al., 2007). As best we know, this applies to infants everywhere: Families usually nurture their babies better than strangers who care for many infants at once, and the more years children spend in an impersonal institution, the more likely it is they will become socially and intellectually impaired (Julian, 2013). Fortunately, many institutions have improved or been shuttered, although worldwide, an estimated 8 million children are in orphanages (Marshal, 2014). Morerecent adoptees are not as impaired as those Romanian orphans (Grotevant & McDermott, 2014), and many families with adopted children are as strongly attached as any biological family, which the following demonstrates.

A View From Science "Are Children Too Overweight?

Obesity is a serious problem. Over the life span, from infancy to age 60, rates of obesity increase, and with it, rates of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. The connection between overweight and disease was not always known. Since before written history, mothers realized that underweight children were more likely to die. That led to a logical, but false, assumption: Heavier children were assumed to be healthier (Laraway et al., 2010). Another untested assumption as recently as 1945 was that heart attacks could not be prevented, or even predicted. Death was fate; doctors were "baffled" by heart failure. Scientists decided to study thousands of adults in Framingham, Massachusetts, to see what they could learn (Levy & Brink, 2005, p. 4). The Framingham Heart Study began in 1948. By 1990, conclusions from that study had revolutionized adult behavior—a historic example of the scientific method at work. Because of Framingham, cigarette smoking is down, exercise is up, and doctors routinely monitor blood pressure, weight, and cholesterol, advising and prescribing accordingly. Worldwide, almost a billion premature deaths have been averted. (Heart problems are still the most common cause of death, but now that rarely occurs before age 60.) That led to a new question: Was childhood obesity a health risk when the children grew up? That thought (Step 1) led to a hypothesis (Step 2) that overweight in childhood impairs health in adulthood. This hypothesis is now widely assumed to be true. For instance, a poll found that most Californians consider childhood obesity "very serious," with one-third of them rating poor eating habits as a worse risk to child health than drug use or violence (Hennessy-Fiske, 2011). But is that assumption valid?The best way to test that hypothesis (Step 3) is to examine adult health in people who had been weighed and measured in childhood. Several researchers did exactly that. Indeed, four studies had data on children's height and weight as well as measurements of the same people as adults. Most (83 percent) of the people in these studies maintained their relative weight (see Figure 1.2a). That means that most overweight children became overweight adults. From that research, a strong conclusion was reached (Step 4) and published (Step 5): Overweight children are likely to become obese adults, who then are at high risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and early death. For instance, in those four studies, 29 percent of the adults who were overweight all their lives had high blood pressure, compared to 11 percent of those who were never overweight (Juonala et al., 2011). A new question arose (Step 1), building on those earlier findings. What about overweight children who become normal-weight adults? Have they already harmed their health? That led to a new hypothesis (Step 2): Overweight children will have a higher rate of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and death in adulthood, even if they slim down before adulthood. The research design (Step 3) was to measure indications of health in adults who had been overweight as children but who now were normal weight. The data (Step 4) (see Figure 1.2b) disproved the hypothesis: As normal-weight adults, those who had been overweight were not at high risk of disease, a conclusion replicated by several studies with quite different populations (Juonala et al., 2011). Scientists were happy with that conclusion—disproving a hypothesis is no less welcome than proving it. Many other issues, complications, and conclusions regarding weight are discussed later in this book. For now, all you need to remember are the steps of the scientific method and that developmentalists are right: Significant "change over time" is possible

Opposing Perspectives - "Is Spanking Okay?"

Opinions about spanking are influenced by past experience and cultural norms. That makes it hard for opposing perspectives to be understood by people on the other side (Ferguson, 2013). Try to suspend your own assumptions as you read this. What might be right with spanking? Over the centuries many parents have done it, so it has stood the test of time. Indeed, in the United States, parents who never spank are unusual. Spanking seems less common in the twenty-first century than in the twentieth (Taillieu et al., 2014), but 85 percent of U.S. adolescents who were children at the end of the twentieth century remember being slapped or spanked by their mothers (Bender et al., 2007). More than one-third of the mothers in low- and middle-income nations believe that to raise a child well, physical punishment is essential (Deater-Deckard & Lansford, 2016). One pro-spanking argument is that the correlations reported by developmentalists (between spanking and later depression, low achievement, aggression, crime, and so on) may be caused by a third variable, not spanking itself. A suggested third variable is child misbehavior: Perhaps disobedient children cause spanking, not vice versa. Such children may become delinquent, depressed, and so on not because they were spanked but in spite of being spanked. Noting problems with correlational research, one team explains, "Quite simply, parents do not need to use corrective actions when there are no problems to correct" (Larzelere & Cox, 2013, p. 284). These authors point out that every disciplinary technique, if used frequently, correlates with misbehavior, but the punishment may be the result, not the cause. Further, since parents who spank their children tend to have less education and less money than other parents, SES may be the underlying reason spanked children average lower academic achievement. If that is true, the solution is to reduce poverty, not to forbid spanking. When researchers try to eliminate the effect of every third variable, especially SES, they find a smaller correlation between spanking and future problems than most other studies do (Ferguson, 2013). What might be wrong with spanking? One problem is adults' emotions: Angry spankers may become abusive. Children are sometimes seriously injured and even killed by parents who use corporal punishment. One pediatrician who hesitates to argue against all spanking, everywhere, nonetheless has observed that physical injury is common when parents discipline children. He says that parents should never spank in anger, cause bruises that last more than 24 hours, use an object, or spank a child under age 2 (Zolotor, 2014). Another problem is the child's immature cognition. Many children do not understand why they are spanked. Parents assume the transgression is obvious, but children may think the parents' anger, not the child's actions, caused spanking (Harkness et al., 2011). Most parents tell their children why they are being spanked, but children are less likely to listen or understand when they are being hit. Almost all of the research finds that children who are spanked suffer in many ways. They are more depressed, more antisocial, more likely to hate school, and less likely to have close friends. Many continue to suffer in adulthood. Yet there are exceptions, spanked children who become happy and successful adults. For example, one U.S. study found that conservative Protestant parents spanked their children more often than other parents, but if that spanking occurred only in early (not middle) childhood, the children did not develop low self-esteem and increased aggression (Ellison et al., 2011). The authors of the study suggest that, since spanking was the norm in that group, the children did not think they were unloved. Moreover, religious leaders tell parents never to spank in anger. As a result, their children may "view mild-to-moderate corporal punishment as legitimate, appropriate, and even an indicator of parental involvement, commitment, and concern" (Ellison et al., 2011, p. 957). As I write these words, I realize which perspective is mine. I am one of many developmentalists who believe that alternatives to spanking are better for the child and a safeguard against abuse. Indeed, the same study that found spanking common in developing nations also reported that 17 percent of the children experienced severe violence (Bornstein et al., 2016). Yet a dynamic-systems, multicultural perspective reminds us all that everyone is influenced by background and context. I know that I am; so is every scientist, and so are you.

"Scientists at Work "A Case to Study

Susan Beal, a 35-year-old scientist with five young children, began to study SIDS deaths in South Australia. She responded to phone calls, often at 5 or 6 A.M. that another baby had died. Her husband supported her work, often becoming the sole child care provider so she could leave home at a moment's notice. At first she felt embarrassed to question the parents, sometimes arriving before the police or the coroner. But parents were grateful to talk. Beal realized that parents tended to blame themselves and each other; she reassured them that scientists shared their bewilderment. (Scan the QR code below with your smartphone to watch a short interview with Susan Beal.) As a scientist, she took detailed, careful notes on dozens of circumstances at each of more than 500 deaths. She found that some things did not matter (such as birth order), and some increased the risk (maternal smoking and lambskin blankets). A breakthrough came when Beal noticed an ethnic variation: Australian babies of Chinese descent died of SIDS far less often than did those of European descent. Genetic? Most experts thought so. But Beal's notes revealed that almost all SIDS babies died while sleeping on their stomachs, contrary to the Chinese custom of placing infants on their backs to sleep. She developed a new hypothesis: Sleeping position mattered. To test her hypothesis, Beal convinced a large group of non-Chinese parents to put their newborns to sleep on their backs. Almost none of them died suddenly. After several years of gathering data, she drew a surprising conclusion: Back-sleeping protected against SIDS. Her published report (Beal, 1988) caught the attention of doctors in the Netherlands, where pediatricians had told parents to put their babies to sleep on their stomachs. Two Dutch scientists (Engelberts & de Jonge, 1990) recommended back-sleeping; thousands of parents took heed. SIDS was reduced in Holland by 40 percent in one year—a stunning replication. Replication and application spread. By 1994, a "Back to Sleep" campaign in nation after nation cut the SIDS rate dramatically (Kinney & Thach, 2009; Mitchell, 2009). In the United States in 1984 SIDS killed 5,245 babies; in 1996, that number was down to 3,050; in 2010, it was about 1,700 (see Figure 5.7). In the United States alone, 100,000 children and young adults are alive today who would be dead if they had been born before 1990. Stomach-sleeping is a proven, replicated risk, but it is not the only one. Other risks include low birthweight, winter, being male, exposure to cigarettes, soft blankets or pillows, bed-sharing, and physical abnormalities (in the brainstem, heart, mitochondria, the microbiome (Neary & Breckenridge, 2013; Ostfeld et al., 2010). Most SIDS victims experience several risks, a cascade of biological and social circumstances. That does not surprise Susan Beal. She sifted through all the evidence and found the main risk—stomach-sleeping—but she continues to study other factors. She praises the courage of the hundreds of parents who talked with her hours after their baby died; the entire world praises her.

Fathers as Social Partners

Synchrony, attachment, and social referencing are sometimes more apparent with fathers than with mothers. Indeed, fathers often elicit more smiles and laughter from their infants than mothers do. They tend to play more exciting games, swinging and chasing, while mothers do more caregiving and comforting (Fletcher et al., 2013). Although these generalities hold, and although women do more child care than men in every nation, both parents often work together to raise their children (Shwalb et al., 2013). One researcher who studied many families reports "fathers and mothers showed patterns of striking similarity: they touched, looked, vocalized, rocked, and kissed their newborns equally" (Parke, 2013, p. 121). Differences were apparent from one couple to another, but not from one gender to another—except for smiling (women did it more). Another study, this one of U.S. parents having a second child, found that mothers used slightly more techniques to soothe their crying infants than fathers did (7.7 versus 5.9), but the study also found that mothers were less distressed by infant crying if their partners were active soothers (Dayton et al., 2015). It is a stereotype that African American, Latin American, and Asian American fathers are less nurturing and stricter than other men (Parke, 2013). The opposite may be more accurate. Within the United States, contemporary fathers in all ethnic groups are, typically, more involved with their children than their own fathers were. As with humans of all ages, social contexts are influential: Fathers are influenced by other fathers (Roopnarine & Hossain, 2013; Qin & Chang, 2013). Thus, fathers of every ethnic group may be aware of what other men are doing, and that affects their own behavior. Stress decreases parent involvement for both sexes. Particularly if income is low, fathers sometimes choose to be uninvolved, a choice less open to mothers (Roopnarine & Hossain, 2013; Qin & Chang, 2013). Close father-infant relationships teach infants (especially boys) appropriate expressions of emotion, particularly anger. The results may endure: Teenagers are less likely to lash out at friends and authorities if, as infants, they experienced a warm, responsive relationship with their father (Hoeve et al., 2011). Usually, mothers are caregivers and fathers are playmates, but not always. Each couple, given their circumstances (perhaps immigrant or same-sex), finds some way to help their infant thrive (Lamb, 2010). Traditional mother-father roles may be switched, with no harm to the baby (Parke, 2013). A constructive parental alliance can take many forms, but it cannot be taken for granted, no matter what the family configuration. Single-parent families, same-sex families, grandparent families, and nuclear families all function best when caregivers cooperate. No form is always constructive. [Life-Span Link: Family forms are discussed in Chapter 13.] Family members affect each other. Paternal depression correlates with maternal depression and with sad, angry, disobedient toddlers (see Figure 7.2). Cause and consequence are intertwined. When anyone is depressed or hostile, everyone (mother, father, baby, sibling) needs help.

Habituation

The process of becoming accustomed to an object or event through repeated exposure to it, and thus becoming less interested in it.

"Using the Word Race" - Opposing Perspectives

The term race categorizes people on the basis of physical differences, particularly outward appearance. Historically, most North Americans believed that race was an inborn biological characteristic. Races were categorized by color: white, black, red, and yellow (Coon, 1962). race A group of people who are regarded by themselves or by others as distinct from other groups on the basis of physical appearance, typically skin color. Social scientists think race is a misleading concept, as biological differences are not signified by outward appearance. It is obvious now, but was not a few decades ago, that no one's skin is really white (like this page) or black (like these letters) or red or yellow. Social scientists are convinced that race is a social construction and that color terms exaggerate minor differences. Skin color is particularly misleading because dark-skinned people with African ancestors have "high levels of within-population genetic diversity" (Tishkoff et al., 2009, p. 1035) and because many dark-skinned people whose ancestors were not African share neither culture nor ethnicity with Africans. Race is more than a flawed concept; it is a destructive one. It is used to justify racism, which over the years has been expressed in myriad laws and customs, with slavery, lynching, and segregation directly connected to the idea that race was real. Racism continues today in less obvious ways (some of which are highlighted later in this book), undercutting the goal of our science of human development—to help all of us fulfill our potential. Since race is a social construction that leads to racism, some social scientists believe that the term should be abandoned. They believe that cultural differences influence development, but racial differences do not. A study of census categories used by 141 nations found that only 15 percent use the word race on their census forms (Morning, 2008). The United States is the only census that separates race and ethnicity, stating that Hispanics "may be of any race." Cognitively, that may encourage stereotyping (Kelly et al., 2010). One scholar explains: The United States' unique conceptual distinction between race and ethnicity may unwittingly support the longstanding belief that race reflects biological difference and ethnicity stems from cultural difference. In this scheme, ethnicity is socially produced but race is an immutable fact of nature. Consequently, walling off race from ethnicity on the census may reinforce essentialist interpretations of race and preclude understanding of the ways in which racial categories are also socially constructed. [Morning, 2008, p. 255] Concern about the word race is relevant for biologists as well as social scientists. As one team writes: We believe the use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research—so disputed and so mired in confusion—is problematic at best and harmful at worst. It is time for biologists to find a better way. [Yudell et al., 2016, p. 564] To avoid racism, should we abandon the word race? Is the phrase "Black Lives Matter" a throwback? Maybe not. There is a powerful opposite perspective (Bliss, 2012). In a nation with a history of racial discrimination, reversing that history may require allowing some people to be proud of their race and other people to recognize the harm of their racism. The fact that race is a social construction does not make it meaningless. Adolescents who are proud of their racial identity are likely to achieve academically, resist drug addiction, and feel better about themselves (Zimmerman, 2013). Racial pride, but not personal experiences with discrimination, also predicts more positive attitudes about other racial groups. This was found for 15- to 25-year-old Black and Hispanic youth, but not for Whites—who tend not to consider themselves as belonging to a racial group (Sullivan & Ghara, 2015). It may be that to combat racism, race itself must be acknowledged. Many medical, educational, and economic conditions—from low birthweight to college graduation, from family income to health insurance—reflect racial disparities. In 2013 in the United States, 13 percent of Black newborns were of low birthweight, but only 7 percent of newborns from other groups were (Martin et al., 2015). That statistic requires that newborns be categorized by race. Does that lead to improvements in the care of pregnant Black women, or to blame? Some social scientists find that to be color-blind is to be subtly racist (e.g., sociologists Marvasti & McKinney, 2011; anthropologist McCabe, 2011). Two political scientists studying the criminal justice system found that people who claim to be color-blind display "an extraordinary level of naiveté" (Peffley & Hurwitz, 2010, p. 113). Some observers believe that some of the criticism of President Obama springs from racial prejudice and that uninformed anti-racism is actually a new form of racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2015; Sullivan, 2014; Hughey & Parks, 2014). As you see, strong arguments support both sides. This book sometimes refers to race or color when the original data are reported that way, as in the low birthweight data above. Racial categories may crumble someday, but apparently not yet.

Visualizing Development "Breast Feeding Controversy"/Five Perspectives

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A View From Science "Object Permanence"

iaget discovered that, until about 8 months, babies do not search for an object that is momentarily out of sight. He thought they did not understand object permanence—the concept that objects or people continue to exist when they are not visible. At about 8 months—not before—infants look for toys that have fallen from the crib, rolled under a couch, or disappeared under a blanket. object permanence The realization that objects (including people) still exist when they can no longer be seen, touched, or heard. As another scholar explains: Many parents in our typical American middle-class households have tried out Piaget's experiment in situ: Take an adorable, drooling 7-month-old baby, show her a toy she loves to play with, then cover it with a piece of cloth right in front of her eyes. What do you observe next? The baby does not know what to do to get the toy! She looks around, oblivious to the object's continuing existence under the cloth cover, and turns her attention to something else interesting in her environment. A few months later, the same baby will readily reach out and yank away the cloth cover to retrieve the highly desirable toy. This experiment has been done thousands of times and the phenomenon remains one of the most compelling in all of developmental psychology. [Xu, 2013, p. 167] Piaget studied the development of this concept. He found: Infants younger than 8 months do not search for an attractive object momentarily covered by a cloth. At about 8 months, infants remove the cloth immediately after the object is covered but not if they have to wait a few seconds. At 18 months, they search after a wait but not if they have seen the object put first in one place and then moved to another. They search in the first place, not the second, a mistake Piaget's followers called A-not-B. They search where they remember seeing it put (A), not where they saw it moved (to B). By 2 years, children fully understand object permanence, progressing through several stages of ever-advanced cognition (Piaget, 1954/2013a). This research provides many practical suggestions. If young infants fuss because they see something they cannot have (keys, a cell phone, candy), caregivers are advised to put that coveted object out of sight. Fussing stops if object permanence has not yet appeared. By contrast, for toddlers, hiding an object is not enough. It must be securely locked up, lest the child later retrieve it, climbing onto the kitchen counter or under the bathroom sink to do so. Piaget believed that failure to search before 8 months meant that infants had no concept of object permanence—that "out of sight" literally means "out of mind." However, a series of clever experiments in which objects seemed to disappear while researchers traced babies' eye movements and brain activity revealed that long before 8 months infants are surprised if an object vanishes (Baillargeon & DeVos, 1991; Spelke, 1993). Further research on object permanence continues to question some of Piaget's conclusions. Many other creatures (cats, monkeys, dogs, birds) develop object permanence faster than human infants. The animal ability seems to be innate, not learned, as wolves can develop it as well as dogs—but neither is adept at A-not-B displacement, as when an object is moved by a hand underneath a cloth that covers it (Fiset & Plourde, 2013). By age 2, children figure this out, but dogs do not.

Attachment

According to Ainsworth, "an affectional tie" that an infant forms with a caregiver—a tie that binds them together in space and endures over time. Responsive and mutual relationships are important throughout childhood and beyond. However, once infants can walk, the moment-by-moment, face-to-face synchrony is less common. Instead, attachment becomes evident. Actually, attachment is also lifelong, beginning before birth and influencing relationships throughout life (see At About This Time), but thousands of researchers on every continent have focused on infant attachment. They were inspired by the theories of John Bowlby (1983) and the research of Mary Ainsworth, who described mother-infant relationships in central Africa 60 years ago (Ainsworth, 1967). Attachment studies have led to an application called attachment parenting, which prioritizes the mother-infant relationship far more than Ainsworth or Bowlby did.

Schooling in the United States

Although most national tests indicate improvements in U.S. children's academic performance over the past decade, when they are compared with children in other nations, they are far from the top. A particular concern is that achievement is affected by income and ethnicity in the United States more than in other nations (McNeil & Blad, 2014). Some high-scoring nations have more ethnic groups, economic diversity, and immigrants than the United States, so diversity itself is not the reason. As of 2014 in the United States, the nation's public schools are said to have become "majority minority," which means that most students are from groups that once were called minorities—such as African American, Latino, or Asian American (Krogstad & Fry, 2014). From a developmental perspective, the terms majority and minority are misleading, since the majority category includes many children whose ancestors came from distinct parts of Europe, and the minority category likewise includes many groups. This ethnic diversity could be beneficial. Given the values as well as the reality of U.S. society, most parents want children to learn about other groups during elementary school. This is best done with personal contact between equals (e.g., students in the same classroom) with a teacher who guides the students toward mutual respect. In fact, however, this does not usually happen, since schools are more segregated than they were 40 years ago (Rosiek & Kinslow, 2016). Even when students from different backgrounds are in the same schools, they are not necessarily seen as equals. In the United States, although many educators and political leaders try to eradicate performance disparities linked to a child's background, the gap between fourth-grade European Americans and their Latino and African American peers is as wide as it was 15 years ago (Snyder & Dillow, 2013). Furthermore, the gap between low- and high-income U.S. students is widening, as is the gap between Native Americans and other groups (Maxwell, 2012). Financial support may be the reason for the U.S. variations by race and income, since notable disparities are apparent from one community to another, and those follow residential segregation. This is true from state to state as well: Massachusetts and Minnesota are consistently at the top of state achievement, and West Virginia, Mississippi, and New Mexico are at the bottom—in part because of the investment in education within those states and the proportion of students of high or low SES (which itself affects state spending) (Pryor, 2014).

Baumrind's Three Styles of Parenting

Although thousands of researchers have traced the effects of parenting on child development, the work of one person, 50 years ago, is especially influential. In her original research, Diana Baumrind (1967, 1971) studied 100 preschool children, all from California, almost all middle-class European Americans. She found that parents differed on four important dimensions: Expressions of warmth. Some parents are warm and affectionate; others are cold and critical. Strategies for discipline. Parents vary in how they explain, criticize, persuade, and punish. Expectations for maturity. Parents vary in expectations for responsibility and self-control. Communication. Some parents listen patiently; others demand silence. Especially for Political Scientists Many observers contend that children learn their political attitudes at home, from the way their parents teach them. Is this true? (see response) On the basis of these dimensions, Baumrind identified three parenting styles (summarized in Table 10.2). A fourth style, not described by Baumrind, was suggested by other researchers. Authoritarian parenting. The authoritarian parent's word is law, not to be questioned. Misconduct brings strict punishment, usually physical. Authoritarian parents set down clear rules and hold high standards. They do not expect children to offer opinions; discussion about emotions and expressions of affection are rare. One adult from authoritarian parents said that "How do you feel?" had only two possible answers: "Fine" and "Tired." authoritarian parenting An approach to child rearing that is characterized by high behavioral standards, strict punishment for misconduct, and little communication from child to parent. Permissive parenting. Permissive parents (also called indulgent) make few demands, hiding any impatience they feel. Discipline is lax, partly because they have low expectations for maturity. Permissive parents are nurturing and accepting, listening to whatever their offspring say, including cursing at the parent. permissive parenting An approach to child rearing that is characterized by high nurturance and communication but little discipline, guidance, or control. (Also called indulgent parenting.) Authoritative parenting. Authoritative parents set limits, but they are flexible. They encourage maturity, but they usually listen and forgive (not punish) if the child falls short. They consider themselves guides, not authorities (unlike authoritarian parents) and not friends (unlike permissive parents). authoritative parenting An approach to child rearing in which the parents set limits but listen to the child and are flexible. Neglectful/uninvolved parenting Neglectful parents are oblivious to their children's behavior; they seem not to care. Their children do whatever they want. This is quite different from permissive parents, who care very much about their children. neglectful/uninvolved parenting An approach to child rearing in which the parents are indifferent toward their children and unaware of what is going on in their children's lives.

Becoming Boys or Girls: Sex and Gender

Another challenge for caregivers is raising a child with a healthy understanding of sex and gender (Wilcox & Kline, 2013). In early childhood, some children identify as transgender, wanting to be a gender that is not their biological sex. This presents their parents with a challenge that almost no parent anticipated a decade ago (Rahilly, 2015). Biology determines whether an embryo is male or female (except in rare cases): Those XX or XY chromosomes normally shape organs and produce hormones. But genes create sex differences, which are biological, not gender differences, which are culturally prescribed. Theoretically, the distinction between sex and gender seems straightforward, but complexity is evident in practice. Scientists need to "treat culture and biology not as separate influences but as interacting components of nature and nurture" (Eagly & Wood, 2013, p. 349). sex differences Biological differences between males and females, in organs, hormones, and body type. gender differences Differences in the roles and behaviors of males and females that are prescribed by the culture. Although the 23rd pair of chromosomes are crucial, the entire culture creates gender differences, beginning with the blue or pink caps put on newborns' heads. Before age 2, children use gender labels (Mrs., Mr., lady, man) consistently. By age 4, children believe that certain toys (such as dolls or trucks) and roles (Daddy, Mommy, nurse, teacher, police officer, soldier) are reserved for one sex or the other.

Early Emotions

At first there is comfort and pain. Newborns are happy and relaxed when fed and drifting off to sleep. They cry when they are hurt or hungry, tired or frightened (as by a loud noise or a sudden loss of support). Some infants have bouts of uncontrollable crying, called colic, probably the result of immature digestion; some have reflux, probably the result of immature swallowing. About 20 percent of babies cry "excessively," defined as more than three hours a day, for more than three days a week, for more than three weeks (J. Kim, 2011).

Opposing Perspectives "Drug Treatment for ADHD and Other Disorders"

Because many adults are upset by children's moods and actions, and because any physician can write a prescription to quiet a child, thousands of U.S. children may be overmedicated. But because many parents do not recognize that their child needs help, or they are suspicious of drugs and psychologists (Moldavsky & Sayal, 2013; Rose, 2008), thousands of children may suffer needlessly. Many child psychologists believe that the public discounts the devastation and lost learning that occur when a child's serious disorder is not recognized or treated. On the other hand, many parents are suspicious of drugs and psychotherapy and avoid recommended treatment (Gordon-Hollingsworth et al., 2015). In the United States, more than 2 million people younger than 18 take prescription drugs to regulate their emotions and behavior. The rates are about 14 percent for teenagers (Merikangas et al., 2013), about 10 percent for 6- to 11-year-olds, and less than 1 percent for 2- to 5-year-olds (Olfson et al., 2010). In China, parents rarely use psychoactive medication for children: A Chinese child with ADHD symptoms is thought to need correction rather than medication (Yang et al., 2013). An African child who does not pay attention may be beaten. Wise or cruel? The most common drug for ADHD is Ritalin (methylphenidate), but in middle childhood at least 20 other psychoactive drugs are prescribed to treat depression, anxiety, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, and many other conditions (see Figure 11.5). Some parents welcome the relief that drugs may provide; others refuse to medicate their children because they fear the consequences, among them later drug abuse or shorter height. Neither of those consequences has been proven. Indeed, long-term benefits including less drug abuse sometimes occur (Craig et al., 2015). Worrisome is that some research finds that medicating ADHD children increases the risk of severe mental illness in adulthood (Moran et al., 2015). On the other hand, one expert argues that teachers and doctors underdiagnose and undertreat African American children, and that increases another outcome—prison. If disruptive African American boys are punished, not treated, for ADHD symptoms that should be recognized and altered in childhood, they may join the "school-to-prison pipeline" (Moody, 2016). All professionals agree that finding the best drug at the right strength is difficult, in part because each child's genes and personality are unique, and in part because children's weight and metabolism change every year. Given all that, it is troubling that only half of all children who take psychoactive drugs are evaluated and monitored by a mental health professional (Olfson et al., 2010) and that pharmaceutical companies advertise ADHD drugs as beneficial for children (Schwarz, 2013). Most professionals believe that contextual interventions (instructing caregivers and schools on child management) should be tried before drugs (Daley et al., 2009; Leventhal, 2013; Pelham & Fabiano, 2008), many parents wonder whether professionals really understand. Ethnic differences are found in parent responses, teacher responses, and treatment for children with ADHD symptoms. In the United States, when African American and Hispanic children are diagnosed with ADHD or other psychological disorders, parents are less likely to give them medication or engage in other forms of professional therapy compared to European American parents (Morgan et al., 2013; Gordon-Hollingsworth et al., 2015). Income differences are evident as well: In the United States, children on Medicaid (the health program for low-SES families) are more likely to be prescribed ADHD medication than middle-class children (Schwarz, 2013). Genes, culture, health care, education, religion, and stereotypes all affect ethnic and economic differences. As two experts explain, "disentangling these will be extremely valuable to improving culturally competent assessment in an increasingly diverse society" (Nigg & Barkley, 2014, p. 98). Given the emotional and practical implications of that tangle, opposing perspectives are not surprising.

Success and Survival/Immunity

Beginning with smallpox in the nineteenth century, doctors discovered that giving a small dose of a virus to healthy people stimulates antibodies and provides protection. Stunning successes in immunization include the following: Smallpox, the most lethal disease for children in the past, was eradicated worldwide as of 1980. Vaccination against smallpox is no longer needed. Polio, a crippling and sometimes fatal disease, has been virtually eliminated in the Americas. Only 784 cases were reported anywhere in the world in 2003. However, false rumors halted immunization in northern Nigeria. Polio reappeared, sickening 1,948 people in 2005, almost all of them in West Africa. Public health workers and community leaders rallied and Nigeria's polio rate fell again, to 6 cases in 2014. However, poverty and wars in South Asia prevented immunization there: Worldwide, 359 cases were reported in 2014, almost all in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Hagan et al., 2015) (see Figure 5.8). Measles (rubeola, not rubella) is disappearing, thanks to a vaccine developed in 1963. Prior to that time, 3 to 4 million cases occurred each year in the United States alone (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 15, 2015). In 2012 in the United States, only 55 people had measles, although globally about 20 million measles cases occurred that year. If a traveler brings measles back to the United States, unimmunized children and adults may catch the disease. That happened in 2014, when 667 people in the United States had measles—the highest rate since 1994 (MMWR, January 8, 2016).

Complications During Birth

Birth complications rarely have a single cause. A fetus may be low-birthweight, preterm, genetically vulnerable, or exposed to teratogens and its mother is unusually young, old, small, stressed, or ill. As an example, cerebral palsy (a disease marked by difficulties with movement) was once thought to be caused solely by birth procedures (excessive medication, slow breech birth, or use of forceps to pull the fetal head through the birth canal). However, we now know that cerebral palsy results from genetic sensitivity, teratogens, and maternal infection (Mann et al., 2009), worsened by insufficient oxygen to the fetal brain at birth. cerebral palsy A disorder that results from damage to the brain's motor centers. People with cerebral palsy have difficulty with muscle control, so their speech and/or body movements are impaired. This lack of oxygen is called anoxia. Anoxia often occurs for a second or two during birth, indicated by a slower fetal heart rate, with no harm done. To prevent prolonged anoxia, the fetal heart rate is monitored during labor, and the Apgar is used immediately after birth. anoxia A lack of oxygen that, if prolonged, can cause brain damage or death. How long anoxia can continue without harming the brain depends on genes, birthweight, gestational age, drugs in the bloodstream (either taken by the mother before birth or given by the doctor during birth), and many other factors. Thus, anoxia is part of a cascade that may cause cerebral palsy. Almost every other birth complication is also the result of many factors

Ongoing Maltreatment

Child maltreatment now refers to all intentional harm to, or avoidable endangerment of, anyone under 18 years of age. Thus, child maltreatment includes both child abuse, which is deliberate action that is harmful to a child's physical, emotional, or sexual well-being, and child neglect, which is failure to meet essential needs. it is continuous

Gifted and Talented

Children who are unusually gifted are often thought to have special educational needs as well. But they are not covered by federal laws in the United States. Instead, each U.S. state selects and educates gifted and talented children in a particular way. That leads to controversy. Some children score very high on IQ tests, and some are divergent thinkers, who find many solutions and even more questions for every problem. These two characteristics do not always overlap: A high-IQ child might be a convergent thinker, quickly aware of the correct answer for every problem and impatient with the child who is more creative. This raises a controversial question for educators: Should children who are unusually intelligent, talented, or creative be skipped, segregated, enriched, or home-schooled? Each of these solutions has been tried and found lacking. Historically, most children did not attend school, and, if a family recognized their gifted or talented child, they might teach the child themselves or hire a special coach or tutor if they could afford it. For example, Mozart composed music at age 3 and Picasso created works of art at age 4. Both boys had fathers who recognized their talent. Mozart's father transcribed his earliest pieces and toured Europe with his gifted son; Picasso's father removed him from school in second grade so he could create all day. Although intense early education at home nourished their talent, neither Mozart nor Picasso had happy adult lives. Mozart had a poor understanding of math and money. He had six children, only two of whom survived infancy, and he died in debt at age 35. Picasso regretted never learning to read or write, and he had four children by three women—one child with the wife he married at age 17. When school attendance became universal, another solution for gifted children was found—they could skip early grades and join other children of the same mental age, not their chronological age. This practice was called acceleration. Today it is rarely done, because many accelerated children never learned how to get along with others. As one woman remembers:

Language Acquisition/Chomsky's Theory

Chomsky's term for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and intonation.

Immunization

Diseases that could be deadly (including measles, chicken pox, polio, mumps, rotavirus, and whooping cough) are now rare because of immunization, which primes the body's immune system to resist a particular disease. Immunization (often via vaccination) is said to have had "a greater impact on human mortality reduction and population growth than any other public health intervention besides clean water" (Baker, 2000, p. 199). immunization A process that stimulates the body's immune system by causing production of antibodies to defend against attack by a particular contagious disease. Creation of antibodies may be accomplished either naturally (by having the disease), by injection, by drops that are swallowed, or by a nasal spray. In the first half of the twentieth century, almost every child had one or more of these diseases. Usually they recovered, and then they were immune. Indeed, some parents took their young children to visit a child who had an active case of chicken pox, for instance, hoping the child would catch the disease and then become immune. That protected that child later in life and any infants, who were more likely to die of the disease. Immunization protects not only from temporary sickness but also from complications, including deafness, blindness, sterility, and meningitis. Sometimes such damage from illness is not apparent until decades later. Having mumps in childhood, for instance, can cause sterility and doubles the risk of schizophrenia in adulthood (Dalman et al., 2008). Immunization also protects those who cannot be safely vaccinated, such as infants under 3 months and people with impaired immune systems (HIV-positive, aged, or undergoing chemotherapy). Fortunately, each vaccinated child stops transmission of the disease, a phenomenon called herd immunity. Usually, if 90 percent of the people in a community (a herd) are immunized, no one dies of that disease.

What Theories Contribute

Each major theory discussed in this chapter has contributed to our understanding of human development (see Table 2.5): Psychoanalytic theories make us aware of the impact of early-childhood experiences, remembered or not, on subsequent development. Behaviorism shows the effect that immediate responses, associations, and examples have on learning, moment by moment and over time. Cognitive theories bring an understanding of intellectual processes, including the fact that thoughts and beliefs affect every aspect of our development. Sociocultural theories remind us that development is embedded in a rich and multifaceted cultural context, evident in every social interaction. Evolutionary theories suggest that human impulses need to be recognized before they can be guided. No comprehensive view of development can ignore any of these theories, yet each has encountered severe criticism: psychoanalytic theory for being too subjective; behaviorism for being too mechanistic; cognitive theory for undervaluing emotions; sociocultural theory for neglecting individual choice; evolutionary theory for ignoring the power of modern religion, law, and social norms.

STEM Learning/Vygotsky

For decades, the magical, illogical, and self-centered aspects of cognition dominated our conception of early-childhood thought. Scientists were understandably awed by Piaget. Vygotsky emphasized another side of early cognition—that each person's thinking is shaped by other people's wishes and goals. His focus on the sociocultural aspects of development contrasted with Piaget's emphasis on the individual.

A Case to Study "Micky Mantle"

Ignoring the nature-nurture interaction can be lethal. Consider baseball superstar Mickey Mantle, who hit more home runs (18) in World Series baseball than any other player before or since. Most of his male relatives were addicted to alcohol and died before middle age, including his father, who died of Hodgkin's disease (a form of cancer) at age 39. Mantle became "a notorious alcoholic [because he] believed a family history of early mortality meant he too would die young" (Jaffe, 2004, p. 37). He ignored his genetic predisposition to alcohol use disorder. At age 46 Mantle said, "If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself." He never developed Hodgkin's disease, and if he had, chemotherapy that had been discovered since his father's death would likely have saved him—an example of environment prevailing over genes. However, drinking destroyed Mantle's liver. He understood too late what he had done. When he was dying, he told his fans at Yankee Stadium: "Please don't do drugs and alcohol. God gave us only one body, and keep it healthy. If you want to do something great, be an organ donor" (quoted in Begos, 2010). Despite a last-minute liver transplant, he died at age 63—15 years younger than most men of his time.

Opposing Perspective - "Too Many Boys?"

In past centuries, millions of newborns were killed because they were the wrong sex, a practice that would be considered murder today. Now the same goal is achieved long before birth in three ways: (1) inactivating X or Y sperm before conception, (2) inserting only male or female zygotes after in vitro conception, or (3) aborting XX or XY fetuses. Recently, millions of couples have used these methods to choose their newborn's sex. Should this be illegal? It is in at least 36 nations. It is legal in the United States (Murray, 2014). To some prospective parents, those 36 nations are unfair. Those 36 nations allow similar measures to avoid severely disabled newborns. Why is that legal but sex selection is not? There are moral reasons. But should governments legislate morals? People disagree (Wilkinson, 2015). One nation that forbids prenatal sex selection is China. This was not always so. In about 1979, China began a "one-child" policy, urging and sometimes forcing couples to have only one child. That achieved the intended goal: fewer children to feed . . . or starve. Severe poverty was almost eliminated. But advances in prenatal testing combined with the Chinese tradition that sons, not daughters, care for aging parents, led many couples to want their only child to be male. Among the unanticipated results of the one-child policy: Since 1980, an estimated 9 million abortions of female fetuses Adoption of thousands of newborn Chinese girls by Western families By 2010, far more unmarried young men than women In 1993, the Chinese government forbade prenatal testing for sex selection. In 2013, China rescinded the one-child policy. Yet from 2005 to 2010, the ratio of preschool boys to girls was 117:100, an imbalance that continues (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2015). Despite government policies, many Chinese couples still prefer to have only one child, a boy. The argument in favor of sex selection is freedom from government interference. Some fertility doctors and many individuals believe that each couple should be able to decide how many children to have and what sex they should be (Murray, 2014). Why would anyone object to such a private choice? There is a reason: It might harm society. For instance, 30 years after the one-child policy began, many more young Chinese men than women die. The developmental explanation is that unmarried young men take risks to attract women. They become depressed if they remain alone. Thus, the skewed sex ratio among young adults in China increases early death, from accidents and suicide, from drug overdoses and poor health practices, in young men. That is a warning to every nation. Males are more likely to suffer intellectual disability and substance use disorder; they commit crimes, kill each other, die of heart attacks, and start wars more than females do. For instance, the United States Department of Justice reports that, since 1980, 85 percent of the prison population are men, and primarily because of heart disease and violence, men are about twice as likely as women to die before age 50 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). A nation with more men than women may suffer. But wait: Chromosomes and genes do not determine behavior. Every sex difference is influenced by culture. Even traits that originate with biology, such as the propensity to heart attacks, are affected more by environment (in this case, diet and cigarettes) than by XX or XY chromosomes. Perhaps nurture would change if nature produced more males than females, and then societies would adapt. Already, medical measures and smoking declines have reduced heart attacks in men. In 1950, four times as many middle-aged men as women died of heart disease; by 2010, the rate was lower for both sexes, but especially for men, 2:1 not 4:1. Lifelong, rates of cardiovascular deaths in the United States are currently close to sex-neutral (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). Indeed, every sex difference is strongly influenced by culture and policy.

Intervention Programs

Several programs designed for children from low-SES families were established in the United States decades ago. Some solid research on the results of these programs is now available. In the early 1960s, millions of young children in the United States were thought to need a "head start" on their formal education to foster better health and cognition before first grade. Consequently, since 1965, the federal government has funded a massive program for 4-year-olds called Head Start. Head Start A federally funded early-childhood intervention program for low-income children of preschool age. The goals for Head Start have changed over the decades, from lifting families out of poverty to promoting literacy, from providing dental care and immunizations to teaching Standard English, from focusing on 4-year-olds to including 2- and 3-year-olds. Although initially most Head Start programs were child-centered, they have become increasingly teacher-directed as waves of legislators have approved and shaped them. Children learn whatever their particular teachers emphasize. Not surprisingly, specific results vary by program and cohort.

Ten Questions/Controversial Issues

Should public education be a priority for public funds, or should wealthy parents be able to pay for smaller class size, special curricula, and expensive facilities (e.g., a stage, a pool, a garden) in private education? Should parents be given vouchers to pay for some tuition at whatever private school they wish? Should more charter schools open or close? Home schooling occurs when parents avoid both public and private schools by educating their children at home. Should public education be free of religion to avoid bias toward one religion or another? Should the arts be part of the curriculum? uld children learn a second language in primary school? Can computers advance education? Are class sizes too big? ld teachers nurture soft skills such as empathy, cooperation, and integrity as part of the school curriculum, even though these skills cannot be tested by multiple-choice questions?

What About Fathers?

The causes of low birthweight just mentioned rightly focus on the pregnant woman. However, fathers—and grandmothers, neighbors, and communities—are often crucial. An editorial in a journal for obstetricians explains: "Fathers' attitudes regarding the pregnancy, fathers' behaviors during the prenatal period, and the relationship between fathers and mothers . . . may indirectly influence risk for adverse birth outcomes" (Misra et al., 2010, p. 99). As already explained in Chapter 1, each person is embedded in a social network. Since the future mother's behavior impacts the fetus, everyone who affects her also affects the fetus. Her mother, her boss, her mother-in-law, and especially her partner can add to her stress, or mitigate it. Thus, it is not surprising that unintended pregnancies increase the incidence of low birthweight (Shah et al., 2011). Obviously, intentions are in the mother's mind, not her body, and they are affected by the father. Thus, the father's intentions affect her diet, drug use, prenatal care, and so on. Not only fathers but also the entire social network and culture are crucial (Lewallen, 2011). This is most apparent in what is called the immigrant paradox. Many immigrants have difficulty getting education and well-paid jobs; their socioeconomic status is low. Low SES correlates with low birthweight, especially in the United States (Martinson & Reichman, 2016). Thus, newborns born to immigrants are expected to be underweight. But, paradoxically, they are generally healthier in every way, including birthweight, than newborns of U.S.-born women of the same gene pool (García Coll & Marks, 2012).This paradox was first called the Hispanic paradox, because, although U.S. residents born in Mexico or Central or South America average lower SES than Hispanics born in the United States, their newborns have fewer problems. The same paradox is now apparent for immigrants from the Caribbean, from Africa, from Eastern Europe, and from Asia compared to U.S.-born women of those ethnicities. Why? The crucial factor may be fathers, who keep pregnant immigrant women drug-free and healthy, buffering the stress that poverty brings (Luecken et al., 2013).

The Science of Human Development

The study of human development is a science that seeks to understand how people change or remain the same over time. As a science, it begins with questions and hypotheses and then gathers empirical data.

Harming the Infant Body and Brain

Thus far, we have focused on the many normal variations that families offer babies; most infants develop well within their culture. Feeding and health care vary, but every family hopes that their children will survive in good health, and they try to have that happen. For brain development, it does not matter whether a person learns French or Farsi, or expresses emotions dramatically or subtly (e.g., throwing themselves to the floor or merely pursing their lips, a cultural difference). However, infant brains do not develop well if they do not have the basic experiences that all humans expect and need.

Lack of Stimulation/Romania

To begin with, infants need stimulation. Some parents put babies in a quiet place, imagining that is needed. Not at all—playing with a young baby, allowing varied sights and sounds, and encouraging movement (arm waving, then crawling, grabbing, and walking) all foster growth. Severe lack of stimulation stunts the brain. As one review explains, "enrichment and deprivation studies provide powerful evidence of . . . widespread effects of experience on the complexity and function of the developing system" (Stiles & Jernigan, 2010, p. 345). Proof of this came first from research on rodents! In an experiment, some "deprived" rats (raised alone in small, barren cages) were compared with "enriched" rats (raised in large cages with toys and other rats). At autopsy, the brains of the enriched rats were larger and heavier, with more dendrites (Diamond, 1988; Greenough & Volkmar, 1973). Subsequent research with other mammals confirms that isolation and sensory deprivation stunt development, which is sadly evident in longitudinal studies of orphans from Romania, described in Chapter 7.

Opposing Perspectives - "Language and Video"

Toddlers can learn to swim in the ocean, throw a ball into a basket, walk on a narrow path beside a precipice, call on a smartphone, cut with a sharp knife, play a guitar, say a word on a flashcard, recite a poem, utter a curse, and much else—if provided appropriate opportunity, encouragement, and practice. Indeed, toddlers in some parts of the world do each of these things—sometimes to the dismay, disapproval, and even shock of adults from elsewhere. Infants do what others do, a trait that fosters rapid learning. That same trait challenges caregivers, who try to keep "little scientists" safe. Since language is crucial, many North American parents hope to accelerate talking and understanding, and they covet some free time when they do not need to interact with their toddlers. Commercial companies cater to parents' wishes. They realize that infants are fascinated by movement, sound, and people. This explains the popularity of child-directed videos—"it's crack for babies," as one mother said (quoted in DeLoache et al., 2010, p. 1572). Many products are named to appeal to parents, such as Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby, and Mozart for Mommies and Daddies—Jumpstart your Newborn's I.Q., and are advertised with testimonials. Scientists consider such advertisements deceptive, since one case proves nothing and only controlled experiments prove cause and effect. Commercial apps for tablets and smartphones have joined the market, with Shapes Game HD, VocabuLarry, and a series called Laugh and Learn. Most toddler apps offer free trials that babies enjoy, which prompts parents to pay for more content. This is not surprising: Babies enjoy doing something—like touching a screen—to make interesting sights last, and commercial products seek a profit. Does any video, television program, or app actually teach? No, according to many scientists, some of whom believe that the truth is the opposite of the commercial claims. A famous study found that infants watching Baby Einstein were delayed in language compared to other infants (Zimmerman et al., 2007). The American Association of Pediatricians suggests no screen time (including television, tablets, smartphones, and commercial videos) for children under age 2. These conclusions are not "robust," the word scientists use to mean that all the evidence agrees. Some interpretations of the evidence endorse absolute prohibition, but others do not. However, those who sell such products try to convince parents that babies learn from screen time, a conclusion that developmentalists dispute. An author of the original study defends his anti-video conclusions, arguing that "a reanalysis rooted in dissatisfaction with previous results will necessarily be biased and can only obscure scientific discoveries" (Zimmerman, 2014, p. 138). Overall, most developmentalists find that, although some educational videos and apps may help older children, screen time during infancy cannot "substitute for responsive, loving face-to-face relationships" (Lemish & Kolucki, 2013, p. 335). The crucial factor for intellectual growth seems to be caregiver responsiveness to the individual child, face to face (Richert et al., 2011). More specifically, infants are less likely to understand and apply what they have learned from books, videos, and apps than what they learn directly from another person (Barr, 2013). One product, My Baby Can Read, was pulled off the market in 2012 because experts repeatedly attacked its claims, and the cost of defending lawsuits was too high (Ryan, 2012). But many similar products are still sold, and new ones appear continually. The owners of Baby Einstein lost a lawsuit in 2009, promised not to claim it was educational, and offered a refund, yet, as one critic notes: The bottom line is that this industry exists to capitalize on the national preoccupation with creating intelligent children as early as possible, and it has become a multi-million dollar enterprise. Even after . . . the Baby Einstein Company itself admitted its products are not educational, Baby Einstein products continue to fly off of the shelves. [Ryan, 2012, p. 784] One study focused particularly on teaching "baby signs," 18 hand gestures that refer to particular objects (Dayanim & Namy, 2015). The babies in this study were 15 months old, an age when all babies use gestures and are poised to learn object names. The 18 signs referred to common early words, such as baby, ball, banana, bird, cat, and dog. In this study, the toddlers were divided into four groups: video only, video with parent watching and reinforcing, book instruction with parent reading and reinforcing, and no instruction. Not surprisingly, the no-instruction group learned words but not signs, and the other three groups learned some signs. The two groups with parent instruction learned most, with the book-reading group remembering signs better than either video group.

Toilet Training - How and When?

Toilet Training—How and When? Parents hear opposite advice about almost everything regarding infant care, including feeding, responding to cries, bathing, and exercise. Often a particular parental response springs from one of the theories explained in this chapter—no wonder advice is sometimes contradictory. One practical example is toilet training. In the nineteenth century, many parents believed that bodily functions should be controlled as soon as possible in order to distinguish humans from lower animals. Consequently, they began toilet training in the first months of life (Accardo, 2006). Then, psychoanalytic theory pegged the first year as the oral stage (Freud) or the time when trust was crucial (Erikson), before the toddler's anal stage (Freud) began or autonomy needs (Erikson) emerged. Consequently, psychoanalytic theory led to postponing toilet training to avoid serious personality problems later on. This was soon part of many manuals on child rearing. For example, a leading pediatrician, Barry Brazelton, wrote a popular book for parents advising that toilet training should not begin until the child is cognitively, emotionally, and biologically ready—around age 2 for daytime training and age 3 for nighttime dryness. As a society, we are far too concerned about pushing children to be toilet trained early. I don't even like the phrase "toilet training." It really should be toilet learning. [Brazelton & Sparrow, 2006, p. 193] By the middle of the twentieth century, many U.S. psychologists had rejected psychoanalytic theory and become behaviorists. Since they believed that learning depends primarily on conditioning, some suggested that toilet training occur whenever the parent wished, not at a particular age. In one application of behaviorism, children drank quantities of their favorite juice, sat on the potty with a parent nearby to keep them entertained, and then, when the inevitable occurred, the parent praised and rewarded them—a powerful reinforcement. Children were conditioned (in one day, according to some behaviorists) to head for the potty whenever the need arose (Azrin & Foxx, 1974). Cognitive theory would consider such a concerted effort unnecessary, suggesting that parents wait until the child can understand reasons to urinate and defecate in the toilet. Rejecting all of these theories, some African communities let children toilet train themselves by following slightly older children to the surrounding trees and bushes. This is easier, of course, if toddlers wear no diapers—a practice that makes sense in some climates. Sociocultural practices differ because of the ecological context, and infants adjust. Meanwhile, some Western parents prefer to start potty training very early. One U.S. mother began training her baby just 33 days after birth. She noticed when her son was about to defecate, held him above the toilet, and had trained him by 6 months (Sun & Rugolotto, 2004). Such early training is criticized by all of the theories, each in their own way: Psychoanalysts would wonder what made her such an anal person, valuing cleanliness and order without considering the child's needs. Behaviorists would say that the mother was trained, not the son. She taught herself to be sensitive to his body; she was reinforced when she read his clues correctly. Cognitive theory would question the mother's thinking. For instance, did she have an odd fear of normal body functions? Sociocultural theory would be aghast that the U.S. drive for personal control took such a bizarre turn. What is best? Some parents are reluctant to train, and the result, according to one book, is that many children are still in diapers at age 5 (Barone, 2015). Dueling theories and diverse parental practices have led the authors of an article for pediatricians to conclude that "despite families and physicians having addressed this issue for generations, there still is no consensus regarding the best method or even a standard definition of toilet training" (Howell et al., 2010, p. 262). One comparison study of toilet-training methods found that the behaviorist approach was best for older children with serious disabilities but that almost every method succeeded with the average young child. Many sources explain that because each child is different, there is no "right" way: "the best strategy for implementing training is still unknown" (Colaco et al., 2013, p. 49). That may suggest sociocultural theory, which notes vast differences from one community to another. A study of parents' opinions in Belgium found that mothers without a partner and without much education were more likely to wait too long, age 3 or so (van Nunen et al., 2015). Of course, both too soon and too late are matters of opinion. What values are embedded in each practice? Psychoanalytic theory focuses on later personality, behaviorism stresses conditioning of body impulses, cognitive theory considers variation in the child's intellectual capacity, and sociocultural theory allows vast diversity. There is no easy answer, but many parents firmly believe in one approach or another. That confirms the statement at the beginning of this chapter: We all have theories, sometimes strongly held, whether we know it or not.

Where Should Babies Sleep?

Traditionally, most middle-class North American infants slept in cribs in their own rooms; it was feared that they would be traumatized if their parents had sex in the same room. By contrast, most infants in Asia, Africa, and Latin America slept near their parents, a practice called co-sleeping, and sometimes in their parents' bed, called bed-sharing. In those cultures, nighttime parent-child separation was considered cruel. co-sleeping A custom in which parents and their children (usually infants) sleep together in the same room. bed-sharing When two or more people sleep in the same bed. Today, Asian and African mothers still worry more about separation, whereas European and North American mothers worry more about privacy. A 19-nation survey found that parents act on these fears: The extremes were 82 percent of Vietnamese babies co-sleeping compared with 6 percent in New Zealand (Mindell et al., 2010) (see Figure 5.2). Cohort is also significant. In the United States, bed-sharing doubled from 1993 to 2010, from 6.5 percent to 13.5 percent (Colson et al., 2013). But even wealthy Japanese families often sleep together. By contrast, many poor North American families find a separate room for their children. Co-sleeping results primarily from culture and custom, not income. This makes it difficult to change (Ball & Volpe, 2013). The argument for co-sleeping is that the parents can quickly respond to a hungry or frightened baby. A popular book on infant care advocates "attachment parenting," advising keeping the infant nearby day and night (Sears & Sears, 2001). Babies seem to get as much sleep beside their parents as in their own cribs, although mothers wake up more often (Volkovich et al., 2015). Co-sleeping does not always mean in the same bed. The argument against bed-sharing rests on a chilling statistic: Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), when a baby dies unexpectedly while asleep, is twice as likely when babies sleep beside their parents (Vennemann et al., 2012). Consequently, many experts seek ways to safeguard the practice (Ball & Volpe, 2013). Their advice includes never sleeping beside a baby if the parent has been drinking, and never using a soft comforter, pillow, or mattress near a sleeping infant. Response for New Parents (from page 125): From the psychological and cultural perspectives, babies can sleep anywhere as long as the parents can hear them if they cry. The main consideration is safety: Infants should not sleep on a mattress that is too soft, nor beside an adult who is drunk or on drugs. Otherwise, families should decide for themselves. Babies learn from experience. If they become accustomed to bed-sharing, they may crawl into their parents' bed long past infancy. Parents might lose sleep for years because they wanted more sleep when their babies were small. Developmentalists hesitate to declare either co-sleeping or separate bedrooms best because the issue is "tricky and complex" (Gettler & McKenna, 2010, p. 77). Sleeping alone may encourage independence—a trait appreciated in some cultures, abhorred in others.

Genetic Counseling & Testing

Until recently, after the birth of a child with a severe disorder, couples blamed witches or fate, not genes or chromosomes. That has changed, with many young adults concerned about their genes long before parenthood. Virtually everyone has a relative with a serious condition and wonders what their children will inherit. Knowing the entire genome of a particular individual takes extensive analysis, but the cost has plummeted in recent years from more than a million dollars to less than a thousand. The results sometimes help find the best treatment for a disease, but experts hesitate to recommend full genome screening because most SNPs are "variants of unknown significance" (Couzin-Frankel, 2016, p. 442). In other words, it is not hard for a technician to find something unusual, but no one knows what all the oddities signify. Some people pay for commercial genetic testing, which often provides misleading information. From the perspective of genetic counselors, a worse problem with commercial testing is that the emotional needs of the person are not addressed. For instance, some people who might be carriers of Huntington's disease commit suicide—before symptoms appear, and without treatment that might reduce symptoms and allow years of normal life (Dayalu & Albin, 2015). Consultation and testing by trained experts that enables individuals to learn about their genetic heritage, including harmful conditions that they might pass along to any children they may conceive.

Chromosomal and Genetic Problems

We now focus on conditions caused by an extra chromosome or a single destructive gene. Each person has about 40 alleles that could cause serious disease—including some very common ones such as strokes, heart disease, and cancer—but most of those require at least two SNPs, plus particular environmental conditions, before they appear. If all notable anomalies and disorders are included, 92 percent of people do not develop a serious genetic condition by early adulthood—but that means 8 percent have a serious condition in their phenotype as well as their genotype (Chong et al., 2015). Study of such problems is relevant because: They provide insight into the complexities of nature and nurture. Knowing their origins helps avoid or limit their effects. Information combats prejudice: Difference is not always deficit.

A View From Science -" What Contributes to Childhood Obesity?"

What Causes Childhood Obesity? There are "hundreds if not thousands of contributing factors" for childhood obesity, from the cells of the body to the norms of the society (Harrison et al., 2011, p. 51). Dozens of genes affect weight by influencing activity level, hunger, food preferences, body type, and metabolism. New genes and alleles that affect obesity—and that never act alone—are discovered virtually every month (Dunmore, 2013). Knowing that genes are involved may slow down the impulse to blame people for being overweight. However, genes cannot explain why obesity rates have increased dramatically, since genes change little from one generation to the next (Harrison et al., 2011). Instead, cultural and cohort changes must be responsible, evident not only in North America but worldwide. For example, a review in India acknowledges genes but focuses on sugary drinks, portion sizes, chips, baked goods, and candy (Sahoo et al., 2015). Look at the figure on obesity among 6- to 11-year-olds in the United States (see Figure 11.1). At first glance, one might think that the large ethnic gaps (such as only 9 percent of Asian Americans but 26 percent of Hispanic Americans) might be genetic. But look at gender: Non-Hispanic white girls are twice as likely to be obese as boys, but in the other groups boys are more often obese than girls. Something cultural, not biological, must be the reason. Further evidence that social context, not genes, affects obesity was found in a study that controlled for family income and early parenting: Ethnic differences in childhood obesity almost disappeared (Taveras et al., 2013). What are those parenting practices that make children too heavy? Obesity rates rise if: infants are not breast-fed and begin eating solid foods before 4 months; preschoolers have televisions in their bedrooms and drink large quantities of soda; school-age children sleep too little but have several hours each day of "screen time" (TV, videos, games), rarely playing outside (Hart et al., 2011; Taveras et al., 2013). Although family habits in infancy and early childhood can set a child on the path to obesity, during middle childhood children themselves have pester power—the ability to get adults to do what they want (Powell et al., 2011). Often they pester their parents to buy calorie-dense foods that are advertised on television. On average, all these family practices changed for the worse toward the end of the twentieth century in North America and are spreading worldwide. For instance, family size has decreased, and as a result, pester power has increased, and more food is available for each child. That makes childhood obesity collateral damage of a reduction in birth rate—a worldwide trend in the early twenty-first century. Attempts to limit sugar and fat clash with the goals of many corporations, since snacks and processed foods are very profitable. On the plus side, many schools now have policies that foster good nutrition. A national survey in the United States found that schools are reducing all types of commercial food advertising. However, vending machines are still prevalent in high schools, and free food coupons are often used as incentives in elementary schools (Terry-McElrath et al., 2014). Overall, simply offering healthy food is not enough to convince children to change their diet; context and culture are crucial (Hanks et al., 2013). Communities can build parks, bike paths, and sidewalks, and nations can decrease subsidies for sugar and corn oil and syrup. Rather than trying to zero in on any single factor, a dynamic-systems approach is needed: Many factors, over time, make a child overweight (Harrison et al., 2011). Changing just one factor is not enough.

New Mothers

When birth hormones decrease, between 8 and 15 percent of women experience postpartum depression, a sense of inadequacy and sadness (called baby blues in the mild version and postpartum psychosis in the most severe form). postpartum depression A new mother's feelings of inadequacy and sadness in the days and weeks after giving birth. With postpartum depression, baby care (feeding, diapering, bathing) feels very burdensome. The newborn's cry may not compel the mother to carry and nurse her infant. Instead, the mother may have thoughts of neglect or abuse, thoughts so terrifying that she is afraid of herself. She may be overprotective, insisting that no one else care for the baby. This signifies a fearful mother, not a healthy one. The first sign that something is amiss may be euphoria after birth. A new mother may be unable to sleep, or to stop talking, or to dismiss irrational worries. After the initial high, severe depression may set in, with a long-term impact on the child. Postpartum depression may not be evident right away; anxiety and depression symptoms may be stronger two months after birth than right away (Kozhimannil & Kim, 2014). But postpartum depression is not due to hormonal changes alone. From a developmental perspective, some causes of postpartum depression (such as financial stress) predate the pregnancy. Others (such as marital problems) occur during pregnancy; others correlate with birth (especially if the mother is alone and imagined a different birth than actually occurred). Finally, the characteristics of the baby may be disappointing, (such as health, feeding, or sleeping problems). Successful breast-feeding mitigates maternal depression, one of the many reasons a lactation consultant is an important part of the new mother's support team.

Nature/Nurture Controversy

nature In development, nature refers to the traits, capacities, and limitations that each individual inherits genetically from his or her parents at the moment of conception. nurture In development, nurture includes all of the environmental influences that affect the individual after conception. This includes everything from the mother's nutrition while pregnant to the cultural influences in the nation. The nature-nurture debate has many manifestations, among them heredity-environment, maturation-learning, and sex-gender. Under whatever name, the basic question is, "How much of any characteristic, behavior, or emotion is the result of genes, and how much is the result of experience?" Some people believe that most traits are inborn, that children are innately good ("an innocent child") or bad ("beat the devil out of them"). Others stress nurture, crediting or blaming parents, or neighborhood, or drugs, or even food, when someone is good or bad, a hero or a scoundrel.

Signs of Child Maltreatment in Children Aged 2 to 10

njuries that are unlikely to be accidents, such as bruises on both sides of the face or body; burns with a clear line between burned and unburned skin Repeated injuries, especially broken bones not properly tended (visible on X-ray) Fantasy play with dominant themes of violence or sex Slow physical growth Unusual appetite or lack of appetite Ongoing physical complaints, such as stomachaches, headaches, genital pain, sleepiness Reluctance to talk, to play, or to move, especially if development is slow No close friendships; hostility toward others; bullying of smaller children Hypervigilance, with quick, impulsive reactions, such as cringing, startling, or hitting Frequent absence from school Frequent change of address Frequent change in caregivers Child seems fearful, not joyful, on seeing caregiver

Scientific Method - 5 Steps

observation, To verify or refute a hypothesis (Step 2), researchers seek the best of hundreds of research designs, choosing exactly who and what to study, how and when (Step 3), in order to gather results that will lead to valid conclusions (Step 4) that are worth publishing (Step 5)