Chapter 1: Introduction Domains of Development

1. Physical Development
Human Development as a Lifespan Perspective ● Growth of the body and brain, sensory
Human Development capacities, motor skills, and health
● The scientific study of the patterns of change
and stability that happen to a person from 2. Cognitive Development
conception throughout their lives ● Learning, attention, memory, language,
● Development is systematic – coherent and thinking, reasoning, and creativity
organized
● Development is adaptive – it is aimed at dealing 3. Psychosocial Development
with internal and external conditions of ● Emotions, personality, and social
existence relationships
● Human development is a life-long process –
life-span development ● These domains are interrelated: Each aspect of
development affects the others
Human Development Today ➔ Physical – A child with frequent ear
1. Describe infections may develop language more
● To describe when most children say slowly than a child without this physical
their first word or how large their problem
vocabulary typically is at a certain age, ➔ Cognitive – advances and declines are
developmental scientists observe large closely related to physical, emotional,
groups of children and establish norms, and social factors; a child who is
or averages, for behavior at various ages precocious in language development
may evoke positive reactions in others
2. Explain and gain self-worth
● Attempt to explain how children acquire ➔ Psychosocial – can affect cognitive and
language and why some children learn physical functioning; without
to speak later than usual meaningful social connections, physical
and mental health can suffer
3. Predict ● We might look separately at physical, cognitive,
● This makes it possible to predict future and psychosocial development, development is
behavior, such as the likelihood that a a unified process
child will have serious speech problems ➔ Physical development and changes
influence cognitive and psychosocial
4. Intervene development
● An understanding of how language ➔ Cognitive advances and declines are
develops may be used to intervene in closely related to physical, emotional,
development (ie., child speech therapy) and social factors
➔ Psychosocial development can affect
cognitive and physical functioning

Should age be an objective basis in looking at changes

and progress in a person’s development?
 Social Construction world outside the self and the learning that
Social Construction comes from experience
● A concept or practice that may appear natural ○ The issue of Nature vs. nurture
and obvious to those who accept it, but in ● Maturation
reality is an invention of a particular culture or ○ unfolding of a natural sequence of
society physical and behavioral changes
➔ There is no objectively definable ○ For example: the abilities to walk and
moment when a child becomes an adult talk are tied to the maturation of the
or adolescent, or a young person body and brain
becomes old ○ Maturation continues to influence
➔ For example: The concept of certain biological processes such as
adolescence as a period of development brain development
in industrial societies is quite recent; in ○ Rates and timing of development vary
Chippewa Indians, the concept of ○ We talk about the average ages for the
adolescence still does not exist occurrence of certain events such as the
first word, and the first step – but the
Division of the life span into periods is a social ages are merely averages; each
construction individual’s actual age of occurrence for
these events will vary
● The age divisions are approximate and ■ Only when the deviation from
somewhat arbitrary. the average is extreme should
○ For example, in adulthood, there are no we consider development
clear-cut social or physical landmarks, exceptionally advanced or
such as starting school or entering delayed
puberty, to signal a shift from one
period to another. Contexts of Development
○ Individual differences exist in the way ● Human beings are social beings – they develop
people deal with characteristics events within a social and historical context
and issues of each period
○ Certain basic development needs must 1. Family
be met and certain developmental tasks ● Nuclear Family – a household unit
mastered during each period for normal consisting of one or two parents and
development to occur their children, whether biological,
○ For example, a new baby is dependent adopted, or stepchildren
on adults to meet their basic needs for ● Extended Family – a multigenerational
food, clothing, and shelter as well as for network of grandparents, aunts, uncles,
human contact and affection cousins, and more distant relatives – the
traditional family form
Influences on Development
What influences our development, nature or nurture? 2. Socioeconomic Status and Neighborhood
● Individual differences – differences in ● SES – based on family income and the
characteristics, influences or developmental educational and occupational levels of
outcomes the adults in the household; a
● Heredity – inborn traits or characteristics combination of economic and social
inherited from the biological parent factors
● Environment – the totality of nonhereditary or
experiential, influences on development; the
 ● Neighborhood – Living in a poor 1. Normative age-graded influences
neighborhood with large numbers of ● Influences within the life course that are
unemployed people makes it less likely correlated with chronological age
that effective social support will be ○ Puberty
available ○ Marriage
○ Menopause
3. Culture and Race/Ethnicity
● Culture – refers to a society’s or group’s 2. Normative history-graded influences
total way of life including customs, ● Significant environmental events that
traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefs, shape the behavior and attitudes of an
values, languages, and physical products age cohort or a historical generation
from tools to artwork – all of the and are experienced by the majority of
behavior and attitudes that are learned, a culture
shared, and transmitted among ○ Cohort – a group of people born
members of social group at about the same time
● Ethnic group ○ Historical generation – a group
○ consist of people united by a of people who experience the
distinctive culture, ancestry, same life-changing event at a
religion, language, and/or formative time in their lives
national original, all of which ○ Example: epidemics, and wars
contribute to a sense of shared
identity and shared attitudes, Nonnormative Influences
beliefs, and values ● Unusual events have a major impact on
○ Ethnic and cultural patterns individual lives because they disturb the
affect development by their expected sequence of the life cycle.
influence on the composition of ● They are either typical events that happen at an
a household, its economic and atypical time of life (such as the death of a
social resources, the way family parent when a child is young) or atypical events
members think and perceive (such as winning the lottery)
the world, and others
Taken together, normative and nonnormative influences
4. Historical Context contribute to the unpredictability of human
● The time in which people live in development as well as to the challenges people
experience in trying to build their lives.
Normative and Nonnormative influences
Do children who were born and raised during the Timing of Influences: Critical or Sensitive Periods
pandemic undergo normative or nonnormative changes Critical period
in development? ● the specific time when a given event or its
absence has a specific impact on development
Normative Influences ● Not absolutely fixed
● Biological or environmental events that affect ● Many aspects of development have shown
many or most people in a society in similar ways plasticity
○ Plasticity – range of modifiability of
performance
 7. Development is influenced by the historical
Sensitive period and cultural context
● The brain’s plasticity is high during sensitive ● Human beings not only influence but
periods, the brain has a strong ability to adapt also are influenced by their
to and learn from experiences historical-cultural context
● Optimal times in development when certain
areas of the brain are most ready to benefit
from the experience

Paul B. Baltes’ Life-Span Developmental Approach

1. Development is lifelong
● Each period of the life span is affected
by what happened before and will affect
what is to come.

2. Development is multidimensional
● It occurs along multiple interacting
dimensions—biological, psychological,
and social—each of which may develop
at varying rates.

3. Development is multidirectional
● As people gain in one area, they may
lose in another, sometimes at the same
time

4. Relative influences of biology and culture shift

over the lifespan
● The process of development is
influenced by both biology and culture,
but the balance between these
influences changes

5. Development involves changing resource

allocations
● Individuals choose to invest their
resources of time, energy, talent,
money, and social support in varying
ways

6. Development shows plasticity

● Many abilities, such as memory,
strength, and endurance, can be
improved significantly with training and
practice, even late in life