PYC2602
Child and adolescent development
JANUARY 1, 2014
Charmaine Busch
,PART 1: ENTERING A CHILD’S
WORLD
CHAPTER 1: STUDYING A CHILD’S WORLD
Interesting facts:
In some societies there is no concept of adolescence.
Many scholars today agree that the construction of race is not a concept that
can be defended on a biological basis.
Minority children in the U.S. will become the majority by 2023.
Nearly one-fourth of U.S. children today are from immigrant families.
More than 13 million U.S. children live in poverty and are at risk for health,
cognitive, emotional, and behavioural problems.
An infant born in a developing country is more than 10 times as likely to die
during the first year of life as an infant born in an industrialised country.
THE STUDY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT: BASIC CONCEPTS
Even though human beings grow into unique individuals, the changes we
experience have common patterns.
Certain personal characteristics show common patterns, for example, 10 – 15%
of children are consistently shy, and another 10 – 15% are consistently bold.
Child development focuses on the scientific study of systematic processes of
change and stability in human children.
Research findings of developmental scientists often have direct applications to
child rearing.
Three domains of development:
o Physical development: growth of body and brain, including biological
and physiological patterns of change in sensory capacities, motor skills
and health.
o Cognitive development: pattern of change in mental abilities, such as
learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.
o Psychosocial development: pattern of change in emotions, personality
and social relationships.
DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS DESCRIPTION OF EXAMPLES OF THE
DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS
Quantitative change Change (growth) in PD: Growth spurt during
number or amount puberty
1
, CD: increasing vocabulary
in childhood
PsD: Increasing social
interaction with peers
Qualitative change Change (growth) in kind, PD: Maturation of the brain
structure or organisation which promotes the
development of the
concept of object
permanence during
infancy and toddlerhood
CD: the development from
concrete to abstract
thought during
adolescence
PsD: The development of a
positive body image and
self-concept.
Stability Personality characteristics Temperament, eg shyness,
or behaviour that stays sociability (genetically
fairly stable or constant in determined to a large
spite of other degree)
developmental changes.
Abbreviations: PD = Physical Development; CD = Cognitive Development; PsD = Psychosocial development
INFLUENCES ON DEVELOPMENT
Heredity: inborn characteristics inherited from the biological parents.
Environment: totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on
development.
Development is influenced by heredity and environment, including socialisation.
Intelligence is strongly affected by heredity, but environmental factors (parental
stimulation, education, and peer influences) also play a role.
Maturation: unfolding of a universal natural sequence of physical and
behavioural changes.
Maturation processes act in concert with the influences of heredity and
environment.
Children vary in their rate of development. Average ages for the occurrence of
developmental events (such as menstruation) are mere guidelines. Development
is only considered delayed/advanced when there is an extreme deviation from
the average.
Contexts of development:
o Family:
2
, Nuclear family: two-generational household unit consisting of one
or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or
stepchildren.
Urbanisation and divorce has affected the nuclear family.
Extended family: multigenerational kinship network of parents,
children, and other relatives, sometimes living together in an
extended-family household.
The extended family is becoming less common in some developing
countries due to industrialisation and urbanisation.
In the United States, economic pressures, housing shortages and
out-of-wedlock childbearing is causing an increase in three- and
four-generational family households.
o Culture and race/ethnicity:
Culture: a society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs,
traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products – all
learned behaviour passed on from adults to children.
Ethnic group: a group united by ancestry, race, religion, language,
or national origin that contributes to a sense of shared identity.
Culture changes constantly, often through contact with other
cultures.
Ethnic and cultural patterns affect child development by their
influence on the composition of a household, its economic and
social resources, the way its members act toward one another, the
foods they eat, the games children play, the way they learn, how
well they do in school, the occupations the adults engage in, and
the way family members think about and perceive the world.
Within broad ethnic boundaries, much diversity exists.
The term race is a social construct. There is no clear scientific
consensus on its definition, and it is impossible to measure reliably.
Human genetic variation occurs along a broad continuum, and
90% of such variation occurs within rather than among socially
defined races.
Categories of race, culture and ethnicity are fluid, continuously
shaped and redefined by social and political forces.
A term such as black, Hispanic, Asian or white can be an ethnic
gloss: an overgeneralisation that blurs such variations.
o Socioeconomic status and neighbourhood:
Socioeconomic status (SES): combination of economic and social
factors, including income, education, and occupation, that
describe an individual or family.
SES affects developmental processes and outcomes indirectly.
53% of the world live on less than the international poverty standard
of 2$ per day.
3
, Child poverty in the US has increased since the 1990s, and poor
children throughout North America have become poorer in
comparison with the rest of the child population.
Poverty can damage the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial
wellbeing of children and families.
The harm done by poverty is often indirect, through its impact on
parents’ emotional state and parenting practices and on the
home environment they create.
Affluent children are under high pressure to achieve and are often
left unsupervised, leading to high rates of substance abuse, anxiety
and depression.
o Historical context:
Certain experiences, tied to time and place, affect the course of
people’s lives.
Normative and non-normative influences:
o Normative: characteristic of an event that occurs in a similar way for most
people in a group.
o Historical generation: A group of people strongly influenced by a major
historical event during their formative period.
o To understand similarities and differences in development, we need to
look at normative influences – biological or environmental events that
affect many or most people in a society in similar ways – and also at
events that touch only certain individuals.
o Normative age-graded influences are highly similar for people in a
particular age group. The timing of biological events is fairly predictable
within a normal range.
o Normative history-graded influences are significant events that shape the
behaviour and attitudes of a historical generation.
o Age cohort: a group of people born at about the same time. A historical
generation may contain more than one cohort, but not all cohorts are
part of historical generations unless they experience major, shaping
historical events at a formative point in their lives.
o Non-normative influences: unusual events that have a major impact on
individual lives because they disturb the expected sequence of the life
cycle. They are either typical events that happen at an atypical time of
life, or atypical events.
Timing of influences: critical or sensitive periods
o Imprinting: instinctive form of learning in which, during a critical period of
early development, a young animal forms an attachment to the first
moving object it sees, usually the mother.
o Critical period: specific time when a given event or its absence has a
profound and specific impact on development. The length of a critical
period is not absolutely fixed, and may even be extended.
4
Child and adolescent development
JANUARY 1, 2014
Charmaine Busch
,PART 1: ENTERING A CHILD’S
WORLD
CHAPTER 1: STUDYING A CHILD’S WORLD
Interesting facts:
In some societies there is no concept of adolescence.
Many scholars today agree that the construction of race is not a concept that
can be defended on a biological basis.
Minority children in the U.S. will become the majority by 2023.
Nearly one-fourth of U.S. children today are from immigrant families.
More than 13 million U.S. children live in poverty and are at risk for health,
cognitive, emotional, and behavioural problems.
An infant born in a developing country is more than 10 times as likely to die
during the first year of life as an infant born in an industrialised country.
THE STUDY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT: BASIC CONCEPTS
Even though human beings grow into unique individuals, the changes we
experience have common patterns.
Certain personal characteristics show common patterns, for example, 10 – 15%
of children are consistently shy, and another 10 – 15% are consistently bold.
Child development focuses on the scientific study of systematic processes of
change and stability in human children.
Research findings of developmental scientists often have direct applications to
child rearing.
Three domains of development:
o Physical development: growth of body and brain, including biological
and physiological patterns of change in sensory capacities, motor skills
and health.
o Cognitive development: pattern of change in mental abilities, such as
learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.
o Psychosocial development: pattern of change in emotions, personality
and social relationships.
DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS DESCRIPTION OF EXAMPLES OF THE
DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS
Quantitative change Change (growth) in PD: Growth spurt during
number or amount puberty
1
, CD: increasing vocabulary
in childhood
PsD: Increasing social
interaction with peers
Qualitative change Change (growth) in kind, PD: Maturation of the brain
structure or organisation which promotes the
development of the
concept of object
permanence during
infancy and toddlerhood
CD: the development from
concrete to abstract
thought during
adolescence
PsD: The development of a
positive body image and
self-concept.
Stability Personality characteristics Temperament, eg shyness,
or behaviour that stays sociability (genetically
fairly stable or constant in determined to a large
spite of other degree)
developmental changes.
Abbreviations: PD = Physical Development; CD = Cognitive Development; PsD = Psychosocial development
INFLUENCES ON DEVELOPMENT
Heredity: inborn characteristics inherited from the biological parents.
Environment: totality of nonhereditary, or experiential, influences on
development.
Development is influenced by heredity and environment, including socialisation.
Intelligence is strongly affected by heredity, but environmental factors (parental
stimulation, education, and peer influences) also play a role.
Maturation: unfolding of a universal natural sequence of physical and
behavioural changes.
Maturation processes act in concert with the influences of heredity and
environment.
Children vary in their rate of development. Average ages for the occurrence of
developmental events (such as menstruation) are mere guidelines. Development
is only considered delayed/advanced when there is an extreme deviation from
the average.
Contexts of development:
o Family:
2
, Nuclear family: two-generational household unit consisting of one
or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or
stepchildren.
Urbanisation and divorce has affected the nuclear family.
Extended family: multigenerational kinship network of parents,
children, and other relatives, sometimes living together in an
extended-family household.
The extended family is becoming less common in some developing
countries due to industrialisation and urbanisation.
In the United States, economic pressures, housing shortages and
out-of-wedlock childbearing is causing an increase in three- and
four-generational family households.
o Culture and race/ethnicity:
Culture: a society’s or group’s total way of life, including customs,
traditions, beliefs, values, language, and physical products – all
learned behaviour passed on from adults to children.
Ethnic group: a group united by ancestry, race, religion, language,
or national origin that contributes to a sense of shared identity.
Culture changes constantly, often through contact with other
cultures.
Ethnic and cultural patterns affect child development by their
influence on the composition of a household, its economic and
social resources, the way its members act toward one another, the
foods they eat, the games children play, the way they learn, how
well they do in school, the occupations the adults engage in, and
the way family members think about and perceive the world.
Within broad ethnic boundaries, much diversity exists.
The term race is a social construct. There is no clear scientific
consensus on its definition, and it is impossible to measure reliably.
Human genetic variation occurs along a broad continuum, and
90% of such variation occurs within rather than among socially
defined races.
Categories of race, culture and ethnicity are fluid, continuously
shaped and redefined by social and political forces.
A term such as black, Hispanic, Asian or white can be an ethnic
gloss: an overgeneralisation that blurs such variations.
o Socioeconomic status and neighbourhood:
Socioeconomic status (SES): combination of economic and social
factors, including income, education, and occupation, that
describe an individual or family.
SES affects developmental processes and outcomes indirectly.
53% of the world live on less than the international poverty standard
of 2$ per day.
3
, Child poverty in the US has increased since the 1990s, and poor
children throughout North America have become poorer in
comparison with the rest of the child population.
Poverty can damage the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial
wellbeing of children and families.
The harm done by poverty is often indirect, through its impact on
parents’ emotional state and parenting practices and on the
home environment they create.
Affluent children are under high pressure to achieve and are often
left unsupervised, leading to high rates of substance abuse, anxiety
and depression.
o Historical context:
Certain experiences, tied to time and place, affect the course of
people’s lives.
Normative and non-normative influences:
o Normative: characteristic of an event that occurs in a similar way for most
people in a group.
o Historical generation: A group of people strongly influenced by a major
historical event during their formative period.
o To understand similarities and differences in development, we need to
look at normative influences – biological or environmental events that
affect many or most people in a society in similar ways – and also at
events that touch only certain individuals.
o Normative age-graded influences are highly similar for people in a
particular age group. The timing of biological events is fairly predictable
within a normal range.
o Normative history-graded influences are significant events that shape the
behaviour and attitudes of a historical generation.
o Age cohort: a group of people born at about the same time. A historical
generation may contain more than one cohort, but not all cohorts are
part of historical generations unless they experience major, shaping
historical events at a formative point in their lives.
o Non-normative influences: unusual events that have a major impact on
individual lives because they disturb the expected sequence of the life
cycle. They are either typical events that happen at an atypical time of
life, or atypical events.
Timing of influences: critical or sensitive periods
o Imprinting: instinctive form of learning in which, during a critical period of
early development, a young animal forms an attachment to the first
moving object it sees, usually the mother.
o Critical period: specific time when a given event or its absence has a
profound and specific impact on development. The length of a critical
period is not absolutely fixed, and may even be extended.
4
