Module 7
Developmental Issues: Prenatal
Development, and the Newborn
Developmental Psychology
 A branch of
psychology that
studies physical,
cognitive and
social change
throughout the life
span
Three major issues
Nature / Nurture
 How do genetic inheritance and experience influence our
development?
 Already covered in behavioral genetics and evolutionary
psychology
Continuity / Stages
 Is development a gradual and continuous process or does it
proceed through a sequence of distinct stages?
Stability / Change
 Do early traits [e.g., personality] persist throughout life or do we
change through the life span?
 intelligence
Continuity or Stages?
Development through experience and learning
occurs as a continuous process.
Biological and genetically determined
maturation can be studied as a series of
predetermined stages.
Figure 1.2
Cole, Cole, and Lightfoot: The Development of Children, Fifth Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Worth Publishers
Stability and/or Change?
First two years provide a poor basis for eventual
traits
 Older children and adolescents also change but to a
lesser extent.
Some characteristics are more stable than
others
 Temperament, personality versus political attitudes
All individuals change through the life span
 Stability provides our identity
 Change motivates us - means hope about a brighter
future, adapt to the present, and benefit from
experience
Nature or Nurture?
At each developmental stage, genetic and
environmental factors affect development
Newborns come to world equipped with reflexes
(and may be a lot more) suited for survival and
adaptation to the world.
 E.g., Rooting Reflex
 tendency to open mouth, and search for nipple when
touched on the cheek
Prenatal Development
An ovum is 85,000 times the size of a sperm
Fertilized egg: zygote
10 days after conception, the inner cells of
zygote form the embryo
At 4 weeks – 4 mm
At 8/9 weeks –
Fetal stage - 30 mm
Fetus
•By the 8th week - Rapid growth of the zygote that has
developed a heart, brain, intestinal tract, and other organs
Prenatal Development
At 18 weeks – 20 cm - moving
At 29 weeks – 37 cm
At 38 weeks – 50 cm - mature
Prenatal Development
Both genetic and environmental factors
influence prenatal development
 Teratogens – Harmful agents that can cross the
placenta
 Opiates such as heroine
 Nicotine
 Alcohol




Mother’s nutrition and emotional state
Mother’s illness
Mother’s drug use
Alcohol and nicotine
 Fetal alcohol syndrome
The Newborn
A set of reflexes that help survival –
 For food – rooting & sucking
 Grasping
A set of preferences that facilitate
responsiveness




Crying
Gazing into preferred patterns such as face
Sound of a heartbeat
Mother’s voice
Using habituation to understand infant
cognition
Habituation is a decrease in responding with
repeated stimulation
It enables researchers to assess what infants
can see and remember. Studies using
habituation indicate that infants can discriminate
colors, shapes, and sounds and understand
some basic concepts of physics and numbers.
Newborns prefer face-like objects
Development
Physical Development
 Brain & motor development
Cognitive Development
Social Development
Module 8
Infancy and Childhood
Infancy and Childhood:
Physical Development
 The brain is immature
at birth
 As the child matures,
the neural networks
grow increasingly more
complicated
 Rapid growth is
observed in the frontal
lobes
 Association areas are
the last areas to develop
 Developing brain also
enables physical
coordination
(maturation)
At birth
3 months
15 months
Cortical Neurons
Infancy and Childhood:
Physical Development
Maturation
 biological growth processes that enable orderly
changes in physical coordination & behavior
 Sit, stand, walk, run  maturation of the cerebellum
 relatively uninfluenced by experience, the sequence
of motor/physical devepment is universal.
During the First Year
 Rolls over at 3 months
 Sits without support at 6 months
 Stands alone at about 11 months
 Walks at just over one year old
Prop up to get a stronger back
Sit up without support
Crawling
Standing supported
Standing unsupported
Cruising
Walking
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development
 Cognition
 All the mental activities associated with
thinking, knowing, remembering, and
communicating
What is the driving force of cognitive
development? Jean Piaget
Mind develops through a series of stages
 Cognitive capacity develops through children’s
constant trials to make sense of the world.
Mind develops using schemas
 a concept or mental framework that organizes and
interprets information/experiences
 E.g. Animal, dog, etc.
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development, J. Piaget
Concept of Assimilation
 New cognitive elements are fitted in with old
elements or modified to fit more easily
Concept of Accommodation
 Restructuring cognitive structures and building new
schemas so that new information can fit into them
more easily
Infancy and Childhood:
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Typical Age
Range
Description
of Stage
Developmental
Phenomena
Birth to nearly 2 years
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the world through
senses and actions (looking,
touching, mouthing)
•Object permanence
•Stranger anxiety
About 2 to 6 years
Preoperational
Representing things
with words and images
but lacking logical reasoning
•Egocentrism
•Language development
About 7 to 11 years
Concrete operational
•Conservation
Thinking logically about concrete
•Mathematical
events; grasping concrete analogies
transformations
and performing arithmetical operations
About 12 through
adulthood
Formal operational
Abstract reasoning
•Abstract logic
•Potential for
moral reasoning