ISSUES IN CHILD

DEVELOPMENT
 LEARNING QUESTIONS

1. Who needs to have a good understanding of child development?

2. What are the domains of child development and some recurring issues for debate?
3. What are the contexts for child development?
4. How can you be a smart consumer of information about development?
 WHY STUDY CHILDHOOD AND
ADOLESCENCE?
• Many people are interested in studying child development
because the topic itself is fascinating and important. Others want
information they will be able to use in their role as a parent or in a
future career. These goals are not mutually exclusive. Many
students have a natural curiosity about development and know
that they will be able to use in information in the future as a
professional who works with children or a policy –maker who
shapes social policy that affect children and families.
 UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS
DEVELOPMENT
One reason why students are interested in studying child development is that experiences in
childhood influence who we become as adults. Understanding that process helps us understand
the role that infancy, childhood, and adolescence play in forming our abilities, beliefs and
attitudes.
Researchers who study children as they develop over long periods of time have provided ample
evidence that early traits , behaviors, and experiences are related to many adult outcomes.

For example , Lewis Terman began a study of gifted children that has lasted over 80 years.
Although Terman began a study of gifted children that has lasted over 80 years. Although
Terman died many years ago , others are still mining his data to answer questions about life span
development. One finding is that those children who were rated high in the quality Terman called
conscientiousness or social dependability had many positive outcomes in adulthood, including of
30% in the likelihood they would die in any particular year.
• How does earlier conscientiousness link with these later outcomes? The connection is partially
explained by the fact that conscientiousness individuals were less likely to smoke and drink
alcohol to excess, both which are predictive of a shorter life span. Some have hypothesized that
conscientious people have better marriages , while others think they have be better prepared to
handle the emotional difficulties they encounter. Ongoing research is continuing to explore the
full complexity of these connections.
• As another example of the continuity between early and later development, Walter Mischel
and his colleagues have carried out studies demonstrating that self-control in 4 - year olds is
predictive of their ability to delay gratification in adolescence and beyond. In their original
research , 4 year-olds were told they could immediately have something desirable like a
marshmallow , or they could have two marshmallows if they waited until the researcher returned
a while later. Children who were able to wait for longer periods of time were the ones who
demonstrated greater self-control at age 18. Even 30 years later, those who had waited to eat the
marshmallows at age 4 had lower body mass index than those who could not wait, perhaps
indicating a continuing ability to control food-related urges.
• The earliest stages of development are clearly important for later development and functioning.
However, Charles Nelson , neuroscientist and development psychologists , has argued that the
first 3 years of life are no more important than later periods of development. He likens early
development to building the foundation of a house. A solid foundation is essential, but the
ultimate shape and function of the house depends o adding the walls, the roofs, the pipers,
and all the rest. Nelson's focus is on the development of the brain , but his comments could
apply to many other areas of child development. He states that the basic form of the brain is set
down within the first years of life but it is continually affected by the experiences we have later
in life. Another example is the research by Alan Sroufe and his colleagues who
found that the nature of infant’s secure relationship with their mother was an important
predictor of their ability to have close romantic relationships with adults. However , the nature
of their peer relationships through middle childhood also related to later relationships.
Experiences early in life have consequences for functioning later in life, but experiences all
long the path to adulthood also contribute to an adult’s psychological functioning.
 USING OUR KNOWLEDGE OF CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
• A second reason to study child development is to be able to use this information to improve the lives of children and
adolescence. An understanding of how children think, feel, learn, and grow as well as how they change and stay the same,
is essential to the ability to foster positive development. This understanding can help parents and family members,
professional who work with children and families , and people who create and carry out social policies and programs that
affect children and their families.
1. Parents and Family Members - can help all the parents do their best in this important role. Many parents read books ,
search websites , and browse magazines designed to help them understand their children so they can become better parents.
Parent’s understanding of their children’s needs and abilities at each stage of development helps them provide the appropriate
amount and type of support and stimulation to enhance their children’s growth and development.
2. Child Development Professionals – people in all the helping professions are engaged in the identification and prevention
of problems, in providing interventions when problems do occur , and in promoting positive development for all children and
teens. Example: community organizers, community psychologist, and outreach workers, child therapist , family therapists and
etc.
 UNDERSTANDING HOW
DEVELOPMENT HAPPENS
A. Domains of Development
– There are three (3) basic aspects or domains of development
1. Physical Development - includes the biological changes that occur in the body, including changes in size
and strength , as well as the integration of sensory and motor activities. Neurological , or brain,
development has become major area for research in physical development.
2. Cognitive Development - includes changes in the way we think, understand, and reason about the world.
It includes the accumulation of knowledge as well as the way we use that information for problem solving
and decision making.
3. Social-emotional Development - includes the way we learn to connect to other individuals, understand
our emotions and the emotions of other, interact effectively with others , and express and regulate our
emotions.
 NATURE VS. NURTURE
• Throughout history, the question of whether our behavior, thoughts and feelings result from
NATURE, our genetic inheritance , or from NURTURE ,the influence of the environment, has
shaped our understanding of why we act certain ways and how can influence human behavior.
 CONTINUOUS VS. STAGE-LIKE
DEVELOPMENT
• Quantitative Change - is change in the amount or quantity of what you are measuring. For
instance , as children grow , they get taller, they learn more new words, and they acquire more
factual knowledge.
• Qualitative Change – changes that are not accumulated in inches , alter the overall quality of a
process or function , and the result is something altogether different. Walking is quantitatively
different from crawling , and thinking about abstract concepts such as justice or fairness is
qualitatively different from knowing something more concrete , such as the capitals of all 50
states.
• Stage Theories – typically describe qualitative changes in development
• Incremental Theories – describe quantitative changes in development
 STABILITY VS. CHANGE
• We find evidence of both stability and change as we look at development. For instance ,
characteristics such as anxiety, shyness and aggressiveness, tend to be relatively stable over
time. However, the specific way in which these characteristics are expressed changes with a
child’s age. For example, young children hit, kick , or throw things when they are angry , but
school-age children express their aggression through teasing, taunting, and name calling and
adolescents attack each other through social means ( for example, spreading rumors or
excluding people from social activities.
 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
• The development pathways of any given individual are difficult to predict. Different pathways
can result in the same outcome, a process known as equifinality (equi=equal , finality =
ends) . For example , a depression may result from biological and generic processes, but it
also can result from early traumatic experiences. However, it is also true that the same
pathway can lead to different outcomes , known as multifinality. For example, children who
are victims of abuse can have many different long-term outcomes that can include not only
depression but also resiliency and healing. Individual characteristics of a child or an adolescent
, including the child’s gender, age, ethnic or racial background, and socioeconomic status are
just some of the characteristics that may influence the specific outcome in any given situation.
• This understanding of individual differences has changed the way we view behavioral and
emotional disorders. In the field of developmental psychopathology, psychological disorders
now are seen as distortions of normal development pathways. We include these disorders in in
our discussions of typical development. For example, language disorders appear with the
discussion of typical language development , and attention deficit disorder appears in the
section in which we describe typical development of attention, Thinking about atypical
development this way may help reduce the stigma associated with mental disorders , because it
helps us see them as variations in development rather than as illnesses.
 THE ROLE OF THE CHILD
DEVELOPMENT
• Some of the most influential theories in child development describe ways in which the circumstances of
children’s lives shape their development. The clearest example of this type of theory is called learning theory
or behaviorism. This approach explores the way the systematic use of rewards and punishment affects the
likelihood that a child will – or won’t – behave in certain ways. The theory of behaviorism was originally
based on the idea that children are passive recipients of forces outside their control. You may agree with this
point if you think children are like sponges who absorb whatever they re exposed to or like lumps of clay
parents shape into the type of children they want. However, other theories in child development have given a
much more active role in shaping their own development. For example, Jean Piaget , a Swiss psychologist,
developed a theory of cognitive development proposing that children actively explore their environment and
in the process create their own theories about how the world works. Another influential theorist , Lev
Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist , proposed that learning is a collaborative process in which the child seeks
to solve problems while more experienced people provide just enough help to allow the child to continue
learning independently. Sandra Scarr later described a process of active niche picking in which people
express their generic tendencies by actively seeking out environments they find compatible and stimulating.
• Richard Lerner succinctly captured the idea that children are affected by and also affect their
environments when he said that children are both products and the producers of their own
development. Characteristics of individual children evoke difference reactions from the people
with whom the children interact, and these reactions provide feedback in a way that can change
the children. For example , the way peers respond to socially skilled children is different from
the way they respond to socially awkward ones. These reactions feedback to children and affect
their level of self-esteem , which, in turn, will affect their future interactions with peers.
 CONTEXTS OF DEVELOPMENT
• Family - is the primary context for the development of most children, Families today take many different forms,
but whether they are nuclear families, single-parent families, step - or- adoptive families, they all serve one
important function: They are responsible for the socialization of their children. They instill the norms, values,
attitudes, and beliefs of their culture so that children grow positive contributing members of their society. Within
most cultural groups some families have more resources than others and some have less and these differences
affect children’s development. Socio-economic status is a combined measure of a family’ s income and parental
education and occupation. In general, a higher SES allows a family to have more resources that can support
healthy child development. Beginning before the child is born , low SES parents have less access to good prenatal
care , and their babies are more likely to be born prematurely or at low birth weight and to develop other long-
term health problems. Children who spend time living in poverty are found on average to have lower academic
performance than those who do not. This makes sense if you consider that parents with more resources are able to
provide books, educational experiences , and other activities that a family with few resources cannot. In addition,
poor nutrition and low access to health care affect the growing brain and body, influencing a child’s ability to
learn. Finally, families with few resources are more likely to experience highly stressful events, such as loss of
income , relocation, divorce and separation , and violence. Children’s responses to stress such as this , especially
when it is repeated , puts severe strains on their ability to develop optimally.
• School - is another important context for development. During the academic year, children
spend 6 to 7 hours a day at school. Within that context , children learn academic skills, such as
reading , writing, and arithmetic , and older children and adolescents are prepared for higher
education or entry citizens. In recent years, schools, some health care and social services.
School also is where most children and adolescents make friends, and sometimes become the
victims of bullies. You can see from this description why we talk about schools as an important
developmental context when we are talking about physical , cognitive and socio- emotional
development.
• Community – The characteristics of the community in which children live impact many
aspects of development. It affects the range and quality of support services available to children
and their families, including the educational opportunities and outdo -school activities that are
available. Whether a neighborhood is safe or not affects the amount of time children might
spend outside their homes and the kinds of things they do with this time.
• Culture – The general findings from research on development are modified only individual
differences , but also by group differences , such those between different cultures. For example, a
very strict parenting style would likely have a different effect on children raised in a culture that
views strictness as a sign of love and care than in one that views the same behavior as a sign the
parent like doesn’t like the child.
• Matsumoto and Juang point out that culture is a way of describing similarities within one group
of people and difference between groups of people. It emerges from a particular group’s
environmental niche ; for example a desert society will have different rules and traditions than a
society located on rich farmland. Even the technological landscape, such as availability of
television or cell phones , shapes the environmental niche. Culture forms to promote the survival
of he group in its niche.
• One way in which cultures vary is along a continuum from individualism to collectivism. U.S.
culture is based on values of rugged individualism. Our heroes often are those who are self-made
and managed to rise from deprived circumstances to become successful by their own efforts. In
other cultures, the emphasis is more on an obligation to those around you : your family or your
group, however you define it.
• Culture is expressed in overt behaviors such as how we greet people, but there are also much
more subtle ways in which culture becomes a part of us , guiding not only our behaviors but
also the ways in which we think or experience our feelings. In a relatively new field called
cultural neuroscience , researches are now examining how people who grow up in different
cultures develop differences in a way their brains function demonstrated how cultural
differences can affect our perceptions.
• Because culture is a powerful influence on our behavior, perceptions, and expectations, it is
important that we strive to understand children’s development within the context of their
cultural background and experiences.
 BEING A SMART CONSUMER OF
INFORMATION ABOUT DEVELOPMENT
• Know your Success- Your campus library owns many journals in the field of child children development, as well
as many books and professional publications, and you can trust these to be reliable sources of information on
child development. You can probably access many of them through your library’s electronic databases. Other
sources includes the internet.
• Become a Critical Thinker - All new ideas that enter a science are subjected to review and critique by people in
the field , and research findings need to be tested and replicated or produced again by others before we can gain
confidence that they are accurate and reliable.
• Beware Generalizations - Your experiences may not represent the average or typical experience of other people.
• Avoid Perceptual Bias – The tendency to see and understand something based on the way you expected it to be
is called a perceptual bias,. And it can affect your learning. Identifying them can help you pay more attention to
those ideas that challenge the preconceptions you bring to your reading.
• Question “ Common Sense”- Students sometimes think that child development is just common sense.
Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. While some findings sound like common sense , others will be counterintuitive.
Sometimes we fall back on folk wisdom, or ideas that are widely accepted but have not been scientifically tested,
to describe our ideas about development.