Child Psychology Notes <3

This is where I've been getting most of my psychology notes from! (non-clickable links).

• https://www.alleydog.com/101notes.php
  

Here's the notes for this one subject! <3

• https://www.alleydog.com/101notes/birthtoadol.php
  

Child Psychology

Development - sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from conception to death.

      Physical Development is motor skills, bone structure, weight, ect. 

      Cognitive Development is thought patterns and skills, problem solving, ect. 

      Social Development is emotional changes, personality, ect. 

The development in a person starts long before a child is born. From conception, there are changes happening all the time. Many factors influence how the child develops before birth. One major influence is Maternal Health.

Developmental psychologists are people that examines past experience and influences in their patients lives to try to understand their current behavior and/or try to predict future behavior. Past experiences is whats used to determine how people function in their life.

Maternal Health

1) Maternal Drug Taking

    a. Fatal Alchohol Syndrome : a 1991 study found that mothers who consumed just 1 alocholic beverage a day during pregnancy (assuming the drinks are a moderate amount per drink), had children who scored lower on IQ tests at age 4 than children whose mothers did not drink. Even when environmental factors were accounted for, IQ scores were still lower.

2) Maternal Smoking 

    Has immediate effects such as hindering oxygenation of blood to the baby, as well as long-term effects like deficits in growth and learning abilities.

3) Obstetrical Medication

    Although perscribed by a doctor, studies have found that pain medication given during labor (in larger doses) have been correlated with sluggish, less animated infant behavior during the first few weeks of life. This has a common effect of hindering the parent-infant bond. These children have been found to have poor motor cordination and cognitive deficits up to a year old.

4) Maternal Emotional State

    Often overlooked; since more than half of the pregnancies in this country are unplanned, there may be guilt, anxiety, and depression, all of which are mediated by hormonal reactions which pass through the placenta to the baby. This can be damaging when prolonged, but temporary reactions are not as damaging. Highly emotional mothers during pregnancy have been linked with highly active, irritable infant behaviors, as well as infants who are abnormal sleepers and eaters. Emotionality in mothers has been correlated with miscarriages (greater emotionality is positivly correlated with incidences of miscarriage). 

5) Maternal Age

    Both Down's Syndrome and infant mortality increase with mother's age. Woman have a 1/100 chance of giving birth to a child with Down's Sydrome. Woman age 50 have a 1/10 chance. Mortality rate is also higher in young mothers (adolescents). This is possibly due to the body's inability to handle pregnancy before a certain developmental level. 

6) Nutrition

    This has become popular in more recent years, especially the notion of how much weight to gain during pregnancy. Today, it is more common for a doctor to recommend gaining between 25 and 30 points as opposed to 15-18 that was common just a few years ago.

7) Environmental Factors

     Radiation that can occur from jobs (X-ray technicians, flight attendants) and lead to low birth-weight stillborns, birth defects, ect. 

Infancy (0-2)

1) Sensory Development

    It was once believed that a new born was an empty-headed, passive organism that was unable to perceive but more recently, the consensus is that infancy is an active time of exploration and aquiring information through primitive but effective means (sight, hearing, ect).

        a) Visual Perception

1. Preference for visual stimuli Frantz (1961) showed infants different pictures of shapes that, to varying degrees, represented a human face. There was a range - some of the pictures just looked like a bunch of unrealted images, while at the other end, some looked like a human face. He found that up to 40% of fixation time was on human face, 20% on complex non-face, 10% on solid color stimuli. REASONS - complex images provide more stimulation; humans may be biologically programmed to keep contact with care givers (survival).

1. Visual Cliff a researcher places a checkered cloth over a a table or other raised surface that extends over the table, floor, everything around. Then, a piece of clear plastic or glass is placed on the raised surface so that it extends out from the surface. This gives the appearance, when looking from the top of the clear material, that there is a cliff. A child is placed on the table/surface and the mother stands at the end of the clear plastic or glass, and calls for the child to crawl to her. If the child simply crawls to her, over the edge of the table on the plastic, then the child has not yet developed depth perception. If the child stops at the edge of the table and looks down, but refuses to crawl to the mother, than it can be inferred that the child does have depth perception. Depth perception is usually exhibited between 6 - 14 months; At that point, children are less likely to crawl over the edge of the table.

Sensory Development

    It was once believed that a new born was an empty-headed, passive organism that was unable to perceive but more recently, the consensus is that infancy is an active time of exploration and acquiring information through primitive but effective means (sight, hearing, ect).

        a) Behavioral Development Includes reflexes such as rooting, Moro, ect.

        The average new born spends 6-7% of awake time crying. Early cries are reflex to discomfort biological method of comunication with care-givers. Many different types of crying - research shows that adults (not just parents) can identify types of cries (pain, anger, ect). 

        Should you respond to a crying baby? There are two primary perspectives:

1. John Watson stated that responding to crying was not a good idea because it produces are reward for crying; the baby learns to cry anytime it wants to see mom or dad, not when it actually is in need. 
2. Mary Ainsworth impossible to respond too often. Responding establishes secure attachment. Reasearch is INCONCLUSIVE.

        b) Attachment process of forming close emotional bonds of affection that develop between infant and care givers. 

1. Mary Ainsworth developed the strange situation procedure to measure attachment in infants. From this research, she has established that there are 3 main categories of child-parent attachment:

            2. Secure Attachment (65%) infant actively seeks out contact with mother.

               3. Ambivalent Attachment seek contact but then resist once contact is made.