How to study child development

Question 1

What are the domains?

Answer 1

• Physical domain
  Changes in body size, perceptual and motor skills, physical health etc
• Cognitive domain
  Changes in intellectual abilities
• Emotional & social domain
  Changes in emotional communication, knowledge about self and others, moral reasoning etc
• They are integrated
• Order and convenience (having domains)

Question 2

What are periods of development?

Answer 2

• Different age periods
  Prenatal period - Conception to birth
  Infancy and toddlerhood - Birth to 2 years
  Early childhood - 2 to 6
  Middle Childhood - 6 to 11
  Adolescence - 11 to 18
  Emerging Adulthood - 18-25
• Offer an understanding of the new capacities that an individual has develop, or should

Question 3

Infancy and Toddlerhood

Answer 3

-Drastic body and brain changes
- Major changes in development, all domains
- First steps towards independance and autonomy
- Language skills

Question 4

Early Childhood

Answer 4

• Changes in body
• Improved/refined motor skills
• Emotional control and expressions
• Peer connection
• Sense of morality
• Change in language skills

Question 5

Middle Childhood

Answer 5

• Mastering new responsibilities and skills useful during adolescence
• Improved athletic skills
• Engagement in structured activities
• Advances in cognitive doman, understanding others, logical thinking etc

Question 6

Adolescence

Answer 6

• Transition and preparation to adulthood
• Establishing autonomy and develop personal values and goals

Question 7

Why do we need theoretical guidance?

Answer 7

• Offer guidelines and meaning to observations
• Understanding of how to improve welfare of children

Question 8

What is a good theory?

Answer 8

• Description
  What attributes to be expected at a given age period
• Explanation
  How and why these age specific attributes are developed
• Predictions
  Consequences related to absence and presence of age specific attributes

Question 9

What are the basic issues theorists encounters?

Answer 9

• Is the course of child development continiuous or discontinuous?
• Is the course of development similar for all children?
• What are the roles of nature and nurture in child development?

Question 10

Continuous Development

Answer 10

• A process involving gradual increase in skills
• We all have the same foundation
• Gradual increase of the same type of skill
• Differences between a child and an adult is in amount and complexity of skills managed over time - more experience

Question 11

Discontinuous Development

Answer 11

• A process involving age specific capacities in responding to the world
• Different ages can gain different amount or set of skills
• Differences between how a child and an adult respond to the world is in their respective developmental stage/age - a more qualitative differences in thinking, feeling and behaviour

Question 12

Is the course of development similar for all children?

Answer 12

• Stage theorists; people follow generally follow the same orderly stage specific development
• Context has gotten more increased attention ( a nurture focus) which could explain individual differences

Question 13

What are the roles of nature and nurture in child development?

Answer 13

• A controversy, what is more important for development?
• Nature: inborn biological/genetic inheritence
• Nurture: physical and social world influencing our biological givens
• The influence each others, “whats the primary source though?”
• Plastcity view: We change as a response to powrful experiences throughout life

Question 14

How should one deal with these basic issues?

Answer 14

• A balanced view
• Both continuous and discontinuous perspective is acknowledged
• Development is recongnized as a process involving both universal processes and unique ones