Developmental psychology and child psychology

 

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Developmental psychology and child psychology

Intro

Developmental psychology is the study field that explores the lifespan changes in human beings. It delves into the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and moral development that individuals experience from conception to death. Child psychology is a specialized field within developmental psychology that focuses specifically on the mental, emotional, social, and cognitive development of children from prenatal development through adolescence.

   

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What is developmental psychology?

What is developmental psychology?

Developmental psychology is a fascinating field that explores the lifespan changes in human beings. It delves into the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and moral development that individuals experience from conception to death.

What are the main features of developmental psychology?

  • Lifespan Approach: It examines development across all stages of life, from prenatal development to old age.
  • Multidimensional Focus: Developmental psychology recognizes that growth occurs in various domains – physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and moral.
  • Nature vs. Nurture: This field explores the complex interplay between biological (genetic) predispositions and environmental influences on development.
  • Continuity vs. Discontinuity: Developmental psychologists debate whether development is a gradual, continuous process or punctuated by distinct stages.

What are important sub-areas in developmental psychology?

  • Prenatal Development: Examines the growth and development of the fetus from conception to birth.
  • Infancy and Childhood: Focuses on rapid physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development during the early years.
  • Adolescence: Studies the physical, cognitive, and social changes experienced during puberty and teenage years.
  • Emerging Adulthood: Explores the development of identity, relationships, and career paths in young adulthood.
  • Middle Adulthood: Examines changes in physical health, cognitive abilities, and family dynamics during middle age.
  • Late Adulthood: Studies the physical, cognitive, and social changes associated with aging.

What are key concepts in developmental psychology?

  • Critical Period: A specific time window when an organism is highly susceptible to environmental influences impacting development.
  • Maturation: The biological unfolding of genetic potential, leading to physical growth and development.
  • Attachment Theory: Explores the importance of early emotional bonds with caregivers for healthy emotional and social development.
  • Cognitive Development: The process of acquiring knowledge, skills, and thinking abilities throughout life.
  • Social Development: The process by which individuals learn to interact with others and form relationships.
  • Moral Development: The development of an understanding of right and wrong, and a sense of ethical principles.

Who are influential figures in developmental psychology?

  • Jean Piaget (Psychologist): Pioneered the theory of cognitive development, proposing stages of cognitive growth in children.
  • Lev Vygotsky (Psychologist): Emphasized the role of social interaction and culture in cognitive development, introducing the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development.
  • Erik Erikson (Psychologist): Developed the theory of psychosocial development, proposing eight stages of psychosocial challenges individuals face throughout life.
  • John Bowlby (Psychoanalyst): Pioneered attachment theory, highlighting the significance of early emotional bonds with caregivers for healthy development.
  • Mary Ainsworth (Psychologist): Expanded upon attachment theory, identifying different attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) formed in early childhood.

Why is developmental psychology important?

  • Understanding Human Development: Provides a deeper understanding of how humans grow and change throughout life.
  • Early Childhood Intervention: Helps design programs and interventions to support healthy development in children, especially those facing challenges.
  • Education: Developmental psychology informs educational practices by tailoring teaching methods to different age groups and developmental stages.
  • Parenting and Family Support: Offers insights into child development stages, fostering positive and supportive parenting practices.
  • Aging Well: Helps us understand the aging process and develop strategies to promote healthy aging physically, cognitively, and socially.

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What is child psychology?

What is child psychology?

Child psychology is a specialized field within developmental psychology that focuses specifically on the mental, emotional, social, and cognitive development of children from prenatal development through adolescence.

What are the main features of child psychology?

  • Focus on Childhood: It delves into the unique aspects of development during the early years of life.
  • Multifaceted Approach: Examines a variety of domains, including emotional well-being, cognitive abilities, social skills, and moral development.
  • Developmental Stages: Child psychology acknowledges that children progress through distinct stages with specific challenges and milestones.
  • Play and Exploration: Recognizes the importance of play and exploration in learning and development.

What are important sub-areas in child psychology?

  • Prenatal Development: Examines how experiences in the womb can impact a child's physical and mental development.
  • Infant Development: Focuses on rapid physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development during the first year of life.
  • Early Childhood Development: Studies the cognitive, social, and emotional growth that occurs between the ages of 2 and 6.
  • Middle Childhood Development: Examines the physical, cognitive, and social changes experienced during the school years (ages 6-12).
  • Adolescence: Studies the physical, cognitive, and social changes experienced during puberty and the teenage years.

What are key concepts in child psychology?

  • Attachment Theory: The importance of early emotional bonds with caregivers for healthy emotional and social development.
  • Developmental Milestones: The expected skills and abilities children acquire at different ages.
  • Cognitive Development: The process of acquiring knowledge, skills, and thinking abilities throughout childhood.
  • Social Development: The process by which children learn to interact with others and form relationships.
  • Play Therapy: A therapeutic approach using play to help children express themselves, process emotions, and develop coping mechanisms.
  • Temperament: Inborn behavioral styles and characteristics influencing children's responses to their environment.

Who are influential figures in child psychology?

  • Jean Piaget (Psychologist): Pioneered the theory of cognitive development, proposing stages of cognitive growth in children.
  • Lev Vygotsky (Psychologist): Emphasized the role of social interaction and culture in cognitive development, introducing the Zone of Proximal Development.
  • Erik Erikson (Psychologist): Developed the theory of psychosocial development, proposing eight stages of psychosocial challenges individuals face throughout life, including challenges specific to childhood.
  • John Bowlby (Psychoanalyst): Pioneered attachment theory, highlighting the significance of early emotional bonds with caregivers for healthy development.
  • Mary Ainsworth (Psychologist): Expanded upon attachment theory, identifying different attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) formed in early childhood.

Why is child psychology important?

  • Promoting Healthy Development: Provides insights for optimizing a child's physical, cognitive, social, and emotional well-being.
  • Early Intervention: Helps identify developmental delays or challenges early on, allowing for timely intervention and support.
  • Understanding Behavior: Provides a framework for understanding children's behavior and responding appropriately.
  • Positive Parenting: Offers guidance on effective parenting practices that foster healthy development and nurturing relationships.
  • Educational Practices: Informs the development of age-appropriate curriculum and teaching methods in schools.

How is child psychology applied in practice?

  • Early Childhood Education: Provides the foundation for designing effective preschool and kindergarten programs.
  • Parenting Education and Support: Offers guidance on child development stages and
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Developmental psychology and child psychology: The best textbooks summarized

Developmental psychology and child psychology: The best textbooks summarized

Summaries and Study Assistance with Developmental psychology and child psychology

Table of content

  • Summary with the book: A Critical Introduction to Sport Psychology by Moran and Toner - 3rd edition
  • Summary with the book: Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology by Wicks-Nelson and Israel - 8th edition
  • Summary with the book: Adolescence by Steinberg - 12th edition
  • Summary with the book: An Introduction to Developmental Psychology by Slater and Bremner - 3rd edition
  • Summary with the book: Child and Adolescent Therapy: Cognitive-Behavioral Procedures by Kendall - 4th edition
  • Summary with the book: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Children and Families by Graham and Reynolds - 3rd edition
  • Summary with the book: How Children Develop by Siegler a.o. - 6th edition
  • Summary with the book: Life-Span Human Development by Sigelman and Rider - 9th edition
  • Summary with the book: The boy who was raised as a dog by Perry

About developmental psychology and child psychology

  • Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how people change and grow throughout their lifespan. Child psychology is a subfield of developmental psychology that focuses specifically on the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children.
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Developmental psychology: the best scientific articles summarized

Developmental psychology: the best scientific articles summarized

Study guide with articles for Developmental psychology

Summaries and study assistance with articles for Developmental psychology

  • for 60+ summaries with articles for Developmental psychology, see the supporting content of this study guide

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Developmental psychology: The best concepts summarized

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Stevens et al. (2003). Parent, teacher and self-reported problem behavior in the Netherlands (2003).” – Article summary

Structural adversity and rejection by the host country may cause stress and negatively influence psychological adaptation. Adolescents are at particular risk because they have to function in different cultural contexts (e.g. family; peers; institutions; ethnic community). Turkish adolescent immigrants show more internalizing and externalizing problems compared to Dutch natives. However, there is no consensus regarding the impact of migration on psychological development. Results may vary due to methodological difficulties. For example, parents, teachers and adolescents report different levels of behavioural and emotional problems. Next, there may also be differences between specific migrant groups regarding their culture (1), socio-economic status (2), level of education (3), migration history (4), position in the host country (5) and reception in the host country (6).

Moroccans may have to cross a wider cultural gap when migrating to the Netherlands than Turks due to the lower levels of literacy (1), education (2)

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Van Nieuwenhuijzen & Vriens (2012). (Social) Cognitive skills and social information processing in children with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities. – Article summary

Children with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities (MBID) have problems with adaptive functioning in social situations and in peer relations. They are rejected more often and have problems building social relations. They show more aggressive behaviour, partially because of the lack of adequate social skills. Comorbidity is also common in MBID. Youth with MBID is overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

To show socially adaptive behaviour, complex social skills are needed. Adaptive social behaviour depends on social information processing (SIP). This refers to the way social information is encoded (1), behaviour of others is interpreted (2), own emotions are regulated (3), responses to the problem situation are generated, selected and enacted (4). Youth with MBID typically encode more negative information (1), have less assertive but more submissive problem solving skills (2) and have more aggressive problem solving skills (3).

Cognitive limitations may explain differences in

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Subotnik, Olszewski, & Worrell (2011). Rethinking giftedness and gifted education: A proposed direction forward based on psychological science.” – Article summary

There are five views on giftedness:

  1. Giftedness refers to a high intellectual functioning (i.e. high IQ).
  2. Giftedness refers to a high sensitivity and thus an emotional fragility.
  3. Giftedness refers to people who are creative and have innovative ideas.
  4. Giftedness refers to people who have had unequal opportunities.
  5. Giftedness refers to people who practice a lot.

However, giftedness may be a developmental process that is domain specific and malleable. The path to outstanding performance begins with potential but giftedness must be developed and sustained by way of training and interventions in domain-specific skills (1), the acquisition of psychological and social skills to pursue difficult new paths (2) and the individual’s conscious decision to engage fully in a domain (3).

The process of talent development consists of talent identification and talent promotion. There are several essential points when it comes

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Renzulli (1978). What makes giftedness? Reexamining a definition.” – Article summary

People have always been interested in giftedness although the areas of performance in which one might be recognized as gifted are determined by the needs and values of the culture. There is no consensus with regards to what giftedness is. The restrictiveness of definitions of giftedness can be expressed in two ways:

  1. It may limit the number of performance areas that are considered in determining eligibility for special programmes.
  2. It may specify the degree or level of excellence one must attain to be considered gifted.

Giftedness is typically seen as multifaceted. Subjectivity of measurement is a problem in assessing giftedness as not every aspect of human life can be put into performance scales (e.g. art). One definition of giftedness is that gifted children are those who by virtue of outstanding abilities are capable of high performance. Children capable of high performance include those

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Jessurun, Shearer, & Weggeman (2016). A universal model of giftedness – an adaptation of the Munich model.” – Article summary

In the Munich Model of Giftedness (MMG), giftedness refers to a multi-factorized ability construct within a network of non-cognitive (e.g. motivation; interests) and social moderators which are related to the giftedness factors (i.e. predictors) and the exceptional performance areas (i.e. criterion variables).

Giftedness typically refers to the presence of a talent desired in the culture and the expression thereof. It does not necessarily mean an IQ of 130 or higher.

Intelligence typically refers to a computational capacity to procss a certain kind of information. This entails the ability to solve a problem in a particular cultural setting. This means that what is seen as intelligent depends on the culture. Intelligences are thus potentialities and not things that can be counted. Something can be seen as an intelligence when there is localization of the functions in a brain area (1), evolutionary relevance (2) and a

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Neil, Moum, & Sturmey (2014). Comorbidity among children and youth with autism spectrum disorder.” – Article summary

A psychiatric disorder refers to a significant dysfunction in an individual’s cognitions, emotions or behaviours that reflects a disturbance in the psychological, biological or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

Comorbidity refers to two or more forms of psychopathology within the same person. For some, a second diagnosis requires symptom presentation without assumptions of causality (i.e. disorder one causes disorder two). For others, a second diagnosis requires the dysfunction to be significant enough to require treatment in addition to the primary condition.

There are several difficulties in assessing comorbidity in people with ASD:

  • There is diagnostic overshadowing.
  • There is often a different symptom presentation in children with ASD than in children without ASD.
  • There are no clear systematic methods of identifying and treating comorbid psychiatric disorders across the autism spectrum.
  • Many symptoms of psychopathology overlap with symptoms of ASD.
  • ASD
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Matson, Beighley, Williams, & May (2014). Conducting diagnostic screening and assessment.” – Article summary

To provide care to people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it is imperative to screen for this disorder and to adequately diagnose it. Early evaluation can be useful. Diagnosis is best accomplished with standardized tests, developmental history and a clinical interview. The prevalence of ASD is 110 per 10.000.

Early intensive treatments appear to have the best outcomes. This emphasizes the need for early screening and diagnosis. Early diagnosis is affected by reluctance to express concern by parents (1), failure to be provided prompt assessment and diagnosis (2) and a failure of parents or professionals to detect signs of ASD (3). While ASD is believed to exist at birth, there are no biological markers and assessment and diagnosis thus relies on standardized tests and behavioural observation.

Parent observations are useful for early detection, especially speech regression (1), loss of motor skills (2), poor visual

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Patterson (2016). Coercion theory: The study of change.” – Article summary

Anti-social boys are less responsive to social reinforcement. Punishment only has short-term suppressive effects on behaviour. Punishment only seems effective in combination with positive reinforcement.

Coercion refers to a process during which aversive events are used to control the behaviour of another person (i.e. control behaviour using threats). A social action must be experienced by others as aversive and be used contingently to be part of the coercive process. An aversive event may serve any of the three functions:

  1. An aversive behaviour by person 1 at time 1 leads to a positive outcome by person 1 at time 2 (i.e. reinforcement).
  2. An aversive behaviour by person 1 at time 1 leads to a negative consequence by person 2 at time 2 (i.e. punishment).
  3. An aversive behaviour by person 1 at time 1 leads to an aversive behaviour by person 2 at time
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Child and adolescent psychopathology by Wilmhurst (second edition) – Summary chapter 7

One-year prevalence of anxiety disorders in childhood and adolescence are 13%. Anxiety disorders regard chronic worry about current or future events and have common behavioural (e.g. escape and avoidance), cognitive (e.g. negative appraisal) and physiological (e.g. involuntary arousal; increased heart rate) symptoms.

There are six forms of anxiety that can exist in children:

  • Panic-agoraphobia
  • Social phobia
  • Separation anxiety
  • Physical fears
  • Generalized anxiety
  • Obsessive-compulsive problems

Separation anxiety disorder, selective mutism and specific phobias are the earliest-occurring anxiety disorders. GAD typically has an onset from 8 to 10 years of age. Social anxiety and panic disorder mainly occur in adolescence.

Disorder

SEPARATION ANXIETY

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Child and adolescent psychopathology by Wilmhurst (second edition) – Summary chapter 9

Autism spectrum disorder refers to disorders that meet criteria in two broad symptom categories:
-    Deficits in social communication and social interaction
There must be deficits in social-emotional reciprocity (1), non-verbal communication (2) and the development and maintenance of relationships (3). 
-    Restricted repetitive patterns of behaviour
There must be two of four symptoms present (i.e. motor movements; rituals; fixated interests; hyper/hypo response to sensory information). 
75% of the people diagnosed with autism also have an intellectual disability. However, this may be different in the DSM-5. The onset of ASD is during early development, around 2 years of age. Symptoms may not manifest until later in people with mild versions of the disorder or manifest earlier in people with more severe variants of the disorder.
The prevalence of autism is 1% and 4 times more males than females are diagnosed. The prevalence rate

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What can I find on this page? On this page, you can find a summary for all the study materials you need for the developmental specialization of the Psychology bachelor's programme at the University of Amsterdam. There is a link for all the separate courses. The courses have been organized into ...

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What?

  • On this page we discuss questions students have with the 2022/2023 course "Developmental Psychology" at the University of Amsterdam
  • You have the opportunity to ask any questions you might have and I will try and answer them
  • On 30/1/2023 you can ask questions!

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