Summary of the article: Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development - Osher et al. - 2018

How can relationships support learning and healthy development?

The relationships children have at home and in school can help in buffering and overcoming the effects of risk factors in the child´s context. Especially relationships that are characterized by sensitivity, attunement, consistency, cognitive stimulation, trustworthiness, and scaffolding function as a positive developmental force between children and their physical and social contexts.

What are developmental relationships?

Developmental relationships with adults are important for a healthy development of the child and support the integration of social, affective, emotional, and cognitive processes. They are characterized by enduring emotional attachment, reciprocity, progressive complexity of joint activity, and a power balance that allows for transferability to new settings. Also important in developmental relationships are attunement, compassionate communication, modeling, trustworthiness, cognitive stimulation, and consistency.

What is the ecological context?

Ecological contexts encompass relationships, environments, and societal structures. They have direct and indirect influences on human development. The ecological contexts and the individuals in them are characterized by interactions within and across levels and by great variation in internal and external risk and protective factors.

What is the net level of stress?

The net level of stress is the effect of the stresses actually experienced and the factors that buffered the experiences to prevent the damaging effects of stress. Children can deal with stress in ways that may be adaptive or maladaptive and the adaptations that they make may carry over from one context to another. This depends on the alignment between the contexts and the ease with which the transfer can be made. Adults support can promote positive adaptation.

How do microsystem contexts influence developmental relationships?

Developmental relationships occur in microsystem contexts, such as families, early care and childhood settings, schools, and peers. The composition, culture, and structure of the microsystem contexts can restrain or foster developmental relationships. Each microsystem offers opportunities for social learning that can affect development. Four microsystems and how they relate to human development will be briefly discussed here.

How can the microsystem of the family foster positive child development?

Families can provide bonding, connection, and safety that are necessary for a healthy development. Especially the relationship with the caregivers is important. Parents play a role in five relational domains, each of which has its own developmental course and regulatory mechanisms. The five domains are protection, mutual reciprocity, guided learning, control, and group participation. Parenting is most effective when children feel that their parents consistently care for them, are sensitive to their needs, and understand them. Six important parenting practices are identified:

• Contingent responsiveness: adult behavior that occurs immediately after a child´s behavior and is related to the child´s focus of attention.
• Showing warmth and sensitivity.
• Routines and a low level of chaos in the household.
• Shared book reading and talking to children.
• Practices that promote children´s health and safety (e.g. prenatal care, good nutrition, physical activity).
• Use of appropriate (not harsh) punishment.

How does the microsystem of the early care and education setting influence child development?

Early care and education settings take place during a highly sensitive period of brain development. Research shows that the quality varies but tends to be mediocre with regard to the capacity to promote positive developmental outcomes. Effective child care settings have high adult-child ratios, small group sizes, developmentally appropriate curriculum, safe physical environments to support positive interactions, and effective instruction. There should be opportunities for frequent, warm, and responsive interactions with adults (such as experiential learning and pretend play).

How can the microsystem of the school positively influence child development?

Schools support developmental relationships when they foster emotional, intellectual, and physical safety, connectedness, support,  engagement, respect, and agency. Positive classroom climates, instructional and learner-centered curriculums, and learning environments that successfully integrate affective, cognitive, social, and emotional processes support students´ social and emotional development and help them to be effective learners. Finally, schools should be culturally responsive and competent. Culturally responsive schools scaffold learning and pay attention to students´ individual experiences and needs, and cultural resources. 

How do the relationships with teachers influence child development?

Teachers are important for student motivation, engagement, behavior, learning, and psychological support. Positive relationships with teachers has many positive effects: it promotes self-regulation, confidence, supports classroom behavior and contributes to positive classroom climates, helps children modulate stress, and makes it easier for children to ask for help.

How does the microsystem of peers influence child development?

Developmental relationships with peers provide opportunities to practice and refine self-regulation, executive function, and interpersonal and communication skills. The influences of peer relationships can be positive or negative and can have short- and long-term effects. They can help children acquire prosocial norms and perspective taking, but also reinforce risk-taking and antisocial behaviors. Peers influence each other in dynamic contexts and young people can be susceptible to positive and negative influences at different times.

How does poverty influence child development?

Poverty makes it more difficult for children to have access to developmentally rich experiences and opportunities and it makes it more likely that they will experience stress and health challenges. Economically disadvantaged children have less academic opportunities and lower quality teachers. The effects of poverty are mediated and moderated by the family, community, social and emotional resources, social networks, and service systems.

How does racism influence child development?

Racism can be seen at the microlevel (between individuals), the mesolevel (for example between a teacher and a family of color), and the macrolevel (institutionalized racism). Racism can affect children´s perceptions of themselves and others and how they deal with what they feel and experience. It affects students through the identities they create, stereotype threat, and micro aggressions. Research indicates that it can limit opportunities for development and an association with stress-related mental and physical illnesses.

How does a child develop in the first three years?

In the first three years of life infants and toddlers form attachment relationships, learn to function autonomously, and acquire self-regulatory attributes. Their brain´s plasticity is the strongest in those years and the neural circuits shape the architecture of the brain before the circuits are fully mature. They learn to experience, express, and manage emotions and impulses. They also develop their motor control, cognition, and language and visual systems. Relationships with caregivers are the most proximal and prominent contextual influences on development during these years. Attunement and reciprocity are associated with executive function, early language processing skills, and vocabulary growth.

What developments take place during early childhood?

Early childhood sees an increase in executive functions and cognition-emotion integration. Experiences during this time (like relationships, behaviors, self-perceptions, stress responses, emotions) can mutually reinforce each other over time in adaptive or maladaptive ways. Neurobiological, emotional, and behavior foundations in early childhood can prepare the child for school and for positive developmental outcomes.

How do developmental relationships change during middle childhood?

Developmental relationships in middle childhood are more characterized by reciprocity and a balance of power as children become more self-regulated. The developmental relationship with the caregiver changes from proximity to availability. There also start to exist new developmental relationships with other adults, especially teachers. Through these new relationships children can learn and practice important new skills, such as behavioral and attention skills, empathy, emotional expressiveness, and interpersonal negotiation strategies.

What important changes take place during adolescence?

Adolescence is marked by changes in brain development, hormone levels, physical health, and contextual demands. It is a period characterized by risk taking, social reward seeking, novelty seeking, expanding processing and decision-making skills, creativity, exploration, optimism, and intentional skill development. During this time, relationships outside the family are very important for integration and development.

How does brain remodeling take place during adolescence?

The frontal lobe continues to mature while the brain´s dopaminergic system overlaps and interacts with the brain´s social networks and the networks for processing affective and motivational stimuli. Levels of dopamine fall sharply. Integration and increased connectivity of cortical structures allow for more functional specialization, leading to capacities for better judgement and decision making, greater conceptual and creative thinking, and exploration of new situations and challenges. The brain undergoes two important processes during adolescence:

• Pruning enables regions of the brain to become more differentiated.
• Myelin enables the remaining regions to become more linked and integrated.

How is pruning related to the onset of serious psychiatric disorders during adolescence?

The pruning process that takes place during adolescence may reveal underlying vulnerabilities in neural connectivity leading to the manifestation of psychiatric disorders. Excessive pruning, which can be caused by excessive and chronic stress and high cortisol levels, can lead to new vulnerabilities, which leads to greater neurotoxicity. Also, the shift in the dopaminergic reward system may increase the risk of developing addictive problems and other risk-taking behaviors.

How does intergenerational transmission of adversity and assets affect child development?

Developmental support can have cumulative effects that can produce intergenerational assets that assist in a positive development. On the other hand, adversity can also be intergenerationally transmitted and cause risks for child development. The intergenerational transmission of adaptive and maladaptive systems can be influenced by improving the net risk vulnerability ratio for all children. This can be done by minimizing risk vulnerability and addressing the factors that support or undermine healthy child development.

How can unhealthy pathways be influenced to improve the net risk vulnerability ratio for children?

Risk vulnerability can be minimized by addressing macro- and microsystem factors. Well-designed developmental contexts that employ the right intervention and prevention strategies can provide the support, enrichment, and stimulation that are needed to buffer the effects of intergenerational challenges on children.

Examples are:

• Creating developmentally constructive environments to promote resilience.
• Well-implemented family-driven interventions to support a healthy relationship between the caregiver and the child.
• Well-designed early care and education settings and interventions.
• Support educational attainment.