Developmental psychology and child psychology?

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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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Landerl, Fussenegger, Moll, & Willburger (2009). Dyslexia and dyscalculia: Two learning disorders with different cognitive profiles.” – Article summary

Dyslexia refers to a specific deficit in the acquisition of reading. Dyscalculia refers to a specific deficit in the acquisition of arithmetic skills. The prevalence rates for these disorders are four to seven percent and are often comorbid.

The common deficit account states that in the case of comorbid dyscalculia and dyslexia, it may be caused by phonological-verbal deficits. Dyscalculia without reading difficulties may be related to a different cognitive profile. Reading difficulties seem to aggravate rather than cause math difficulties.

The domain-specific cognitive deficit account states that dyscalculia and dyslexia have two separable cognitive profiles. This means that a phonological deficit would underlie dyslexia whereas a deficit in the cognitive representation of numerosity underlies dyscalculia.

There are three subcomponents of phonological processing that are typically deficient in people with dyslexia:

  • Phonological awareness
    This refers to the ability to
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De Smetd & Gilmore (2011). Defective number module or impaired access. Numerical magnitude processing in first graders with mathematical difficulties.” – Article summary

Children with mathematical difficulties have particular impairments in understanding and processing numerical magnitudes. The defective number module hypothesis states that a highly specific deficit of an innate capacity to understand and represent quantities leads to difficulties in learning number and arithmetic. The access deficit hypothesis states that mathematical difficulties originate from impairments in accessing numerical meaning (i.e. their quantity) from symbols rather than from difficulties in processing numerosity.

Infants and young children are able to understand and manipulate numerical magnitude information by means of non-symbolic representations (e.g. discriminate between large sets of dots). Non-symbolic representations are characterized by a distance effect. This holds that the numerical difference (i.e. distance) between two sets that need to be compared is small, performance is slower and less accurate than when the distance is large (e.g. comparing 7 to 442 is easier than comparing 23 to 22). This effect may occur due to

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Van de Vijver & Phalet (2004). Assessment in multicultural groups: The role of acculturation.” – Article summary

Acculturation refers to phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups.

Gordon’s unidimensional acculturation model states that acculturation is a process of change in the direction of the mainstream culture. The outcome is adaptation to the mainstream culture. Unidimensional models are controversial as migrants more often desire to have a bicultural identity due to the increasing magnitude of migration and a change in the view of migrants (i.e. more accepting climate).

Berry’s bidimensional acculturation model states that the degree of acculturation depends on the degree of adaptation and the degree of cultural maintenance. This leads to several strategies:

  1. Integration (i.e. biculturalism)
    This refers to the combination of both cultures and has the preference of migrants.
  2. Separation
    This refers to
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Van Gelderen et al. (2004). Linguistic knowledge, processing speed, and metacognitive knowledge in first- and second-language reading comprehension: A componential analysis.” – Article summary

Lower order processes refer to the level of letter and word recognition. Higher order processes refer to the comprehension of the content of text. Efficient word recognition processes are necessary but not sufficient for the successful execution of reading tasks. It allows the reader to allocate optimal attention to the interpretation of meanings communicated in the text but are not sufficient because text comprehension comprises other components as well (e.g. general knowledge).

It is possible that reading comprehension in the second language (i.e. L2) is the application of higher order reading strategies of the first language on the second language. It is also possible that linguistic knowledge of the second language is important for a satisfactory level of text comprehension. Next, it is also possible that the efficient or automized processing of linguistic information is important for successful reading comprehension in the second language. This would

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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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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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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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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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The IQ-discrepancy definition for problematic readers (e.g. dyslexia) is subpar as they often show average scores on measures of word level skills. Intelligence tests do not differentiate the atypically achieving children from a group of typically achieving children when it comes to reading performa...

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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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