Bài giảng Human Development 2e - Chapter 4 Parenting and infancy

Chapter 4Parenting and infancyThe infant arrives into a repository of resources for learningEach family has its own stories, meanings and preoccupations that the child is born into. A social constructionist approach recognises that human life is a journey with many outcomes.Relationships are multidimensional.Place offers a physical and social environment.Place is a ready-made complex ecology.A baby joins the familyIs becoming a parent a human right?Should aspiring parents have enough resources to support a child before becoming pregnant?Planning for pregnancy has only been possible since the birth control pill arrived in the 1960s.Conception outside the woman's body is possible, but not guaranteed to work.Assisted human reproduction raises numerous issues.Many pregnancies are unplanned.Becoming a motherSignificant biological changes take places for the mother when she is pregnant.Pregnant women need support from people to help them to remain healthy.Antenatal health care supports the expectant mother.Good maternal nutrition is important for the developing baby.Biology and genealogyAll living cells contain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).DNA carries the genetic messages that tell the cells how to behave.Each cell gets half its genes from the father and half from the mother.All human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes.Biology and genealogy (cont.)Pregnancy/gestationNormally 38 weeks from conceptionThree trimesters:There are different development stages in each trimester.There are critical periods for development in each trimester.Interference from teratogens can divert the course of normal development if there is contact at the critical period for particular development.Teratogen: an agent or factor causing malformation in the foetusKnown teratogens include thalidomide, alcohol and rubella.Nature and nurtureGenetic material does not dictate developmental outcomes.There are multiple causal predictors.Cultural values can affect developmental outcomes.Biology and culture are intertwined in many ways.Prenatal developmentConception is the meeting of a half string of chromosomes from the mother and a half string from the father.Meiosis → germ cells (ovum or sperm)Chromosomes separate from their pair string.Sperm + ovum → conception (embryo)The embryo embeds in the wall of the uterus.Successful? The mother is pregnant!Cells continue to divide and multiply.Prenatal development (cont.)Birth and the infant settles in at homeThere are a variety of birthing practices now available.Cultural customs pertaining to birth differ around the world.Cognitive development is important for the process of settling into their first years of life.The quality of infants' interactions with others and the world affect how they 'turn out'.Temperament: easy and testy babiesStudies reveal that babies may be born with different temperaments:easy and adaptable'difficult' and harder to settle in or in-between'slow to warm up'.There is a degree of compatibility between the baby's emotional patterns and the those of the parents.A secure emotional start Erikson: trust versus mistrust is the psychosocial task.Security is developed through trustworthy caregivers:regular and quality of feedingattentionwarmthconstant care.Parents' attention and quality of interactions can help to develop social skills:turn-takingawareness of othersimitation.Physiological development in the first two yearsEach child follows a unique timetable.Normative developmental timetables should be treated as information rather than directives.Gross motor development: rolling over, crawling, walking.Social development: relating to othersCognitive development: the beginning of intelligenceMotor developmentThe basics of learningHearing may develop in the womb; infants appear to recognise their mother's voice.Vision develops in the first few weeks.All five senses being to develop in the first month.What happens if I do this?Piaget's theory of cognitive development:Reflexes are the first basis of learning startle reactions to sudden noise sucking reflexgrasping.All learning begins with actions and reactions.Four learning periods in child development:sensorimotorpre-operationalconcrete operationalformal operational.(See Chapter 1, pp.9–10)Piaget's theory of cognitive development: sensorimotor periodChildren develop an understanding of the world by building up patterns of interaction.He called these patterns schemas (or schemata).A schema is a set of actions.There are six substages in this period.Each substage is characterised by a different form of thinking.Feedback from the environment is crucial to this form of repetitive learning.Piaget's theory of cognitive development: object permanencePiaget's genius was in noticing that children's thinking is not the same as adults'.At each different stage, the form of children's thinking or problem-solving ability changes.The child understands more and more about causal relationships in the physical world.Early on, the child does not understand that when you cannot see something or someone they may still be there.By 18 months to 2 years the child will search for desirable objects when they are hidden from view.Conditions for early learningOptimal conditions are:a reliable environmentcarers who are responsivebuilding up trust, which in turn allows for further exploration of the environment.Not experiencing these conditions can result in learned helplessness:no response, or harmful or inconsistent responseschild will not try to operate on its environment.Erikson's theory suggests that empathic relationships are the basis for healthy child development.Understanding what talk is aboutBabies babble with a broad range of sounds. By the end of the first year, they only babble using the sounds of the language(s) they hear around them.Many children begin to talk around 15–18 months.Understanding (receptive language) develops earlier than the ability to produce speech.Initially, children use single words.Then the develop telegraphic speech.Children pick up 'rules' and experiment with them.Just what are the rules of language?Nature or nurture?Chomsky: We each have an innate language acquisition device (LAD).Children's brains are hard-wired to produce language.Learning is too quick to support a purely nurture explanation.Current theory: The way carers interact with very young children is important modelling (e.g. turn-taking, paying attention).Children will use the resources available to them within their environment.