Documenti di Didattica
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TYPES OF DEVELOPMENT
Physical- refers to the bodily structure and functions
Cognitive –talks about how the children think, reason, use language and process information
Socio-emotional- development of child personality, self-concept, identity and social skills
Moral- development of the judgment between right and wrong
Domains of Development
Physical development - Body size, body proportions, appearance, brain development, motor
development, perception capacities, physical health
Cognitive Development - Thought processes and intellectual abilities including attention,
memory, problem solving, imagination, creativity.
Psychological development - Interpersonal and intrapersonal aspect
Social psychology - is about understanding individual behaviour in a social context the scientific field
that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behaviour in social situations. (Baron,
Bryne & Suls 1989)
Biological Psychology - is the study of the brain and human behaviour – primarily of how the brain
brings about behaviour but also how behaviour can alter the brain as we learn from experience.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner, Operant conditioning- rewards and punishments for behaviour. Individual
makes an association between a particular behaviour and a consequence.
Ivan Pavlov, Classical Conditioning- Classical conditioning theory involves learning a new behaviour via
the process of association. In simple terms two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned
response in a person or animal.
Little Albert Experiment by Watson
Developmental Psychology - The branch of psychology devoted to identifying and explaining the
continuities and changes that individuals display over time.
- the scientific study of how and why human beings change over the course of their life
-
What causes us to develop?
Two main processes:
Maturation- developmental changes in the body or behaviour that result from the aging process
rather than from learning, injury, illness or some other life experience.
Learning- - a relatively permanent change in behaviour that results from one’s experiences or
practice.
Fertilization - also referred to as conception, impregnation, or fecundation, is the union of an ovum and
a spermatozoon. This usually occurs in the outer third of a fallopian tube, the ampullar portion.
Zygote - the structure formed right after fertilization, the fertilized ovum.
Morula (Day 3),
Blastocyst (Day 4),
Implantation (Day 8 to 10)
Embryo - 2 to 8 weeks of conception
Embryonic Phase- is the period during which the fertilized ovum develops into an organism with
most of the features of the human.
Fetus - From week eight of your pregnancy onwards, the embryonic period ends.
It is characterized by a period of rapid growth in the size of the fetus. Both genetic and
environment factor affect its growth.
HOW DO WE CALCULATE THE PROBABILITY OF INHERITING A SPECIFIC TRAIT FROM OUR PARENTS?
Punnet Square- a table used in predicting the possible combination of alleles of an offspring.
For example:
Monohybrid Cross- a cross between one trait of two parents
Dihybrid Cross- a cross between two traits of the two parents
Blood Type
A blood type is a classification of blood based on the presence and absence of antibodies and also based
on the presence or absence of inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells.
Environmental Influences
- Heredity is not the main reason or factor in the manifestation of traits.
- Some traits manifest only after being influenced by the environment
- Expression some genes have both hereditary and environmental influences
For example:
Some rabbits change its colour turns to brown when snow melts.
Grizzly bear changes its coat in summer into a dark rich brown, while the worn coat becomes tawny or
reddish brown.
Tabula rasa - It is the notion that individual human beings are born "blank" (with no built-in mental
content), and that their identity is defined entirely by events after birth.
- Thomas Aquinas was the first to assert the tabula rasa theory in the 13th century, though it
was John Locke who fully expressed the idea in the 17th century.
Brain plasticity - also known as neuroplasticity, is a term that refers to the brain's ability to change and
adapt as a result of experience.
For example, each time we learn a new dance step, it reflects a change in our physical brains: new
"wires" (neural pathways) that give instructions to our bodies on how to perform the step. Each time we
forget someone's name, it also reflects brain change— "wires” that once connected to the memory have
been degraded, or even severed.
Mental retardation - is a developmental disability that first appears in children under the age of 18. It is
defined as an intellectual functioning that is well below average (70-75) and significant limitations in
daily living skills.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Criteria
- Mild retardation- 50-75
- Moderate retardation- 35-55
- Severe retardation- 20-40
- Profound retardation- under 20-25
Forgetting - refer to the apparent loss of information already encoded and stored in long- term memory
- the loss, permanent or temporary, of the ability to recall or recognize something learned
earlier
Pruning - refers to the normally occurring process that change and reduce the number of neurons,
synapses and axons that exist within the brain and nervous system.
According to William Greenough, the brain has evolved so that it produces an excess of neurons and
synapses in preparation for receiving any and all kinds of sensory and motor stimulation that a human
being could conceivably experience. Of course, no human being has this broad a range of experiences; so
much of one’s circuitry remains unused. Presumably, then, neurons and synapses that are most often
stimulated continue to function. Other surviving neurons that are stimulated less often loses their
synapses (Pruning) and stand in reserve to compensate for brain injuries or to support new skills.
IQ, or intelligence quotient, is score derived from one of several standardized tests designed to assess
an individual's intelligence.
- IQ is used to determine academic abilities and identify individuals with off-the-chart
intelligence or mental challenges.
Egotist - a tendency to talk about oneself all the time and a lack of humility.
- Caring too much about others’ opinions
- Reliving the past: They love to hang on to their moments of glory.
Narcissist - fantasize and have a sense of grandeur
- an excessive need for others to praise them.
- love to show off
Egocentric - a lack of empathy
- Don’t understand the point of view of others
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IMPORTANCE OF PLAY IN YOUNG CHILDREN
There are at least three ways in which play is important for young children: skill development, social
development, and imagination and creativity. Learning occurs in all areas of development as young
children play.
Skill development - they learn to coordinate movements of their hands with what their eyes see
Social development - they learn how to get along with others
Imagination and creativity - provides such an outlet for young children in cultivating and
expressing their creativity and imagination
PREOPERATIONAL PHASE
- Children are thinking at a symbolic level but are not yet using cognitive operations.
- The child's thinking during this stage is pre (before) operations. This means the child cannot
use logic or transform, combine or separate ideas
- Egocentrism - refers to the child's inability to see a situation from another person's point
of view.
- CENTRATION, ANIMISM, IRREVERSIBILITY
- “GOLDEN AGE OF CREATIVITY”
- SYMBOLIC PLAY
- PARALLEL PLAY TO ASSOCIATIVE PLAY
CENTRATION - Centration is the tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation at one time.
ANIMISM - This is the belief that inanimate objects (such as toys and teddy bears) have human feelings
and intentions.
IRREVERSIBILITY – This is the inability the reverse the direction of a sequence of events to their starting
point.
Symbolic play - means the child is now able to use an unrealistic or invisible prop as part of their
pretend play.
Ex: pretends to pour her mommy coffee out of an invisible coffee pot, picks up a spoon and
then pretends to play it like a flute
Parallel play - This means children may be playing side by side and there will be little to no interaction
between them, but you may see them imitate each other.
Cooperative play
- Occurs during this stage of 7-12 years of age, allowing kids to work together to achieve an
outcome in a structured or organized activity. Kids become interested in both their peers as
well as the activity their peers are doing.
FORMAL OPERATIONS
- Use rational thinking
- Reasoning is deductive and futuristic
- Can do mathematical calculations, think creatively, use abstract reasoning, and imagine the
outcome of particular actions.
- HYPOTHETICO-DEDUCTIVE REASONING “What if” - is the ability to think scientifically
through generating predictions, or hypotheses, about the world to answer questions.
KHOLBERG’S MORAL DEVELOPMENT - Specifically addresses the moral development in children and
adult. The morality of the individual's decision was not Kholberg’s concern; rather, he focused on the
reasons an individual makes a decision.
SIGMUND FREUD - the founding father of psychoanalysis, a method for treating mental illness and also
a theory which explains human behaviour.
LEVELS OF MIND
o Conscious
o Subconscious
o Unconscious
PSYCHIC APPARATUS
ID – Pleasure principle
EGO – Reality principle
SUPEREGO – Conscience
PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
ORAL – Birth to 1 ½ years
ANAL – 1 ½ to 3 years
PHALLIC – 4 to 6 years
LATENCY – 6 to Puberty
GENITAL – Puberty to after
PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT
ORAL – Mouth is the center of pleasure.
o Major conflict: weaning
ANAL – Anus and bladder are the sources of pleasure.
o Major conflict: toilet training
PHALLIC – Child's genitals are the center of pleasure.
o Major conflict: Oedipus Complex, Electra complex
LATENCY – 6 to Puberty
o Energy is directed physical and intellectual activities.
o Sexual impulses tend to repressed
o Develop relationship between peers of the same sex.
GENITAL – Puberty to after
o Energy is directed toward full sexual maturity and function and development of skills
needed to cope with the environment.
o It is operated at an unconscious level according to the pleasure principle (gratification
from satisfying basic instincts)
VYGOTSKY
ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent
problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through
problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers
VYGOTSKY suggests that teachers should use cooperative learning where less
competent children develop with help from more skilful peers.
BANDURA
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
is how people learn through observing others.
Models are an important source for learning new behaviours and for achieving
behavioural change
The Bobo Doll Experiment was how Albert Bandura studied aggression and non-
aggression in children.
Introduce the MEDIATIONAL PROCESSES.
OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways.
First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as
similar to itself.
Second, the people around the child will respond to the behaviour it imitates with
either reinforcement or punishment.
Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when
deciding whether or not to copy someone’s actions.
MEDIATIONAL PROCESSES
Bandura believes that humans are active information processors and think about the
relationship between their behaviour and its consequences. Therefore, individuals do not automatically
observe the behaviour of a model and imitate it.
Four mediational processes
ACTIVE: Extent to which we are exposed/notice the behaviour.
RETENTION: How well the behaviour is remembered
REPRODUCTION: Ability to perform the behaviour
MOTIVATION: The will to perform the behaviour.
BOWLBY
ATTACHMENT THEORY
Suggests that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments
with others, because this will help them to survive.
The infant produces innate ‘social releaser’ behaviours such as crying and smiling that stimulate
caregiving from adults.
The determinant of attachment is not food but care and responsiveness.
Bowlby used the term maternal deprivation to refer to the separation or loss of the mother as
well as failure to develop an attachment.
Bowlby (1952) believe that short-term separation from an attachment figure leads to distress
Three progressive stages of distress
Protest: The child cries, screams and protests angrily when the parent leaves. They will try to
cling on to the parent to stop them leaving.
Despair: The child’s protesting begins to stop, and they appear to be calmer although still
upset. The child refuses others’ attempts for comfort and often seems withdrawn and
uninterested in anything.
Detachment: If separation continues the child will start to engage with other people again.
They will reject the caregiver on their return and show strong signs of anger
GARDNER
THEORY OF MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
Musical-rhythmic: Sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music
Visual-spatial: visualize with the mind's eye
Verbal-linguistic: facility with words and languages
Logical-mathematical: logic, abstractions, reasoning, numbers and critical thinking
Bodily-kinesthetic: Gross motor skill and Fine motor skill
Interpersonal: Social Skill
Intrapersonal: Introspective and self-reflective capacities
Naturalistic: sensitivity to the factors influencing and influenced by organism in the natural
environment.
Existential: sensitivity to issues related to the meaning of life, death and other aspects o the
human condition.
CHOMSKY (The father of modern linguistics)
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE
an inborn linguistic processor that is activated by verbal input and contains a universal
grammar, or knowledge of rules that are common to all languages
Universal Grammar is considered to contain all the grammatical information needed to
combine these categories, e.g. noun and verb, into phrases. The child’s task is just to learn the
words of her language.
For example, children instinctively know how to combine a noun (e.g. a boy) and a verb (to eat)
into a meaningful, correct phrase (A boy eats).