Physical, Perceptual, and Language Development

Chapter 3.1

• Developing Psychology- the specialized study of how an individuals physical, social, emotional, moral, and intellectual development occur in sequential interrelated stages throughout the life cycle.

Nature vs. Nurture• Some psychologists

believe that our behavior is a result of or genetics or they were inherited.

• Other psychologist believe that life experiences and learning are what cause certain behaviors.

• What do you believe?

Newborns

• Newborns can see, hear, smell, and respond to their environment which allows them to adapt.

• Reflexes are inherited automatic coordinating movements that can be triggered by the right stimulus.

• Grasping Reflex- if you were to touch the center of an infants palm they will grasp, or take hold, of your fingers so tightly that you can actually lift the infant in the air.

• Rooting Reflex- if you were to touch an infant around its mouth, he/she will move hits head towards the touch. – Breast feeding- Once the infant uses the rooting

reflex towards the touch of the mother it begins sucking. This is a very complex reflex because the infant can suck, breath, and swallow milk without getting confused.

Physical Development

• At birth, the average infant weighs 7.3 lbs. By the time they are 1 they can way 20- 25 lbs. on average.

• At the age of 2 the child will be able to walk, talk, and feed themselves.

• In order to develop physically you need to go through maturation and learning experiences

• Maturation- internally programmed growth. – Learning how to hold your head up, walk, etc.. – Important in the first years. – Development should be fine as long as the child is

fed well, not restricted in movement, or deprived of human contact.

– No infant grows at the same rate and has the same personality, but they all follow the same steps in growing.

Perceptual Development • Robert Frantz

– Through a study he showed that infants preferred to look at human faces and patterned materials.

• Visual Cliff Experiments (Gibson & Walk, 1960) – Determined whether or not infants had depth perception. – Infants that were 0-6 months would cross the cliff, but 6+

months would refuse to continue once they got to the “edge”

• The infants that would cross would get a higher heart rate which implied that they have some perceptional capabilities.

Development of Language

• Crying turns into cooing and cooing turns into babbling. • Children imitate the speech that their family and are rewarded

when saying something that sounds like a word. This is how children learn their native language

• By age 2 the child knows 500-1500 words. • Telegraphic Speech- when there is a word left out or the wrong

verb tense is used, but you still get the message. – “Daddy fall down.”

• Shortly after they begin to speak like adults in the way we form sentences. If something is past tense they start to try to form sentences that are past tense. – “I goed to the doctor yesterday.”