Home assignment for CBCS

CBA 411 -Life span development

Essay type questions. Answers all the questions

1. List and describe the stage of cognitive development according to Piaget.

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four
different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not only on understanding how
children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence.

Through his observations of his children, Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual
development that included four distinct stages:

 Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire
knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire
experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses, and
motor responses.
It is during the sensorimotor stage that children go through a period of dramatic growth
and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they are continually making new
discoveries about how the world works.
The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively
short period of time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to
perform physical actions such as crawling and walking; they also learn a great deal about
language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also broke this stage down
into a number of different substages. It is during the final part of the sensorimotor stage
that early representational thought emerges.

 Preoperational stage: ages 2 to 7

The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous
stage, but it is the emergence of language that is one of the major hallmarks of the
preoperational stage of development.3
At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the
point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of
constancy.For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal
pieces, and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One
piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into a flat pancake
shape. Since the flat shape looks larger, the preoperational child will likely choose that
piece even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.
  Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11
While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in
development, they become much more adept at using logic.2 The egocentrism of the
previous stage begins to disappear as kids become better at thinking about how other
people might view a situation.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how
other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to
understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else
necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

 Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use
deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas.3 At this point, people
become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more
scientifically about the world around them.

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as a
quantitative process; that is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge to
their existing knowledge as they get older. Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a
qualitative change in how children think as they gradually process through these four
stages.4 A child at age 7 doesn't just have more information about the world than he did
at age 2; there is a fundamental change in how he thinks about the world.

2. Write a short note on cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

Cross sectional studies

The defining feature of a cross-sectional study is that it can compare different population groups
at a single point in time. Think of it in terms of taking a snapshot. Findings are drawn from
whatever fits into the frame.

To return to our example, we might choose to measure cholesterol levels in daily walkers across
two age groups, over 40 and under 40, and compare these to cholesterol levels among non-
walkers in the same age groups. We might even create subgroups for gender. However, we
would not consider past or future cholesterol levels, for these would fall outside the frame. We
would look only at cholesterol levels at one point in time.

The benefit of a cross-sectional study design is that it allows researchers to compare many
different variables at the same time. We could, for example, look at age, gender, income and
educational level in relation to walking and cholesterol levels, with little or no additional cost.
 However, cross-sectional studies may not provide definite information about cause-and-effect
relationships. This is because such studies offer a snapshot of a single moment in time; they do
not consider what happens before or after the snapshot is taken. Therefore, we can’t know for
sure if our daily walkers had low cholesterol levels before taking up their exercise regimes, or if
the behaviour of daily walking helped to reduce cholesterol levels that previously were high.

Longitudinal studies

A longitudinal study, like a cross-sectional one, is observational. So, once again, researchers do
not interfere with their subjects. However, in a longitudinal study, researchers conduct several
observations of the same subjects over a period of time, sometimes lasting many years.

The benefit of a longitudinal study is that researchers are able to detect developments or
changes in the characteristics of the target population at both the group and the individual level.
The key here is that longitudinal studies extend beyond a single moment in time. As a result,
they can establish sequences of events.

To return to our example, we might choose to look at the change in cholesterol levels among
women over 40 who walk daily for a period of 20 years. The longitudinal study design would
account for cholesterol levels at the onset of a walking regime and as the walking behaviour
continued over time. Therefore, a longitudinal study is more likely to suggest cause-and-effect
relationships than a cross-sectional study by virtue of its scope.

In general, the research should drive the design. But sometimes, the progression of the research
helps determine which design is most appropriate. Cross-sectional studies can be done more
quickly than longitudinal studies. That’s why researchers might start with a cross-sectional study
to first establish whether there are links or associations between certain variables. Then they
would set up a longitudinal study to study cause and effect.

3. Explain Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model.

American psychologist, Urie Bronfenbrenner, formulated the Ecological Systems Theory to

explain how the inherent qualities of children and their environments interact to influence how
they grow and develop. The Bronfenbrenner theory emphasizes the importance of studying
children in multiple environments, also known as ecological systems, in the attempt to
understand their development.

According to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, children typically find themselves

enmeshed in various ecosystems, from the most intimate home ecological system to the larger
school system, and then to the most expansive system which includes society and culture. Each
of these ecological systems inevitably interact with and influence each other in all aspects of the
children’s lives

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model organizes contexts of development into five levels of

external influence. These levels are categorized from the most intimate level to the broadest.
  Microsystem — The prefix “micro” comes from the Greek for “small,” and is the first and
most immediate layer of the nested systems. It encompasses an individual’s human
relationships, interpersonal interactions and immediate surroundings. An example of
this system would be the relationship between an individual and his or her parents,
siblings, or school environment.
 Mesosystem — The second layer from the individual, surrounding the microsystem and
encompassing the different interactions between the characters of the microsystem. For
example, the relationship between the individual’s family and their school teachers or
administrators. In order for an interaction to be considered part of the mesosystem, it
has to be a direct interaction between two aspects of the microsystem that influences
the development of the individual.
 Exosystem — The exosystem is the third layer, and contains elements of the
microsystem which do not affect the individual directly, but may do so indirectly. For
example, if a parent were to lose their job or have their hours cut back, this would affect
their child in an indirect way such as financial strain or increased parental stress.
 Macrosystem — The prefix “macro” comes from the Greek for “large,” and is used
because this system was thought to be all-encompassing. The fourth and outermost
layer of the bioecological model, it encompasses cultural and societal beliefs and
programming that influence an individual’s development. Examples of this would
include gender norms or religious influence.

5. Discuss developmental process during Infancy.

The child is referred to as infant from birth until the onset of speech. The majority of newborn
infant’s time is spent in sleep. At first this sleep is evenly spread throughout the day and night,
but after a couple of months, infants generally become diurnal. Infants can be seen to have 6
states, grouped into pairs:
 Quiet sleep and active sleep
 Quiet waking and active waking
 Fussing and crying

 Learning to walk: Once the basic skills are mastered, he learns during later years to run,
jump and skip.
 Learning to take solid foods: The way the child is treated during the weaning period, the
schedule on which he is fed, and the age and suddenness of weaning, all have profound
effects upon his personality
 Learning to talk: Between ages of twelve and eighteen months, the great moment of
speech arrives. The two theories agree to this extent, namely (1) that the human infant
develops a repertory of speech - sounds without having to learn them, and (2) that the
people around him teach him to attach certain meanings to these sounds.
  Learning to control the elimination of body waste: To learn to urinate and defecate
at socially acceptable times and places. Toilet training is the first moral training that the
child receives. The stamp of this first moral training probably persists in the child's later
character.
 Learning sex differences and sexual modesty: The kinds of sexual behavior he learns and
the attitudes and feelings he develops about sex in these early years probably have an
abiding effect upon his sexuality throughout his life.

Choose True or False

1. Accidents are the leading cause of childhood death. True

2. True Adduction is the moro reflex in which an infant spreading out the arms.

3. A newborn’s weight typically doubles in six months and triples in one year. True

4. Object permanence develops between ages 7 and 9 months. True

5. Ages 7 to 11 demonstrate logical, concrete reasoning. This process is called conservation.

False