Developmental Psychology

Early Childhood age 2-6 years:

Lecture 5: Biosocial Development
Biosocial Development
 Body and Brain
• Young children’s body and brain
develop according to powerful
epigenetic forces
– Biologically driven
– Socially guided
 Connecting the Brain’s
Hemispheres

• Corpus callosum—nerve fibers

that connect the two halves of
the brain
Connecting the Brain’s
Hemispheres, cont.

• Left Side, Right Side

– lateralization—specialization of the two
sides of the brain
• left brain
– logical analysis, language, speech
• right brain
– visual and artistic skills

• Coping with Brain Damage

 Planning and Analyzing
• Prefrontal cortex (or frontal lobe) is
the final part of the human brain to
reach maturity
– the area in the very front of the brain
that is least developed in nonhumans
– mid-adolescence
• maturation occurs gradually and incomplete
until advances at about age 3 or 4 make
possible impulse control and formal education
 Educational Implications of
Brain Development
• By age 6, children are ready for formal
instruction
– before, brain not sufficiently developed in
ways it needs to be, but now child can
• sit still for more than an hour
• scan a page of print
• balance sides of body
• draw and write with one hand
• listen and think before talking
• remember important facts
• control emotions
 Gross Motor Skills

• Large body movements improve

– running, jumping, climbing, throwing
• Gross motor skills are practiced and
mastered
 Fine Motor Skills
• Small body movements are harder to
master
– pouring, cutting, holding crayon, tying
– lacking the muscular control, patience,
and judgment needed
• fingers short and fat
• confusion over which is dominant hand
 Artistic Expression
• Children’s artistic endeavors are
also their play
– drawings often connected to
perception and cognition
• gradual maturation of brain and body is
apparent
– artwork helps develop fine motor skills
– in artwork, many children eagerly
practice perseveration
 Serious Injuries
• Accidents are the most common cause of
childhood death
– poison, fire, falls, choking, and drowning
– unintended injuries cause millions of
premature deaths per year until the age of
40; then disease becomes greatest cause of
mortality
• Injury control/harm reduction—the idea
that accidents are not random, but can be
made less harmful with proper control
 Three Levels of Prevention
• Primary prevention—actions that change
overall background conditions to prevent
some unwanted event or circumstance
• Secondary prevention—actions that
avert harm in the immediate situation
• Tertiary prevention—actions taken
after an adverse event to reduce the
harm or prevent disability
Parents, Education,
and Protection
• SES is a powerful predictor of many
accidents
• Prevention and protection crucial
• Parents need to institute safety
measures in advance
– Parents’ job is protection
 Changing Definitions of
Maltreatment
• Abuse and neglect
– child maltreatment—intentional harm or
avoidable endangerment to child
– child abuse—deliberate action that is
harmful to child’s well-being
– child neglect—failure to meet child’s
basic needs
Changing Definitions of
Maltreatment, cont.

• Types of abuse: physical, sexual,

emotional, and educational
• Neglect twice as common as abuse
– one sign is failure to thrive
– another is hypervigilance
• can be a symptom of post-traumatic stress
disorder
 Changing Definitions of
Maltreatment, cont.

• Reported maltreatment—cases about

which authorities have been informed
- 3 million per year
• Substantiated maltreatment—cases
that have been investigated and
verified
- 1 million per year
Three Levels of Prevention, Again, cont.

• Tertiary prevention—halting harm

after it occurs, then treating victim
– removal from family
– adoption
– Foster care—legally sanctioned, publicly
supported plan that transfers care of
maltreated child from parents to others
 Impaired Social Skills

• Maltreated children’s social skills

– less friendly, more isolated and
aggressive
– the earlier abuse begins, the worse the
relationship with peers
 Further Reading

Chapters 8, 9 & 10 Berger