Chapter 4: Developing Through the Life Span

Much of developmental psychologists research focuses on three main issues: 1. Nature vs. Nurture- How do genetic inheritance and experience influence our development? 2. Continuity vs. Stages- Is development a continuous process or does it proceed through separate stages? 3. Stability vs. Change- Do our early traits persist through life or do we become different people as we age?

I. Prenatal Development and the Newborn

A. Conception: -The sperm approach the cell which is 85,000 times their size. -Only a few make it to the egg. They then release digestive enzymes that eat away at the eggs protective coating, which then allows the sperm to penetrate. -Once one sperm begins to penetrate, the eggs surface blocks out the other sperm. While this happens, fingerlike projections sprout around the successful sperm and pull it into the egg. -Within twelve hours, the sperm nucleus and egg nucleus fuse. B. Prenatal Development: -Beginning as one cell, each one of us became, 2 cells, then 4; each cell just like the first. After the cell division produced a zygote of some 100 cells, the cells begin to differentiate in structure and function. -About 10 days after conception, the cells attach to the uterine wall. -The outer part of the zygote attaches to the uterine wall, forming the placenta, which passes nourishment to the baby. -The inner cells become the embryo. -Over the next six weeks, organs begin to form and function and the heart begins to beat. -9 weeks after conception, the embryo looks human. Its now called a fetus. -During the sixth month, organs, such as the stomach, are sufficiently formed and functional to allow a prematurely born fetus a chance at survival. -During the sixth month the fetus also becomes receptive to sound, mainly its mothers voice. After birth the baby prefers this voice to anyone elses. -At the prenatal stage, genetic and environmental factors affect our development. The placenta transfers nutrients and oxygen from the mother to the fetus and it sifts out potentially harmful substances.

These substances can slip through sometimes, though, such as certain viruses and drugs which are, at this point, called teratogens. -Theres no known safe amount of alcohol consumption for a pregnant woman. Light drinking can affect the fetal brain, and even a single drinking binge can kill millions of fetal brain cells. -If the mother drinks heavily, the baby will be at risk for birth defects and mental retardation. -FAS is the leading cause of mental retardation. -Many people believe that a womans psychological state during pregnancy can affect the fetus. -Its been proved on rodents and nonhuman primates that stress does lead to offspring with delayed motor development, increased emotionality, learning deficits, and alterations in neurotransmitter systems associated with human psychological disorders, like depression. The next step is figuring out if prenatal maternal stress similarly influences human development. C. The Competent Newborn -Humans are born with reflexes ideally suited for survival such as trying to escape pain and escaping a situation where we cant breathe. -Scientists discovered that babies can answer more questions than you think as long as you know how to ask them. A baby will stare longer at a picture of a face than a bulls eye, and longer at a bulls eye (which may resemble a human eye) than a solid disk. -We prefer to look at objects 8 to 12 inches away because thats about the same distance between a nursing infant and its mothers eyes.

II. Infancy and Childhood

A. Physical Development -Infants biological development underlies their psychological development. 1. Brain Development -On the day you were born, you had most of the brain cells you would ever have. -At birth the nervous system is immature. After birth, the neural networks that enabled you to walk, talk, and remember had a growth spurt. -From ages 3 to 6 the frontal lobes (rational planning) start developing greatly. -The association areas (thinking, memory, language) are the last to develop. -We experience an orderly sequence of genetically designed biological growth processes called maturation. Maturation sets the basic course of development and experience adjusts it.

2. Motor Development -As infants muscles and nervous system mature, more complicated skills emerge. This is why babies roll over before they sit, and crawl before they walk. This is not a result of imitation; its a result of a maturing nervous system. -Genes play a major role in timing of the motor sequence. Identical twins often begin sitting up and walking on nearly the same day. -Biological maturation creates our readiness to learn to walk around age 1. -Before the necessary muscular and neural maturation occurs, no pleading, harassment, or punishment will produce successful potty training. Maturation and Infant Memory -Our oldest memories are rarely before our third birthdays. This is called childhood amnesia, which says that we can not usually remember things before were 3.5 years old. -As the brain cortex matures, toddlers gain a sense of self and their long-term storage increases. -What the conscious mind does not know and cannot express in words, the nervous system somehow remembers.