Siegler 2006 Chapter 1 Second Edition

8/11/2019 Siegler 2006 Chapter 1 Second Edition

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n In t r o d u c t io n t o h i ld D e v e lo p m e n t

W h y S tu d y h ild D ev elo p m en tR a is in g C h il dr en

C h oo sin g S o cia l P o lic ie s

U nd ers ta nd in g H um an N atu re

Review

H is to ric al Fo un dat io ns o f th e Stu dy o f h i ld D ev elo pm en tE arly P hilo so ph ic al Vie ws o f C hild re n s D ev elo pm en t

T he B eg in nin gs o f R ese arch o n C hild re n

Review

En du rin g Th em es in h ild Dev elo pm en t Nature and Nurture: H ow D o N ature and N urture Together S hape

Development?

2 TheActive Child: H ow D o C hild re n S ha pe T he ir O wn D eve lo pm en t?

3 Continuity/Discontinuity: In W h at Wa ys Is D ev elo pm en t C on tin uo usa nd in W ha t Ways Is It D isco ntin uo us?

4 Mechanisms of Developmental Change: H ow D oe s C ha ng e O cc ur?

5 The Sociocultural Context: H ow D oe s th e S oc io cu ltu ra l C on te xtI nf l u e nc e D e v el op m e nt ?

6 Individual Differen~es: H ow D o C hildren B ecom e S o D ifferent fro mO n e A n o th e r?

7 Research and Children s Welfare: H ow C an R es ea rc h P ro mo teC h il dr en s We ll -B e in g ?

Review

M eth od s fo r Stu dy in g h ild D ev elo pm en tT he S cie ntific M eth od

C on te xts fo r G ath erin g D ata A bo ut C hild re n

C o rr ela tio n a nd C a us atio n

D e sig ns fo r E xa m in in g D e ve lo pm e nt

E th ic al Is su es in C hild -D ev elo pm en t R es ea rc h

Review

h ap ter S um m a ry


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1955, a group of child-development researchers began a unique study. Theirgoal, like that of many developmental researchers, was to find out how biologi-cal and environmental factors influence children s intellectual, social, and emo-tional growth. What made their study unique was that they examined thesediverse aspects of development for all 698 children born that year on the Hawaiianisland of Kauai and that they continued studying the children s development formore than 30 years.

With the parents consent, the research team, headed by Emmy Werner, col-lected many types of data about the children. To learn about possible complica-tions during the prenatal period and birth, they examined physicians records. Tolearn about family interactions and the children s behavior at home, they arrangedfor nurses and social workers to observe the families and to interview the children smothers when the children were 1 year old and again when they were 10 years old,The researchers also interviewed teachers about the children s academic perform-

ance and classroom behavior during the elementary school years, In addition, theyexamined police, family court, and social service records that involved the chil-dren, either as victims or perpetrators. Finally, the researchers administered stan-dardized intelligence and personality tests to the children when they were 10 and18 years old and interviewed them at age 18 and again in their early 30s to find outhow they saw their own development.

Results from this study illustrated some of the many ways in which biologicaland environmental factors combine to influence child development. Childrenwho experienced prenatal or birth complications were more likely than others todevelop physical handicaps, mental illness, and learning difficulties. But whetherthey did develop such problems-and i so, to what degree-depended a greatdeal on their home environment. Such factors as parents income, educational

level, and mental health, together with the quality of the relationship between theparents, exerted particularly important influences on the children s subsequent de-velopment, By age 2, toddlers who had experienced severe birth problems but wholived in harmonious middle-income families were nearly as advanced in languageand motor skills as were children who had not experienced such problems. By thetime the children were 10-year-olds, prenatal and birth problems were consistentlyrelated to impaired psychological development o y if the children also encoun-tered poor rearing conditions,

What of children who faced both biological and environmental challenges-prenatal or birth complications and adverse family circumstances? The majority ofthese children developed serious learning or behavior problems by age 10. By age18, most had acquired a police record, experienced mental health problems, or be-

come pregnant out of wedlock. However, one-third of such at-risk childrenshowed impressive resilience, growing up into young adults who, in the words ofWerner (1989, p. 109), loved well, worked well, and played well. These childrenoften had been befriended by an adult outside the immediate family-an uncle,aunt, neighbor, teacher, or clergyperson-who helped them navigate through thetemptations and dangers in their environment.

Michael was one such resilient child. Born prematurely, with low birth weight,to teenage parents, he spent the first three weeks of his life in a hospital, separatedfrom his mother. By his 8th birthday, Michael s parents were divorced, his motherhad deserted the family, and he and his three brothers and sisters were being raisedby their father, with the help of their elderly grandparents. Yet by age 18, Michaelwas successful in school, had high self-esteem, was popular with his peers, and was

a caring young man with a positive attitude toward life. The fact that there are


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CHAPTER WHY STUDY CHILD DEVELOPMENT

many Michaels-children who show great resilience in the face of ad-versity-is among the most heartening findings of research on childdevelopment.

Werner s remarkable study, like most studies of child development,raises as many questions as it answers. How, exactly, did the children sbiological nature, their family environment, and the environments theyencountered outside the family combine to shape their development?Would the same results have emerged if the study had been conducted n a primarily African-American or Latino urban community ratherthan in the primarily Asian, Native Hawaiian, and northern Europeanrural community studied in Kauai? Was it chance that some childrenfrom adverse backgrounds were befriended by adults from outside theimmediate family, or did the children s individual characteristics, suchas winning personalities, attract the friendship and help? Can programsbe designed that would allow more children to overcome difficult back-grounds?

Reading this chapter will introduce you to these and other basicquestions about child development. Once you have read the chapter,

you should have a clear sense of why it is worthwhile to study child de-velopment, as well as an understanding of what researchers are trying tolearn about development and what methods they use in this endeavor.

W h y S tu d y h ild D ev elo p m en tTo us, and to many others, the sheer enjoyment of watching children and trying tounderstand them is its own justification: What could be more fascinating than thedevelopment of a child? But there are also practical and intellectual reasons forstudying child development. Understanding how children develop can help par-

ents raise their children more effectively, lead society as a whole to adopt wiserpolicies regarding children s welfare, and answer intriguing questions about humannature.

R ais in g h ild renBeing a good parent is not easy. Among its many challenges are the endless ques-tions it raises over the years. When w my baby start to know who I am? Should Istay at home with her, or should I enroll her in day care so that she can get to knowother children? If she starts talking earlier than her friends, does that mean thatshe is gifted? Will she have the same diffIculties learning math that I did? Howcan I help her deal with her anger?

Child-development research can help answer such questions. For example, oneproblem that confronts almost all parents is how to help their children manageanger and other negative emotions. Research indicates several effective approaches Denham, 1998). One is expressing sympathy: when parents respond to their chil-dren s distress with sympathy, the children are better able to cope with the situa-tion causing the distress. Another effective approach is helping angry children findposit ive alternatives to expressing anger. For example, distracting them from thesource of their anger and encouraging them to do something they enjoy helpsthem cope with the hosti le feelings.

W ill this ch ild be resilien t e no ug h to o ve rc om e h is d isa dva nta ge d e nviro nm en t? T heanswer w ill depend in la rge part on howm any risk factors he faces and on his persona l charac te r is t ic s


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These strategies are also useful for other people who con-tribute to raising children, such as day-care personnel andteachers. One demonstration of this was provided by a spe-cial curriculum that was devised for 'use with preschoolers (3-and 4-year-olds) who were angry and out of control(Denham Burton, 1996). With this curriculum, whichlasted 32 weeks, preschool teachers helped children recog-nize their own and other children's emotions, taught themtechniques for controlling their anger, and guided them

resolving conflicts with other children. One approach thatchildren were taught for coping with anger was the turtletechnique : they were told that when they felt themselves be-coming angry, they were to move away from other childrenand retreat into their turtle shell, where they could think

through the situation until they were ready to emerge fromthe shell. Posters were placed around the classroom to re-mind children of what to do when they became angry.

The curriculum was quite successful. Children who participated in it becamemore skillful in recognizing and regulating anger when they experienced it andwere generally less negative. For example, one boy, who had regularly gotten intofights when angry, told the teacher after an argument with another child about atoy, See, I used my words, not my hands (Denham, 1998, p. 219). Similar pro-grams have proved effective with elementary school children (Greenberg,Dornitrovich, Bumbarger, 2001). As this example illustrates, knowledge ofchild-development research can help teachers as well as parents.

emember to

o TurtleP os te rs lik e th is a re u se d in th e tu rtle te chn iq ue to re min d c hild re n o f w ay s to c on tro langer

h o os in g S oc ial o lic iesAnother reason to learn about child development is to be able to make informeddecisions not just about one's own children but also about social-policy questionsthat affect children in general. For example, are public resources better spent tryingto detect and prevent potential developmental problems in young children whoseem at risk for them, or is it more cost-effective to reserve the resources for treat-ing children who have actually developed problems? How much trust shouldjudges and juries place in preschoolers' testimony in child-abuse cases? Shouldpreschool programs that teach academic and social skills be made available to allchildren from low-income families, and should such programs be followed up be-yond the preschool period? How effective are health-education courses aimed at

reducing teenage smoking, drinking, and pregnancy, and how can such courses beimproved? Child-development research provides information relevant to ll ofthese policy decisions and many others.

Consider the issue of how much preschoolers' testimony in court should betrusted. At present, more than 100,000 children testify in legal cases each year(Ceci Bruck, in press). Many of these children are very young: more than 40of children who testify in sexual-abuse trials, for example, are below age 5 (Gray,1993). The stakes are obviously extremely high in such cases. If juries believe chil-dren who falsely testify that they were abused, innocent people may spend years injail, and their reputations may be ruined forever. If juries do not believe children

w o u r t e lyr p o r t buse theperpetr torswillgo fre,eand.probably abuse. other'children. So how can we know when to believe children s testimony? What kind of

CHAPTER AN INTRODUCTION TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT


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questioning is most likely to help children testify accurately about events that areuncomfortable for them to discuss? And what kind of questioning may lead themto report events that never happened?

Psychological research has helped answer such questions. n one experiment,researchers designed a test to see whether biased questioning can affect the accu-racy of young children's memory. The researchers began by having 3- to 6-year-

olds playa game, similar to Simon Says, in which the children were told to touchvarious parts of their body and those of other children. A month later, the re-searchers had a social worker interview the children about their experiences duringthe game (Ceci Bruck, 1998). Before the social worker conducted the inter-views, she was given a description of each child's experiences. Unknown to the so-cial worker, the description included inaccurate as well as accurate information.For example, she might have been told that a particular child had touched her ownstomach and another child's nose, when in fact the child had touched her ownstomach and the other child's foot. After receiving the description, the socialworker was given instructions much like those in a court case: Find out what thechild remembers.

As it turned out, the social worker's questioning often reflected the version of

events she had been told. f for example, a child's account of an event was contraryto what the social worker believed to be the case, the social worker tended to ques-tion the child repeatedly about the event (''Are you sure you touched his foot? Is itpossible you touched some other part of his body? ). Faced with such repeatedquestioning, children fairly often changed their responses. 34 of 3- and 4-year-olds, and 18 of 5- and 6-year-olds, corroborated at least one of the socialworker's incorrect beliefs. Especially alarming, the children became increasinglyconfident about their inaccurate memories as the social worker continued ques-tioning them. Children were led to remember not only plausible events thatnever happened but also unlikely ones that the social worker had been told about.For example, some children recalled their knee being licked and a marble beinginserted in their ear.Thus, an interrogator's beliefs about what happened in a givenevent can influence how young children answer the interrogator's questions aboutthe event.

Studies such as this have yielded a number of conclusions regarding children'stestimony in legal proceedings. The most important finding that when shielded from leading questions, even 3- to 5-year-olds can be reliable witnesses. They often forget detailsof events, but what they do say is usually accurate (Howe Courage, 1997; Poole Lindsay, 1995). At the same time,young children are highly susceptible to leading questions,especially ones asked repeatedly. The younger the children,the more susceptible they are and the more their recall re-

flects the biases of the interviewer's questions. Therefore, toobtain accurate testimony, especially from young children,questions should be stated in a neutral fashion that does notpresuppose the answer, and a question should not be re-peated if the child has already answered it (Ceci Bruck, inpress). Such findings can help courts obtain more accuratetestimony from young children. At a broader level, the find-ings illustrate how knowledge of child development can in-form social policies.

CH PTER WHY STUDY CHILD DEVELOPMENT

In c ou rt ro om s s uc h as th is o ne a s kin gQ ues tio ns th at w il l h elp c hi ld ren to t e s ti fy

ac cu ra t e ly is o f th e u tm o st im p or tan ce


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U nd ers tan din g u m an atu re

A third reason to study child development is to better understand human nature.Many of the most intriguing questions regarding human nature concern children.For example, does learning start only after children are born, or can it occur in thewomb? Can later upbringing in a loving home overcome the detrimental effects ofearly rearing in a loveless institution? Do children vary in personality and intellectfrom the day they are born, or are they similar at birth, with differences arisingonly because they have different experiences? Until recently, people could onlyspeculate about such questions. Now, however, developmental scientists have con-cepts and methods that enable them to observe, describe, and explain the processof development. As a result, our understanding of children, and of human nature,is growing rapidly.

A particularly poignant illustration of the way in which scientific research can

increase understanding of human nature comes from studies of children s abili ty toovercome the effects of severely abnormal early experience. One such researchprogram has examined children whose early life was spent in horribly inadequateorphanages in Romania in the late 1980s and early 1990s (O Connor et al., 2000;Rutter et al., 2004). Children in these orphanages had almost no contact with anycaregiver. For reasons that remain unknown, the communist dictatorship of thatera instructed staff workers not to interact with the children even when givingthem their bottles. In fact, the staff provided the infants with so little physical con-tact that the backs of many infants heads became flattened from the babies lyingon their backs for 18 to 20 hours per day.

Shortly after the collapse of communist rule in Romania, anumber of these children were adopted and brought to Great

Britain. To evaluate the long-term effects of the early deprivationthese children experienced, researchers followed the physical, intel-lectual, and social development of about 150 of the childrenthrough age 6 years (O Connor et al., 2000; Rutter et al., 2004). Toprovide a basis of comparison, the researchers also followed the de-velopment of a group of British-born children adopted into Britishfamilies before they were 6 months of age. Simply put, the ques-tion was whether human nature is sufficiently flexible that theRomanian-born children could overcome the extreme deprivationof their early experience.

When the Romanian-born children arrived in Britain, mostwere severely malnourished, with more than half being in the low-

est 3 of children their age in terms of height, weight, and headcircumference. Most also showed varying degrees of mental retar-

dation and were socially immature. The parents who adopted them knew of theirdeprived backgrounds and were highly motivated to provide loving homes thatwould help the children overcome the damaging effects of their early deprivation.

By age 6, the physical development of the Romanian-born children had im-proved considerably, both in absolute terms and in relation to the British-borncomparison group. However, the Romanian children s early adverse experiencecontinued to influence their development, with the extent of negative influencedepending on how long they had been institutionalized. Romanian-born childrenwho were adopted by British families before age 6 months, and who had thereforespent the smallest portion of their early lives in the orphanages, weighed about the

same as British-born children when both were 6-year-olds. Romanian-born chil-dren adopted between the ages of 6 and 24 months, and who therefore had spent

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T his in fa nt is o ne o f th e c hild re n a do pte dfro m a R om an ia n o rp ha na ge in th e 1 99 0sH ow s uc ce ssfu lly h e d ev elo ps w ill d ep en dn ot on ly o n th e qu ality o f careg ivin g he receive s in h is ad op tive ho me b ut also on th ea mo un t o f tim e h e sp en t in th e o rp ha na ge

CH PTER N INTRODUCTION TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT


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R HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT

ore of their early lives in the orphanages, weighed less; those adopted betweene ages of 24 and 42 months weighed still less.Intellectual development showed a similar pattern. The Romanian-born chil-

ren who had been adopted before age 6 months demonstrated levels of intellectualompetence at 6 years comparable to those of the British-born comparison group.omanian-born children adopted between the ages of 6 and 24 months did some-

hat less well, and those adopted between the ages of 24 and 42 months did evenore poorly. A sense of the magnitude of the long-term effects of institutionaliza-

on is conveyed by the percentage of the Romanian-born children with intellectualtardation. Among children adopted before 6 months of age, 2 scored in the re-rded range at age 6 years, the same percentage as in the British population as ahole. contrast, among children who spent between 24 and 42 months in the in-itutions, 33 scored in the retarded range at age 6 years (Rutter et al., 2004).

The early experience in the orphanages had similar damaging effects on the chil-ren s social development (O Connor Rutter, 2000; Rutter et al., 2004). Almost

A l of the Romanian-born children who were adopted after age 6 months showedxtremely abnormal social behavior at age 6 years (versus 3 of the Brit ish-bornomparison group). Particularly striking was that they often seemed not to differ-

ntiate between their parents and other adults-they would go off with aranger-s-and often did not look to their parents for reassurance in anxiety-pro-oking situations. Such children also tended not to form good relations with peers.

Overall, these findings suggest that, within limits, human nature is sufficientlyexi le to overcome extreme deprivations experienced in the early years. Thesendings are also representative of a basic principle of child development that iselevant to many aspects of human nature: T he tim in g e xp e ri en c es o ft en i nf lu e nc ese i r e ff ec ts In the case of the Romanian orphans, the effects of living in the love-ss, unstimulating institutions for up to the first 6 months of life could be over-ome, but living there beyond that time had effects that were extremely difficult toeverse, even when children spent subsequent years in loving and stimulating envi-onments. The adoptive families clearly made a huge difference in their children s

ves, but for many children, effects of their early mistreatment remain years later.

There are at least three good reasons to learn about child development. The f ir st is togain information and understanding that can help parents raise their own childrensuccessfully. The second is to gain insight into social policy issues related to childrenand to help society adopt policies that promote children s well being. The third is tobetter understand human nature in general .

H is to ric al Fo u n d at io n s o f th e S tu d y

o f h ild ev elo p m en trom ancient Greece to the early years of the twentieth century, a number of pro-oun thinkers observed and wrote about children. Their goals were like those ofontemporary researchers: to help people become better parents, to improve chil-ren s well-being, and to understand human nature. Unlike contemporary re-earchers, they usually based their conclusions on unsystematic observations ofmall numbers of children whom they happened to encounter. Still, the issues theyaised were sufficiently important, and their insights sufficiently deep, that their

T; ewscontinue to be of interest.


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B CH PTER N INTRODUCTION TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT

E ar ly P hilo so p hic al V iew s o f h ild ren s D ev elo pm e nt

Some of the earliest recorded ideas about children s development were those ofPlato and Aristotle. These classic Greek philosophers, who lived in the fourth cen-tury B.C., were particularly interested in how children s development is influencedby their nature and their nurturing.

Both Plato and Aristotle believed that the long-term welfare of society de-pended on children being raised properly. Careful upbringing was essential, be-cause children s nature would otherwise lead to their becoming rebellious andunruly. Plato viewed this as an especially large problem with boys:

Now of allwild things, a boy is the most difficult to handle. Just because he morethan any other has a fount of intelligence in him which has not yet run clear, he --.is the craftiest, most mischievous,and unruliest of brutes.

Laws bk. 7, 808)

Consistent with this view, Plato emphasized self-control and discipline as themost important goals of education (Borstelmann, 1983).

Aristotle agreed with Plato that discipline was necessary, but he was more con-cerned with fitting child rearing to the needs of the individual child. In his words:

It would seem then that a study of individualcharacter is the best way of makingeducation perfect, for then each [child] has a better chance of receivingthe treat-ment that suits him.

Nicomachean Ethics bk. 10, chap. 9, p. 1180)

Plato and Aristotle differed more profoundly in their views of how childrenacquire knowledge. Plato believed that children are born with innate knowledge.For example, he believed that children are born with a concept of animal thatautomatically allows them to recognize from their first months that the particular.dogs or cats they encounter are animals. In contrast, Aristotle believed that allknowledge comes from experience and that the mind of an infant is like a writingtablet on which nothing has yet been written.

Roughly 2000 years later, the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) andthe French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) refocused attention onthe question of how parents and the general society can best promote child devel-opment. Locke, like Aristotle, viewed the child as a tabula rasa, or blank slate,whose development largely reflects the nurture provided by the child s parents andthe broader society. He believed that the most important goal of child rearing is thegrowth of character. To build children s character, parents need to set good examplesof honesty, stability, and gentleness. They also need to avoid indulging the child, es-pecially early in life. However, once discipline and reason have been instilled,

authority shouldbe relaxedas fast as their age, discretion,and good behavior couldallowit.... The sooneryou treat m asa man, the soonerhe w begin to be one.

(Cited in Borstelmann, 1983, p. 20)

Whereas Locke advocated first instilling discipline in children and then pro-gressively increasing their freedom, Rousseau believed that parents and societyshould give children maximum freedom from the beginning. Rousseau claimedthat children learn primarily from their own spontaneous interactions with objectsand other people, rather than through instruction by parents or teachers. He evenargued that children should not receive any formal education until about age 12,when they reach the age of reason and can judge for themselves the worth of

what they read and are told. Before then, they should be allowed the freedom toexplore whatever interests them.


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HAPTER HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Although all these philosophical views addressed fundamental questions aboutchildren s development, they were based more on impressions and general beliefsthan on systematic observations that could reveal how children actually develop.Such systematic observations would await a scientific approach.

e eginnings of Research on ChildrenA scientific approach to understanding child development began to emerge in thenineteenth century, in part as a result of two converging forces: social reformmovements and Charles Darwin s theory of evolution.

During the Industrial Revolution, a great many children in Europe and theUnited States worked as paid laborers with no legal protections. Some were asyoung as 5 and 6 years old; many spent as much as 12 hours a day working iniactories or mines, often in extremely hazardous circumstances. These harshconditions concerned a number of social reformers, who began to study howsuch circumstances might be affecting the children s development. For ex-ample, in a speech before the British House of Commons in 1843, the Earl

of Shaftesbury noted that the narrow tunnels where children dug out coal[have] very insufficient drainage [and] are so low that only little boys can workin them, which they do naked, and often in mud and water, dragging sledge-tubs by the girdle and chain .... Children of amiable temper and conduct, at 7years of age, often return next season from the collieries greatly corrupted ...with most hellish dispositions.

(Quoted Kessen, 1965, pp. 46-50)

The Earl of Shaftesbury s effort at social reform was partially success-ful-a law was passed forbidding employment of girls and of boys under 10.In addition to bringing about the first child labor laws, this and other earlysocial reform movements established a legacy of research conducted for thebenefit of children and provided some of the earliest recorded descriptionsof the adverse effects that harsh environments can have on children.

Later in the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin s work on biologicalevolution inspired a number of scientists to propose that an intensive studyof child development might lead to important insights into the nature of thehuman species. Darwin himself was interested in child development and in1877 published an article entitled A Biographical Sketch of an Infant, whichpresented his careful observations of the motor, sensory, and emotional growth ofhis own infant son. Darwin s baby biography -a systematic description of day-to-day development-represented one of the first methods for studying children.

The E mergence of C hild Developm ent as a D isciplineIn the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, child development began toemerge as a formal field of inquiry. A number of universities established depart-ments of child development, and the first professional journals devoted to thestudy of child development were founded. Also emerging during this period werethe first theories of child development to incorporate research findings. Oneprominent theory, that of Sigmund Freud, was based in large part on results fromexperiments with hypnosis and analysis of patients recollections of their dreamsand childhood experiences. On the basis of this evidence, Freud concluded that bi-ological drives, especially sexual ones, were a crucial influence on development.Another prominent theory of the same era, that of John Watson, was based in

Dur ing the e igh teenth n ine teenth and earlytwent ie th cen tur ies many young childrenw ork ed in c oa l m in es a nd fa cto rie s. T he irh ou rs w ere lo ng a nd th e w ork w as o fte nu nh ea lt hy a nd d an ge ro us . C on ce rn o ve rthew ell b eing of su ch children led to som e ofth e e arlie st re se arc h in th e a re a o f c hilddevelopment.


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T A B L E

B asic Q ues tio ns A bo ut C hildDevelopment

1. H ow d o n atu re a nd n urtu re to ge th ers ha pe d ev elo pm e nt? N atu re a ndnurture)

2. Ho w do ch ild re n sh ap e th eir o wnd e ve lo p m e nt ? T h e a c ti ve c h ild )

3 . In w ha t w ays is d ev elo pm e ntc on tin uo us , a nd in w ha t w ays is itdiscontinuous? Cont inu i ty /D iscontinu i ty )

4 . H ow d oe s c ha ng e o cc ur? M ec ha nis m so f d e ve lo p m e nt al c h an ge )

5 . H ow d oe s th e s oc io cu ltu ra l c on te xti nfl ue n ce d e ve lo p m e nt? T hes o c io c u lt ur a l c o n te x t)

S . H ow d o c hild re n b ec om e s o d iffe re ntfr om e a ch o th e r? In d iv id u aldifferences)

7 . H ow c an re se arc h p ro m o te c hild re n sw e ll -b e in g? R e se a rc h a n d c h il dr en swelfare)

na ture lour b iological endowment;thegeneswe receivefrom our parents

nur ture the environments ,both physicaland soc ia l ,t hat in fluenceourdeve lopmen t


large part on the results of experiments that examined the effects of reward andpunishment on the behavior of rats and other animals. On the basis of this evi-dence, Watson concluded that children s development is controlled by environ-mental conditions, especially the rewards and punishments that follow particularbehaviors.

By current standards, the research methods on which these theories were basedwere crude, and the theories were limited accordingly. Nonetheless, these earlyscientific theories were better grounded in research evidence than their predeces-sors, and, as you will soon see, they inspired much more sophisticated thinkingabout how development occurs, as well as much more sophisticated methods forstudying it.

P hilo so ph ers s uc h a s P la to , A ris to tle , L oc ke , a nd R ou ss ea u, a nd e arly s cie ntific th eo -

ris ts s uc h a s D arw in , F re ud , a nd Wats on , ra is ed m an y o f th e d ee pe st iss ue s a bo utc hild d ev elo pm en t. T he se iss ue s in clu de d h ow n atu re a nd n urtu re in flu en ce d ev elo p-m ent, how best to ra ise children , and how knowledge of ch ildre n s de velopm ent canb e u se d to a dv an ce th eir w elfa re . A lth ou gh th e w ork o f th es e th in ke rs la cke d s cie n-tific rigo r, it h elp ed se t th e s ta ge fo r m od ern p ers pe ctiv es o n th es e a nd o th er fu nd a-m e nta l is su es .

Enduring Them es in C hild D eve lopm entThe modern study of child development begins with a set of fundamental ques-

tions. Everything else-theories, concepts, research methods, data, and so on-ispart of the effort to answer these questions. Although experts in the field mightchoose different particular questions as the most important, there is widespreadagreement that the seven questions in Table 1.1 are among the most important.These questions form a set of seven themes that we will highlight throughout thebook as we examine specific aspects of child development. In this section, we in-troduce and briefly discuss each question and the theme that corresponds to it.

ature and urture How D o Nature and NurtureToge th er S ha pe D e ve lo pm e n t?

The single most basic question about child development is how nature and nur-ture interact to shape the developmental process. Nature refers to our biological _endowment, in particular, the genes we receive from our parents. This genetic in-heritance influences everything from broad characteristics such as physical appear-ance, personality, intellectual ability, and mental health to specific preferences,such as political attitudes and propensity for thrill-seeking (Plomin, DeFries,McClearn, Rutter, 1997). Nurture refers to the wide range of environments,both physical and social, that influence our development, including the womb inwhich we spend the prenatalperiod, the homes in which we grow up, the schoolsthat we attend, the broader communities in which we live, and the many peoplewith whom we interact.

Popular versions of the nature-nurture issue often present it as an either/or

question: What determines how a person develops, heredity or environment?However, this either/or phrasing of the question is deeply misleading. Human


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CHAPTER ENDURING THEMES IN HILD DEVELOPMENT

development requires both normal DNA and an environment that allows normalinteractions with the physical and social world.

Today, developmentalists recognize that every characteristic that we possess-our intellect, our personality, our physical appearance, our emotions-is createdthrough the joint workings of nature and nurture. Accordingly, rather than askingwhether nature or nurture is more important, developmentalists ask how nature nd nurture work together to shape development.

That this is the right question to ask can be illustrated by fmdings on the devel-opment of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that is charac-terized by irrational behavior, hallucinations, delusions, and so on. Although mostchildren of schizophrenic parents do not themselves develop the illness, theirprobability of developing it is much higher than that of other children, even whenthey are adopted as infants and therefore are not exposed to their parents schizo-phrenic behavior (Kety et al., 1994). More striking is that, among identical twins,if one twin has schizophrenia, the other twin has a nearly 50 chance of also hav-ing schizophrenia. Thus, children s genes influence their likelihood of becomingschizophrenic. The environment is also influential: children who grow up in trou-bled homes are more likely to become schizophrenic than are children raised in anormal household. Most important, however, is the interaction of genes and envi-ronment. A study of adopted children, some of whose biological parents wereschizophrenic, indicated that the only children who had any substantial likelihoodof becoming schizophrenic were those who had a schizophrenic parent nd whoalso were adopted into a troubled family (Tienari et a1.,1990).

How nature and nurture interact is a major theme areas of child-developmentresearch. Consider two more examples of such nature-nurture interactions, oneconcerning the development of conscience, the other concerning the developmentof intelligence. Development of a strong sense of conscience at age 5 years is asso-ciated with gentle maternal discipline among children born with a fearful tem-perament; in contrast, among fearless children, the development of a strong senseof conscience at age 5 is associated with an especially close and positivemother-child relationship, regardless of the type of discipline the mother uses

(Kochanska, 1997a). Turning to intellectual development, the quality of a child shome environment is far more strongly related to IQfor children growing up inimpoverished environments than for children growing up in affluent environments(Turkheimer et al., 2003). As these examples illustrate, to say that either nature ornurture is more important than the other is to oversimplify the developmentalprocess. All developmental outcomes result from the interaction of nature ndnurture.

f T he c tiv e C h i ld H o w D o C h ild ren S h ap eTh eir O w n D ev elo pm en t

With all the attention that is paid to the role of nature and nurture in develop-ment, it is sometimes easy to overlook the ways in which children s actions con-tribute to their own development. Even in infancy and early childhood, thiscontribution can be seen in a multitude of ways. Three of the most important con-tributions during children s first years are their attentional patterns, their use oflanguage, and their play.

Children first begin to shape their own development through their selection ofwhat to pay attention to. Even newborns look toward things that make noise and

C ou ld ap pr op riate n u rtu re h av e allo wedth e Th re e S to og es to b ec om e u pp er c la ss

gent lemen


12/39

i:

O ne o f th e ear l ies t w ay s c hi ld ren s hap eth eir o wn d ev elo pm en t is th ro ug h th eir

c ho ic e o f w here to lo ok Fro m th e f i r s tm on th o f l i fe s eein g M om is a h ig h p rio ri ty

You ng c hi ld ren o ften c on tr ib ute to th eir o w n

d ev elo pm en t th ro ug h th eir p reten d p lay

w hic h al lo ws th em to ex plo re t heir in ter es tsa nd c o n ce rn s

CH PTER AN INTRODUCTION TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT

that move. This preference helps them learn about important parts of the world,such as people and other animals. Infants' attention is particularly drawn to faces,especially their mother's face: given a choice of looking at a mother's face or astranger's, I-rnonth-olds already choose to look at Mom (Bartrip, Morton, deSchonen, 2001). At first, the attention to the mother's face is not accompanied byany visible emotion, but by the end of the 2nd month, infants smile and coo morewhen focusing intently on their mother's face than at other times. This smilingand cooing, in turn, elicits further smiling and talking in the mother, which elicitsfurther cooing and smiling in the infant (Lavelli Fogel, 2005). Thus, infants' at-tention to their mother's face initiates reciprocal interactions that seem likely tostrengthen the mother-infant bond.

Once children begin to speak, usually between 9 and 15 months of age, theircontribution to their own development becomes evident in their use of language.For example, toddlers (1- and 2-year-olds) often talk when they are alone in aroom. Only if children were internally motivated to learn language would theypractice talking when no one was present to react to what they are saying. Manyparents are startled when they hear this crib speech and wonder if something iswrong with a baby who would engage in such odd behavior. However, the activityis entirely normal, and the practice probably helps toddlers improve their speech.

Young children's play provides many other examples of how their internally mo-tivated activity contributes to their development. Children play by themselves forthe sheer joy of doing so, but they also learn a great deal in the process. Anyonewho has seen a baby bang a spoon against different parts of a high chair or inten-tionally drop food on the floor would agree that, for the baby, the activity is its ownreward. At the same time, the baby is learning about the noises that are madewhen different objects collide, about the speed at which objects fall, and perhapsabout the limits of his or her parents' patience.

Another example of young children's play that contributes to their developmentis sociodramatic play. Starting at around age 2, children sometimes pretend to bedifferent people in make-believe situations. For example, they may pretend to be

superheroes doing battle with monsters. addition to being inher-ently enjoyable, these make-believe games may teach children valuablelessons, such as how to cope with fears (Howes Matheson, 1992).

Children's contribution to their own development increases as theygrow older (Scarr McCartney, 1983). When children are young,their parents largely determine their environments, deciding whetheror not they w attend day care, go to parks and playgrounds, playwith this child or that, take music lessons, and so on. contrast,older children and adolescents choose many environments, friends,and activities for themselves. Their choices can exert a large impacton their future. To cite just one example, students who participate inone or more extracurricular activities, such as an athletic team or club,for at least a year between 6th and 10th grade are more likely to com-plete high school, and less likely to be arrested, than are initially sim-.ilar peers who do not participate in extracurricular activities(Mahoney, 2000). The differences in outcomes for participants andnonparticipants are especially great for children from low-incomebackgrounds who previously were rated as aggressive and unpopularby their classmates. Thus, children contribute to their own develop-ment from early in life, and their contributions increase as they grow

older.

Il


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=HAPTER ENDURING THEMES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Cont inu i ty Di scon t inu i tyIn W hat Way s Is D ev elo pm en tC on tin uo us an d in W h at Way s Is It D is co n t in uo us ?Some scientists envision children s development as a continuous process of smallchanges, like that of a pine tree growing taller and taller. Others see the process asa series of sudden, discontinuous changes, like the transition from caterpillar tococoon to butterfly Figure 1.1). The debate over which of these views is more ac-curate has gone on for decades.

Researchers who view development as discontinuous start from a common ob-servation: children of different ages seem qu li t t ive ly d iffe ren tA 4-year-old and a6-year-old, for example, seem to differ not just in how much they know but in thewhole way they understand the world.

P in e t re e : D e ve lo p me n ta l c on tin u it y B u tt e rf ly : D e v el op m e nt al d is c on ti nu it y

r:: J

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iii 5

Butterfly

A ge

a

Ag e

b

I G U R Cont inuous and d iscontinuous developmen t Someresea rche rs see developmen t as acon tinuous g radua l p rocess akin to a t ree g rowing tal le r wi th each passing yea r. O the rs see it a s adiscontinuous process involving sudden dramatic changes such as the t ransit ion from caterpi llar tococoon to bu tt er fly. Both v iews f it some aspec ts o f child developmen t.

3

Adolescents who part ic ipate in sports andother extracurricular activi ties are morel ikely to comple te h igh school and les sl ikely to ge t in to troub le than pee rs who arenot engaged in these act iv it ie s. Th is is ano the r example o f how chi ld ren con tr ibu te tothei r own development .

I continuo us dev elop men t I th e idea t ha tchangesw ith ageoccurg radually in smallincrements l ike that of a pinetree growingtaller and taller

d is co ntin uo us d ev elo pm en t I th e id eathat changeswith age includeoccasionallarge shifts l ike the transition from caterpillarto cocoonto butterfly


14/39


15/39

CHAF TER 1 ENDURING THEMES IN CHILD DEVELOF MENT

Clearly, these are not ideas that an older child would entertain. What is it about4- and 5-year-olds that leads them to believe that a person could get in and out ofa TV? And what changes occur that makes such notions laughable to 6- and 7-year-olds?

A common approach to answering these questions comes from stage theories,which propose that development occurs in a progression of distinct age-related

stages. According to these theories, a child s entry into a new stage involves rela-tively sudden, qualitative changes from one coherent way of experiencing the worldto a different coherent way of experiencing it. Among the best-known stage theo-ries is Jean Piaget s theory of cognitive development, that is, the development ofthinking and reasoning. This theory holds that between birth and adolescence,children go through four stages of cognitive growth, each characterized by distinctintellectual abilities and ways of understanding the world. For example, accordingto Piaget s theory, 2- to 5-year-olds are in a stage of development in which they canfocus on only one aspect of an event, or one type of information, at a time. By age 6or 7, children enter a different stage, in which they can simultaneously focus on andcoordinate two or more aspects of an event or types of information and do so onmany tasks. Confronted with a problem like the one that Beth s mother presented

to her, 4- and 5-year-olds focus on the single dimension of height, and thus per-ceive the tall, narrow glass as having more water. In contrast, some 6-year-olds andmost 7-year-olds consider both relevant dimensions of the problem simultaneously.This allows them to realize that although the column of water in the tall glass ishigher, the column also is narrower, and the two differences offset each other.

In the course of reading this book, you will encounter a number of other stagetheories, including Sigmund Freud s theory of psychosexual development, ErikErikson s theory of psychosocial development, and Lawrence Kohlberg s theory ofmoral development. Each of these stage theories proposes that children of a givenage show broad similarities across many situations and that children of differentages often behave very ifferently

Such stage theories have been very influential. In the past 20 years, however,many researchers have concluded that, in most aspects of development, changesare gradual rather than sudden, and that development occurs skill by skill, task bytask, rather than in a broadly unified way (Courage Howe, 2002; Elman et al.,1996; Fischer Biddell, in press; Thelen Smith, 1998). This view of develop-ment is less dramatic than stage theories, but a great deal of evidence supports it.One such piece of evidence is the fact that a child often will behave in accord withone stage on one task but in accord with a different stage on another task (Fischer Biddell, in press). This variable level of reasoning makes it difficult to v w thechild as being in either stage.

Much of the difficulty in deciding whether development is continuous or dis-continuous is that the same facts can look very different, depending on one s per-spective. Consider the seemingly simple question of whether children s heightincreases continuously or discontinuously. Figure 1.2a shows a boy s height, mea-sured yearly from birth to age 18 (Tanner, 1961). When one looks at the boy sheight at each age, development seems smooth and continuous, with growth oc-curring rapidly early in life and then slowing down.

However, when you look at Figure 1.2b, a different picture emerges. This graphillustrates the same boy s growth, but it depicts the amount of growth from oneyear to the next. The boy grew every year, but he grew most during two periods:from birth to age 3, and from 12 to 15. These are the kinds of data that lead peo-ple to talk about discontinuous growth and about a separate stage of adolescencethat includes a growth spurt.

15

I sta ge th eo rie s I a pp ro ach es th at p ro pth a t d e ve lo p m en t in vo lv es a s erie s o f d ist in u o us , a g e -r el ate d p h a se s

I c og nitiv e d ev elo pm e nt t h e deve lop t re o f t h in kin g a n d r ea so n in g


16/39

.. _._....... -- .~~ \ 1 - . ..... _.. ~ ... ~ ' ... ,~ ;-:_ ~~~

F IG U R E 1 .2C ontinu ou s a nd disc on tin uo us g row th D ep end in gon how it is view ed, changes in height can be view ed as eitherc on tin uo us o r d is co ntin uo us . (a ) E xa min in g a b oy s h eig ht a t y ea rlyinte rv als fro m birth to 18 y ea rs m ake s the gro wth lo ok gra du al a ndc on tin uo us (fro m Tan ne r, 1 96 1). (b ) E xa min in g c ha ng es in th es am e b oy s he igh t from o ne y ea r to th e n ex t ov er the s am e p eriods ho ws ra pid g ro wth d urin g th e firs t th re e y ea rs , th en s lo we r g ro wth ,then a g row th sp urt in a do les cen ce , th en a ra pid de cre as e ing ro wt h; v ie we d t his w a y, g ro wth is d is co ntin uo us .

CHAF TER 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT

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So, is development fundamentally continuous or fundamentally discontinuous?The most reasonable answer seems to be: It depends on how you look at it and howoften you look. Imagine the difference between the perspective of an uncle whosees his niece every two or three years, and that of the niece s parents who see herevery day.The uncle will almost always be struck with the huge changes in his niecesince he last saw her.The child will be so different that it will seem that she has pro-gressed to a higher stage of development. In contrast, the parents will most often bestruck by the continuity of her development; to them, she usually will just seem togrow up a bit each day.Throughout this book, we will be considering the changes,large and small, sudden and gradual, that have led some researchers to emphasizethe continuities in development and others to emphasize the discontinuities.

m Mechanisms of Developmental hangeHow D oes C hange O ccur?Perhaps the deepest mystery about children s development is expressed by thequestion How does change occur? In other words, what are the mechanisms thatproduce the remarkable changes that all children experience? A very general an-swer was implicit in the discussion of the theme of n ture nd nurture The inter-


17/39

CHAPTER ENDURING THEMES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT

action of genes and environments determines both what changes occur and whenthose changes occur. The challenge comes in specifying more precisely how partic-ular changes occur.

A useful framework for thinking about these issues is suggested by Darwin stheory of evolution. According to evolutionary theory, species originate andchange through two main processes: variation and selection. Variation refers to

differences within and among individuals. Selection involves the more frequentsurvival, and therefore the greater reproduction, of organisms that are well adaptedto their environment. Through the joint operation of variation and selection,species that are better adapted to a given environment become more prevalent inthat environment over time, while less well adapted species become rarer or disap-pear altogether. In an analogous way, variation and selection appear to producechanges within an individual lifetime.

One level at which these mechanisms of change operate is brain development.In the months just before and after birth, the brain creates trillions of synapseswhich provide the connections among brain cells that allow them to transmit in-formation to one another. The number of synapses created during infancy greatlyexceeds the number that w be present during adulthood; thus they provide a

huge pool of Variation out of which the mature brain can be sculpted. Selectionamong synapses depends on use; synapses that are used in transmission of infor-mation survive; those that are not used are pruned away. This variation and selec-tion in brain development produces some fascinating consequences. For example,in blind children, the absence of visual stimulation leads to areas of the brain thatwould normally be dedicated to processing sights to instead respond to sounds.Conversely, in deaf children, the absence of auditory stimulation leads areas of thebrain that would ordinarily be dedicated to processing sounds to instead respondto sights (Bavelier Neville, 2002).

Variation and selection are crucial mechanisms in producing behavioral changeas well. Behavioral variation involves the diverse ways in which people think, act,and relate to each other. Behavioral selection includes the

increasing use, with age and experience, of the most usefulways of thinking, acting, and relating. Together, behavioralvariation and selection produce a wide variety of positivechanges in psychological functioning (Changeux Dehaene, 1989; Geary, 2005; Gibson, 1994; Siegler, 1996;Thelen Smith, 1994).

The ways in which variation and selection produce be-havioral change can be illustrated in the context of the de-velopment of the strategies young children use to solvesingle-digit addition problems. First, consider the variationin children s strategies. From 4 or 5 years of age onward,children use a variety of strategies to solve simple problemssuch as 3 5 (Geary, in press). Sometimes they count from1: on 3 5, they would count 1, 2, 3 while putting upthree fingers, then count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 while putting up fivefingers, and then count all the raised fingers. Other times,they use retrieval (recalling an answer from memory). Yet other times, they use thecounting-on strategy, choosing the larger of the two numbers being added andthen counting-on from that point the number of times indicated by the smalleraddend. For example, on 3 5, the child would start at 5 and count 6, 7,8. Stillother times, when children cannot think of a better way to solve a problem, they

7

v ar ia tio n I d iff er en ce s in t ho ug ht a ndbehaviorwi th in and among ind iv idua ls

s ele ctio n I th e m o re f re qu en t s ur viv al a nreproduc tion o f o rgan isms that a r e adap ted to thei r env ironmen t

O n e k e y m e c h an is m o f d e ve lo p m en ta lc ha ng e is v aria tio n a nd s ele ct io n in t he u so f s tr at eg ie s . A s t his 6 -y e ar -o ld a c qu ir esm o re e ffic ie nt w a ys o f s olv in g a dd itio n p rle m s s h e w ill a b an d on h e r c u rr en t s tr at eg yo f c o un tin g o n h e r f i ng e rs .


18/39

- ,,

THE FAMIIX m o s By Bil Keane


resort to the strategy of guessing. Almost all 5- to 8-year-olds use at leastthree of these addition strategies Siegler, in press).

Now consider the process of selection. Addition strategies differ inboth the speed and the accuracy with which they solve problems. For ex-ample, retrieval is the fastest strategy, but young children cannot apply itaccurately on difficult problems. Other strategies, such as counting from1, are slower and more effortful but can produce correct answers on prob-lems where retrieval cannot. The challenge is to choose among thestrategies in ways that enhance both speed and accuracy and that produceincreasing reliance on the most effective strategies.

Children s experience using these strategies enables them to chooseincreasingly adaptively among the varying approaches. As 1st and 2ndgraders learn that they can accurately retrieve the answers to easy prob-lems but not to hard ones, they increasingly focus their use of retrieval oneasy problems. Similarly, experience using the counting-on strategy leads1st and 2nd graders to use it increasingly often on problems where its useis most advantageous relative to other strategies. For example, young ele-mentary school children come to use counting-on particularly often onproblems such as 2 9 and 3 8, where they usually cannot retrieve the

correct answer and where counting-on saves a great deal of time relative to count-ing from In this way, strategy use evolves toward the strategies that are most ef-fective for a particular type of problem being used most often on that problem Siegler, in press).

In the evolution of species, the organisms best adapted to the environment tendto increase in number over time, whereas the populations of poorly adapted speciesdecrease. Analogously, in the development of the brain, the synapses that are usedregularly survive, whereas those that go unused are pruned away. In the develop-ment of thinking, the most efficient strategies increase in use with age and experi-ence, and the use of less effective strategies decreases. Evolutionary accounts haveproved useful for understanding mechanisms of development in many other areasas well Geary, 2005).

Daddy. how many fingers do I hold upfor f ive and a half?

L ea rn in g to a dd is h ard er th an it lo oks.

I soc ioc ultu ral c ontex t I the p hy sic al, so-

c ia l, c u lt ur al , e co no m ic , a nd h is to ri ca l c ir cu m -s ta nc e s th at m a k e u p a ny c h il d s e nv ir on m en t

~ The Sociocultural ontext How Does theSociocultural Context Influence Development?Children grow up in a particular set of physical and social environments, in a par-

ticular culture, under particular economic circumstances, at a particular point inhistory. Together, these physical, social, cultural, economic, and historical circum-stances constitute the sociocultural context of a child s life. This socioculturalcontext influences every aspect of children s development.

The most obviously important parts of children s sociocultural contexts are thepeople with whom they interact-parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, day-careworkers, teachers, friends, peers, and so on-and the physical environment inwhich they live-their house, day-care center, school, neighborhood, and so on.Another important but less tangible part of the sociocultural context isthe institu-tions that influence children s lives: school systems, religious institutions, sportsleagues, social organizations such as scouts), and so on.

Yet another important set of influences are the general characteristics of the

child s society: its wealth and technological advancement; its values, attitudes, be-liefs, and traditions; its laws and political structure; and so on. For example, the


19/39

simple fact that most toddlers and preschoolers growing up in the United Statestoday go to day care or other forms of child care outside their homes reflects a num-ber of these less tangible sociocultural factors, including (1) the historical era n thepast, far fewer children in the United States. attended day-care centers); (2) the eco-nomic structure (most women with young children work outside the home);(3) cultural beliefs within the society (for example, that receiving child care outsidethe home does not harm children); and (4) cultural values (for example, the valuethat mothers of young children should be able to work outside of the home if theywish). Attendance at day-care centers, in turn, partly determines which people chil-dren meet and what activit ies they engage in.

One method that developmentalists use to understand the influence of the socio-cultural context is to compare the lives of children who grow up in different cultures.Such comparisons often reveal that practices that one culture takes for granted andconsiders natural are regarded as unusual in other cultures. At the same time,practices that are rare or nonexistent in one s own culture are often common in,and may have important advantages for, other cultures. The following comparisonof young children s sleeping arrangements in different societies illustrates the valueof such cross-cultural research.

In most families in the United States, newborn infants sleep in their parentsbedroom, either in a crib or in the same bed. However, when infants are 2 to 6months old, parents usually move them to another bedroom where they sleepalone (Shweder, Balle-Jensen, Goldstein, 1995). This seems only natural tomost people raised in the United States. From a worldwide perspective, however,such sleeping arrangements are highly unusual. In most other societies, includingindustrialized nations such as Italy, Japan, and Korea, babies almost always sleepin the same bed as their mother for the first few years, and older children also sleep the same room as their mother, sometimes in the same bed (e.g., Nelson,Schiefenhoevel, Haimerl, 2000; Whiting Edwards, 1988). Where does thisleave the father? In some cultures, the father sleeps in the same bed with motherand baby; in others, he sleeps in a separate bed or in a different room; and in a few

others, he sleeps in a different house altogether.How do these differences in sleeping arrangements affect children? To find out,

researchers interviewed mothers in middle-class U.S. familiesin Salt Lake City, Utah, and in rural Mayan families inGuatemala (Morelli, Rogoff, Oppenheim, Goldsmith,1992). These interviews revealed that by age 6 months, thelarge majority of the U.S. children had begun sleeping in theirown bedroom. As the children grew out of infancy, the nightlyseparation of child and parents became a complex ritual, sur-rounded by activities intended to comfort the child, such astelling stories, reading children s books, singing songs, and soon. One mother said, When my friends hear that it is time for

my son to go to bed, they teasingly say, See you in an hour(Morelli et al., 1992, P: 608). About half of the children werereported as taking a comfort object, such as a blanket or teddybear, to bed with them.

In contrast, interviews with the Mayan mothers indicatedthat their children typically slept in the same bed with themuntil the age of 2 or 3 and continued to sleep in the same roomwith them for years thereafter. The children usually went tosleep at the same time as their parents. None of the Mayan


I n m a n y c o un tr ie s in c lu d in g D e n m ar km oth ers a nd c hild re n s le ep to ge th er fo rfirs t s ev era l y ea rs o f th e c hild s life . T hs oc io cu ltu ra l p atte rn is in s ha rp c on tra sth e U p ra ctic e o f h av in g in fa nts s le ep

s ep ara te ly fro m th eir p are nts s oo n a fte rbirth.


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__~ _ .. .... . ... :r . ;.. _. _ ~ _ ...~

P er ce nta ge s o f U S F am i lies w ith C h ild renB elo w A ge 18 B elo w P o v er ty L in e in 2 3

I socioeconom ic sta tu s I a m easure of soc ia l c la ss b as ed o n in co m e a nd e du ca tio n

T L E 2

CHAPTER

roup

Overall U.S. population

White non Hispanic

Black

Hispanic

Asian or Pacif ic Islander

Married Couples

White non Hispanic

Black

Hispanic

Asian or Pacific Islander

Single parent: Female head of household

White non Hispanic

Black

Hispanic

Asian or Pacific Islander

AN INTRODUCTION TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT

parents reported bedtime rituals, and almost none reported their children takingcomfort objects, such as dolls or stuffed animals, to bed with them. In addition,

none of the Mayan children were said to suck their thumbs when they went tobed, unlike many children in the United States.

Why do sleeping arrangements differ in different cultures? One obvious possi-bility is that people in other cultures, particularly impoverished ones like theMayan, lack the space needed for separate bedrooms. However, interviews withthe Mayan parents indicated that they did not see space as the crucial considera-tion. Instead, the key consideration seemed to be cultural values. Mayan cultureprizes interdependence among people. The Mayan parents expressed the beliefthat having a young child sleep with the mother is important for developing agood parent-child relationship, for avoiding the child's becoming distressed atbeing alone, and for revealing to parents any problems the child has. In contrast,U.S. culture prizes independence and self-reliance, and the US. mothers expressedthe belief that having babies and young children sleep alone promotes these values.These differences illustrate both how practices that strike us as natural may differgreatly across cultures and how the simple conventions of everyday life often re-flect deeper values.

Contexts of development differ not just between cultures but within them aswell. In modern multicultural societies, many contextual differences are related toethnicity, race, and socioeconomic status-a measure of social class based on in-come and education, often abbreviated SES. Virtually all aspects of children'slives, from the food they eat to the parental discipline they receive to the gamesthey play, are influenced by these characteristics.

The socioeconomic context exerts a particularly large influence on children'slives. In economically advanced societies, including the United States, most chil-dren grow up in comfortable circumstances, but millions of other children do not ..In 2003, about 15 of US. families with children had incomes below the povertyline (in that year, around 18,000 for a family of four). In absolute numbers, that

translates into about 12 million children growing up in poverty (US.Census Bureau, 2004). As shown in Table 1.2, poverty rates are espe-cially high in black and Hispanic families and in homes of people of allraces that are headed by single mothers.

Children from poor families tend to do less well than other childrenin many ways (Chen, Matthews, Boyce, 2002; Duncan Brooks-Gunn, 2000). In infancy, they are more likely to have serious healthproblems. In childhood, they are more likely to have social/emotional or

behavioral problems. Throughout childhood and adolescence, they tendto have smaller vocabularies, lower IQ,, and lower math and readingscores on standardized achievement tests. In adolescence, they are morelikely to become pregnant or drop out of school (Garbarino, 1992;McLoyd, 1998).

These negative outcomes are not surprising when we consider thehuge array of disadvantages that poor children face (Evans, 2004).Compared with children who grow up in more affluent circumstances,they are more likely to live in dangerous neighborhoods, to attend infe-rior schools and day-care centers, and to be exposed to high levels of airand water pollution. They more often grow up in single-parent homesand are more likely to be living with neither parent. Their parents read

to them less and talk to them less, as well as providing fewer books inthe home and being less involved in their schooling. The accumulation

in P o ve rt y

5

34

9

76

8

736

5

4

ource u.s. Census Bureau 2004


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of these disadvantages, rather than any single one of them, seems to be the greatestobstacle to their successful development (Evans, 2004).

And yet, as we saw in Werner s study of the children of Kauai, described at thebeginning of the chapter, many children do. overcome the obstacles that povertypresents. Such resilient children tend to have three characteristics (Masten

Coatsworth, 1998). One is positive .personal qualities, such as high intelligence, aneasygoing personality, and adaptability to change. Another characteristic of re-silient children is a close relationship with at least one parent. A third commoncharacteristic is a close relationship with at least one adult other than their parents,such as a grandparent, teacher, coach, or family friend. Thus, although povertyposes obstacles to successful development, many children, with the help of adultsin their families and communities, do surmount them.

I In d i v id u a l i ff er en c e s H o w D o C h i l d r e n B ec o m e

S o D if f e r e n t f r o m O n e n o t h er

Anyone who has experience with children is struck by their uniqueness-their dif-ferences not only in physical appearance but in everything from activity level andtemperament to intelligence, persistence, and emotionality. These differencesamong children emerge quickly. In the first year, for example, some children areshy, others outgoing (Kagan, 1998). Some infants play with or look at objects forprolonged periods of time; others rapidly shift from activity to activity (Rothbart Bates, 1998). Even children in the same family often differ substantially, as youprobably already know if you have siblings.

Scarr (1992) has identified four factors that can lead children from asingle family (as well as children from different families) to turn outvery different from each other:

1. Genetic differences

2. Differences in treatment by parents and others

3. Differences in reactions to similar experiences

4. Different choices of environments

The most obvious reason for differences among children is that, ex-cept for identical twins, every individual is genetically unique. Even sib-lings (brothers and sisters), who share 50 of their genes, differ in theother 50 .

A second major source of variation among children is different treat-ment by parents and other people. This different treatment is often as-sociated with preexisting differences in the children s characteristics. Forexample, parents tend to provide more sensitive care to easygoing infants than todifficult ones; by the second year, parents of difficult children are often angry with

them even when the children have done nothing wrong in the immediate situation(van den Boom Hoeksma, 1994). Teachers, likewise, react to children s individ-ual characteristics. For example, they tend to provide positive attention and en-couragement to pupils who are learning well and are well behaved, but with pupilswho are doing poorly and are disruptive, they tend to be openly critical and todeny the pupils requests for special help (Good Brophy, 1996).

In addition to being shaped by objective differences in the treatment they re-ceive, children also are influenced by their subjective interpretations of the treat-ment. A classic example occurs when each of a pair of siblings feels that their

D iffe re nt c hil dr en e v en o ne s w ith in th es am e fa mily o fte n re ac t to th e s am e e xp ee nc e in c om ple te ly d iffe re nt w ay s.


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_~ ... :. .i_


parents favor the other. Siblings also may react differently to events that affect thewhole family, for example unemployment of one or both parents. In one study,

69 of negative events, such as parents losing their jobs, elicited fundamentallydifferent reactions from siblings (Beardsall Dunn, 1989). Some children wereextremely concerned at a parent's loss of a job; others were confident that every-thing would be okay.

A fourth major source of differences among children relates to the previouslydiscussed theme of the c t iv e c hil d as children grow older, they increasingly chooseactivities and friends for themselves and thus influence their own subsequent de-velopment. Children may also choose niches for themselves: within a family, onechild may become the smart one, another the popular one, another the badone, and so on (Scarr McCartney, 1983). A child labeled by family members as the smart one may strive to live up to the label; so may a child labeled thenaughty one. Thus, children's genes, their treatment by other people, their subjec-

tive reactions to their experiences, and their choice of environments all contributeto differences among children, even ones in the same family.

R es ear ch an d C h i ld ren s W el f a r e H o w C an R es earc hP ro m o te C hild ren s Well B ein g ?Improved understanding of child development often leads to practical benefits.Several examples of such practical benefits have already been described, includingthe program for helping children deal with their anger and the recommendationsfor fostering valid eyewitness testimony from young children.

Another type of benefit that child-development research hasyielded is procedures for diagnosing developmental problems early,when they can be corrected most easily and completely. For example,some infants are born with cataracts, areas of cloudiness in the lens ofthe eye. Some such cataracts are dense, clearly requiring surgery asearly in life as possible (Ellemberg, Lewis, Maurer, Brent, 2000).However, when infants' cataracts are milder, ophthalmologists oftencannot tell whether the loss of vision is sufficient to warrant surgery.

Standard techniques for evaluating vision require patients to reportwhat they see; infants, of course, cannot provide such verbal reports.However, a child-development research method known as preferenti llooking allows infants' behavior to speak for them. This method buildsfrom research showing that infants who can see the difference be-tween a simple pattern and a solid gray field consistently prefer tolook at the pattern. This is true even when the pattern is just a set of

vertical stripes. Therefore, to diagnose the effects of infants' cataracts, researcherspresent the infants with cards on which a gray area and a striped area sit side byside. By varying the spacing of the stripes and the contrast between them and thewhite areas, and observing for each card where the infants look, a researcher canassess the extent of the visual impairment. This preferential-looking procedure hasproved useful determining whether infants from age 2 months onward needcorrective surgery (Maurer, Lewis, Brent, Levin, 1999).

Another valuable application of child-development research has been programsfor helping children learn more effectively. One such program is aimed at helping

children with a disability known as s pe cific l ng u ge im p ir me nt (SLI). Theseindividuals, approximately 5 of the children in the United States, have normal

A n infant w ho w as b orn w ith a cataract ino ne e ye . T he b est tre atm en t fo r s uch p ro ble ms is to s urg ic ally re mo ve th e c ata ra ctfro m th e a ffe cte d e ye so on a fte r b irth a nd toke ep a p atch o n th e u na ffe cte d e ye to fo rceu se o f t he p re vio usly d ep rive d e ye . T his infa nt h ad su rg ery so on a fte r b irth to re mo veth e c ata ra ct; n ow in h er 2 0s h er visio n inth e tre ate d e ye is q uite g oo d.


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CH PTER METHODS FOR STUDYING CHILD DEVELOPMENT

T his yo un g g irl is p la yin g T re asu re in th eTom b, a co mp ute r g am e th at is p art o f ap ro gra m d ev elo pe d b y Talla l e t a l. 1 9 96 )a nd M erze nich 20 01 ) to h elp ch ild re n w iths pe cific la ng ua ge im pa irm e nts . In th e g am es tu de nts m us t re m em be r a s po ke n ta rg etw ord and identify the m atching w ord from

p air o f v is ua lly a nd p ho no lo gic ally s im ila rwords.

nonverbal intelligence but develop spoken language unusually slowly.Their main difficulty seems to be a weakness in rapid processing ofauditory information meaningful sounds). This difficulty interfereswith their understanding of speech, which requires rapid integrationof sounds into words and sentences.

A group of researchers Merzenich, 2001; Tallal et al., 1996) rea-soned that this difficulty in rapid processing of auditory informationcould be remedied by applying the psychological principle of success ive approx imat ion According to this principle, mastery of a difficultskill can be aided by presenting learners with a simplified version ofthe task until they succeed with it, and then gradually increasing thedifficulty of the task until they become skillful enough to succeed onthe original, demanding version.

The researchers applied this principle in an intensive program in which chil-dren with SLI played a variety of computer games aimed at increasing the speed atwhich they could process sounds. For example, in one game, the children heardtwo similar syllables in different orders e.g., uhduh and duh uh and were re-quired to identify whether the uh came first or second. Initially, the sounds were

presented at rates much slower than normal speech, rates at which the childrenwith SLI could succeed at the task. Then the sounds were presented increasinglyrapidly, forcing the children to process them faster and faster until the sounds werebeing presented at, or even beyond, the rate of normal speech.

This application of the psychological principle of successive approximationproduced large improvements on the training tasks. More important, by the endof the program, the children performed normally on tests of speech comprehen-sion. Throughout the book, you will encounter dozens of examples of how child-development research is yielding practical benefits both in diagnosing children sproblems and in helping them overcome them.

The modern field of child development is in large part an attempt to answer a smallset of fundamental questions about children These include:

What is the relation between nature and nurture?2 How do children contribute to their own development?3 Is development best viewed as continuous or discontinuous?4 What mechanisms produce development?5 How does the sociocultural context influence development?6 Why are children so different from one other?7 How can we use research to improve children s welfare?

M eth o d s fo r S tu d yin g h ild ev elo p m en t4-s illustrated in the previous section on Enduring Themes in Child Development,modern scientific research has advanced our understanding of fundamental ques-tions about child development well beyond that of the historical figures who firstraised the questions. This progress is not due to modern researchers being smarteror working harder than the great thinkers of the past; rather, it reflects the success-ful application of the scientific method to the study of child development. In thissection, we describe the scientific method and how its application to child devel-opment has advanced our understanding.


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I scientific m ethod I an approach to testingb e li ef s t ha t i nv ol ve s c h oo s in g a Q u e st io n f o rm u la tin g a h y po th e sis t es tin g t he h y po th e sisa n d d ra w in g a c o nc lu s io n

I h yp oth ese s I e duca te d gu esse s

CH PTER N INTRODUCTION TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT

T h e S cie n tific M e th o dThe basic assumption of the scientific method is that all beliefs, no matter how

probable they seem and no matter how many people share them, may be wrong.Therefore, until beliefs have been tested, they must be viewed as hypotheses, thatis, as educated guesses, rather than as truth. If a hypothesis is tested, and the evi-dence repeatedly does not support i t, the hypothesis must be abandoned no matterhow reasonable it may have seemed.

Use of the scientific method involves four basic steps:

1. Choosing a question to be answered (

2. Formulating a hypothesis regarding the question

3. Developing a method for testing the hypothesis

4. Using the data yielded by the method to draw a conclusion regarding thehypothesis

To illustrate these steps, let s make the qu estio n to e n sw ered What abilitiespredict which preschoolers w become good readers? A reasonable hypothesismight be Preschoolers who can identify the separate sounds within words will be-come better readers than those who cannot. A straightforward method for testingthis hypothesis would be to select a group of preschoolers, test their ability toidentify the separate sounds within words, and then, several years later, test thereading skills of the same children. Research has, in fact, shown that preschoolerswho are aware of the component sounds within words later read more skillfullythan do their peers who lack this ability (Ehri et al., 2001; Rayner et al., 2001).These results support the conclusion that preschoolers ability to identify soundswithin words predicts their later reading skill.

The first, second, and fourth of these steps are not unique to the scientificmethod. As we have seen, great thinkers of the past also asked questions, formu-lated hypotheses, and drew conclusions that were reasonable given the evidenceavailable to them. What distinguishes scientific research from past approaches isthe third step, the research methods used to test the hypotheses. These researchmethods, and the high-quality evidence that they yield, allow investigators toprogress beyond their initial hypotheses so that they can draw firmly groundedconclusions.

The mportance of ppropriate Measurement

In order for the scientific method to work, researchers must use measures that are

relevant to the hypotheses being tested. A researcher who hypothesized that chil-dren would learn more from one curriculum than from another probably wouldmeasure the percentage of correct answers children gave following exposure toeach curriculum. The reason is that the hypothesis concerns which curriculum willproduce greater knowledge, and correct answers are a good measure of knowledge.In contrast, a researcher who hypothesized that infants prefer bright colors to dullones might present infants with identical shapes in bright and dull colors andmeasure the amount of time the infants looked at each one. The reason is that thehypothesis concerns infants preferences, and relative looking time is a good mea-sure of such preferences.

Regardless of the particular measure used, many of the same criteria determinewhether a measure is a good one. One key criterion already has been noted-the


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CHA PTER METHODS FOR STUDYING CHILD DEVELOPMENT

measure must be directly relevant to the hypothesis. Two other qualities that goodmeasures must possess are reli bility and v lidity

Reliability Reliabili ty refers to the degree to which independent measurements ofa given behavior are consistent. One important type of consistency, interrater reli-ability, indicates how much agreement there is in the observations of differentraters who witness the same behavior. Sometimes the observations are qualitative,as when raters classify a child s temperament as easygoing or difficult. Othertimes the observations are quantitative, as when raters score on a scale of 1 to 10bow upset babies become when presented with a strange, noisy toy or a nurse com-ing into an examination rOOID.In both cases, interrater reliability is attained whenthere is close agreement between the observations of different raters. Withoutsuch close agreement, one cannot have confidence in the research findings, be-cause there is no way to tell which (if any) rating was accurate.

A second important type of consistency is test-retest reliability. This type ofreliabil ity is attained when measures of a child s performance are similar on two ormore occasions. Suppose that researchers presented a vocabulary test to the samechildren on two occasions, one week apart. If the test is reliable, those children

who scored highest on the first testing should also score highest on the second, be-cause none of the children s vocabularies would change much over such a short pe-riod. As in the example of interrater reliability, a lack of test-retest reliabilitywould make it impossible to know which result (if either) accurately reflected chil-dren s knowledge.

Validity The validity of a test or experiment refers to the degree to which it mea-sures what it is intended to measure. Researchers strive for two types of validity:internal and external. Internal validity refers to whether effects observed withinexperiments can be attributed with confidence to the conditions that the re-searcher is testing. For example, suppose that a researcher tests the effectiveness ofa type of psychotherapy for depression by administering it to a number of de-

pressed adolescents. If three months later many of the adolescents are no longerdepressed, can we conclude that the psychotherapy was effective? No, because themere passage of time might have caused the improvement. Moods fluctuate, andmany adolescents who are depressed at any given time w be happier threemonths later even without psychotherapy. In this exam-ple, the passage of time is a source of internal invalidity,because the factor believed to cause the improvement(the psychotherapy) may have had no effect.

External validity, in contrast, involves the ability togeneralize beyond the particulars of the research. Studiesof child development are almost never intended to applyonly to the particular children and the exact methods in

a given study. Rather, the goal is to draw conclusions thatapply to children more generally. Thus the findings of asingle experiment are only the firs

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