This document discusses lifespan development across several domains: Physical, social, cognitive, and emotional development are the main areas examined. Development occurs in stages from infancy to older age. Development is influenced by changes in each domain simultaneously and progresses through continuous and discontinuous changes. Individual differences exist in rates and ways of developing. Research methods like longitudinal, cross-sectional, and twin studies are used to understand development from different perspectives like biological, cognitive, behavioral, and socio-cultural.

1. Lifespan Development
Chapter 4

2. Areas of lifespan Development
• Physical development: changes in the body
and its various systems.
• Social Development: involves changes in an
individual’s relationships with other people and
their skills in interacting with others
• Cognitive development: involves changes in an
individual’s mental ability
• Emotional development: involves changes in
how an individual experiences different
feelings and how these feelings are expressed.

3. Lifespan
• Infancy – birth to 2 years
• Childhood – 2 to 10 years
• Adolescence – 10 to 20
years
• Early adulthood – 20 to 40
years
• Middle age – 40 to 65 years
• Older age – 65 years and
beyond
Watch ‘the developing child’
http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/05/e05expa
nd.html

4. Human development
is influenced by
simultaneously
occurring changes in
Social
each area
Development
Cognitive Emotional
Development Development
Physical
Development

5. Cognitive – eg: Language

6. Social & Emotional

7. Movement & coordination
Example:

9. http://brianne-
thompson.com/ED
TECH/506/summ
ary.php

10. How development proceeds:
1.Continuous V Discontinuous
Adulthood
• Continuous Development: gradual
and ongoing changes throughout the
lifespan without sudden shifts, with
abilities in the earlier stages of
development providing the basis of skills
and abilities required for the next stages. Infancy
• Discontinuous: involves distinct and Adulthood
separate stages, with different kinds of
abilities occurring in each stage. Specific
ways of thinking, feeling or socially
interacting have identifiable start and end
points.
Infancy

11. 2. Sequential nature of Development
• The development of many thoughts, feelings and
behaviours occur in an orderly sequence. Sequences
of development usually begin with simple
thoughts, feeling and behaviours and progress to
more complex ones.
For example:
-A baby moves from squealing and gurgling through
to uttering individual words and then onto using
sentences
- A child learning to count and then progressing to
adding numbers together

12. These can be Quantitative and
qualitative changes
• Quantitative changes: changes which are
variations in the quantity (or amount) of a
thought, feeling or behaviour. These are usually
described in numbers.
-For example the number of words spoken in relation
to age. As one grows older, their vocabulary grows.
Qualitative changes: Changes which vary in
‘quality’, ‘kind’ or ‘type’. These are usually described
in words.
-For example, as a child you don’t understand the
concept of honesty, but now as adolescence you do.

13. 3. Individual Differences in
Development
• No two individuals develop at exactly the same
rate or in exactly the same way, even if they are
identical twins
What does that tell us about ‘Nature vs Nurture’?
Discuss activity 4.5

14. Hereditary & Environment
• Hereditary- characteristics are passed on from
parents to off-spring via genes.
• Environment – all the experiences, objects &
events to which we are exposed in our life times
• Heredity? Environment? Mixture of both?
Create a table with two columns ‘environment’ and ‘hereditary’. While
watching the clip on the ‘wild child’ list all the characteristics that are
influenced by either heredity or environment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEnkY2iaKis

15. Maturation
• Sequential changes in the nervous system &
other bodily structures
• Automatic, internal
• Controlled by our genes
• ‘Principle of readiness’
▫ Nerves, bones, muscles need to be developed
enough for the behaviour to occur

16. Examples of
maturation of
nerves & bones

17. Examples of Maturational
developments
• Sit before stand
• Sounds before words
• Adding numbers before starting algebra
• When should a child start school?
www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/05/29/1022
569786596.html

18. Sensitive Periods
• Periods of rapid change when individual is more
vulnerable to the environment
• Eg: second 6 months of life sensitive to
attachment
• Eg: 1.5-3 years sensitive to language acquisition

19. Biological Cognitive
Different Perspectives on Development
Behavioural Socio-cultural

20. Research methods in development
Longitudinal study
repeated observations of the same variables over long
periods of time
to study developmental trends across the life span
Advantages Disadvantages
• Permanence in development • Expensive
over time • Takes time with participants
(and researchers) not being
available

21. Cross-sectional study
designed to look at a variable at a particular point in
time.
To study developmental differences/similarities
between groups eg: memory at different ages
Advantages: Disadvantages:
• relatively inexpensive • Differences maybe due to
• easy to undertake other variables
• not too time-consuming. ▫ Eg: generational influences

22. Twin Studies
• using identical (mono-zygotic) and non-identical
(fraternal/di-zygotic) twins as participants.
• Identical especially for nature vs nurture BUT
danger (eg more likely to be treated the same by
parents)
• Personality and intelligence investigations
Discuss 4.17 ranking

23. Adoption Studies
• Children raised by different parents – nature vs
nurture
• IQ score studies indicate heredity plays a large
role
Selective Breeding
• Using animals with short gestations to study
traits longitudinally, with control of genes
• Unethical in humans but can use

24. Ethics in developmental research
Remember:
• Fully informed
• Consent – how with a child? How with a
dementia patient?
• Confidentiality
• Safety
• Debrief

25. Resources
Complete the handout using this website
• Discovering Psychology
http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/d
evelopment/dev_flash.html