Week 7 - Chapter 9: How Do People Grow, Change, and Develop?

What is development? Development includes changes in physical, emotional, social, and cognitive behavior and abilities over time through an interaction of nature and nurture.

Prenatal Development: The germinal stage: the zygote undergoes rapid cell division and duplication. The embryonic stage: major organs and organ systems form. Fetal Stage: body organs and systems more fully develop.

Differences in Physical Development: Infant's brains are highly changeable. Reflexes such as sucking, rooting, and grasping help the infant survive. Gross motor skills develop and allow the child to run, walk, jump and hop. Fine motor skills develop and aid activities such as writing, using utensils, and playing a musical instrument.

Differences in Cognitive Development: According to Jean Piaget, infants and children apply schemas to understand their environment and adapt to change through accommodation when existing schemas are changed or modified. Lawrence Kohlberg's research on moral reasoning suggests that children's understanding of right and wrong develops progressively from a focus on the self to the external world.

Psychosocial Development: An infant's temperament can influence the attachment between the infant and the primary caregiver. Diana Baumrind identified three styles of parenting: authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. Children also process and develop schemas about gender roles.

Development in Adolescence and Adulthood: Puberty is the maturation of sex characteristics that enables us to reproduce. At around age 50, women experience menopause and hormonal changes that bring an end to reproductive capacity. During adolescence, the brain remains highly changeable. Teenagers tend to be egocentric.

Coping with Death and Dying: Death is a process rather than a point in time, and is inevitable part of our development. There have been five reactions identified that may characterize people who know they are dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. 

That's it for this week folks! :)

Prenatal Development - I LOVE learning about this kind of stuff. Really interests me. :)
Picture Courtesy of: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/vanm0049/myblog/2011/11/fetal-development-and-obstacles.html