infant development study guide

Psychology 104 (N. Akhtar) Study Guide for Exam I This exam covers material from lectures 1/6 through 1/29, and the following articles: Morelli et al. (1992), Keller et al. (2009), Cirelli et al. (2014), Waters et al. (2014), Hepper (2015), Sandman et al. (2012), Brubaker et al. (2019), Howarth et al. (2019), Byers-Heinlein et al. (2010), Suberi et al. (2017), Redshaw et al. (2019), Gao et al. (2018), Betancourt et al. (2016), Graham et al. (2013), Xiao et al. (2017), Karasik et al. (2015), Cole et al. (2012) Introduction: Nature of Development, Social Ecology of Infancy 1. Explain what is meant by the following contrasts: nature vs. nurture, continuity vs. discontinuity,

vulnerability vs. resilience. Why is the nature/nurture contrast a false dichotomy? 2. What 3 characteristics distinguish developmental changes from other types of change? 3. How do prospective studies of risk factors overcome some of the weaknesses of retrospective studies of risk

factors? 4. Discuss the resilience of some of the children in the Werner (1989) study. What kinds of things served as

protective factors? 5. Describe the notion of “good enough parenting.” 6. List and describe three ways in which a child's genes can influence his/her experiences. 7. Describe a cross-cultural difference in parents’ behavior and how it relates to differences in parents' beliefs

about who is primarily responsible for infants’ and toddlers’ learning. What other factor (other than beliefs) may also play a role in these behavioral differences?

8. Morelli et al. (1992) studied variations in sleeping arrangements in two communities. How do the parents explain their decisions on where their children should sleep? In which society did more children tend to use transition objects and bedtime rituals to help them fall asleep?

9. Keller et al. (2009) describe two styles of parenting infants. What are they called and what are their main characteristics?

10. What is epigenetics? How do the agouti mice demonstrate that prenatal experience can affect gene expression? In general, what environmental factors are known to influence gene expression?

11. List several factors that may play a role in the relationship between siblings. 12. Describe with an example what it means to say that siblings experience different “micro-environments”

within the family. Methods of Research 1. Explain, with an example, why one cannot infer a causal relationship when 2 variables are correlated. 2. Explain the logic of the habituation technique with an example. What can we conclude when infants dishabituate? 3. Describe the different research designs for measuring developmental change (cross-sectional and

longitudinal) and list their advantages and disadvantages. 4. What two types of studies do developmental behavioral geneticists conduct? 5. Describe some of the special challenges involved in doing research with infants. 6. What is the difference between experimental and observational methods of research? What is the main

advantage of experimental studies? 7. What was Cirelli et al.’s (2014) main finding? How did they show that contingency and not mirroring was

responsible for this finding? 8. What are the two behaviors young infants have the most control over? Give some examples of how these

behaviors have been used in empirical research on infants’ capabilities. 9. What is “converging evidence”? 10. What makes scientific research on babies different from the knowledge people gain from their own

interactions with babies? 11. How did Waters et al. (2014) show that maternal stress can be “contagious” to their infants?

Prenatal Development and Birth 1. List the 3 stages of prenatal development and the major developmental change that occurs in each stage. 2. Discuss the problems in interpreting correlations between prenatal risk factors (e.g., maternal stress) and developmental problems in the baby. 3. What is the “fetal origins hypothesis”? List 4 kinds of developments linked to prenatal experiences. 4. What are teratogens? Does the timing of exposure to teratogens matter? 5. Describe DeCasper and Spence's (1986) landmark study demonstrating that newborns can

“remember”/recognize auditory events they were exposed to in utero. How did DeCasper et al. (1994) extend these findings? What was their main dependent measure?

6. What is the predictive-adaptive response model? Did Sandman et al.’s (2012) findings support this model? 7. What are the three main stages of labor? 8. What is the most common birth position for laboring mothers in most of the world’s societies? 9. What was the main finding of Howarth et al.’s (2019) study of first-time fathers? 10. What were the main findings of Brubaker et al. (2019)? Was this an observational or an experimental study?

Neonatal Development 1. What is the Apgar score? What does it tell us about the health of a newborn? 2. List and describe 4 reflexes that have clear survival value and 4 reflexes that are not necessary for survival. 3. Describe Meltzoff and Moore's studies of neonatal imitation - why were their results so surprising? 4. What was Redshaw et al.’s (2019) main finding? Was this a longitudinal or cross-sectional study? 5. What are some ways to soothe a crying infant? 6. What is “feeding imprinting”? What were Suberi et al.’s (2017) main findings? 7. According to Gao et al. (2018), what 2 things help preterm newborns deal with pain? Was one more

effective than the other? Was the combination of these 2 things more effective than either alone? 8. What was new about the Byers-Heinlein et al. (2010) study? What were their two main findings? Neuropsychological Development 1. What are some of the effects of “deprivation” and “enrichment” studies with animals? What do they

illustrate about the nature of normal brain development? 2. Know the meanings of these terms: neurons, dendrites, synapses, glial cells, myelinization, plasticity. 3. List and describe the 4 stages of neural development. 4. Describe the Kennard principle about the early plasticity of the brain and discuss how it has been qualified

by studies with rats. 5. Distinguish between the effects of radiation and alcohol on the developing fetal brain. 6. Describe how functional (behavioral) changes and structural changes in the brain are reciprocal. 7. What factors associated with low SES are believed to affect brain development? What were Betancourt et

al.’s (2016) main findings? 8. How did Graham et al. (2013) demonstrate the relation between interparental conflict and infants’

processing of tone of voice? What do these findings tell us about sleeping infants? Perceptual and Motor Development 1. What do young babies like to look at? 2. What is meant by cross-modal perception? Describe 2 studies illustrating cross-modal perception in infants. 3. What is the perceptual narrowing hypothesis? Give examples from both auditory and visual domains. 4. What were Xiao et al.’s (2017) main findings? 5. How do Karasik et al.’s (2015) findings provide evidence for both cultural differences as well as individual

differences in independent sitting ability? 6. Distinguish between gross motor development and fine motor development. Which comes first? 7. Can motor development can be influenced by experience? Provide examples. 8. Distinguish between the ulnar grasp and the pincer grasp. 9. What were Cole et al.’s (2012) main findings when they compared walking with and without diapers?