DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

LECTURE 1: Annemie Ploeger

What is developmental psychology?

Development is central to psychology, because all psychological things develop.
Sometimes people forget that development continues over the lifespan; you also get old. Getting old
is also a development. Theory & practice. And: internal (genes, personality) and external factors
(environment, parents, school). Mostly normal or typical development; final class also abnormal or
atypical development.
What can you do with it?
Most people end up working in practice; in health care, as a school psychologist. Other people end
up doing research: applied research (in schools) or theoretical research. And: business! Oefenweb.nl,
an interactive program to help children with difficulty in school subjects.

REPLACEMENT ASSIGNMENT! On canvas this week!

Theories in developmental psychology (chapter 2; 3rd edition Slater & Bremner)

Understanding development from the fertilized egg to the old age in a systematic way.
- Motor development (less important)
- Cognitive development
- Social development
 What is a theory?
A theory is a coherent set of ideas, hypotheses and explanations: descriptive, explanatory, predictive,
makes assumptions, is a reduction of reality, is generalizable, is testable.
Scientists gather data - and create order in the data: relativity theory, big bang theory, evolution by
natural selection theory. Explains a lot of things about, but not everything.
A theory will be replaced when it is falsified on the basis of observations, or when a new theory
explains the observations better.
Minor theories: about a single phenomenon (e.g. learning to see depth). Major theories: broad
theory (e.g. development of cognition).
A good developmental theory… relates to ontogenesis, focuses on change of time, explains the
emergence of new properties and is preferably pedagogically useful.

 Dimensions in theories about development

Three major topics:
- Nature vs. nurture
Nature/endogenous: knowledge is innate and gets expressed during the course of development
Nurture/exogenous: only learning mechanisms are innate, all the rest of development is determined
by the environment.
Nature & Nurture; both are important.
- Continuous vs. stages
Continuous: development is gradual; children are not qualitatively different from adults; children lack
experience
Stages: development occurs in transitions, children are qualitatively different from adults (Piaget)
Continuous & Stages: development is gradual, but some behaviours dominate temporarily. That’s
why development seems to occur stagewise.
- Passive vs. active
Passive: child plays a passive role, development occurs automatically
Active: child plays an active role in its own development, constructs its own knowledge
Passive & Active: some processes develop automatically, other processes need an active role of the
child

 Motor development
Maturation versus dynamic systems theory
Milestones motor development: sequence is the same for everybody; only differences in timing.
Maturational theory of Gesell: biologically directed maturation, the same developmental patterns
independent of environmental input.
Key points:
Maturation of the central nervous system determines the development of the child, behavioural
development follows. Cephalocaudal trend; from head to foot. Proximodistal trend; from centre of
the body to periphery. Differences in child’s temperament play important role in place of
development. Role of parents is to provide the right environment (when the child is ready; no
pushing).
Criticisms:
Not all children follow the same pattern (e.g. backward crawling and butt sliding). Does not
necessarily generalize to other cultures (in Africa; faster motor development). Environment can play
a guiding role. McGraw; twin study. One of the twins received extra training in swimming, skating
and climbing: his development was accelerated.
Gesell: Motor development depends a lot on nature, it is stage like, and the child is passive.
McGraw: further to the nurture side, also stage like and child is passive.
Dynamic systems theory: development is a complex interaction between properties of the system
and environment. A system is a collection of components that are interrelated. A dynamic system is a
collection of changing components that influence each other. Describes how a state changes into
another state over time. An important property is self-organisation. The effects are non-linear: small
changes in one variable may bring qualitative changes in the whole pattern.
Esther Thelen studied DST of motor development. Motor development is shaped by development
central nervous system (nature), development motor skills (nature), environment (context and task).
Continuous change in influence of nature and of environment on action. Research: stepping is innate,
but child really needs to practice and learn how to walk. So by action and environment.
DST: in between nature and nurture and in between continuous and stages (non-linear continuous
development towards a temporary balance); and child is active!

 Cognitive development
End of 19th century  20th century. Nurture & passive  nature & active.
Behaviourism  Radical behaviourism (Skinner) & Constructivism (Piaget & Vygotsky)
Behaviourism
Study of observable behaviour, mental processes (black box) are not interesting, consciousness is not
a useful construct: directly opposite to Freud’s psychoanalysis. Child is a mini-adult, learning
processes in children and adults are the same: reward & punishment). Child is passive, environment
shapes development: similar to Freud’s psychoanalysis. Pavlov: classical conditioning. Little Albert;
small child, fear conditioning. Child became afraid of rat.
Thorndike: Law of Effect. Reward & punishment guide behaviour. Puzzle box experiment.
Skinner changed behaviourism because he gave the child a more active role.
Constructivism
Acquiring knowledge and skills is the result of thinking by children themselves. Children learn by
connecting new information to what they already know. Child plays an active role in its development.
Jean Piaget; main developmental psychologist, came up with the first testable theory.
Assimilation, accommodation, equilibration. Piaget studied transitions in knowledge acquisition.
Information processing theory: criticism to Piaget. Based on cognitive psychology; to understand
behaviour, we need to understand the mental processes underlying the association between input
and output. Development is continuous instead of stage-like, child plays active role, nature &
nurture, and mainly minor theories instead of major theory of Piaget.
Vygotsky filled in Piaget’s gap of the social factor: social environment is a critical guiding factor for
development. Zone of proximal development; skills that are just a bit too difficult but can be learned
with help. Scaffolding; adapt instruction to level of the child. Culture determines available mediators
and shapes cognitive skills.
Criticism: but what about the mechanisms underlying development??

Take home message:

Developmental theories help us to systematically understand development; helpful in evaluating
your knowledge. The environment is guiding, but genetic predisposition and age constrain the
development of skills.

LECTURE 2: Annemie Ploeger

Nature & Nurture
To get a better understanding of the interaction between genes and environment -- this is quite
complex.
 What is evolution?
Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species. Natural selection. Idea of evolution wasn’t new, but natural
selection was. Step 1: variation. Individuals differ. Step 2: struggle. There are more individuals than
resources. Step 3: heredity. Offspring resembles parents. Step 4: adaptations: individuals have
features that help with survival and reproduction. Step 5: natural selection: some individuals are
better adapted to their environment, and offspring inherit these adapted features.
Natural selection results in differential reproductive success. Classic examples: beak of Darwin’s
finches, color of Kettlewell’s moths (industrial revolution).
Problem with natural selection: sexual selection. Some features are selected, because they are
attractive to sexual partners.
Sexual selection versus natural selection: classic study by John Endler (1980). Guppies with different
spots. Initial set up: two conditions: course gravel + predator and fine gravel + predator. After less
than 15 generations of selection; only big spot guppies in course gravel and only fine spots in fine
gravel. But without a predator: exactly the opposite happens; because then you stand out + are
more noticeable; so more sexually attractive.
Is there still evolution in humans? Less variation in children that are born and children that die, so
there is less evolution. But even if we keep a lot of people alive, not all of them will be able to
reproduce (disabilities). So there’s still evolution/selection!

 What is heritability?
Darwin had a problem: what is the mechanism of heritability? Blending? No. Gregor Mendel (1866):
genetics (term came a lot later  avant la lettre). Mendel did crossbreeding experiments.
Dominant/recessive genes.
The human body consists of 37.2 trillion cells. Each cell contains a nucleus, and within the nucleus,
there are two complete sets of the human genome (one from father and one from mother). Except
sex cells; they have 23 chromosomes instead of 46. Chromosomes are made of deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA) and they contain genes. Alleles are dominant of recessive.
Why is incest a problem? Recessive alleles associated with diseases are more likely to be expressed
when you mix with someone who shares your alleles (family).

 What is behaviour genetics?

Research with twins: Monozygotic (100% identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins.
Heritability = percentage of variance in a trait that can be explained by genetic differences between
individuals. So for example; the heritability of IQ is 50%, so 50% of the variance found in IQ can be
explained by differences in genes.
Based on correlations. Heritability of intelligence at very young age (2-4) = 23%. Heritability of
intelligence at a later age (7-10) = 62%. How can we explain the increase in heritability with age? The
variance in environment increases with age. But this says that the environment gets less variant
when you get older! Counter-intuitive, but true.
Scarr (1983): can genes and environment be studied separately from each other? Influence of genes
is passive, evocative, active. Parents create an environment for you, so passive. But with your
personality, you evoke reactions and that also influences your environment. And when you get older,
you pick your own environment; active (niche picking).
Heritability is a measure of variance, not a biological mechanism. So the heritability of IQ does not
tell us something about the innateness of the trait. And: environmental variability.
We cannot find the underling genes of intelligence and other disorders. Why? Because there is a
complex of genes underlying complex traits.

 How do genes and environment interact?

Major study: Caspi et al., 2002. MAOA-activity & Maltreatment: high/low and yes/no. Only antisocial
activity when low MAOA-activity and Maltreatment present. Maltreatment is the environmental
factor, and the MAOA activity is genetic factor. Severe increase in antisocial behaviour when low
MAOA activity with maltreatment. But when you grow up in a good environment, MAOA activity is
protective and there is less antisocial behaviour than when MAOA activity is high! Some individuals
remain stable, under whatever circumstances; and other individuals are vulnerable under negative
conditions, but can excel under positive conditions. So MAOA is not a vulnerability gene, but a
plasticity gene!
Sensitivity of mothers and externalizing behaviour of the child. Children with less or more than
seven repeats; 7+ scores very high on externalizing with a low sensitivity mom and lower with a high
sensitivity mom. Are carriers of the 7+ allele more susceptible to environmental influences?
Intervention for children with externalizing behaviour. Four groups: intervention 7+, intervention 7-,
and two controls. If 7+ is more plastic; they benefit more from intervention  this is the case!
Nurture-Adoption study skeels. Children brought to nursery homes; neglected. Children later on
adopted in middle-class families. Measured IQ before and after adoption; children that were adopted
increased IQ with 32 points, whereas children that did not get adopted lost 20 points. The earlier the
age when adopted, the higher the IQ score. What do these adoption studies actually say about the
interaction between genes and environment? But; very extreme situation these children! Doesn’t
really provide valuable information about the influence of nature and nurture. Nature ‘expects’ a
species-typical environment: nature via nurture. So nature requires nurture!

 What is epigenetics?
Changes in gene expression that are relatively stable during cell division, sometimes even over
generations; these changes are independent of the genetic code itself.
DNA methylation or histone modification.
Twin study: 40 MZ twins; young MZ twins were epigenetically similar, and older MZ twins are
epigenetically different! So even when you have the same genes, you can be epigenetically different.
Agouti mouse; yellow fur, obese, high risk of diabetes and cancer due to mutation in agouti gene. If
the agouti mother gets food with methyl donors just before conception and during pregnancy; she
gets normal brown slender mice. So genes can activate and deactivate genes.

Take home message

Interaction between nature and nurture is very complex - strong statements are unfounded. Nature
via nurture. Nature requires nurture.
Genes play an important role in development of disorders, but this does not imply that there is no
room for treatment. Think about interaction genes and environment, epigenetics, dandelions and
orchids, etc.

LECTURE 3: Annemie Ploeger

Prenatal Development
During pregnancy, little is known about social development. But babies in the womb can already
perceive stuff. Many mental disorders have their origin during pregnancy.
After how many weeks of pregnancy are the basic structures of the organs finished?
Which of the five senses get the least stimulation in the womb?
Which percentage of pregnant women with an alcohol addiction gets a child with severe anomalies
(FAS)?
What guides development? Nature: some processes are more genetically guided. Nurture: some
processes are environmentally guided. Nature & Nurture: most processes result from a complex
interaction between genes and environment. This also applies to prenatal development.

Typical brain and sensory development

 Structural development zygote & embryo
First two weeks: zygote. Then embryo develops out of zygote in week 2 to week 12. Then foetus from
week 12 to birth.
In practical life, pregnancy is from the date when you had your last menstruation. In science,
pregnancy starts from the date when the egg was fertilized, so two weeks later. 40 vs 38 weeks.
Stages week 1. Day one: Zygote: fertilized egg. Day 3: Morula: ball of 16 cells, cell differentiation
starts. Day 4-7: Blastula: cavity arises, embryo arises out of inner cells, implantation in uterus.
Gastrulation is the formation of the three germ layers my migration and differentiation of blastula
cells; ectoderm (skin, hair, nervous system), mesoderm (muscles and bones) & endoderm (most
other organs).
Embryogenesis: Neurulation is the formation of the neural plate, neural groove and neural tube from
the ectoderm. When the closing of the neural tube fails, severe consequences. Anencephaly or open
skull (usually miscarriage or death shortly after birth) or spina bifida or open back.
The primitive brain: forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain. By neurogenesis, differentiation, and
migration of cells from the neural tube, we see the first primitive brain areas (week 4). Cranial-caudal
(head-tail) orientation arises. In week 5: more detailed structures; telencephalon, diencephalon,
mesencephalon, metencephalon, myelencephalon. Also in week 4, basic features of the eye.
Between week 4 and week 8; already retina with rods and cones. Week 5; groove, week 6; instilling,
week 7-8; auricle, and in week 8: ear.
After 8 weeks into embryogenesis, there is already a complete little human: organogenesis is
finished.
Miscarriages: 10% of pregnancies < 4 weeks ends with a miscarriage. Risk of miscarriage decreases
rapidly to less than 1%  wait until week 12 to tell people you’re pregnant. Green line shows risk of
neural deviations.
Fetal brain development: development of the cerebral cortex. Neurogenesis and migration continue
after embryogenesis. Axons and dendrites start growing & cortex gets six layers. Last layer has to
develop outside of the womb.
By myelination; white matter forming. And formation of sulci and gyri.
Different brain areas work together  different brain networks. At reset we can map those networks
 resting state fMRI; already possible to measure this of a foetus!
Sensory and motor networks are similar to adults right after birth! Networks associated to higher
cognitive function are dissimilar.

 Structural & functional development foetus

 Touch; reaction of a baby in the womb to touch. Baby is already sensitive to touch. Develops
first, from head to tail parts. First moving away from touch, later towards it (rooting reflex).
Rich environment: wall of uterus, umbilical cord, parents, and itself.
 Taste and smell
Baby can taste everything in the amniotic fluid from 16 weeks and blood of the mother in
uterus. Taste and smell receptors have been developed. Foetus swallows and breathes more
after a meal from the mother. Foetus makes face after smoking by mother. Baby has
preference right after birth for smell of food that mother has eaten during pregnancy and its
own amniotic fluid.
 Auditory system
Very rich environment! Heartbeat, digestion, voices. Low frequencies by filtering of the
amniotic fluid. But does the foetus hear music?
 Visual system
The adult rood eye to cortex; have to cross. The hardware of this system is ready at birth.
Week 8: optic nerve clearly visible. Week 28: finished. What can the baby see in the womb?
Nothing. Least stimulated sense. Eyelids open between 5-7 months.
 Vestibular system
Rich environment: movement of mother, movement of foetus, gravity. Foetus is active when
mother is quiet. Movement of mother stops abruptly for preterm babies. To fix this:
kangaroo method; skin to skin contact, baby moves together with parent. Shortened time in
incubator has positive effect on heart rhythm, stress response, pain response, cognitive
development, physical development. Movement is important.

Atypical brain & sensory development

 Critical periods
Period in which specific development is optimal (sensitive period), e.g. language development.
Period in which system is vulnerable for lesions; this is what we discuss in prenatal development.
Neurulation (forming of the neural tube); if this goes wong, you can get anencephaly or spina bifida.
Folic acid use during fist 12 weeks of pregnancy is associated with decrease in neural tube defects
with 70%.
  Risk factors

 Age of parents
Replication error in meiotic cell division; chromosomal anomalies. Down syndrome (trisomy 21).
Number of replication errors increase with mother’s age. Father’s age: ‘bad’ sperm cells usually don’t
reach egg cell. Achondroplasia (dwarfism) and father’s age: mutation in sperm cells. Also:
schizophrenia and other mental disorders; higher risk factor with older father.

Risk factors during pregnancy; prenatal care:

 Nutrition, durgs, alcohol & smoking
 Stress
 Mental disorders & medication
 Infections
Can an unborn child already be put under supervision? Do we need to force women to quit smoking
and drinking? Very controversial discussion.
Behaviour of mother. Good education can prevent negative consequences, but groups with mental
disorders need extra care.
Hungerwinter study: right nutrition during pregnancy is crucial. Winter of 1944; far too little food in
the Netherlands. Research found that timing of malnutrition was very important. During early
pregnancy; high risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, breast cancer, depression, schizophrenia
and obesity. In middle pregnancy: diabetes, lung and kidney diseases, and in late pregnancy only
diabetes.
Looks like body is getting prepared for a life of malnutrition.
Alcohol: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Variety of physical and mental deviations. Only 6% of children
with mother addicted to alcohol has FAS. But serious disease; facial anomalies, growth delay, heart
defects, mental disabilities, hyperactivity & repetitive behaviour. Most extreme case, but a lot of
other diseases that are caused by alcohol use of the mother.
Smoking: fertility problems, increased risk of miscarriage, delay of growth, placenta problems,
preterm birth, heart defects. Baby makes face when mother smokes (in the womb). Myths; plenty of
healthy children from smoking mothers, stress of quitting harms baby, baby will grow after birth. All
false.
Mental problems and stress: both disorder and any medication can affect the unborn child. Good
studies are lacking due to ethical issues and confounding factors.
Under what conditions would it be allowed to test pregnant women?
POP-poli (psychiatry, obstetrics & paediatrics). A lot of different care givers work together.

LECTURE 4: Annemie Ploeger

Research Methods & Perception, knowledge and action in infancy
 Methodology in developmental psychology
- This is essential! What is your question and what are your possibilities?
- Choosing you research design
- Choosing your research methods
First of all: question. Effect of children who were born too early: ADHD symptoms (very common).
1 out of 10 babies are born earlier than 37 weeks. Immature <28 week baby and slightly premature
<37 weeks. Extreme low birth weight <1000 grams to low birth weight <2500. From 24 weeks active
help. When babies are born at 22 weeks, only rarely they can be saved.
Which questions are important to address to get insight in the mental development of prematures? -
- What are the consequences for further life? (relationship with parents, behaviour, school
achievement, intelligence)
- Can intervention programs reduce negative consequences? (hormone treatments,
behavioural interventions)

How do we study these questions? Choices of research design:

- Choice 1:
o Cross-sectional: one measurement, but children of different ages
problem: because you study different children at the same time, you might have
studied cohort effect. Procedures for treatment of premature infants in hospitals
have changed considerably in the last 20 years (medical care, counseling, etc)
o Longitudinal: measure the same children at different ages. Preferred over the
cross-sectional design, because there is no effect of cohort differences.
Problem: when there’s no association: no measurement equivalence (different
IQ tests at different ages). Too much noise in measurements. No stability of the
measured construct (low test-retest reliability). When there is an association:
good predictive validity, amount of noise is limited, association is present.
Very expensive, long time waiting for results, dropout of subjects, different
measurement instruments, possible practice effects & not always possible to
generalize to other cohorts. Does this measure causality? No, predictive
correlational study.
o Sequential: very strong design. Combine positive aspects of cross-sectional
design: different cohorts, testing them over time. This way, cohort comparisons,
longitudinal comparisons and cross-sectional comparisons are possible.
- Choice 2: correlational & experimental (ethical limits)
o Correlational: association between variables, causal relation unclear, but it is
ecologically valid
 o Manipulations of variable, causal relations, but ecologically valid unclear and
ethical issues
We already know that of immature and very premature babies, 19% need special education and 32%
repeats a class in regular education, versus 6,5% and 10% in normal babies.
Are there age-related differences? Unexpectedly; gap between intelligence of normal and
prematures gets bigger when children age (cross-sectional).
More variance in premature group, so more change. IQ at a young age predicts IQ at an older age for
normal children. But in the premature group, much more variance; some ‘catch up’.
Softenon incident: medication against pregnancy sickness. Was tested in animals, and was found not
to be toxic. But children were born with several malformations in the limbs and fertility problems in
the second generation.
How can we find evidence for causality without experimentation? Excluding alternate explanations:
control for background variables. Matching of groups (social economic status, educational
attainment of parents, wellbeing of parents, etc.) & partial correlations.
Experimental study: what are the causes of developmental delay of prematures?
Theory about mechanism is necessary! For example: hormonal differences, differences between
parents and child, stress and depression among parents.
Hypothesis: hormonal differences cause later cognitive and behavioural problems  thyroxine.
Experimental group: thyroxine, control: placebo. Results: < 27 weeks positive effect on mental
functioning, whereas >27 weeks negative effect on mental functioning and externalizing behaviour!
Conclusion: meta-analysis of 57 studies with 12.137 participants. Found that the higher the birth
weight of the baby, the higher the IQ of the baby. Stable over time.
EXAMPLE essay question: You would like to know whether social economic status and the
development of intelligence are causally related. Suppose you have plenty of time and money: which
research design would you choose?
Experimental design not possible but plenty of time and money; so sequential design.

Choosing your research methods

Choices: school achievement, standardized tests, questionnaire (survey), interview, observational
methods, reaction times, looking times/eye tracking, psychophysiological measurements (EEG, fMRI).
Observational methods:
Biographies of children (Darwin, Piaget). Lots of details, good for exploration for a new theory, but
difficult to generalie and often retrospective, unsystematic, unreliable.
Time sampling: each time interval score presence/absence of specific behaviour
Event sampling: Every time scoring when the child shows specific behaviour.
Note: interrater reliability is crucial for observational studies.
Standardized tests
IQ-tests. Bayley’s scales of infant development (1-42 months), Snijders-Oomen non-verbal
intelligence test (2,5-17 years), and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children (6-17 years)
Language tests. Reynell (1-6 years) / Schlichting (1-6 years). Taaltoets alle kinderen (TAK-CITO) (4-9
years)
What do you score? The intention, or the actual behaviour. In a test, you can see that a child tries to
put a stick in a hole, but her motor skills are not developed enough to succeed.
Measurement equivalance: measurements at different ages allow the same interpretation.
Predictive value of IQ at a young age is very bad. Correlation from 1-6 months to 5-7 years: 0.09.
from 7-12 months to 5-7 years: 0.20. risk groups r = 0.54-0.57 and mental disorders r = 0.26-0.51
Predictive value of habituation speed is a better predictor of IQ!
Reliability: how many measurement errors? Test-retest, internal consistency and interrater
reliability.
Validity: do I measure what I want to measure? Construct validity, external validity, predictive
validity.

Perception, knowledge and action in infancy

What does a newborn ‘think’? Blank slate? Hard to imagine. Maybe infants already think something.
But what? We know that babies perceive things. Very limited. But baby learns more in one year than
we can learn in one year. They have the capacity to transform what they perceive into knowledge.

 Constructive developmental process

Constructivism: development of (new) perceptual abilities through interaction of
1. biological maturation and
2. the child actively exploring the external world
This mutual influencing brings about new structures and capabilities that are actively constructed by
the child. Existing neural connections allow the child to perceive, and what the child perceives
(experience) changes the existing neural connections. Feedback loop.
Depth perception & action
Fear of depth: interaction between motor and perceptual development. Develops 6 weeks after they
start crawling. Visual cliff. Increase in heart rate = sign of fear & decrease in heart rate = sign of
attention/interest. Precrawlers know there is something going on; decrease in heart rate: they’re
interested. Crawling babies show an increase in heart rate; so fear.

 Research paradigms for infant studies

Visual preference method
Infants show systematic preferences: faces, complex and new stimuli. Assumption: longer looking
time = preference/interest & being able to distinguish stimuli. .Looking times can be used to study
the development of perceptual and cognitive abilities. What can infants perceive at what age?
Eye tracking to measure where the child is looking at. Visual preference method with head turn: 2
visual stimuli that can’t be viewed at the same time. Dependent measure: fixation time to one versus
other stimulus. No difference in looking means we cannot conclude anything!
Acuity test with visual preference method. With limited acuity, up to 3 months, it is difficult to
distinguish between stimuli. It is very important to prevent that infants look more at one stimulus for
undesirable reasons. Prevent that parents can view stimuli. Double scoring of observation.

Habituation/dishabituation
Habituation: repetition of stimulus reduces attention
Dishabituation: attention recovers when new stimulus is presented
For instance; can the baby see the difference between a cat and a dog?
4 months = multimodal difference. 5 months = auditory difference. 7 months = visual difference.
New techniques: eye trackers, neuroimaging.
EEG - brains in action. Habituation with EEG: brain activity decreases with habituation and increases
with novelty.
fMRI - where is the activation? Listening to a story when infants are asleep activates the same brain
areas in infants as in adults.
Take home message: doing research with infants, children and the elderly is more difficult than with
adults. Reliability, validity and ethics are extra important in developmental psychology. Age is
decisive for what and how you can measure.
LECTURE 5: Annemie Ploeger
Emotional development & attachment - Freud’s theory and what came after [chapter 1 & 6]
History of developmental psychology, and why this is still relevant, especially for the clinical practice.
 Darwin’s theory
1872: the expression of emotions in man and animals: biological aspects of emotions. He was a
biologist, but also a psychologist. He wrote letters and asked others from all over the world to send
him pictures of faces showing emotions. He found that a lot of emotional expressions are similar.
Comparative perspective. Ekman did this as well, but a bit more systematic. He made a Facial Action
Coding System in 2002. AU = Action Unit, the facial muscles that move in a specific facial expression.
Compare muscles used by humans and other animals: more objective way of studying emotions.
Cross-cultural similarities: Darwin observed that humans all over the world made the same kind of
emotional expressions.
Ekman studied this as well, again more systematically. He asked people that had never been exposed
to Western influences to do a certain face, and then asked Western people to distinguish what
expressions they did. He concluded that there are six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear,
anger, surprise and disgust.  innate emotions.
Emotion expression in infancy: if emotions are innate, babies would also display them. Izard (1977)
isolated 10 emotions. Most of them are present in infancy, except for contempt, shame, and guilt.
Even blind children display these facial expressions.
A lot of data are consistent with Darwin’s proposal.

 Ethology
Ethology is the approach which emphasizes the evolutionary origins of many behaviours that re
important for survival. Mainly animals in the wild. Main research question: how do animals adapt to
their environment?
Nico Tinbergen: four questions
- Mechanism (causation): how does this behaviour occur in an individual?
- Ontogeny (development): how does this behaviour arise in an individual?
- Adaptive value (function): why is this behaviour adaptive for the species?
- Phylogeny (evolution): how does this behaviour arise in the species?
Human emotions. Mechanism: amygdala, facial muscles… Ontogeny: infancy. Adaptive value:
communication. Phylogeny: other species or fossils. No fossils of emotions.
Konrad Lorenz: imprinting. Ducks have innate instinct to follow their mom. But: they follow the first
thing that they see moving (researcher’s boot).

 Freud’s theory
Associations: unconscious behaviour, psychoanalysis. His theory is controversial because it was not
observable, so it could not be falsified: unfalsifiable. Harsh toilet training - child may become overly
neat and tidy. But - it may react against his (reaction formation) and become very untidy.
But still very important: influence of early experiences on later development, role of unconscious
drives, revolutionary for his time (sex).
Psychoanalytic theory. Three main personality structures:
- Id: emotions, impulses, desires (devel)
- Ego: mediator between reality and desires
- Superego: the conscience (angel)
Five different psychosexual stages. In each stage a conflict between the id and superego needs to be
resolved.
 - Oral stage (0-1 year). Infants put everything in their mouths What is the function?
According to Freud: sexual pleasure. Evolutionary perspective: risk to choke, so there
must be benefits. Exploration/way to learn things, and sucking gives comfort.
- Anal stage (1-3 years). What is the function? Freud: sexual pleasure. Today: not really a
separate stage for toilet training only.
- Phallic stage (3-6 years). What is the function? Freud: sexual pleasure. Boys: Oedipus
complex; father becomes a rival/castration complex. Girls: Electra complex; mother
becomes a rival/penis envy. Interpretation today: children are interested in genitals (but
already prenatally); discovery of differences between boys and girls.
- Latency stage (6-12 years). Boys and girls only play with their own gender. Freud: child
has concluded that anything sexual results in disapproval. Today: children play with same
sex peers to practice possible future roles.
- Genital stage (puberty). Freud: sexual pleasure. Today: start of fertile life
What if you do not go through these stages properly? Oral phase: influencable, iptimistic. Anal phase:
neat and stubborn, sadomasochism. Latent phase: homosexuality. And neurosis if Oedipus complex
isn’t resolved. No proof for this at all.
Anna Freud: founder of psychoanalystic child psychology; isn’t that influential anymore. Discussed
mainly adolescents.

 Erikson’s theory
Erik Erikson: psychosocial stages.
Similar to Freud: developmental stages in which a conflict needs to be resolved
Different from Freud: social conflicts rather than sexual/internal conflicts
Infant (trust vs mistrust)  toddler (autonomy vs shame & doubt)  pre-schooler (initiative vs. guilt)
 grade-schooler (industry vs. inferiority)  teenager (identity vs. role confusion)  young adult
(intimacy vs. isolation)  middle-age adult (generativity vs. stagnation)  older adult (integrity vs.
despair)
  Bowbly’s and Ainsworth’s theory of attachment
John Bowlby: infant attachment: universal need for close emotional bond between caregiver and
child. Innate and universal tendency: proximity of caregiver increases survival chances of child.
Mary Ainsworth: Children always attach to a caregiver, even if the caregiver is unfriendly or avoiding.
However, in the case of unfriendly or avoiding caretakers, a different kind of attachment is created,
which is not necessarily safe. She developed the strange situation procedure: caregiver and stranger
and child being alone. Scoring of: activity, crying/discomfort, seeking proximity of mother and
seeking proximity of stranger. Different kinds of attachment:
- Secure attachment (60-65%)
- Insecure-avoidant (15%)
- Insecure-resistant or insecure-ambivalent (10%)
- 10-15% of children: do not know how to react: insecure-disorganized. Repeating
behaviour, associated with maltreatment, maternal drug/alcohol abuse, maternal
depression, low SES etc.

Internal working models (Belsky et al. 1991): based on experiences: internal working models are
made. Two types:
 Marital discord, high stress, inadequate resources. Harsh, rejecting insensitive and
inconsistent care. Insecure attachment and mistrustful internal working model.
Opportunistic interpersonal orientation; earlier maturation/puberty; earlier sexual activity,
short-term, unstable pair bonds, limited parental investment
 Spousal harmony, adequate resources, sensitive, supportive, responsive and positively
affectionate care. Secure attachment, reciprocally-rewarding interpersonal orientation,
trusting internal working model. Later maturation/puberty; later sexual activity. Long-term,
enduring pair bonds, greater paternal investment

 Emotional development in infancy

Izard (1977) isolated 10 emotions. They are even recognizable when children have severe
anomalities, like Goldenhar’s syndrome, bilateral cleft lip, hemangioma. Adults were just as accurate
at judging facial expressions in infants with facial anomalies.
Infant discrimination of emotional expression: children as young as 4 months old can see the
difference with sound, at 7 months only visually discriminate between emotions.
Emotion imitation in infancy: adults assess correctly which emotional expression infants are seeing.
Infants seem to imitate the adult.
Social referencing in infancy: make use of the cues that caregivers make. Visual cliff experiment;
when caregiver smiles, the infant crosses. When caregiver looks afraid, the child does not cross.
Nature-Nurture: Are emotions universal and innate? Yes, correlated changes in behaviour,
experience, and physiology. 2011: meta-analysis.
But: Lisa Feldman Barrett: how emotions are made. The hundred-year emotion war.
Constructivist perspective on emotions: constrained methods introduce conceptual information to
perceiver, which prime a mode of inference or salient content  agreement among perceivers.
Unconstrained methods do not introduce conceptual information to perceiver, leaving perceiver to
construct its interpretation  less agreement among perceivers. The more constrained the method,
the higher the agreement among perceivers.
Emotional development and dimensions in developmental theories: Darwin & Ekman are on the
nature and passive side. Barrett Feldman is all the way on the nurture and active side of the
dimensions.
  Emotion regulation
Delay of gratification: important predictor of later success in life: the marshmellow test. Self-control
test in children. It predicted behaviour later in life: behavioural and neural correaltes of delay of
gratification 40 years later. Go/no-go task as an adult. Children who were able to delay at age of 4
performed differently on the go/no-go task.
Alternative explanation: reliability of the situation. Less reliable environment; why trust the
researcher? Maybe better to eat the marshmellow straight away, because it might be taken away.
Infant & child temperament: Mary Rothbart. Development of temperament in infants by identifying
emotional reactions. Infant behaviour questionnaire. Sandardized laboratory assessments of
temperament.
Temperament = individual differences in reactivity and regulation in affect, activity and attention.
Temperament traits emerge early in life and are relatively stable over development. Shaped by
complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors.
Six clusters of temperament traits:
- Cluster 1: unregulated. High activity, low inhibition. Undercontrolled, difficult to deal
with at home of in classroom
- Cluster 2: regulated. Low activity, anger and approach. High inhibition and attention
focus. Overcontrolled and reserved
- Cluster 3: high reactive. High anger, approach, fear and shyness. Low activity, inhibition
and attention focus. Experience life intensively and are easily overwhelmed
- Cluster 4: High activity and approach, low fear and shyness. Easily excitable, jump into
tasks with little hesitation, confident and natural curiosity
- Cluster 5: average. Average on all temperament traits. Easygoing, but maybe also
unmotivated/uninterested
- Cluster 6: well-adjusted. Average on all temperament traits but high on inhibition and
attention focus. Easygoing, get along well at school and home
Can genes and environment be studied separately from each other? Behaviour genetics.
Temperament - long term associations: Jerome Kagan. 20% of children are born with high reactive
temporal bias. About one-third shows signs of serious social anxiety. So not all high reactive children!

Take home message:

“Old” theories are still very important - we’re standing on the shoulders of Giants
The nature-nurture debate is going on, especially in the field of emotional development: the
hundred-year emotion war
Emotion regulation and temperament are strongly related; temperament at infancy an predict later
anxiety, but not perfectly.

LECTURE 6: Annemie Ploeger

Cognitive development - Piaget’s theory and what came after (chapter 9)
Piaget’s theory was revolutionary - in the time of the behaviourists. He has completely turned our
thinking upside down. Constructivism (child plays an active role). He has had a lot of influence on
education - to this day.
Jean Piaget: 1896-1980. Student of biology. His biological viewpoint had a major influence on
psychology. 1920: Binet Lab (intelligence test). Piaget was interested in why children gave wrong
answers; their way of thinking. He developed clinical interviews in Genève in 1921. 1925: case
studies, his own children. He created a whole new theory; about the stages. 1960: increasing
popularity. 1980: lots of criticism, but neo-Piagetians. 1986: neo/neuroconstructivism.
What struck Piaget in children? Child has its own logic; does not talk nonsense. Child is a young
scientists, makes mini-theories, constructs knowledge. Very surprising discovery at the time. Children
are constructing; trying out things.
What did Piaget want with his theory? Genetic epistemology: study of formation (genesis) of
knowledge and how we know what we know (epistemology). How do you get something out of
nothing? He connected psychology to hard science.

 Piaget’s theory
Inspiration: biological adaptation. New life forms arise by adaptation to environment. Does new
knowledge arise out of adaptation?
How does knowledge arise? Schemes are necessary to understand and predict what happens,
coherent, fixed series of actions; can be applied to multiple situations and objects, have internal
consistency and are organized in a structure. For example: action patterns, reasoning rules, or
strategies. Action schemes: grasping, sucking, banging, etc.
Scheme: bird. Something that flies.

Learning and development: adaptation.

- Assimilation; integration of new experiences into pre-existing schemes.
- Accommodation: modification of preexisting schemes in order to adapt to the
environment.
“what we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see” - Jean Piaget.

Stages. Sometimes too many inconsistencies (cognitive conflict) to settle the equilibrium  major
reorganization to the structure of thinking.  stage shift
- Qualitative new structure of thinking
- Concurrence assumption: simultaneously in different domains
- Abruptness assumption: sudden, discontinuous shifts.
Sensorimotor stage: children explore the environment in a more and more advanced way: from
primary to tertiary circular reactions. Children get a more advanced understanding of object
permanence. Result; formation of mental representations.
Six substages:
- I. Reflexive schemes (0-1 months)
- II. Primary circular reactions (1-4 months)
- III. Secondary circular reactions (4-40 months)
- IV. Coordination of secondary schemes (10-12 months): still A not B error. Look for object
at a false location: incomplete object permanence. Mental representation present, but
response perseveration? But error also occurs only with watching (no reaching), so no.
Mental representation, but limited memory? Yes, longer waiting time. But: also error
when transparent. Mental representation, but no link with action? Most likely
- V: tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months): no longer A not B error.
- VI: mental representation/beginning o thought (18-24 months). Object permanence is
understood.

Preoperational stage: what the child is able to do: language, pretend play, deferred imitation
(because of mental representations. How does the child think? Egocentrism, seeing is believing,
animism, centration (no understanding of conservation)
Centration: conservation of number (length of row), of volume (height of volume), of mass (width of
object). Only focusing on one dimension.

Concrete operations stage: conservation is fully understood. Seriation: putting items in a logical
order. Transitive inference (if a>b, and b>c, then a>c). Class-inclusion; are there more roses or more
flowers? Logical reasoning, but only about concrete objects. No hypothetical, abstract thinking. For
example the balance scale task: what determines to which side the scale will tip? Weights & distance.
Deductive reasoning.

Formal operation stage: thinking about thinking. Capacity for abstract scientific thought.
Manipulating ideas in your head without seeing concrete objects. ability to theorize about impossible
events and items. Mathematical calculations, thinking creatively. Example: third eye problem. Where
would you put a third eye? Young children put them with the two other eyes; older children and
adults put them on more creative places (back of the head, hands).

Criticism
- concepts are too vague
Still discussion about interpretation of the theory. Hard to falsify: he always had an answer to
counter-evidence (comparable to Freud).
Do stages really exist? How to operationalize a stage? How to measure a stage? No mechanism for
emergence of qualitatively new knowledge (learning paradox).
- Inconsistent findings
draw the water level in the tilted bottle. 30% of adults fail. Most 9-year-olds should be able to
perform this task, according to Piaget. Infants can do more than Piaget thought, and adults less: very
young infants have an implicit understanding of object permanence. Many adults do not perform
well on formal operational tasks. Hundreds of publications that criticize Piaget’s age ranges.
Décalages; similar changes in development at different ages. Vertical decalage: understanding of a
task increases over time. Horizontal decalage: a specific principle is applied to different tasks at
different times.
 - Problems with methods
Small sample sizes (his own three children), observations in case studies. Clinical interview
(advantage: children give answer and argumentation; disadvantage: shyness, adult = authority,
children get confused). Piaget’s criteria are very strict (correct argumentation): explicit knowledge. In
infant research, the criteria are less strict: implicit knowledge.

 Neo-Piagetians
Robert Siegler: “Piagetian”: acquisition of better strategies over time. “Piagetian” use of balance
scale task. Different: measurement of strategies is nonverbal. Different: continuous changes to new
strategies, no stages.
Current impact: which rules do children know about shadow size? NEMO. Two dimensions: distance
to screen & size of object. Shadow gets larger when you’re closer to the screen. Test: which shadow
will be bigger? “play is the answer to how anything new comes about” - Jean Piaget
“when you teach a child something you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself” -
Jean Piaget.
Effects on current education and teaching: learning by exploring and understanding (Vygotsky as
well), inquiry-based education (experiments, interactive exhibitions, digital workbook). “readiness”.
Annette Karmiloff-Smith: neuroconstructivism. Do not focus on results, but on how the child
constructs the result. Different: developmental neuroscientist. Different: understanding the
development of disorders, especially Williams syndrome (language development & atypical
development). Development of visual cortex. Constructivism in the brain; connections between cells
in the visual cortex. Child constructs its own brain.

 Core knowledge
Nativism or constructivism?
Elizabeth Spelke. Infants are born with five systems of core knowledge about objects, persons,
number, spaces, geometric forms.
Three principles about objects and their motions: Cohesion, Continuity, Contact.
Young infants look at violations of natural principles longer than at ‘natural happenings’.
Persons: importance of eye contact. Longer looking at faces that look at them.
Nativism or constructivism?
Infants are born with sensorimotor intelligence and core knowledge. With sensorimotor intelligence,
children construct their own knowledge. With core knowledge, infants have very basic innate
tendencies or preferences that help them survive.

Take home message

Piaget’s theory of constructivism is still blooming. Piaget’s stage theory and methods are outdated.
Neo-piagetians renew the theory. Core knowledge and constructivism are both necessary for
development.

LECTURE 7: Bianca Boyer

Theory of mind (ch.11) & moral development (ch.15)
A theory of mind and moral reasoning are necessary to get along with other people.

What is theory of mind?

The ability to attribute mental states (beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge, etc.) to oneself
and to others, and to understand that others have mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions, and
perspectives, etc.) that are different from one’s own.
People with a theory of mind:
- Understand they have emotions
- Understand they have desires/motives
- And that these desires can affect their emotions
- They know they have knowledge
- And that they can think about this knowledge
- That there’s a difference between thought and reality
- And that we have assumptions about the world
You realize that you have a “mind”, but others have their own
“mind”.
Without a theory of mind, you assume that others think, feel and want the same things you think,
feel and want.

How do we assess a theory of mind?

If someone can have other assumptions than I do, I can answer questions about those assumptions.
These questions can address first order belief or second order belief. Mary and Pete put their coats in
the closet. First order: where will Pete look for his coat? Where does Mary think that Pete will look
for his coat? Unexpected transfer test: false belief of someone else. Ann takes Sally’s marble out of
her box ant puts it in her box. Sally comes back and wants to play with her marble. Where will Sally
look for her marble? Deceptive box test: false belief of themselves. What do you think is inside?
Smarties. Turns out to be a pencil. When you saw this first, what did you think was inside? Pencil = no
theory of mind. Smarties = theory of mind. Usually develops around the age of four.
Why false belief, not true belief. Because it is not very interesting: it doesn’t differentiate between
people with or without theory of mind. False belief is more beneficial for the child, creates possibility
for: altruism (by drawing attention to a false belief) of manipulation.
Why the sudden success at the age of four? Radical conceptual shift in mental representational
abilities. (Wimmer & Perner) Children make use of simulation: “if I were in his/her position…” (Harris)
Children have to develop a naïve theory of the mind, to give them access to their own and other
minds (Gopnik). Or is the development more gradual? When you adapt the task, the results change.
Adapt wording to the question: about what point in time is the question? When you first saw this
tube, before we opened it, what did you think was inside? Let children post a card: when you posted
the card, what did you think? Difficult to differentiate in time for children. Children of 15 months
seem to understand false belief. Violation of expectation: longer look at false belief. Also adults can
struggle with false belief tasks.

To sum up:
- Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others and to
understand that both mental states can be different
- Important to attune to others
- Can be assessed using false belief tasks: e.g. unexpected transfer & deceptive box test
- Around 4 years of age, sudden success on false belief task, but theory of mind seems to
develop gradually

Autism Spectrum Disorders

- Genetic origin and neuropsychological disorder
 - Men: women 4:1
- Affects about 1% of children
- About 45% has low IQ
- In DSM-IV pervasive developmental disorders, i.e. classic autism, Aspergers, Rett’s
disorder, Desintegrative disorder or PDD-NOS
- In DSM-V: autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
Symptoms:
- Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction
- Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities
- Often lack a theory of the mind

Wing’s triad of impairments ASD: imagination, social relationships (passive or odd ways/don’t know
how to), communications. A lot of social problems are similar to problems you have when you don’t
have a theory of mind. Without a theory of mind, you assume that others think, feel and want the
same things you think, feel and want. They won’t do something to help or comfort someone else
because they don’t understand what they’re feeling.

ASD and theory of mind: people with ASD…

- Have impairments in social interaction and communication and show estricted, repetitive
patterns of behaviour, interests or activities
- Often have deficits in theory of mind, but not all children with ASD have deficits in theory
of mind, theory of mind is not a symptom of ASD in the DSM, theory of mind does not
explain all behaviours that are associated with ASD, but theory of mind is one of the
theories on underlying mechanisms of ASD.

Moral development
Piaget was interested in three aspects of moral development:
1. Children’s understanding of rules
2. Children’s understanding of moral responsibility
3. Children’s understanding of justice
Moral dilemmas were used that are asked to be judged by the child: first Piaget (a boy accidentally
breaks 15 cups when opening the door of the cabinet, another boy breaks 1 cup when secretly
stealing a cupcake. Who is naughtier? Then  Kohlberg developed more moral dilemmas.

 Stages of moral development

Level 1: Preconventional morality
 Stage 1: punishment orientation - rules are obeyed to avoid punishment
 Stage 2: instrumental orientation - rules are obeyed for personal gain
Level 2: Conventional morality
 Stage 3: “good boy/good girl” orientation - rules are obeyed for approval of others
 Stage 4: maintenance of the social order - rules are obeyed to maintain the social order
o Most people stay in this stage -- some go to stage 5 and very very few go to stage 6
Level 3: Post-conventional morality
 Stage 5: morality of contract and individual rights - rules are obeyed if they are impartial:
democratic rules are challenged if they infringe on the rights of others
 Stage 6: morality of conscience - the individual establishes his/her own rules based on their
own ethic principles
Why is moral reasoning important?
Important for cooperation and social exchange. Understand that intentions matter, roles can be
reserved, and moral conflicts must be resolved through discussion and compromise with peers.
When someone commits a crime, their own judgement is informative in predicting future actions.
Reasoning about things does not mean that you do them. But after committing a crime, it is very
informative.

LECTURE 8: Richard Ridderinkhof

Aging graciously: on growing old (and being old)
Aging is a developmental process; mostly decline.
Normal aging and abnormal aging: pathological aging, Alzheimer’s. emotional, cognitive and social
changes. Both a theoretical perspective and a practical sense
Esther: an illustrative case.
81, single, lives independently. Physically challenged, mild depression, eMCI, difficulties in learning
new things, some isolation. Would benefit from structure & support in daily activities.
Example of what it is like to be old
Growing old is different from being old. You haven’t always been old, so you haven’t always
experienced cognitive and physical limitations.
World Health Organization: Active and Healthy ageing: the process of optimizing opportunities fo
health to enhance the quality of life as people age. “active” refers to continued participation while
maintaining autonomy. A better understanding of ageing is an urgent priority.

Three problems:
- Descriptive model of mental aging versus a theoretical understanding of what aging is
and what explains aging
- Descriptive model of mental aging versus a plan of how to deal with it
- Individual differences in aging: we don’t know what causes them or what predicts them.
Mostly just ‘noise’ in our research.

Aspects of aging:
 Societal aspects
“dual aging” (“dubbele vergrijzing”): more older adults & increasing longevity.
Baby-boom: birth-wave 1946-1970: perspective of hope and growth. “turning grey” is a matter of
“turning female”: there are more older females than older males. Males die sooner.
Life expectancy increases every year. Infant death plays nearly no role anymore nowadays and
health industry keeps progressing. Expected is that 100 years will be reached, and some scientists
belief we are able to reach eternal life.
Autonomy is one of the biggest issues. From the perspective of expense limiting, older adults need to
remain living autonomously as long as possible, despite setbacks for care-taking and social isolation.
Increased pressure on family and other informal caretakers. 80% of people 85 and older live more or
less autonomously, so maybe it is not a big issue?
Financing retirement & health insurance is getting problematic.

 Medical aspects
Hospitals suffer problem that they cannot solve emergency situations because beds are taken by
older adults. Emergency first aid stations have to be closed due to too little beds available. Trouble
that becomes more prevalent as we age: cardiac/vascular diseases, other diseases (internal organs,
broken bones, cancer, diabetes) and brain diseases (AD, Parkinson, Huntington).

 (neuro)biological aspects
Trouble that becomes more prevalent as we age: sensory systems, motor system, sleep & bio-
rhythms, hormonal changes (menopause).
- Temperature: circadian rhythm. Normal aging: flattening of 24-hr rhythm, fewer hours of
(deep) sleep, highest peak shifts from afternoon to morning, preference/increasing need
for naps. Consequences: reduced cognitive performance, more optimal functioning in the
morning, weaker memory consolidation.
What is ‘normal’ biological aging anyway? What’s changing in our brains as we age? Major
differences: cell death/atrophy, cell shrinkage, reduction in axons & dendrites  fewer synaptic
connections, reduction in neurotransmitters (most prominently dopamine).
Comparison between ontogenesis and fylogenesis. Ontogenesis = development of the individual and
fylogenesis = development of the species. In both, the prefrontal cortex is the last to mature. Last-in,
first-out: the prefrontal cortex is the first to decline with aging. Consequences for cognitive decline.
Seniors in the news: driving.

 Cognitive aspects
1. The prefrontal cortex
…supports three clusters of executive/regulative core functions
- stability vs. flexibility: switching between tasks or mental sets, shielding of goals
- working memory: updating of all potentially relevant information, remembering what to
do when
- action control / action override: resisting interference from competing action
tendencies, suppressing inappropriate responses in favour of other action priorities
All three show remarkable decline with aging.
2. Internal record
The notion of who you are, where you are, why you are there, and what you were doing. The notion
of time and continuity: where were you 15 minutes ago? What were you doing there and why? The
notion of context and surroundings, continuity, and appropriateness within that context. Integration
of ‘self’, coherent image of self, consistent across time. This leans heavily on the prefrontal cortex
and those cognitive functions supported by it.
Other cognitive functions that show pronounced decline with aging, although not necessarily relying
on prefrontal cortex.
3. Memory
Failure to remember the right words (‘tip of the tongue’), and failure to remember the contextual
details of an event: e.g. source memory (‘who told me this’). Strategies may repair this problem:
storytelling.
4. Intelligence
Fluid intelligence more than crystallized intelligence. Crystallized = knowledge that you have built up
and you can reason with. This intelligence is very robust. Fluid intelligence is being able to operate
with information, make calculations or predictions, and solve problems.
5. Speed of information processing
Slowness of perception, decision, and action. Global factor, no process-specific factor like in the PFC.

Is it all just misery?

Seniors in the news: Japanese athlete ran a worldrecord at the 100 meter sprint in the category 105-
plus. He ran it in 42.22 seconds. He could have clocked a faster time, but he couldn’t hear the sound
of the startpistol so he departed a little late. (8.5 km/h)
Picasso made his most famous works around the age of 90.
Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa at an old age, 65+/80 years old.
Rita Levi-Montalcini, neurologist, discovered nerve growth factor, ran an all-female lab until she was
100, Jewish.
Cognitive processes that do not decline with age: creativity, language skills & capabilities, social skills
& capabilities, perception.
Cognitive processes that (might) continue to improve: crystallized knowledge & wisdom.
Cognitive reserve can be maintained and boosted by staying active & learning new things and tricks.

 Social-emotional aspects
Loneliness is a dramatic problem in today’s society.
500.000 people in Holland feel lonely (max. 1 interaction per week), homes for the elderly not
included. 1 out of 6 of elderly people feel structurally lonely.
Everybody wants to grow old, but nobody wants to be old.
- Living with limitations: hobbies, pastimes, interests, living independently, reduced
mobility
- Smaller world: reduced circle of friends
- Purpose in life: retirement, loss of partner, social relationships, changes in health,
loneliness, depression, “complete life” (discussion about legally euthanizing when people
feel their life is complete)

 Variability, training & prevention

Looks can be deceiving. We don’t have external characteristics with which we can measure the
internal state of a human being. Factors tapping into individual differences in cognitive status with
aging are discovered by doing two types of studies:
- Epidemiological studies: how do health life-style variables correlate with cognitive
variables in very large samples
- Experimental intervention studies: what are the effects of an intervention on dependent
variables of interest. Typically in comparison to some control group
Lifestyle factors:
 nutrition and consumption patterns,
 physical exercise (influx of oxygen),
 life-long learning (braingymnastics; use it or lose it -- effects not robust and barely
generalize): too early to draw conclusions

 Normal vs. pathological ageing

Seniors in the news - manifesto - healthcare for the elderly - dramatic problems.
 Dementia
DSM-IV criteria: memory problems, cognitive problems, serious enough to influence daily
functioning, and clear consciousness/non-hallucinating. According to these criteria, 250.000 in
Holland. But this is a black&white picture, difficult to draw the line in the gradual development from
healthy to ill. “Dementia is like mental aging, but more so”.
Dementia is associated with a matter of factors, plaques and tangles. But they are also prevalent
among other elderly. The boundaries between “normal” and “pathological” aging are quite vague.
Changes in the brain in the amygdala (emotional regulation), medial temporal lobe (hippocampus;
memory consolidation), and prefrontal cortex (cognitive functions).

LECTURE 9: Annemie Ploeger

Language development - Chomsky’s theory and what came after
Nativist: believes a lot of language is already there at birth. Piaget of language development.
Cognition: cognitive development; infancy to adulthood.
Language development is a mystery. It is definitely experience-dependent. Children need to learn a
language. But why do children start to produce language spontaneously, even with limited input?
While your cat or dog will never speak…

 Evolution of language
Steven Pinker (1994): The language instinct. First to describe language as an adaptation, for different
reasons: (almost all arguments also explain language development)
 Language development: evidence (chapter 10)

 Language is universal
7000 languages on the world

 Languages conform to a universal design

 Language development: Chomsky’s theory (chapter 10)

Noam Chomsky: nativist perspective. Universal grammar: “In fact, by universal grammar I mean the
system of principles and structures that are the prerequisites for acquisition of language, and to
which every language necessarily conforms”.
He divided language into the S-structure: surface structure: the actual spoken sentence (different in
different languages) and the D-structure: deep structure: abstract representation of a sentence (the
same in different languages, or universal grammar.

Chomsky’s “poverty of the stimulus” argument:

- Language requires ability to connect D-structures to S-structures
- Children only hear the S-structure. The D-structure must be innate
- Language input is complex
- Children receive little feedback about grammar
- Children acquire language quickly and easily
-
D-structure must be innate: how do we know this?
Overregularisation in children: typically shown in irregular forms: I eated, I seed, childs, sheeps, etc.
Up until the age of 7, children overregularize. Children apply syntactic rules (d-structure). Explicit
indication that language learning is not based on conditioning, because parents never say this.
Overgeneralisation in children: creating a new verb by adding the suffix -ing: It’s weathering, I’m
ballerining. Shows that children understand how language works.
Children receive little feedback about grammar: how do we know this? Parents repeat
ungrammatical sentences. Parents even reinforce ungrammatical sentences.
But: a lot of criticism. The myth of language universals - language are too diverse and do not show
universal design. Parental role in providing language models - sophisticated vocabulary use with
toddlers explains additional variation in children’s later vocabulary. Innate knowledge or a
predisposition to learn a language ? -- constructivist approach to language development.
So what do we conclude? Language development needs universal grammar, experience & general
learning mechanisms (non-specific to language).

 Children pass through a universal series of stages in acquiring a language

- Pragmatic system (e.g. turn-taking)
Proto-conversations with a baby. Involves many social, cognitive and motor skills.
Imitation, initiating interactions, maintaining conversations and repairing faulty
conversations. All part of “shared intentionality” - the ability and motivation to engage
with others in collaborative, cooperative activities with joint goals and intentions.
Communication and shared intentionality in very young children!

- Phonological system (speech perception and production)

Speech perception
Speech segmentation: how do we know when a word stops and a next word starts? How
does an infant learn this? Infant-directed speech/motherese/baby talk: higher pitch,
more exaggerated pitch contours, larger pitch range, more rhythmic, slower, universal,
even in sign language. Why? Infants prefer mothrerese, infants remember motherese
better, emotional component and interactive component. Infants prefer singing even
more! Categorical perception of speech sounds: can 1-month old infants distinguish
the /b/ from the /p/? Habituation-dishabituation study: yes. Can 8 month old infants
distinguish strings with the same syllables, but with different transitional probabilities?
Probability that “no” is followed by “thing” is higher than the probability that “thing” is
followed by “breaks’, because nothing is a word, but thingbreaks is not. Infants use these
transitional probabilities to distinguish between different strings of syllables!
Use of transitional probabilities in word segmentation is an example of statistical
learning; an example of a general learning mechanism non-specific to language.

Speech production
All children pass through the same phases of vocal production: reflexive vocalisations
(birth-2 months), cooing and laughing (2-4 months), babbling and vocal play (4-6
months), canonical babbling (6-10 months), and modulated babbling (10 months on)
Interesting, also deaf children show manual babbling. So speech is not critical in babbling:
babbling is tied to the abstract linguistic structure of language.
Babbling has no semantic content, but: babbling merges linguistic units (e.g. phonemes
and syllables) to create combinatorial structures. Other species, such as parrots, can
mimic human speech, but they never babble (no decomposing of speech into discrete
units and recombine them in novel ways)

- Syntactic system (understanding and producing grammar)

The one-word period (10-18 months), the two-word period (18-24 months) “me happy”.
After 24 months, rapid improvement of syntax. At 36 months: “I don’t want to go to
sleep and dream the dream I dreamed last night”.
 - Semantic system (understanding the meaning of words)
Parent says to young child that never saw an elephant before: “Look , there’s an
elephant!” how do children understand what animal is the elephant? Child’s
interpretation of a new word depends on existing semantic system, existing knowledge
of the world, level of cognitive skills (understanding concepts) and selective attention
(gaze following). Children make very few mistakes, considering the complexity of the
task. 6-year-olds have a vocabulary of 14.000 words.

 If children are put together without a pre-existing language, they will develop one of their
own
Adult slaves in plantations (USA) talked “pidgin”. Pidgin: a makeshift communicative system with
little grammar. Children in those plantations did not passively have the pidgin culturally transmitted
to them: children quickly developed creole languages. These differed substantially from pidgin - they
have grammar similar to established human languages. Major evidence in favour of Chomsky’s
theory.
And also: deaf communities, where complex sign languages emerge quickly and spontaneously. For
example, a study in Nicaragua has tracked the emergence of a complex sign language in little more
than a decade. The most fluent and creative users of the language were the children.
Not much counter evidence, so good evidence.

 Language and intelligence are doubly dissociable in disorders (so language is a separate
function; specific).
Double dissociation: Williams syndrome (low IQ but good language). And also: Specific Language
Impairment SLI (normal/high IQ, impaired language); due to lesion.
From a developmental point of view: children with Williams syndrome have a microdeletion on
chromosome 7. Natural selection will wipe out this disorder. Good at language and face recognition.
But: criticism from a constructivist point of view. Development of language in Williams syndrome is
different from typical language development. Specific language impairment is not as specific as we
may think. Karmiloff-Smith (2009).
Children with Williams syndrome are good at language, but language development starts late (5/6
years), ability to categorize is impaired, pointing later than language development, and
understanding of words is equal to production of words (normally you understand way more words).
Children with SLI do have subtle deviations in motor development, number cognition, auditory
processing, and IQ significantly lower than siblings.
Constructivist: it is not only about the end result, but also the ‘road towards it’.
Pinker & Chomsky are more to the nature side and more to the active side in the dimensions in
developmental theories
Karmiloff-Smith (constructivism) is more to the nurture side and more to the active side.

Why will dogs and cats never speak?

FOXP2 gene: mutation in families with language problems (Enard et al., Nature, 2002). This gene is
very conserved - only humans have a different version. Language gene. Later it was discovered that
FOXP2 plays a role in the ability to make subtle sequential movements (important for language -
movement of the muscles around the mouth)
Plus lack of cognitive ability to decompose sounds into discrete units and recombine them in novel
ways. Humans have the cognitive ability to make recursive combinations.
Development of reading & mathematics
 Development of reading (chapter 12)

Learning to read is difficult. Why? Phonemic

awareness. 5-year-olds were asked what ‘sand’
would sound without the ‘s’. None of the
children succeeded with any of the 30 words
that were given. 6 years old were not much
better. The idea that words consist of a
sequence of phonemes does not come easily to
young children.
Children need instruction to understand
phonemic awareness. What does come naturally
is an understanding of rhyme.
Phonemic awareness and understanding rhyme
are both important in learning to read (and
write). For example, the phoneme /i/ is difficult
to grasp, especially in English, where multiple
pronunciations are possible. Letter sequence
such as “ight” is easier to grasp, because it
always represents the same sound.

Lack of phonemic awareness plays an important role in dyslexia. Lack of orthographic transparency
in English. More children with dyslexia in English compared to Italian, Spanish, Greek, Turkish and
German children.

 Development of mathematics (chapter 12)

Number sense does seem to come naturally - neonates distinguish different numbers (or simply
size?).
Infants seem to have knowledge of addition and substraction. Look longer at a screen when the
numbers don’t add up than when the numbers do (dishabituation).
More complex math does not come naturally - children need instruction.
For example, see errors that children make in conservation tasks. Children count, but do not really
know what the word ‘five’ means.

Take home message

Language develops easily, considering the complexity of the task. Learning to read and write requires
instruction, although our natural feeling for rhyme helps out. Learning about numbers comes
naturally, but complex mathematical skills require instruction.

LECTURE 10: Hilde Huizenga

Cognitive development in adolescence
Adolescence is the start of puberty until adulthood. But how do we define adulthood? One definition
might be “living independently” (of your parents).
There is a general improvement in all topics, due to brain development and training. Some things
also get worse during adolescence, due to factors like substance use. Which capacities and why is it
difficult to study this? Attention, memory, all topics. Difficult to study because of ethical problems
and the cause and effect conclusions (only correlations).
Developmental psychology is an interesting field because you have the ability to work with young
people and their parents and teachers. Early treatment may prevent problems later in life.
Developmental psychology is also accurate, has clever experiments and high tech instruments &
analyses. A lot of brain research. Relevant and scientifically interesting.

 Perception
Ambiguous figures (faces vs vase) & Composite objects (whole or parts).
What develops?
When people get older, the chances are higher that people see both percepts instead of one. The
book says this is because of increased flexibility. Is this really true, or are there alternative
explanations?
How does it develop?
1. Increased knowledge: knowing that ambiguity exists. Experiment: teach young children that
ambiguity exists.  this was done and evidence was found for this explanation.. Other research:
2. Increased selective attention: brain activity differs between percepts  evidence for selective
attention explanation. Has not yet been tested on children.
Individual differences?
Autism Spectrum Disorder: more attention to detail.
Implications for practice (clinic and school)?
If children with Autism Spectrum Disorder get a training, they see two percepts less often. Yet
instruction helps.

 Attention
What develops?
Capacity to focus attention in a goal directed matter. “Central-incidental learning task”. Letter and
number; told to focus on the letters. There is an increase in memory for the central category.
How does it develop?
Is this true? Alternative explanations? Memory gets better with age. Might be the case, because
knowledge of the numbers doesn’t decline.
Individual differences?
Mild to Borderline Intellectual Disability. Flanker task: “attend to central arrow”. Index of selective
attention: RT (incongruent) - RT (congruent). Difference score because you want to correct for a
general speed. Mild to Borderline Intellectual disability have trouble with the incongruent trials/this
task.
Implications for practice (clinic and school)?
MDIB: impaired selective attention. Structured and quiet environment is important for them to focus
their attention.

 Memory
Many types of memory:
C1: Face recognition
What develops?
Capacity to recognize faces.
How does it develop?
More attention to configuration instead of details. “encoding switch hypothesis”. Is this really true?
 magazine; ‘people in my environment hardly recognized me’ after transformation. Literature:
review face recognition.
C2: Short-term memory
What develops?
Capacity to reproduce recent information. “Forward digit span” task. Repeating numbers out loud.
How does it develop?
1. Increased ‘brain capacity’? 2. More practice? (phone numbers). 3. Other strategy?
Super important to remember: development not continuous (“more and faster”) but also categorical
(“differently”).
C3: Working memory
What develops?
Remember and process information. “Backward digit span” task: reproduce digits in reverse order.
How does it develop?
Age related increase in activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Seen with EEG/fMRI.
Individual differences?
Youth with ADHD: reduced working memory. Working memory predictor of study success & self-
control in e.g. alcohol use.
Implications for practice (clinic and school)?
Working memory training improves working memory, yet no generalization to other capacities.
C4: Long-term memory
What develops?
Task: speed of card sorting is assessed in two conditions: (book does not explain it very well)
“physical similarity” condition & “name similarity” condition.
RT difference between name and physical condition decreases with age.
How does it develop?
Time to retrieve names from memory (required in name condition) decreases with age. Alternative
explanation: age-related decrease in interference due to physical dissimilarity: increased selective
attention.
Individual differences?
Implications for practice (clinic and school)?

 Intelligence
What develops?
Scores on intelligence tests increase during adolescence.
“Fluid” intelligence: culture free reasoning, declines after 30.
“crystallized” intelligence: education, experience, later plateau.
How does it develop?
“Fluid”: increased mental speed and working memory. “Crystallized”: more education & experience.
Individual differences are not subject to development: if smarter at 10, also smarter at 18 years of
age. Not at age of 4.

 Reasoning
Deduction: from general to specific. Premise 1: cows can fly; premise 2: Clarabelle is a cow 
conclusion: carabelle can fly.
What develops?
Increased capability to solve puzzles like this
How does it develop?
Individual differences?
Implications for practice (clinic and school)?
Concrete instead of abstract content helps. Less required with increasing age. Online training in
“Math garden”.
Induction: from specific to general. All cows seen on Old Stone farm can fly  cows on the Old stone
farm can fly.
What develops?
Capability to solve problems and knowing that induction is always uncertain. (conclusion only based
on what you’ve seen; no way to be sure).

 Piaget’s Theory (hier in slaap gevallen)

Concrete & formal operational = mental operational: able to perform mental operations.
Extra in formal operational: abstract reasoning without content, therefore also reasoning outside
reality, scientific: theory, hypothesis, experiment.
Reasoning according to rules: weight & distance. Age related increase in complexity of rule use.
Adolescents: rule 3 or 4.
Decision making according to rules
Youth with MBID use less advanced rules.
Scientific reasoning by children. Intuitive theory: unorganized assumptions  often wrong
predictions. Design experiment to support theory and not to test it. Contra-evidence: neglect it or
explain it away.
Scientific reasoning by you: theory; design experiment to test it; use contra-evidence to think about
your theory. Many individual differences.

LECTURE 11: Annemie Ploeger

Social development in adolescence (Article Somerville 2013)
fMRI scan for children only allowed from the age of 8 because the scanner makes a lot of noise: can
be scary. Ethic problems when looking at children’s brains.
 What is social cognition?
Bronfenbrenner’s model of social development. It covers everything: divides life of children in
different systems:
- The individual: sex, age, health, etc.
- The microsystem: school, peers, family, health services, church group, neighbourhood
play area
- The mesosystem
- The exosystem: friends of family, neighbours,
- The macrosystem: attitudes and ideologies of the culture
Adds a third dimension: time (chronosystem).
Difficult to test this model
Microsystem of the child: social cognition is important for meaningful interactions with
parents/peers: so the individuals in your microsystem. Social cognition is the ability to achieve
personal goals from interactions with others, while maintaining a positive relationship with the other
person.
Psychopathy is a developmental disorder and is characterized by 1. lack of empathy, and 2.
Intelligence, and 3. antisocial behaviour. They have the capacity to achieve personal goals from
interactions with others, but they are unable to maintain a positive relationship with the other
person.
Social cognition is important because it is a predictor of cognitive abilities, mental problems,
socioeconomic states, and risk behaviour.
Building blocks of social cognition: very complex; perception, attention, emotion recognition,
empathy, theory of mind, working memory, decision making, inhibition and planning.
Difficult to study these processes separately.

 The social brain

Important: brain areas work together in networks, networks work together, brain areas have
different functions
LPC (lateral parietal cortex) & IFG (inferior frontal gyrus) = mirror/simulation/action-perception
network. Recognition of other people’s actions, planning your own actions.
A (amygdala), VS(ventral striatum) & OFC (orbifrontal cortex) = amygdala network: recognition and
evealuation of emotional and social stimuli.
mPFC(medial prefrontal cortex), pCC(posterior cingulate gyrus) , TP (temporal pole), STS(superior
temporal sulcus) & TPJ(temporal parietal junction): mentalizing network: what does the other think?
A (amygdala), OFC (orbifrontal cortex) & AI (anterior insula) = empathy network: feeling what other
people feel.
The systems and processes overlap.

 How do we study social cognition?

Studying the building blocks:
- Language abilities
- Peer relationships (friendships)
- Interaction between parent and child
- Emotion recognition
Watching/respond to emotions: different patterns of brain activity associated with 20 different
emotions in stories that subjects read in scanner.
Reading the mind in the eyes test: only the eyes are visible. Theory of Mind/mentalizing. Possible to
perform in scanner: Females > males > autism.
- Social feedback task
Do you think this person likes you? Yes/No. Estimate whether this person likes you. Feedback is
congruent or incongruent. Heart rate decreases when unexpectedly rejected. Instructions are
important: does the participant believe the manipulation?
Chatroom task: Eye tracking and pupil size. Same type of task: would you like to chat with this
person: yes/no. followed by chat session or rejection. Pupil dilation measured: associated with
activity in social brain areas.
- Cyberball task
Social exclusion. fMRI/EEG/physiological measures. Online ball game. Part 1; you get the ball 30% of
trials, part 2 you never get the ball. Does the participant believe the manipulation?
Prosocial cyberball task. Online ball game. 4 players. One player (not you) is being excluded by other
players. What do you do as the 4th player in the game? Do you compensate?
- Ultimatum game
Behaviour/fMRI/EEG/physiological measures. Social decisions  interaction between two persons.
Proposer: divides 10 euros. Responder: rejects or accepts the offer. Money will only be paid out
when the offer is being accepted.
- Peer pressure & decision making
Observing behaviour. Drinking alcohol in a social context. Couples or groups. Video recordings.
Trained assistants do or do not drink alcohol. Do participants copy drinking behaviour?

Adolescence
 What is adolescence?
From puberty to independence in adulthood. When does puberty start? In girls: when menstruation
starts, puberty has already started for some time! In boys: first ejaculation? Size of testicles is better
measure: increase when puberty starts.
Around the age of 8 also an hormone release GnRH stimulates LH and FSH secretion.
Duration of adolescence is a matter of nature * nurture. Last century: duration increased. Due to
earlier menarche and later independence. There are cultural differences.
Profound differences between type 1 or type 2 people.
Risk & resilience: the asolescence paradox. Risk: mental problems often start during adolescence.
Deviant behaviour arises during adolescence. Resilience: period of increased flexibility, and many
mental problems disappear at the end of adolescence.

 The adolescent brain

Brain development during adolescence.
Gray matter decreases  different speed in different areas. Evolutionary old areas first 
sensorimotor areas. Areas involved in higher cognition last  prefrontal cortex.
Synaptic connections between neurons form mostly after birth (mostly sensorimotor cortex) Some
are already there at birth. Only the functional ones remain. Synaptic connections in prefrontal cortex
peeks around puberty.
Local connections decrease and distal connections increase during adolescence.

 Adolescent disbalance
Adolescents temporarily have a different balance between affective and control processes. Risk
behaviour and vulnerability, but also flexibility. Amygdala gets easily activated, inhibition areas don’t.
but don’t forget individual differences!

Social development in adolescence

What makes the social life of adolescents unique? Less dependent on parents, more dependent on
peers. Peak in peer interaction (real life and social media). Shift: friend as play mate  intimate
platonic relationship or sexual partner. Explicit rejection by peers is frequent and relationships are
less stable.
 Big shift in social relationships.
Prediction can be made from the brain development in adolescent: we predict that adolescents will
show more risky behaviour.

 Emotion recognition  watching/respond to emotions

Study with emotional expressions. Study brain activity (fMRI). Children, adolescents and adults.
Amygdala: increased response to emotional pictures in adolescents. Inverted U-shape; decreases
again after adolescence. Children and adults less responsive amygdala.
 Emotion recognition  reading the mind in the eyes
Behavioural research with this task shows children < adolescents < adults (linear increase in score). In
a scanner: vmPFC activity decreases linearly with age while performing this task. More than 9 studies
with different tasks. Why? Different strategy? Change in brain structure? In what way is behavioural
change associated with change in the brain? We don’t know; these are all correlational studies.
Generalization problem; how can you do this task in animals.
 Social feedback
Here; we find that mPFC activity increases during adolescence and remains high in adulthood when
socially evaluated. Embarrassment when you know that you’re being watched: peak in late
adolescence, then a decrease. Large individual differences!
Estimate whether this person likes you  adolescents expect less positive outcomes. Adolescents
respond more strongly to rejection: increased activity in amygdala network and mPFC.
 Rejection  chatroom task
All ages show pupil dilation when rejected; but in late adolescents the largest pupil dilation after
being rejected.
 Social exclusion  cyberball task
Social exclusion in an online ball game. mPFC activity higher in young adolescents (10-12 years) vs.
adults when excluded. Lateral PFC activity lower in adolescents (“regulatory” regions). Adolescents
with many friends respond less strongly. mPFC activity predicts depressive symptoms later in life.
 Social decisions  ultimatum game
Ability to take into account other increases with age  fairer offer. Shift between 12-16 years.
Individual differences: some always go for the fair option; others always go for option that results in
the least money for the other. Temporal parietal cortex (TPJ) activity increase linearly with age:
correlated with how you perform on the task. Fair offer = higher activity.
 Influence of peers  bar lab
Mainly positive & Peaks during adolescence. Alcohol and druge use peaks in adolescents and young
adults. Negative consequences for brain development and increased risk of mental disorders. Social
context has a strong impact on drinking, cannabis use and smoking. Research on alcohol use in a
social but controlled environment  drinking lab. How peers influence alcohol use.
Imitation effect of alcohol use. Imitation of sipping  effect larger for alcohol compared to soda.
Doesn’t matter whether peer is male or female. Genetics (DRD4) have been studied.

Conclusions:
Adolescents react stronger to emotional and social cues compared to adults and children. Complex
cognitive functions such as mentalizing keep on growing. Evidence for ‘disbalance’ during adolescent
 risk but also resilience. New research field, preliminary findings. Equipment still in development.
Social cognition is what makes humans unique. Or not? Makaks show remorse for ‘dying’ of robot
baby.

Take home message: social cognition is hard to measure in other animals, but that doesn’t mean
they don’t possess these skills!
Animal cognition keuzevak (psychologie, september-oktober tweede jaar)

LECTURE 12: Maaike Zeguers

School psychology
Very dynamic work as a schoolpsychologist; children with low and with high IQ or ADHD; adapt
process to enhance learning process.
Dutch educational system
Regular education.
Special primary education/vocational education (praktijkonderwijs).
Children with learning difficulties and/or behaviour problems.
Special education:
- Cluster 1: children who are blind/partially sighted
- Cluster 2: deaf/hearing impaired children and children with language problems
- Cluster 3: children with physical and/or mental handicaps and chronically ill children
- Cluster 4: children with psychiatric disorders and severe behaviour problems.
New law: “fitting education” (passend onderwijs). Obligation to provide education. Type of education
is indicated on the basis of educational needs. This child needs: a teacher who.., classmates who…,
instruction that…, assignments that…, a working environment that…, etc. Children don’t receive
money on the diagnosis, but on what the child needs. Better rules. Still special schools, but fist we
look at what can be done in regular schools for children with special educational needs.
Workfield of a schoolpsychologist
At the intersection of education and health.
Case study Jane (grade 2/8 years old). Not motivated for schoolwork, reluctant to go to school,
negative expressions on self, negative social experiences in current class, labeled as gifted at age 4,
emigration best friend. Does she have a low level of self-competence? What is the profile of Jane’s
cognitive abilities? Which themes are central in Jane’s perception of herself and her social world?
Classroom observation: Jane has a serious working attitude, excessively asks her teacher for help,
has positive contacts with classmates and has fun playing with them during breaktime, cries easily.
Teacher responds quickly to Jane’s requests for help. Does not motivate Jane to solve problems
herself.
Self-report questionnaire: low self-competence regarding academic, social & sport skills, appearance
and behaviour and feeling of self-worth.
Intelligence test (WISCIII): high on verbal test, but performance scale is average. Difference between
putting knowledge into action and talking about it.
Projective test: repeatedly emerging themes in stories she had to think of when seeing pictures:
strong focus on achievement and competition (wish to be best/smartest), feelings of failure and
being left out for being too small/too young & dependency on adults.
Conclusions: verbal/performance discrepancy (VIQ>PIQ). Negative and unrealistic feelings of self-
competence (alleged incapability). Perfectionism. Insufficient confidence in own learning capacities.
Passive coping style.
Intervention plan: individual treatment (strengthening self-competence and developing more active
coping styles) & advising teacher to promote independent problem solving and learning from
mistakes. And coaching/video interaction guidance for teacher; made children dependent on her and
followed coaching to help this. Also: classroom intervention to improve positive working attitude and
class climate (Taakspel). Because this worked so well, decided to do a schoolwide intervention
focused on positive school climate (Kanjertraining).

Cooperative learning
- Piaget
Learning through interaction with physical environment (i.e. conservation task). Some focus on social
interaction: socio-cognitive conflict. Peers are ideal partners, the gap in status/intelligence is limited.
- Vygotsky
Focus on social aspects of learning: process of learning, implications for education. From intermental
knowledge to intramental knowledge. Scaffolding: structuring and simplifying the environment to
facilitate children’s learning and guide them through their zone of proximal development.
Examples: mix-freeze-pair, think-pair-share, reciprocal teaching, group grid, inside-outside circle.
Cooperative learning enhances learning if certain conditions are met:
 - Support is adapted to the child’s response to this support
- Learning partners are similar in age and status
- The more intellectually advanced child is also more socially advanced
- Both children are actively involved and actively exchange ideas
This works not only for cognitive development, but also development of behaviour and motivation.

Diagnostic assessment:
- Static tests: which skills/knowledge does the child possess (Piaget) -- norm based &
criterium based.
- Dynamic tests: what is the learning potential of this child? (Vygotsky) -- more fair to
children with suboptimal educational changes or who don’t perform optimal in testing
situations. Focus on learning process.

How to guide a child through his zone of proximal development ?

- Motivation:

External regulation: “if I fail another exam, my parents will withdraw my study funding”
Introjected regulation: “I will be so ashamed if my fellow students notice that I failed”
Identified regulation: “I want to be a good student”
Integrated regulation: “I want to learn as much as possible about this topic, because its important for
my future career”
Intrinsic regulation: “I think this course is highly interesting”
- Psychological basic needs: competence, autonomy and relatedness
Teacher-student relationship: concern/interest  relatedness, clarity/structurecompetence and
classroom management autonomy.

Social pressure
- Stable: internal: aptitude (I am stupid) & external: task difficulty (bad teacher)
- Instable: internal: effort (I did not study hard enough) & external: chance (luck/bad luck)
Children: easier to attribute poor performance to instable characteristics than to stable
characteristics. Children that need to work harder; put in less effort so they can attribute it to
instable reasons, which is better for their confidence.
Social pressure and self-regulated learning (SRL)
SRL  performance goals. First underlying goals need to be met: safety, social support/belonging,
and enjoyment. Only then, you can focus on self-regulated learning. Wellbeing goals need to be met
before performance goals can be met.
Bullying (ch18ch20)
Bullying is an act of aggression where the bully intends to repeatedly harm the victim, and where
there is an imbalance of power. Three characteristics;
- Bully has the intention to harm
- Bullying occurs repeatedly
- Imbalance of power or strength
Forms of bullying: verbal, relational (excluding etc; girls), material, physical (boys) & cyber/digital;
often accompanied by other forms of bullying. Very interested in cyber bullying because it has a
larger impact, is less visible to parents/teachers and is always there.
Consequences of bullying: anxiety, depressive symptoms, psychosomatic complaints, suicidal
thoughts, low self-esteem, truancy, poor grades.
Protective factors: warm family, friend(s), limited period.
Characteristics bully: authoritative/punishing parenting style, lack of clear rules and monitoring,
conflict in the family, ADHD children, aggressive interpretation and response style, expectation of
positive consequences of bullying (respect).
ADHD children are more likely to be bullies, but also more likely to be victims of bullying. Victims of
bullying are also more anxious and depressive, just like bullies. Unclear what causes what.
Bully roles: problem of the whole class, not just a situation between the bully and the victim. There
are initiators, followers, reinforcers (respect the bully), victim, defenders (help victim), bystanders
(ignoring it; implicitly saying they tolerate the behaviour), bully-victim (are both!)
Bullying is a group process.
Positive group: unisense, helping, support, shared responsibility, collaboration, respecting
differences, communication & harmony. Children value the group so much, that they want to
overcome acts of aggression and bullying.
Negative group: fight, not helping, laughing, own responsibility, solitude, intolerance, little
communication, tension.
If you want to intervene in a group, you need to be quick. Difficult to trace a negative group back to a
positive group. Dual-route model.
Interventions:
- Reactive strategies; when bullying is already occurring. Sanctions, restorative justice
(teacher talks to bully; why did you do it, did you reach your goal? Bully learns from this),
support group (children that were not associated with the bullying are ‘activated’ to
support the bully)
- Monitoring unstructured situations (break time; time between classes)
- Schoolwide (preventive) interventions
Obligations of Dutch schools: 2013-2014 research on efficacy of anti-bullying programs. 13 out of 61
‘promising’. Since august 2015: all primary and secondary schools obliged to be ‘social safe school’:
prove that children feel safe in school, monitor social safety, assign a bullying coordinator.
Continuum of school-wide behaviour support: primary prevention: school/classroom interventions
for all children (80%), secondary prevention: special intervention for children with risk behaviour
(15%), and tertiary prevention: specialized individual interventions for children with high risk
behaviour (5%).
School refusal
Difference between truancy & school anxiety:
- Truancy: no severe psychological problems, preference for activities outside school,
behaviour problems, sporadic attendance, attempt to conceal absence
- School anxiety: eager to attend school, but hampered by fear. Good behaviour,
emotional problems. Long term absence, parents know.
Gradual from one to the other, not black-and-white.

Function of school refusal:

1. Negative reinforcement:
Avoidance of anxiety provoking persons or situations, avoidance of social or evaluative situations.
1. 2. Positive reinforcement:
Care/attention of parents or friends, attractive activities outside of school. Nice to be at home or
elsewhere.
Again not black-and-white, might go from one to the other. First negative because afraid, then
positive because grandma is home and she is really nice for instance.
Important to look at the reinforcers to treat school refusal.

Schoolanxiety
Cognitive component: negative thoughts about tasks, persons or situations in the school.
Physical component: headache, stomach ache, dizziness, throwing up, insomnia, irritability, sweating,
trembling.
Behaviour component: crying, anger, concentration problems, withdrawal.
Children cannot keep these components apart from each other.
Intervention: psycho-education, skill training, cognitive restructuring, exposure & plan to prevent
relapse. Cognitive restricting: learn to create positive thoughts out of negative thoughts; practicing
them makes them stronger and easier to activate. Exposure: systematic desensitization using
relaxation techniques while confronting feared objects/situations, or emotive imagery, associating
feelings of strength/pride/pleasure with feared objects/situations.

LECTURE 13: Reinout Wiers

Developmental psychopathology
Risk & Resilience in development (ch. 19 + ch 21 Bronfenbrenner)
Central learning goal: understand important concepts from developmental psychopathology and
learn to apply them.
 Developmental Psychopathology, intro
One of the founding fathers: Sir Michael Rutter. Central question: Why does one person develop
problems and another person in the same situation does not? (especially in hard times)
Important concepts:
- Stability - instability abnormal behaviour
- Genes*environment interactions
- Developmental trajectories
- Continuity normal-abnormal behaviour
- Risk, protective, vulnerability factors
- Attention for development of problems (and for positive development and resilience)
- Interventions from this perspective

 Risk, resilience, vulnerability

Risk factors: threaten basic needs of child. Present before development of problems, (objective)
threats of basic needs of child. When present, high chance of later problems. Risk factors can be
present at different (interacting!) levels (Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model; risk & protective
factors). Microsystem (family, peers), mesosystem (interaction micro-exosystem),
exosystem(neighbours, wider family, media), macrosystem (culture). And also: change over time
(Obama vs. Trump). Impact bigger for younger/older children, etc. (chronosystem).
Vulnerability - protective factors: moderate the effects of risk factors: protective factors increase
chance of adaptive development. Vulnerability factors decrease chance of adaptive development.
Also at different levels, e.g. individual, family, external support, can be positive as well as negative.

Important risk factors:

- Stress. Frequent stress. While some stress is good/okay, long-lasting stress is not. No
longer return to baseline: allostasis. Risk for many long-term negative outcomes;
undermines stress-responsivity. Early intervention?
- Parenting. Poor parenting risk factor; can also be a protective factor. Abuse,
maltreatment, neglect, separation, loss, psychopathology parent. Effects depend on
different factors at different levels: child characteristics, place & time, how (remaining)
parents deal with it, presence of important other(s)
Cumulative models that add up risk factors, predict it surprisingly well.  cumulative risk theory.
Example: Sameroff et al. looked at 10 riskfactors: difference of 30 IQ points. Difference between
below average and university level; major impact.
Specific risk factors; do they not matter at all? What is the outcome you’re looking at? Little evidence
for effect on global outcomes. Sometimes for specific outcomes (drinking etc.). If you make specific
rules, that is predictive. Not being strict or drinking yourself etc. This can direct interventions, e.g.
teach parents to set rules. But problem of not having cause and effect.

Equifinality: multiple (sometimes correlated) risk-factors can lead to the same problem. Example:
aggression parents, lack of rule-setting, temperament child, bad friends, neighbourhood 
aggression child.
Multifinality: risk factor can have multiple effects. Example: child maltreatment  anxiety,
depression, aggression. Learning problems.
Protective-vulnerability factors also at different levels: child, family (warmth, cohesion, structure,
support, attachment) & external support system.

Structure of mental health problems: two broad clusters. Internalizing vs. externalizing problems.
Externalizing problems can’t be missed. In childhood: ADHD, busy/aggressive kids. Internalizing
problems are very different; anxiety/depression.

Risk- and protective factors for internalizing problems: child characteristics

Risk factors:
- Inhibited temperament: shy, emotionally reserved with strangers, easily over-aroused.
- Withdrawn: child wants to participate but does not dare. Predictor of internalizing
poroblems and negative self-concept.
- Later: cognitive- and attentional characteristics; overestimate dangers, exaggerating
possible negative outcomes, selective attention for threat
Protective factor:
- High effortful control, internal locus of control.
Risk- and protective factors for internalizing problems: environmental characteristics:
- Exposure to (strong) negative events, e.g. natural catastrophy/trauma.
- Children with anxiety problems have gone through more stressful events on average
than controls
 - Negative learning eperiences through classical conditioning, social learning and negative
information
- Family factors: avoidant coping style, low sociability
Protective factor: positively challenging father (Susan Bögels)

Risk-factors for externalizing problems:

- Disinhibited temperament triggers negative reactions
- Relatively weak self-control
- Bad environment: low empathy in family/dysfunctional family, bad
neighbourhood/friends, other factors (discrimination)
Protective factors: positive role-model, positive challenge, goal, etc.

Development of externalizing problems:

Strong age effect (with also differences between cultures and eras; Bronfenbrenner’s Y-axis).
Influential model (Moffitt ’93) regarding continuity: adolescent-limited vs. lifetime persistent
antisocial behaviour: childhood conduct disorder better predictor of adult antisocial behaviour than
adolescent antisocial behaviour (many false positives).

Transgenerational transmission problems: important theme

Increased chance of developing problem when parent(s) have problem.
1 out of 20 children will develop a drinking problem. When parents are dependent: 4 out of 20.
Why? Genetics, prenatal factors, problems parent(s), social learning, other factors.
These factors ofter cluster and interact; fireddepressedalcohollack of supervisionbad
friendsadolescent substance use problems, etc.
Interaction between risk factors.

- Theoretical models of vulnerability

True moderation (interaction-models). Child with maltreatment. Objective data. Scores during their
life; none self-reported. Only presence of both ‘risk-envirionment’ (maltreatment) ánd ‘risk-gene’
(MAO-A), strongly increases risk of later anti-social behaviour. Both separately do not have an effect.
Protective factors in interaction-models. Rutter: empirically determined factors that moderate
development in the positive direction in the presence of adversity-risk-factors, which do not (or
hardly not) affect development under normal circumstances. When you push the system, the system
pushes back.
Main effect models: homogenous group; study deprived children, which factors have a positive
effect on outcomes? Rutter: not a good design to determine general protective factors; you need an
interaction. Raises question: how to define ‘resilience’.
Mediator effect models: M = mediator variable. Cannot inform about resilience, but may inform
about mechanism in risk group. Can be relevant for development of interventions.

 Case 1. Dunedin study

Tested 1000 New Zealand children. Many important findings:
Continuities in developmental psychopathology, problems at time X often preceded by same
problem earlier. Homotypic continuity, sometimes different problems. Heterotypic continuity.
GxE: most famous and now heavily debated for criminal offenses and for depression (MAO-A//5HTT)
Structure of psychopathology (general factor?)
Here, effects of early self-control development on multiple outcomes. Predictor based on multiple
assessments: observations at age 3 and 5, teacher/parent ratings and self-report. Outcome measures
also strong: physical assessments health, police reports, financial situation, psychiatric interview (2x).
Very general finding: child with self-control; strong relationship with physical health/substance
dependence, financial problems. Very consistent outcomes. Can be influenced with development.

 Case 2. (alcohol) addiction

Couple of observations:
- Genetic factor (~50% twin- & adoption studies): partly through general factors related to
personality. Risk partly through substance-specific factors: strong positive-arousing
reaction directly after drinking. Weak intoxication later on.
- Environmental factors (~50%): social learning? Actually children of alcoholics (even) more
negative about alcohol than others. Sub-optimal parenting  lack of rule-setting. Deviant
peer-groups  early substance use (which triggers genetic mechanisms)
Different trajectories:
- Externalizing pathway: addicted before age 23, high genetic contribution (~70%)
Mostly boys with externalizing problems in childhood (CD and gender are two best
predictors of later problems). Deviant peers, early onset substance use,
neuroadaptations, suboptimal self-control, early addiction and behavioural problems
- Internalizing pathway: addicted later, moderate genetic contribution (~30%)
Males and females score high on internalizing problems and who first learn to drink in
social context. Later in life after negative life event: escalation.
So it is related to personality, but it can go in two ways.
Important moderator: age of onset. The earlier you start, the bigger the chances of a problem. Early
onset; stronger development of sensitized appetitive respons, attentional bias, approach bias,
memory associations. Adolescence: cognitive control processes not yet fully matured; could be
negatively influenced by early use; more difficult to moderate or quit later.

 Interventions & Developmental Psychopathology

General spectrum:
- Promotion: anti-alcohol adds, increase price and minimum age
- Prevention
o Universal: school-based programs
o Selective: for risk group
o Indicated: for beginning problems
- Treatment
o Case identification
o Standard treatment for known disorders
- Maintenance
Unique way to test mechanisms. Process-oriented  target hypothetical mechanism.
General goal: positively influence trajectories. Risk-focused to reduce exposure to risk factors, for
example extra care for parents or infants at risk.
Often asset-focused. Stimulate protective factors when you know risk factors are at play
School-based:
- Background: hardly effective.
- Intervention. Effective in combination with parent intervention! Alone both are not
effective. Important to make intervention more effective. Proves rule-setting has causal
effect.
 - Self-control: can it be trained? Good behaviour game (GBG). Teacher trained to set clear
rules. Points etc. positive effect, even years later. GBG reduces onset of smoking and
drinking in secondary education.
- Indicated interventions; early intervention for at-risk infants. Parents coached to become
more responsive to infant. Early adolescents: select adolescents scoring high on one of
these personalities, give them group-based intervention acknowledging pros and risks of
their personality. Provide them with positive alternatives.

Binge drinking in sensation-seekers. Normative steep increase in binge-drinking in 15 year-olds.

Prevented (at least for a year) after this targeted intervention (selective prevention)

 Case 3. James Fallon

Has the brain of a psychopathic murderer. But because he grew up in a good environment (warm
family, etc.) he became a neuroscientists.

LECTURE 14: Annemie Ploeger

Atypical development (ch. 21)
Third year: specialization in developmental psychology (English). Research master with specialization,
development & health master and clinical developmental psychology master.
 What is typical and atypical development?
First you need to know what typical development is. Typical development:
- Absence of disorder
- Statistical fact (e.g. within 2 SD’s from the mean)
- Desired situation
- Successful adaptation: someone will survive and is able to reproduce. High IQ is not an
adaptation; lower chances of reproductive success; why?
Atypical development: delayed (prematurely born children) or different?
Requires different treatments

 How to study atypical development

Gold standard: clinical group compared to two control groups: one
matched on chronological age and one matched on mental age.
Question to think about: how can you distinguish delay from difference
with this research design?
Underperformance of clinical group compared to control group matched
on chronological age, but not to mental age: delay.
Underperformance of clinical group compared to control group matched
on chronological age and mental age: difference.

So in the image on the right; difference.

 Why study atypical development?

Designing better interventions; there are a lot of different theories about atypical development.
For autism for instance: lack of Theory of Mind, executive function deficits, weak central coherence,
lack of social motivation, lack of predictive coding, basic perceptual deficits, etc., etc.
Better understanding of typical development; we know about the lack of theory of mind in autism,
which taught us for instance that Theory of Mind develops naturally around the age of four and no
formal instruction is necessary (in contrast to autism).
 Common developmental disorders
Autism
DSM-IV (before 2013). Three domains: Problems with social interaction, problems with
communication, & limited, stereotyped and repetitive patterns of behaviour.
DSM-5 (since 2013). Two domains: Problems with social interaction and communication & Limited
stereotyped and repetitive patterns of behaviour. Since DSM-V, no more subtipes such as classical
autism, Asperger syndrome (no language problem; silly/repetitive behaviour) or PDD-NOS (Pervasive
Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified). A lot of children diagnosed with PDD-NOS 
ASD.
But large individual differences in the autism spectrum disorder now!
Prevalence: severe autism about 1 out of 1000. All kinds of autism: 1 out of 100. Boys:girls = 4:1
Why is the prevalence of autism increasing? More knowledge about the disorder. Different
diagnostic tools. Early identification (gaze following; babies not making eye contact). Assortative
mating (partner similar to yourself; if people who are good at engineering/eye for details: higher risk
of getting a child with autism).
Comorbidity: 70% of the children with autism spectrum disorder also meet the criteria of other
disorders. Often 2-5 extra diagnoses: anxiety disorder (42-56%), ADHD(28-44%), oppositional defiant
disorder(16-28%), depression (12-70%)

ADHD
Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
DSM-V: two main symptoms: inattention (no attention to details, careless mistakes in schoolwork or
difficulty organizing tasks and activities) and hyperactivity-impulsivity (leaves seat when remaining
seated is expected, blurts out an answer before question is completed). Three subtypes:
- Combined type
- Predominantly inattentive type
- Predominantly hyperactive/impulse type
Prevalence: about 6-7 out of 100 in youth, 5 out of 100 in adults. Boys:girls = 3:1.
Comorbidity: learning disorders (56%), sleep disorders (23%), oppositional defiant disorder (20%),
anxiety disorder (12%)

 Advances in studying atypical development?

Knowledge about prenatal development
 Autism
- Prenatal factors associated with an increased risk of autism:
- Maternal diabetes
- Prenatal infections and inflammation: rubella, cytomegalovirus/herpes, influenza,
toxoplasma, parvovirus, tick borne infections.
- Prenatal exposure to drugs and chemicals: selective serotonine reuptake inhibitors
(SSRIs), valproic acid (VPA), thalidomide, cocaine, alcohol, misoprostol, cigarette
smoking, air pollution, heavy metals, pesticides and insecticides.
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Folic acid deficiency
  ADHD
- Maternal stress during pregnancy
- Heavy metals
- Cigarette smoking
- alcohol
How to disentangle different factors, such as smoking and drinking (often occurs together)? Large
study. Increased risk of ADHD: prenatal exposure to alcohol 1.55, maternal smoking 2.64, paternal
smoking 1.17. increased risk of ADHD with mothers that did not smoke during pregnancy: paternal
smoking, no alcohol by mother 1.16. alcohol by mother, no paternal smoking 1.19. paternal smoking
and alcohol by mother: 1.58.
Might also be caused by genes underlying impulsivity.

Knowledge about genetics

 Autism
Correlation MZ twins = 0.98, DZ twins = 0.53. High heritability, 64-91%.
Rare genetic variants, both de novo and inherited, are causal in 10-30% of people with ASD:
TSC1/TSC2, fMRI, fragile X syndrome.
Common genetic variants; the risk in increase by single common variant is low: but cumitatively, it is
causal in 15-50% of people with ASD. More than 800 genes have been associated with ASD
(polygenic disorder).
Clinical relevance of genetics findings? Genetic findings confirm that ASD is a broader somatic
condition, including immunological and sleep problems. Recent study: 55% of 187 genetics findings
prompted changes in clinical care -- mostly referring to additional services. Gain of knowledge for the
family, genetic counselling in reproductive decisions, genetics can inform pharmacotherapy.

 ADHD
High heritability: average of 74%.
Similar pattern of ADHD as for autism: rare genetic variants, both de novo and inherited. Common
genetic variants. Many different genes involved (polygenic disorder).
Genetic correlations of ADHD with other traits: number of children in family, etc. (impulsivity; eating
too much or smoking): correlated to diseases like obesity, overweight, lung cancer, etc.
Prevalence of ADHD in rare genetic syndromes (similar patterns as in autism).

Conclusion: mental disorders are complex; symptoms are heterogenous. Underlying genetics are also
complex and heterogenous. All common mental disorders are polygenic. All common mental
disorders show high comorbidity with other mental disorders and with somatic problems.

Brain imaging
 Autism
All the “social brain areas” function differently in people with autism spectrum disorder. (but don’t
forget individual differences; in 50% of the cases, there is nothing to see in the brain). Important
when using brain imaging as intervention therapy.
fMRI: in one specific executive functioning test (but not in others), there was a greater brain activity
in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC): but no difference in behavioural scores! (classifying letters
based on composition).
mEG: people with autism had a delay in response when listening to tones; encoding deficit in
auditory perception.
 ADHD
ERPs (EEG): Stop Signal task to measure inhibitory control ADHD-combbined; impaired early
response inhibition mechanism, indexed by reduced N200 in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
(dlPFC).

Eye tracking
 Autism
Hypothesis: people with autism spend less time fixating on the eyes of the characters in the videos.
Surprising result, showing the heterogeneity of autism: hypothesis was confirmed for autism without
language impairment. Not confirmed for autism with language impairment (similar results as
controls).
Very often: data that are too hard to interpret.

 ADHD
Hypothesis: ADHD is associated with inattention and impulsivity -- it is expected that people with
ADHD show premature saccades as a measure of the inability to inhibit responding to a prepotent
task-relevant stimulus. “eyes go everywhere” The hypothesis was confirmed (in adults with ADHD).
Clinical relevance? Potential intervention: extending attention span of ADHD children through an
eye-tracker-directed adaptive user interface.

 Explaining developmental disorders

 Autism. Three main theories:
1. Theory of Mind
Children with autism tend to perform poorly on ToM tasks, such as false beliefs tasks. But: some
children with autism do perform well on ToM tasks, but nevertheless show poor social functioning.
And: some children with autism also perform poorly on non-social tasks about physical properties:
more is going on.
2. Executive function hypothesis
Children with autism tend to perform poorly on tasks related to executive functioning, especially
cognitive flexibility. Wisconsin Card Sorting Task.
3. Central coherence hypothesis: focus on details
Children with autism tend to have weak central coherence -- tendency to focus on details rather than
the whole picture. Embedded Figures test: people with autism perform better because they don’t see
the whole picture.
For which one is the most evidence? Is executive functioning the main problem; which causes a lack
of ToM? Longitudinal design: measuring the same children at different ages. 4-7 year olds and 3 years
later. Results: executive functioning at measurement 1 predicts ToM 3 years later. ToM at
measurement 1 did not preduct executive functioning 3 years later. So executive functioning comes
before ToM. Central coherence predicts ToM later. ToM does not predict central coherence.
Executive functioning and central coherence do not predict each other so they develop
independently.
What’s more? Lack of social motivation, lack of predictive coding, basic perceptual deficits, etc. etc.
 No conclusive evidence yet, probably due to heterogeneity of symptoms and large individual
differences

 ADHD
Main thing that’s going wrong: core deficit in inhibitory control. But there’s more to ADHD than just
inhibitory control. New model: dual pathway model of ADHD.
  Interventions
 Autism
Heterogeneity in symptoms and causes  heterogeneity in interventions. No evidence-based
pharmacological interventions. 27 evidence-based psychological interventions (cognitive behavioural
therapy, social skills training, modelling, picture exchange communication system).
 ADHD
Evidence-based pharmacological intervention: methylphenidate (Ritalin). No evidence-based dietary
or psychological interventions (lack of double-blind studies). Very limited evidence for free fatty acid
supplementation, artificial food color exclusion, neurofeedback and cognitive training.

Take home message:

Common developmental disorders are heterogenous: variety of symptoms, large individual
differences, comorbidity, variety of underlying brain processes, variety of underlying genes.
Implication for interventions: customization.