BLEPP REVIEWER 2025 – KID ASUNCION

I. Introduction to Human Development

• Definition: Human development is the scientific study of systematic processes of
change and stability in people from conception through maturity. Developmental
scientists examine how people change and which characteristics remain stable over
the lifespan.
• Importance: Understanding developmental psychology has practical applications in
child-rearing, education, health, and social policy.
o Example: Research on school start times shows that delaying them for
middle and high school students (to 8:30 AM or later) aligns better with
adolescent biological circadian rhythms, leading to more sleep, reduced
daytime sleepiness, less difficulty staying awake in class, lower depression
levels, greater extracurricular participation, and improved driving safety.
• Lifespan Development: This is a core concept, viewing human development as a
lifelong process ("womb to tomb") that can be studied scientifically. It doesn't conclude
after adolescence and acknowledges that development can be both positive and
negative.

II. Goals of Human Development

The study of human development aims to:
1. Describe: To detail typical developmental patterns, such as when most children say
their first word or the extent of their vocabulary at a certain age.
2. Explain: To understand how developmental phenomena occur, like how children
acquire language or why some might learn to speak later than others.
3. Predict: To use existing knowledge to forecast future behavior, such as the
likelihood of a child having serious speech problems.
4. Intervene: To use understanding to support development, for instance, by providing
speech therapy to a child.
• Note: Development is complex, multifaceted, and shaped by interacting areas of
influence.

III. Basic Concepts in the Study of Human Development

• A. Domains of Development: These are interrelated aspects that affect one another.
1. Physical Development: Involves the growth of the body and brain, including
changes in sensory capacities, motor skills, and health.
2. Cognitive Development: Encompasses patterns of change in mental
abilities like learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and
creativity.

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3. Psychosocial Development: Focuses on patterns of change in emotions,

personality, and social relationships.

• B. Periods of the Life Span: The division of the lifespan into periods is a social
construction, meaning it's a concept invented by a particular culture or society and
can vary across cultures.
o Historically, concepts like adolescence (added in the 1920s) or middle age
didn't exist in some societies.
o Emerging Adulthood: A relatively new proposed period (Arnett, 2000)
describing the transitional time between adolescence and the full attainment of
adult benchmarks.
o "Four Ages" of Lifespan Development (for adult development focus):
▪ First Age: Childhood and adolescence.
▪ Second Age: Prime adulthood (20s to 50s).
▪ Third Age: Approximately 60 to 79 years.
▪ Fourth Age: Approximately 80 years and older.
o Interconnectedness: A key aspect is understanding how development in
one period is connected to development in others.
o Typical Major Developments (Summary Table): Your notes include
detailed tables (Table 1) outlining typical physical, cognitive, and psychosocial
developments across eight periods: Prenatal, Infancy/Toddlerhood, Early
Childhood, Middle Childhood, Adolescence, Emerging/Young Adulthood,
Middle Adulthood, and Late Adulthood. Developmentalists suggest certain
basic needs must be met and tasks mastered for typical development.

IV. Influences on Development

• A. Individual Differences: People vary in gender, height, weight, health, energy
level, intelligence, temperament, personality, and emotional reactions. Context also
plays a significant role. The challenge is to identify universal influences and then apply
them to understand individual developmental trajectories.
• B. Nature vs. Nurture:
o Heredity (Nature): Inborn traits inherited from biological parents.
o Environment (Nurture): Nonhereditary, experiential influences, from prenatal
life onwards.
o Interaction: Contemporary theorists focus on how nature and nurture work
together rather than which is more important.
▪ Epigenetics: The study of how environmental factors can influence
gene expression and development.
o Maturity: The unfolding of a natural sequence of physical and behavioral
changes, influencing certain biological processes. While processes are

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universal, rates and timing vary; ages for milestones are averages. Significant
deviation may indicate exceptionally advanced or delayed development.
Individual differences tend to increase with age.
• C. Stability vs. Change: This addresses the degree to which early traits persist or
change throughout life.
o Those emphasizing stability often link it to heredity and early experiences.
o Those emphasizing change believe later experiences can produce
modifications.
o Debate on Early vs. Later Experience: Some argue that warm, nurturant
caregiving in the first year is crucial for optimal development. Others see
children as malleable throughout development, with later sensitive caregiving
being equally important.
• D. Continuity vs. Discontinuity:
o Continuity: Development involves gradual, cumulative change (quantitative,
like an oak seedling growing into a tree).
o Discontinuity: Development involves distinct stages or changes (qualitative,
like metamorphosis).

V. Contexts of Development
• A. Family:
o Nuclear Family: A two-generational unit of parent(s) and their biological,
adopted, or stepchildren. More common in developed countries, though
becoming less common partly due to economic factors.
o Extended Family: A multigenerational kinship network (parents, children,
other relatives), sometimes living together. Common in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America.
• B. Socioeconomic Status (SES):
o Poverty: Can be stressful and damage physical, cognitive, and psychosocial
well-being. Poor children are more likely to experience hunger, illness, lack of
healthcare access, violence, family conflict, and emotional/behavioral
problems.
▪ Harm is often indirect, impacting parents' emotional state, parenting,
and the home environment.
▪ Multiple risk factors (conditions increasing the likelihood of negative
outcomes) exacerbate threats.
▪ Earlier onset, longer duration, and higher community concentration of
poverty worsen outcomes.
▪ Buffers: Negative effects are not inevitable; supportive parenting and
temperament can protect children.

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o Affluence: Does not guarantee protection from risk. Affluent adolescents

(especially girls) may have higher rates of substance abuse.
• C. Culture, Race, and Ethnicity: These are fluid concepts, continuously changed
and redefined by social and political forces.
o Culture: A society's or group's total way of life (customs, traditions, beliefs,
values, language, physical products), learned and passed on. It is constantly
changing, often through contact with other cultures.
o Ethnic Group: A group united by ancestry, race, religion, language, or
national origins, fostering a shared identity.
o Influence: Ethnic and cultural patterns affect household composition,
resources, interactions, diet, play, learning, school performance, occupations,
and worldview.
o Ethnic Gloss: Overgeneralizations about an ethnic or cultural group that
obscure internal differences (e.g., assuming all individuals within "Hispanic" or
"Black" categories are homogenous).
o Race: Historically viewed as a biological category, now more accurately
defined as a social construct. There's no scientific consensus on its definition,
and it cannot be measured reliably. However, it significantly impacts how
individuals are treated, their living situations, employment, healthcare quality,
and societal participation.
• D. Gender: Gender roles and societal expectations can affect development, leading
to different experiences based on gender. (Example note: "females develop speech
earlier than males" )
• E. Historical Context:
o Normative Age-Graded Influences: Events or influences highly similar for
people in a particular age group (e.g., puberty, marriage, retirement).
o Normative History-Graded Influences: Significant events that shape the
behavior and attitudes of a historical generation (a group experiencing an
event at a formative time). Examples include major pandemics (COVID-19),
wars (WWII), or economic crises (Great Depression). These can hamper
development and are important to consider.
▪ A historical generation is not the same as an age cohort (people born
around the same time). A historical generation can include multiple
cohorts if they experience shaping historical events at a formative point.
o Nonnormative Influences: Unusual events with a major impact on individual
lives because they disturb the expected life cycle sequence.
▪ Can be typical events at atypical times (e.g., a young child losing a
parent) or atypical events (e.g., surviving a car crash).
▪ Some are beyond control; others are created by individuals (e.g.,
deciding to have a baby at 15).

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VI. Timing of Influences: Critical and Sensitive Periods

• A. Imprinting (Konrad Lorenz):
o An instinctive form of learning where, during a critical period in early
development, a young animal forms an attachment to the first moving object it
sees (usually the mother).
o Lorenz believed this was automatic and irreversible.
o It results from a predisposition to learn, where the organism's nervous system
is ready to acquire certain information during a brief early critical period (e.g.,
a few hours after birth for some ducks).
• B. Critical Period:
o A specific time when a given event (or its absence) has a specific impact on
development. (Example: Oxygen at birth is critical; lack can lead to intellectual
disability).
o The length is not absolutely fixed.
o The concept is controversial in humans because many aspects of development
show plasticity (modifiability of performance).
• C. Sensitive Period:
o A more useful concept for humans; times when a developing person is
especially responsive to certain kinds of experiences.
o Comparison:
▪ Critical Period: Essential exposure to a specific stimulus for normal
development; very short duration; well-defined start/end; effects
considered irreversible.
▪ Sensitive Period: Less rigid than a critical period; no exact timeframe;
results not necessarily dramatic or irreversible; periods when humans
are especially responsive/open to experiences (e.g., adolescence for
certain social learning).
• D. Plasticity:
o The ability for performance to change or be modified.
o There are individual differences in plasticity in response to environmental
events.
o Some children (e.g., those with difficult temperaments, high reactivity, or
particular gene variants) may be more profoundly affected by childhood
experiences (positive or negative) than others.
o Characteristics generally seen as negative (like a reactive temperament) can
be adaptive in a supportive environment. Highly reactive children in low-
adversity families showed more adaptive profiles (more prosocial, engaged in
school, fewer externalizing symptoms) than less reactive children.

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• E. Infant-Directed (ID) Speech ("Baby Talk"):

o Characterized by simplified grammar, slower tempo, pitch variations,
exaggerated intonation, and repetition. Used by both men and women.
o Infants as young as 7 weeks show a preference for ID speech, even in
unfamiliar languages.
o Benefits: Associated with linking sounds to meanings, increased long-term
word recognition, and increased neural activity.
o Preference declines around 9-12 months as infants become more linguistically
sophisticated.
o Note: Regardless of ID speech use, infants worldwide achieve language
fluency along roughly the same timetable.

VII. Baltes's Life-Span Developmental Approach: Key Principles

1. Development is Lifelong: Change occurs throughout life; each period is affected by
the past and affects the future. No period is more or less important than others.
2. Development is Multidimensional: Occurs along interacting biological,
psychological, and social dimensions, each potentially developing at different rates.
3. Development is Multidirectional: Gains in one area can mean losses in another,
sometimes concurrently. Children mostly grow (size, abilities). Adolescents gain
physical abilities but may lose facility in learning a new language. Vocabulary may
increase in adulthood, while problem-solving with unfamiliar problems might diminish;
wisdom can increase.
4. Relative Influences of Biology and Culture Shift Over the Life Span: Both
influence development, but their balance changes. Biological abilities (sensory acuity,
strength) may weaken with age, but cultural supports (education, relationships,
technology) can compensate. (Also referred to as "Development is contextual" in
notes).
5. Development Involves Changing Resource Allocations: Individuals invest
resources (time, energy, money, social support) differently. Resources can be used
for growth, maintenance/recovery, or dealing with loss. The allocation shifts as total
resources decrease; typically, growth in childhood/young adulthood, regulation of loss
in old age, and a balance in midlife. (Related to Neugarten's Select-Optimize-
Compensate (SOC) model).
6. Development Shows Plasticity: Many abilities (memory, strength) can be improved
with training, even late in life. Plasticity has limits, depending on various influences.
Research aims to discover the extent of modifiability at various ages.
7. Development is Influenced by the Historical and Cultural Context: Everyone
develops within multiple contexts (circumstances defined by maturation, time, and
place). Humans influence and are influenced by their historical-cultural context.
Significant cohort differences exist in areas like intellectual functioning and personality

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flexibility in old age. Development is seen as a co-construction of biology, culture, and

the individual.
• Note: The study of human development is multidisciplinary, drawing from
psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, biology, genetics, family science,
education, history, philosophy, and medicine.

VIII. Significance and Conceptions of Age

• Age and Happiness: The correlation depends on many factors. Research varies:
some find a positive correlation, some negative, and some a U-shaped curve.
o Example: Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) reported less happiness than
earlier cohorts, possibly due to not lowering aspirations as they age.
• Conceptions of Age: Chronological age isn't always the most relevant factor for
psychological development.
o Biological Age: Age in terms of biological health; functional capacities of vital
organs.
o Psychological Age: An individual's adaptive capacities compared to others
of the same chronological age (e.g., flexibility, motivation, emotional control,
clear thinking). Reflects psychological maturity.
o Social Age: Social roles and expectations related to a person's age (e.g., the
role of "mother").
o Overall Age Profile: From a life-span perspective, understanding an
individual involves considering chronological, biological, psychological, and
social age. (Example provided of a 70-year-old man with varied ages across
these domains).

IX. Additional Theory: Gesell's Maturation Theory

• Maturation: Gesell used this term for genetically activated developmental processes.
• Nervous System Focus: Argued that the rate of children's development primarily
depends on the growth of their nervous system; as it grows, minds develop, and
behaviors change accordingly.
• Fixed Sequences: Observed that maturational development always unfolds in fixed
sequences.
• Role of Environment: Stated that social and cultural environments also play a role,
being most effective when harmonious with the inner maturational timetable.
• Readiness: Opposed teaching children things ahead of their developmental
schedule, believing they would develop skills naturally once their nervous system had
matured adequately.

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