Essentials of Human Development Study

Hello and welcome to class. We are going to begin chapter one today. There is a discussion on your learning management system. Please take time to introduce yourself to your classmates and get to know each other. You're about to begin your study of human development from conception to death. At the moment of conception, a single cell begins that development that becomes a living, breathing human being. And that is only the beginning of the process of development. Life is exciting and precious. I'm glad you've chosen to study human development and enter into a scientific understanding of the process of change in human beings. This week, you have four objectives. to describe human development and how its study has evolved, describe the domains of periods of human development, give examples of influences that make one person different from another, and discuss the principles of the lifespan perspective. During the course, we will discuss some big ideas, such as Why is science crucial for understanding how people develop? Are people the same always and everywhere, or is each person unique? How are the methods of science used to study development? And what must scientists do to make their conclusions valid and ethical? As future nurses and healthcare professionals, you have entered a science-based field. And it is important to understand the science. In this class, we will study the science of human development and the work of the scientists that advanced the field. We will see that in the beginning, the people that studied human development were primarily interested in infants and children, mainly because that is where they perceived the most interesting and rapid development to occur. Now we know that the lifespan or womb-to-tomb development is important to study. We know the study is important because your life and development can be positive or it can be negative. Can you give me an example of a positive development? Some examples would be toilet training or enrolling in a college course. There are also examples of negative development. Think a minute. What would an example of negative development be? One example would be experiencing a traumatic event or being isolated after retirement. Throughout the course, we will talk about the positives and the negative impacts on development. Human development focuses on the scientific study of the systematic processes of change and stability in people. Human development is beautiful and fascinating from conception to death. In this course, we will study it all. We recognize that human development is lifelong and that it can be. positive or negative. I can choose to take a single college course after I retire, which would be positive, or I can choose to isolate myself, which would be negative. Growth is multi-directional, meaning it changes in all directions, and those changes are all possible. part of life, but there are critical periods and sensitive periods. Growth is multi-contextual. Human development is fundamentally contextual. Physical surrounds, family structure, and community characteristics all have an impact. It is multicultural. Culture is the system of shared beliefs. conventions, behaviors, and expectations. and more. It is multidisciplinary. It is biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial. And it is plastic. Human traits can be molded, yet maintain durability of identity. During the course, you will find that the chapters are divided into three major domains. Physical, Cognitive, and Psychosocial. That is because those are considered to be the three main domains of growth and development. Physical is the growth of the body and brain, sensory capacity, motor skills, and health. Cognitive is learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity. And Psychosocial is emotions, personality. and social relations. However, try not to think of them as totally distinct. Physical development impacts cognitive development and cognitive advances and declines are related to physical and psychosocial development. Without meaning, social development, physical and cognitive, can suffer. What does it do? to your self-confidence if you're physically awkward. There are multiple ways the periods of development are divided. For our purposes, we will use the one in your textbook. However, we should recognize that these time periods are a social construct. Does anyone know what a social construct is? A social construct is a concept or practice that is an invention of a particular culture or society. You will notice in table 1.1 in your textbook that it is divided into physical, cognitive, and psychosocial. If you will take the time to learn the information in this table now, It will make the rest of the semester a lot easier. This is information that is important for you to remember. You will touch on each item in this table throughout the semester. What we expect at different ages is sometimes dependent on our culture. Your textbook gives an example of children in one area of Thailand. that are regularly allowed to play with sharp knives and by the age of four are able to use them skillfully. I don't even allow my husband to play with sharp knives so I can't imagine letting a child play with one. This shows you a difference that comes from the culture in which we are raised. Remember again these age divisions that we will use during this course are a social construct, and they are not consistent around the world, although many of them are fairly commonly adopted. There are multiple influences on development. While we study the commonalities, we also study individual differences. Let's begin by discussing the influences of heredity, environment, and maturation. Some traits are inherited from biological parents, and thus heredity characteristics or nature. So, heredity characteristics we speak of as nature. Other influences come from the environment, which is All those things outside of the self, such as socioeconomic status, neighborhoods, family, and culture. We refer to the environment as nurture. I'm sure you've heard about questions of nature versus nurture. Intelligence is a good example of nature and nurture. Part of the equation is what you inherited from your parents. But another part... is the stimulation of your intellectual interest and your peer influences. It is one of the reasons parents are so concerned about the friends of their children. If my parents make a... lot of money, I'm advantaged. If their socioeconomic status is high, I'm advantaged. If they have college degrees, I'm advantaged. This is where environment plays a role. But environment isn't everything. My parents didn't go to college. They would have been at the time considered lower middle class. They didn't have many books in the house, and they didn't particularly value education. But they worked really hard, and they were good people. My husband, on the other hand, his mother didn't graduate from high school, but his father had a graduate degree. He highly valued education, and there were always lots of books in the house. He expected him. to not only go to college, but go to graduate school. Yet we both ended up with doctoral degree, nature versus nurture. Who knows? We'll talk about it as the semester goes on. The other part of the equation is maturation. Some things, such as walking, have much to do with muscle development and the body and the brain connecting in what is a natural sequence of events. We all know it is not possible for a newborn to walk. And even when children begin to walk, it is amusingly awkward. When you take heredity, environment, and maturation together, we end up with the big picture of development. Not everyone develops physical or mental capabilities at the same rate, which is why we need to remember that we are individuals. And it's why you, as future nurses, need to pay attention and learn the range of what is normal and then what is outside the norm. Let's review. Heredity refers to, do you remember the answer? Heredity refers to inborn characteristics. inherited from the biological parents. By our nature, we're social beings. Some of us are more social than others. Our first social context is our family. I grew up in a fairly traditional family for that period of time. I had a mom, a dad, and three brothers. We live close to aunt, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who at various times lived with us. Different families have different structures. A nuclear family is made up of two parents and their children. The children may be biological, adopted, or stepchildren. The number of people living in a traditional nuclear family has declined in the United States. There are multiple reasons, including divorce, but also a change in how we view the importance of a two-parent household. It is typical in these families to work outside the house. We also know that the divorce rate in the U.S. is high, which we will discuss later in the course. We also know the number of children is declining, and we'll discuss that in future chapters. The number of the... people living in the United States in extended families has been steadily increasing. Do you have any speculation why this might be? Some of the reasons are economic reasons, immigration, housing shortages, and out-of-wedlock childbearing. A big part of it, though, really is economic conditions. This results in things like older children caring for younger children. Remember my family? Most of the time we would have been considered a traditional nuclear family, two parents and their children living in a household. But there were times that I remember my great aunt living with us and other times my aunt. Uncle and cousin living with us and yet another time cousin from California coming to live with us. That would be multi-generational kinship networks. That would be an extended family. Let's review again. In a typical nuclear family that is currently found in the U.S., would you expect both parents to work? In a typical nuclear families that are currently found in the United States, both parents work outside the home. We're going to talk a little bit more about the impact of the environment, so socioeconomic status and neighborhoods. When considering growth and development, it's important to recognize the environmental impact. of socioeconomic status and one's neighborhood. Your textbook points out that socioeconomic status is a combination of family income, educational status, and occupational level. The American Psychological Association states that socioeconomic status is the social standing or class of an individual or group. It is often measured as a combination of education, income, and occupation. Let me give you an example of the impact of your socioeconomic status. So family income, educational level, and occupational level. I lived in St. Louis for a while. St. Louis... at the time was the sixth most segregated city in the country. And if you went into some of the poorest areas of the cities, you would see what is referred to as food deserts. Not only were there no grocery stores where you could buy fresh fruit and vegetables, or much of anything, but there was a lack of transportation. You may have to walk a couple of miles. to the nearest bus for public transportation. If you were poor, you were poorly educated, and you lived in a food desert. This could lead, and does lead, to all kinds of disparities that are related to your poverty. And those then complicate... much of your development throughout your life. We will come back to this again in later chapters in much more detail. Figure 1.1 in your text gives you a snapshot of the world population in poverty. Can you imagine living on less than $1.90 a day? In the U.S., 18% of children under 18 live in poverty. As you may have heard, the recent addition of the Child Tax Credit, which just expired again, and the U.S. should have the greatest impact on child poverty in the U.S. Let's take a look at this slide. This shows how much the supplemental income to families matters. It is divided out by all children, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Black, Hispanic, Multiracial, and all others, Native American, and White. You will notice the current rate and the rate with the child allowances. For many groups, especially Black, Hispanic, Native American, It drops the child poverty rate by half. What do you think raising children out of poverty is important? Stop, take a minute, write down your answer. There are poverty-related risks. Poverty increases the chance of negative outcomes, including emotional and behavioral problems. with children. Potential declines in cognitive potential at school performance. being hungry and inadequate access to health care leading to poor health what we do know is that poverty and especially long-term poverty can have a long-lasting and harmful impact on physical cognitive and psychosocial well-being of not only children but their families of course there are things They can limit the impact of poverty on children and families, and this has a lot to do with the temperament of the parents. Children in low-income households typically perform significantly more poorly than their middle-and high-income peers on a number of educational variables. They tend to have lower standardized scores, their graduation rates are lower, and they have lower college entrance rates. If you think about these things, this then not only is impacting their childhood, but their whole future and the future of their families, which is why it is so important to address child poverty. Culture. refers to a society or group's total way of life. So, it would include customs, traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefs, values, language, physical products such as artwork and music, and behaviors and attitudes. Tell me what your culture is. Feel free to add it to your discussion for this week and share it in the comments. your discussion group. Have a discussion about why culture is important. Race, on the other hand, was once believed to be biological, but is actually a social construct. We continue to use race in research because it does impact how people are treated, where they live, the jobs they hold. and both their access to health care and the quality of health care provided. Sadly, we still see race-based bias in the provision of care. For example, it is well recognized that there is a significant difference in the treatment of pain in black patients as opposed to white. As a future nurse, it is important for you to recognize the bias and work hard. to eliminate it. Now let's talk about ethnicity. Ethnic groups consist of people united by a distinctive culture, ancestry, religion, language, or national origin, which contribute to a sense of shared identity. I've included a graphic for you that shows you the difference between ethnicity and culture. It's a good idea to take time to look at this graphic. Even though we've walked through them, sometimes it helps to see them side by side so that you can understand the difference. A little more review. Let's see what you remember. An ethnic group refers to... Say it out loud. An ethnic group refers to a group united by ancestry, race, religion, language, or natural origins, which contribute to a sense of shared identity. In health care, we think about normative events as those that happen to most people. and are predictable. So normative means normal. They happen to most people and they're predictable. For example, we don't go through puberty in our 30s or menopause in our teens. They are characteristics of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event that happens at a usual time. Okay. So, non-normative. Characteristics of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event. that happens at an unusual time. They are unique experiences of an individual, whether it's biological or it's environmental, and these shape that person's developmental process. They could include things like earning a master's degree or getting a job or other non-normative events. like going through a divorce or coping with the death of a child. Sometimes the events that occur to us, they occur as part of what we refer to as a cohort. A cohort is a group of people who are born at roughly the same time period in a particular society. Cohorts share histories and contexts for living. And the members of that cohort may have experienced the same historical events or cultural climates, and they then impact their values and their priorities and the goals that guide their lives. I'm going to give you an example. This is an example I pulled from Lumen Learning. It's a site worth taking a look at. Let me read this to you, and then I want you to think about it. And I hope it helps you understand the concept of what a cohort is. So, here is the example. Considering a young boy's concern if he grew up in the United States during World War II, let's call him Henry. What Henry's family buys is limited by the small budget and by... a governmental program set up to ration food and other materials that are in short supply because of the war. He is eager rather than resentful about being thrifty and sees his action as meaningful contributions to the good of others. As Henry grows up, he has a family of his own. He is motivated by images of success tied to his past experiences. He views a successful man as one who can provide for a family financially, who has a wife, who stays at home and cares for the children, and children who are respectful but enjoy the luxury of days filled with school and play without having to consider the burdens of society's struggles. He marries soon after completing high school, has four children, works hard to support his family, and is able to do so during the prosperous post-war economics of the 1950s in America. But economic conditions change in the 1960s through the 70s. Henry's wife, Patricia, begins to work to help the family financially and to overcome her boredom with being a stay-at-home mom. The children are teenagers in a very different social climate, one of social unrest, liberation, and changes in the status quo. They are not sheltered from the concern of society. They see television broadcasts in their own living room of the war in Vietnam, and they fear the draft. They are part of the middle-class youth culture that is very visible and vocal. Henry's employment as an engineer eventually becomes difficult, and as a result of downsizing in the defense industry, his marriage of 25 years ends in divorce. This is not a unique personal history, rather in a story shared by many members of Henry's cohort. Historic contexts shape our life choices and motivations as well as our eventual assessments of success or failure. During the course of our existence, Henry shares many normative age-related influences with his peers, such as entering the workforce at the same time or having kids around the same age, but also normative history-graded experiences such as living through the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Henry's unique life experiences, such as having four kids, Getting a divorce and losing a job are the non-normative influences that also affect his development. Does this help you understand cohorts? You can always stop... the video and take time to review it again and then go back and look at the definitions of normative and non-normative experiences. Let's review. What is an example of a historical generation? Here's an example for you. A group of people born in the early 1990s during the first Gulf War. You have probably all seen this picture before. It's Conrad Lorenz with his ducks following him. We need to remember that there are critical and sensitive periods. Conrad Lorenz showed that newly hatched ducklings will instinctively follow the first moving object they see. That is called imprinting. Imprinting is an example of a predisposition toward learning. Imprinting is important biological instinct for survival in newborns. It is also a critical period. A critical period is a time when an event or absence of an event has an impact on development. I recently corrected an online post of a Catholic bishop on human development. His error was minor, but There are critical periods in the development of human beings, and no more so than prior to birth. It led to many people not understanding why it is important. It was important because there are critical periods. Remember, a critical period is a specific time when a given event or its absence has specific impact on development. It is if a necessary event does not occur during a critical period, normal development will not occur. And the resulting abnormal patterns may be irreversible. So some examples of critical periods include times during pregnancy, which is one of the reasons I bothered to correct the person's error. If a woman takes certain drugs, um... or contract certain diseases at a specific time during pregnancy, the fetus may have effects of that drug or that illness. And those effects will be lifelong. In the U.S. and in many countries, there was a specific period of time when a lot of women took a drug. for morning sickness. And the drug had horrible impacts of causing children to be born without limbs. If a certain muscular problem in the eyes is not corrected early, depth perception probably will not develop. Those are just a couple of examples of critical periods. But these critical periods aren't just while you're... in the uterus. These will occur throughout your life. Some children are more profoundly impacted by their environmental events relative to other children. Your book gives an example of highly reactive children. Highly reactive children are those who experiences and adverse family events. So things, you know, like if you lost a house, if your parents got divorced, are examples of adverse experiences. And those experiences may be, those children, those that are highly reactive, may be more likely to express aggression and behavior problems. However, when family adversity is absent, highly reactive children are more pro-social and more engaged in school. than children, low in reactivity. Many aspects of development, including physical domains like brain functioning, have been found to show plasticity, which refers to modifiability of performance. One way I like to help people think about what plasticity means is to remember that plastic molds into a shape and then holds that shape but if he Eat the plastic, it can again lose that shape. Given plasticity, it is more useful to think of sensitive periods in which a person is particularly open to certain kinds of experiences. So there are periods of time when we are more open to certain experiences than other times. And finally, in this chapter, we talk about a Baltic Lifespan Development Approach. The lifespan development involves the exploration of the biological, cognitive, and psychosocial changes and the constancies that occur throughout the entire course of our lives. It has been presented as a theoretical and a theoretical example. perspective, proposing several fundamental theoretical and methodological principles of development. Let's walk through what those are. Development is lifelong. Development is multi-dimensional. Development is multi-directional. It has relative influences of biology and culture shift. over the lifespan. Development involves changing resource allocation. Development shows plasticity and development is influenced by historical context. So what does some of that mean? Lifelong development means that development is not completed in infancy or childhood or any specific age. It is developed through the entire lifespan. from conception to death. By multidimensional, it is referring to the fact that things like biological, cognitive, and social-emotional changes do occur. There is a dynamic interaction of all these factors that influence development. It is part of the reason your chapter is divided chapters are divided up into these three aspects of development. He states that the development of a particular domain is not strictly linear, but that development of certain traits can be both an increase and a decrease over the course of one's life. Plasticity implies that there is no single pathway. that must be taken in an individual's development across the lifespan. And development occurs in context and varies from person to person, depending on the environmental factors around them, which is a way of saying we are all unique. And we all have our own unique environmental things that are touching our development every single day. I'll end this chapter by reminding you that human growth is a dynamic process, and that if you have any questions, please join me in office hours, and I will be happy to address them.

Hello and welcome to class. We are going to begin chapter one today. There is a discussion on your learning management system.

Please take time to introduce yourself to your classmates and get to know each other. You're about to begin your study of human development from conception to death. At the moment of conception, a single cell begins that development that becomes a living, breathing human being.

And that is only the beginning of the process of development. Life is exciting and precious. I'm glad you've chosen to study human development and enter into a scientific understanding of the process of change in human beings.

This week, you have four objectives. to describe human development and how its study has evolved, describe the domains of periods of human development, give examples of influences that make one person different from another, and discuss the principles of the lifespan perspective. During the course, we will discuss some big ideas, such as Why is science crucial for understanding how people develop?

Are people the same always and everywhere, or is each person unique? How are the methods of science used to study development? And what must scientists do to make their conclusions valid and ethical? As future nurses and healthcare professionals, you have entered a science-based field. And it is important to understand the science.

In this class, we will study the science of human development and the work of the scientists that advanced the field. We will see that in the beginning, the people that studied human development were primarily interested in infants and children, mainly because that is where they perceived the most interesting and rapid development to occur. Now we know that the lifespan or womb-to-tomb development is important to study. We know the study is important because your life and development can be positive or it can be negative.

Can you give me an example of a positive development? Some examples would be toilet training or enrolling in a college course. There are also examples of negative development.

Think a minute. What would an example of negative development be? One example would be experiencing a traumatic event or being isolated after retirement.

Throughout the course, we will talk about the positives and the negative impacts on development. Human development focuses on the scientific study of the systematic processes of change and stability in people. Human development is beautiful and fascinating from conception to death.

In this course, we will study it all. We recognize that human development is lifelong and that it can be. positive or negative. I can choose to take a single college course after I retire, which would be positive, or I can choose to isolate myself, which would be negative.

Growth is multi-directional, meaning it changes in all directions, and those changes are all possible. part of life, but there are critical periods and sensitive periods. Growth is multi-contextual. Human development is fundamentally contextual. Physical surrounds, family structure, and community characteristics all have an impact.

It is multicultural. Culture is the system of shared beliefs. conventions, behaviors, and expectations. and more. It is multidisciplinary.

It is biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial. And it is plastic. Human traits can be molded, yet maintain durability of identity.

During the course, you will find that the chapters are divided into three major domains. Physical, Cognitive, and Psychosocial. That is because those are considered to be the three main domains of growth and development.

Physical is the growth of the body and brain, sensory capacity, motor skills, and health. Cognitive is learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity. And Psychosocial is emotions, personality.

and social relations. However, try not to think of them as totally distinct. Physical development impacts cognitive development and cognitive advances and declines are related to physical and psychosocial development.

Without meaning, social development, physical and cognitive, can suffer. What does it do? to your self-confidence if you're physically awkward. There are multiple ways the periods of development are divided. For our purposes, we will use the one in your textbook.

However, we should recognize that these time periods are a social construct. Does anyone know what a social construct is? A social construct is a concept or practice that is an invention of a particular culture or society. You will notice in table 1.1 in your textbook that it is divided into physical, cognitive, and psychosocial.

If you will take the time to learn the information in this table now, It will make the rest of the semester a lot easier. This is information that is important for you to remember. You will touch on each item in this table throughout the semester.

What we expect at different ages is sometimes dependent on our culture. Your textbook gives an example of children in one area of Thailand. that are regularly allowed to play with sharp knives and by the age of four are able to use them skillfully.

I don't even allow my husband to play with sharp knives so I can't imagine letting a child play with one. This shows you a difference that comes from the culture in which we are raised. Remember again these age divisions that we will use during this course are a social construct, and they are not consistent around the world, although many of them are fairly commonly adopted. There are multiple influences on development. While we study the commonalities, we also study individual differences.

Let's begin by discussing the influences of heredity, environment, and maturation. Some traits are inherited from biological parents, and thus heredity characteristics or nature. So, heredity characteristics we speak of as nature.

Other influences come from the environment, which is All those things outside of the self, such as socioeconomic status, neighborhoods, family, and culture. We refer to the environment as nurture. I'm sure you've heard about questions of nature versus nurture.

Intelligence is a good example of nature and nurture. Part of the equation is what you inherited from your parents. But another part... is the stimulation of your intellectual interest and your peer influences.

It is one of the reasons parents are so concerned about the friends of their children. If my parents make a... lot of money, I'm advantaged.

If their socioeconomic status is high, I'm advantaged. If they have college degrees, I'm advantaged. This is where environment plays a role.

But environment isn't everything. My parents didn't go to college. They would have been at the time considered lower middle class.

They didn't have many books in the house, and they didn't particularly value education. But they worked really hard, and they were good people. My husband, on the other hand, his mother didn't graduate from high school, but his father had a graduate degree.

He highly valued education, and there were always lots of books in the house. He expected him. to not only go to college, but go to graduate school. Yet we both ended up with doctoral degree, nature versus nurture. Who knows?

We'll talk about it as the semester goes on. The other part of the equation is maturation. Some things, such as walking, have much to do with muscle development and the body and the brain connecting in what is a natural sequence of events.

We all know it is not possible for a newborn to walk. And even when children begin to walk, it is amusingly awkward. When you take heredity, environment, and maturation together, we end up with the big picture of development.

Not everyone develops physical or mental capabilities at the same rate, which is why we need to remember that we are individuals. And it's why you, as future nurses, need to pay attention and learn the range of what is normal and then what is outside the norm. Let's review.

Heredity refers to, do you remember the answer? Heredity refers to inborn characteristics. inherited from the biological parents.

By our nature, we're social beings. Some of us are more social than others. Our first social context is our family. I grew up in a fairly traditional family for that period of time. I had a mom, a dad, and three brothers.

We live close to aunt, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who at various times lived with us. Different families have different structures. A nuclear family is made up of two parents and their children. The children may be biological, adopted, or stepchildren. The number of people living in a traditional nuclear family has declined in the United States.

There are multiple reasons, including divorce, but also a change in how we view the importance of a two-parent household. It is typical in these families to work outside the house. We also know that the divorce rate in the U.S. is high, which we will discuss later in the course.

We also know the number of children is declining, and we'll discuss that in future chapters. The number of the... people living in the United States in extended families has been steadily increasing.

Do you have any speculation why this might be? Some of the reasons are economic reasons, immigration, housing shortages, and out-of-wedlock childbearing. A big part of it, though, really is economic conditions.

This results in things like older children caring for younger children. Remember my family? Most of the time we would have been considered a traditional nuclear family, two parents and their children living in a household.

But there were times that I remember my great aunt living with us and other times my aunt. Uncle and cousin living with us and yet another time cousin from California coming to live with us. That would be multi-generational kinship networks.

That would be an extended family. Let's review again. In a typical nuclear family that is currently found in the U.S., would you expect both parents to work?

In a typical nuclear families that are currently found in the United States, both parents work outside the home. We're going to talk a little bit more about the impact of the environment, so socioeconomic status and neighborhoods. When considering growth and development, it's important to recognize the environmental impact. of socioeconomic status and one's neighborhood.

Your textbook points out that socioeconomic status is a combination of family income, educational status, and occupational level. The American Psychological Association states that socioeconomic status is the social standing or class of an individual or group. It is often measured as a combination of education, income, and occupation.

Let me give you an example of the impact of your socioeconomic status. So family income, educational level, and occupational level. I lived in St. Louis for a while.

St. Louis... at the time was the sixth most segregated city in the country. And if you went into some of the poorest areas of the cities, you would see what is referred to as food deserts. Not only were there no grocery stores where you could buy fresh fruit and vegetables, or much of anything, but there was a lack of transportation.

You may have to walk a couple of miles. to the nearest bus for public transportation. If you were poor, you were poorly educated, and you lived in a food desert.

This could lead, and does lead, to all kinds of disparities that are related to your poverty. And those then complicate... much of your development throughout your life.

We will come back to this again in later chapters in much more detail. Figure 1.1 in your text gives you a snapshot of the world population in poverty. Can you imagine living on less than $1.90 a day? In the U.S., 18% of children under 18 live in poverty. As you may have heard, the recent addition of the Child Tax Credit, which just expired again, and the U.S. should have the greatest impact on child poverty in the U.S.

Let's take a look at this slide. This shows how much the supplemental income to families matters. It is divided out by all children, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Black, Hispanic, Multiracial, and all others, Native American, and White.

You will notice the current rate and the rate with the child allowances. For many groups, especially Black, Hispanic, Native American, It drops the child poverty rate by half. What do you think raising children out of poverty is important?

Stop, take a minute, write down your answer. There are poverty-related risks. Poverty increases the chance of negative outcomes, including emotional and behavioral problems.

with children. Potential declines in cognitive potential at school performance. being hungry and inadequate access to health care leading to poor health what we do know is that poverty and especially long-term poverty can have a long-lasting and harmful impact on physical cognitive and psychosocial well-being of not only children but their families of course there are things They can limit the impact of poverty on children and families, and this has a lot to do with the temperament of the parents.

Children in low-income households typically perform significantly more poorly than their middle-and high-income peers on a number of educational variables. They tend to have lower standardized scores, their graduation rates are lower, and they have lower college entrance rates. If you think about these things, this then not only is impacting their childhood, but their whole future and the future of their families, which is why it is so important to address child poverty.

Culture. refers to a society or group's total way of life. So, it would include customs, traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefs, values, language, physical products such as artwork and music, and behaviors and attitudes. Tell me what your culture is.

Feel free to add it to your discussion for this week and share it in the comments. your discussion group. Have a discussion about why culture is important. Race, on the other hand, was once believed to be biological, but is actually a social construct. We continue to use race in research because it does impact how people are treated, where they live, the jobs they hold.

and both their access to health care and the quality of health care provided. Sadly, we still see race-based bias in the provision of care. For example, it is well recognized that there is a significant difference in the treatment of pain in black patients as opposed to white. As a future nurse, it is important for you to recognize the bias and work hard. to eliminate it.

Now let's talk about ethnicity. Ethnic groups consist of people united by a distinctive culture, ancestry, religion, language, or national origin, which contribute to a sense of shared identity. I've included a graphic for you that shows you the difference between ethnicity and culture.

It's a good idea to take time to look at this graphic. Even though we've walked through them, sometimes it helps to see them side by side so that you can understand the difference. A little more review.

Let's see what you remember. An ethnic group refers to... Say it out loud.

An ethnic group refers to a group united by ancestry, race, religion, language, or natural origins, which contribute to a sense of shared identity. In health care, we think about normative events as those that happen to most people. and are predictable.

So normative means normal. They happen to most people and they're predictable. For example, we don't go through puberty in our 30s or menopause in our teens.

They are characteristics of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event that happens at a usual time. Okay. So, non-normative. Characteristics of an unusual event that happens to a particular person or a typical event. that happens at an unusual time.

They are unique experiences of an individual, whether it's biological or it's environmental, and these shape that person's developmental process. They could include things like earning a master's degree or getting a job or other non-normative events. like going through a divorce or coping with the death of a child.

Sometimes the events that occur to us, they occur as part of what we refer to as a cohort. A cohort is a group of people who are born at roughly the same time period in a particular society. Cohorts share histories and contexts for living. And the members of that cohort may have experienced the same historical events or cultural climates, and they then impact their values and their priorities and the goals that guide their lives.

I'm going to give you an example. This is an example I pulled from Lumen Learning. It's a site worth taking a look at.

Let me read this to you, and then I want you to think about it. And I hope it helps you understand the concept of what a cohort is. So, here is the example.

Considering a young boy's concern if he grew up in the United States during World War II, let's call him Henry. What Henry's family buys is limited by the small budget and by... a governmental program set up to ration food and other materials that are in short supply because of the war.

He is eager rather than resentful about being thrifty and sees his action as meaningful contributions to the good of others. As Henry grows up, he has a family of his own. He is motivated by images of success tied to his past experiences. He views a successful man as one who can provide for a family financially, who has a wife, who stays at home and cares for the children, and children who are respectful but enjoy the luxury of days filled with school and play without having to consider the burdens of society's struggles. He marries soon after completing high school, has four children, works hard to support his family, and is able to do so during the prosperous post-war economics of the 1950s in America.

But economic conditions change in the 1960s through the 70s. Henry's wife, Patricia, begins to work to help the family financially and to overcome her boredom with being a stay-at-home mom. The children are teenagers in a very different social climate, one of social unrest, liberation, and changes in the status quo. They are not sheltered from the concern of society.

They see television broadcasts in their own living room of the war in Vietnam, and they fear the draft. They are part of the middle-class youth culture that is very visible and vocal. Henry's employment as an engineer eventually becomes difficult, and as a result of downsizing in the defense industry, his marriage of 25 years ends in divorce. This is not a unique personal history, rather in a story shared by many members of Henry's cohort. Historic contexts shape our life choices and motivations as well as our eventual assessments of success or failure.

During the course of our existence, Henry shares many normative age-related influences with his peers, such as entering the workforce at the same time or having kids around the same age, but also normative history-graded experiences such as living through the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Henry's unique life experiences, such as having four kids, Getting a divorce and losing a job are the non-normative influences that also affect his development. Does this help you understand cohorts? You can always stop...

the video and take time to review it again and then go back and look at the definitions of normative and non-normative experiences. Let's review. What is an example of a historical generation? Here's an example for you. A group of people born in the early 1990s during the first Gulf War.

You have probably all seen this picture before. It's Conrad Lorenz with his ducks following him. We need to remember that there are critical and sensitive periods.

Conrad Lorenz showed that newly hatched ducklings will instinctively follow the first moving object they see. That is called imprinting. Imprinting is an example of a predisposition toward learning. Imprinting is important biological instinct for survival in newborns. It is also a critical period.

A critical period is a time when an event or absence of an event has an impact on development. I recently corrected an online post of a Catholic bishop on human development. His error was minor, but There are critical periods in the development of human beings, and no more so than prior to birth. It led to many people not understanding why it is important. It was important because there are critical periods.

Remember, a critical period is a specific time when a given event or its absence has specific impact on development. It is if a necessary event does not occur during a critical period, normal development will not occur. And the resulting abnormal patterns may be irreversible. So some examples of critical periods include times during pregnancy, which is one of the reasons I bothered to correct the person's error.

If a woman takes certain drugs, um... or contract certain diseases at a specific time during pregnancy, the fetus may have effects of that drug or that illness. And those effects will be lifelong.

In the U.S. and in many countries, there was a specific period of time when a lot of women took a drug. for morning sickness. And the drug had horrible impacts of causing children to be born without limbs.

If a certain muscular problem in the eyes is not corrected early, depth perception probably will not develop. Those are just a couple of examples of critical periods. But these critical periods aren't just while you're...

in the uterus. These will occur throughout your life. Some children are more profoundly impacted by their environmental events relative to other children.

Your book gives an example of highly reactive children. Highly reactive children are those who experiences and adverse family events. So things, you know, like if you lost a house, if your parents got divorced, are examples of adverse experiences.

And those experiences may be, those children, those that are highly reactive, may be more likely to express aggression and behavior problems. However, when family adversity is absent, highly reactive children are more pro-social and more engaged in school. than children, low in reactivity.

Many aspects of development, including physical domains like brain functioning, have been found to show plasticity, which refers to modifiability of performance. One way I like to help people think about what plasticity means is to remember that plastic molds into a shape and then holds that shape but if he Eat the plastic, it can again lose that shape. Given plasticity, it is more useful to think of sensitive periods in which a person is particularly open to certain kinds of experiences.

So there are periods of time when we are more open to certain experiences than other times. And finally, in this chapter, we talk about a Baltic Lifespan Development Approach. The lifespan development involves the exploration of the biological, cognitive, and psychosocial changes and the constancies that occur throughout the entire course of our lives. It has been presented as a theoretical and a theoretical example.

perspective, proposing several fundamental theoretical and methodological principles of development. Let's walk through what those are. Development is lifelong. Development is multi-dimensional. Development is multi-directional.

It has relative influences of biology and culture shift. over the lifespan. Development involves changing resource allocation. Development shows plasticity and development is influenced by historical context.

So what does some of that mean? Lifelong development means that development is not completed in infancy or childhood or any specific age. It is developed through the entire lifespan.

from conception to death. By multidimensional, it is referring to the fact that things like biological, cognitive, and social-emotional changes do occur. There is a dynamic interaction of all these factors that influence development.

It is part of the reason your chapter is divided chapters are divided up into these three aspects of development. He states that the development of a particular domain is not strictly linear, but that development of certain traits can be both an increase and a decrease over the course of one's life. Plasticity implies that there is no single pathway. that must be taken in an individual's development across the lifespan. And development occurs in context and varies from person to person, depending on the environmental factors around them, which is a way of saying we are all unique.

And we all have our own unique environmental things that are touching our development every single day. I'll end this chapter by reminding you that human growth is a dynamic process, and that if you have any questions, please join me in office hours, and I will be happy to address them.

Transcript for:Essentials of Human Development Study

Transcript for:
Essentials of Human Development Study