In this course, we dive into the topic of child development. You will learn that child development is complex and is influenced by a surprisingly rich number of factors at many different levels of organization. You will see that development can be studied in various domains and at various levels of understanding, from different angles and disciplines. Importantly, you will come to understand that processes within and between the various domains and levels of organization continuously interact to shape development. This implies that understanding development requires taking an interdisciplinary approach. In order to help you organize your thinking about this complexity you will learn more about the developmental systems approach and theories related to that. We will look, amongst other things, at the brain and motor development, cognitive, language and social-emotional development and all the factors that have an influence on development. To illustrate how an interdisciplinary approach helps to understand child development you will see how researchers from various disciplines and backgrounds study child development at Utrecht University. These scientists will give a look in their field of knowledge and their collaboration with colleagues, to illustrate how the theory you will learn translates to practice. In sum, we invite you to follow us on a journey to understand child development from synapse to society!
The developmental systems approach
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Understanding child development: from synapse to society
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Introduction to Dynamics of Youth
After a general introduction to this MOOC, this week focuses on the developmental systems approach to understand development. We will illustrate how such an approach can be facilitated by introducing you to Dynamics of Youth, a strategic research theme of Utrecht University set up to foster interdisciplinary research on child and adolescent development.
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dr. Jorg HuijdingAssociate Professor Clinical Child and Family Studies
Education and Pedagogy
Welcome to the first lecture of the course
Understanding Development for Synaps to Society.
In this lecture, I will first go into the question, what is development?
You will see that there is much disagreement about this complex issue.
Next, I will help you understand development from developmental systems approach.
This approach will be adopted throughout the course.
I'll explain this approach using two influential theories.
And I explain these theories because it can help you organize your thinking about how
various interacting factors can influence development at multiple levels of organization,
from synaps to society.
So, let's start with the question "What is development?"
Most developmental scientists will agree that development
implies systematic and successive change.
Unfortunately, this is where the consensus ends.
Therefore, there are no facts regarding development
only interpretations in the context of
the particular theory or prospective scholar adopts.
Historically, a number of issues regarding
development have been heavily debated and strongly influenced theory.
And here I will focus on one particular issue that is call
a perspectives on development for over 2000 years.
The extent to which development is determined by nature,
our genes or nurture- the environment.
According to the developmental systems approach,
nature and nurture continually
interacts and through this interaction contribute to development.
Nature never affects development directly.
It always acts in the context of the internal and external circumstances.
Similarly, effects of the environment or an organism
will depend on heredity related characteristics of that organism.
And it's important to realize that this also implies that asking yourself in what
relative proportions nature and nurture contribute to a given behavior is fruitless.
Nature and nurture are not independent and additive.
They are inherently fused.
Now the idea that the course of development is not set in stones, our genes.
But depends on a continuous interaction with
the environment has great applied significance.
If you don't believe that development can be influenced by
the environment it makes no sense to devise an intervention to support development.
The developmental system's approach argues that development can be
influenced and this also implies that there is not one course of development.
Children grow up in distinct contexts,
unique combinations of personal and environmental circumstances that can
result in different paths of change.
The challenge then is to understand how,where and when we can best intervene.
And all of this complexity is captured by the developmental systems approach.
In summary, this approach assumes that development is
influenced by interacting factors at multiple levels of organization.
Now that we've discussed the general idea of
what development is according to developmental systems approach,
let's go into a bit more detail.
I will now discuss two influential developmental systems theories.
These theories are relevant because they can help you organize your thinking about
various interacting factors and how they influence
development at multiple levels of organization.
The first theory I will introduce was devised by Urie Bronfenbrenner,
a Russian born American developmental psychologist.
Bronfenbrenner called his model the bioecological model.
It describes how development is molded by
a child's biologically influenced disposition in
interaction with influence from the surroundings, the ecology.
According to this theory,
an environment is a complex system consisting of
interacting layers or nested systems that together affect development.
The model distinguishes five subsystems each of which I will now briefly discuss.
The first system is the Microsystem.
This system is the innermost level of the environment and consists of
activities and interactions of the child with its immediate surroundings.
Examples are the interactions between a child and his parents
at home or between a child and a teacher at school.
It's important to note that
the biopsychosocial characteristics of
the individuals in such interactions are part of the microsystem.
Interactions between a child and a teacher for instance,
depend on the characteristics of the particular child and characteristics of the teacher.
And individual differences or
developmental changes in these characteristics influence the nature of
the activities and interactions in a particular microsystem and vice versa.
In day to day life individuals move through various microsystems.
The second system is the Mesosystem.
This system encompasses all connections between
the Microsystems related to an individual at a given moment in life.
For instance, when parents are involved in school life and
exchange experiences and the information with school,
development in both settings can benefit.
Academic learning can be transferred to
home and knowing what's going on at home may improve teacher-child interaction.
Mesosystem also includes stable features of people in
the immediate surroundings of the child such as the social economic status.
The third system is the Exosystem.
This system refers to the social settings that do not contain
children but nevertheless affect children's experiences in immediate settings.
Examples are parents workplaces and health and welfare services in the community.
Parents work for instance may facilitate special leave when children are ill
but can also cause stress that affect how parents respond to the children at home.
Another example is parents social network for providing advice and social companionship.
All these factors indirectly affect the child.
The fourth system is the Macrosystem.
This system consists of cultural values,
laws, customs and resources.
The priority that the macrosystem gives to a child's needs
affects the support they receive at the more proximate level of the environment.
For example, a country may have laws regarding
paternity and maternity leave or the standards of
childcare which will impact the life of the individual children in that country.
The final system is the Chronosystem.
This system refers to
the continuous influence of time on all of the subsystems and their interactions.
Indeed, change over time is a defining characteristic of development.
Time influences children at the individual level in terms of their physical,
intellectual and personality characteristics.
But time also influences developmental challenges and
opportunities that affect children at the various levels of the environment.
For instance, the arrival of a new sibling has very different consequences for
a homebound toddler compared to
a school aged child with many relationships and activities beyond the family.
In this example, the timing of an environmental change affects its impact.
So how can the theory of Bronfenbrenner help you
organize your thinking about development?
It does so by providing you with a clear framework for
ordering and structuring the great myriad of factors that can influence development.
As such, it can help you to keep an overview.
However, the strength of Bronfenbrenner's theories is mainly in describing
how environmental influences can be organized at various levels.
Therefore, I will also discuss a theory with
more emphasis on the levels within the individual.
This theory was introduced by another American developmental psychologist,
Gilbert Gottlieb and it's called the model of probabilistic epigenesis.
This model describes how genetic activity,
neural activity behavior and the environment are all bidirectionally related.
The term epigenesis refers to change in
genetic expression as a result of environmental influences.
Gottlieb argued that the emergent products of development are
epigenetic not just genetic although this idea is now widely accepted,
it was highly controversial when Gottlieb first introduced the idea.
He concluded that the term probabilistic in the name of his model to indicate that
a developmental outcome of a certain influence is often
not certain as it depends on so many different factors.
Thus, specific gene environment interactions may
increase or decrease the probability of development in a certain direction.
In this model, the most basic level of organization is that of gene activity.
Genes provide the blueprint of
the organism from which proteins are constructed into cells.
Genetic activity thus refers to the kind and amount of proteins that are made.
Proteins do most of the work within cells and are required for the structure,
the function and regulation of the body's tissues and organs.
As such, genetic activity gives rise to
neural and other structures which allow us to function and interact with the environment.
Conversely, genetic activity is influenced by each of the three other levels;
neural activity, behavior and the environment.
So, the model proposes
bidirectional relations within and between the four levels of organization.
In addition, these relationships are assume to be dynamic.
They may constantly change over time.
Gottleib argued that taking into account
the dynamic bidirectionality of influence between levels is
prerequisite to ever successfully
link genes and nervous systems to behavior and outcomes.
What I just discussed are two examples of developmental systems theories.
Many more of such theories exist that all stress the importance
of including multiple levels of description when trying to understand development.
And because of the implied complexity of all these theories they stress the need for
interdisciplinary collaborations to attain a meaningful understanding of development.
The major implication is,
is that it is useful to search for characteristics of people and their contexts that
together can influence the design of
policies and programs promoting positive development.
And this is an effort that goes well beyond science alone.
It bears relevance to everyone who is interested or involved
in fostering optimal development for children in one way or another.
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