Research Issues in Child Development

Chris Pratt, Alison F. Garton, William E. Tunmer, Andrew R. Nesdale, Chris Pratt, Alison F. Garton, William E. Tunmer, Andrew R. Nesdale

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351386548
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

First published in 1986, this authoritative book contains a selection of original, research based, reports of studies conducted in Australia and New Zealand in the field of Child Development. The topics have been arranged into four major sections – cognitive issues in development, language and reading development, perpetual motor development and social aspects of development. Both pure and applied research issues are presented, and the chapters cover child development from infancy to adolescence.

The book's special strength lies in the diversity of topics tackled and the range of developmental research represented. Theoretical viewpoints are raised and empirical questions answered in the studies reported. The editors have systematically drawn together important contributions which reflected contemporary topics in child development at the time. Although no one common theoretical or empirical theme unites either each section or the whole book (which reflects the general scope and diversity of child development in the 1980s), the contributors in general see the child as developing through active interaction with his or her environment. This interactionist position is clearly preferred by most researchers, who realised that simplistic genetic or environmental models are inadequate to explain the complex development of the child.

The editors were all active researchers in the area of child development at the time and each co-authored a chapter in the book. All published regularly in national and international journals and books, and were aware of current developments in their main areas of expertise.

All those interested in issues in child development will find this book important reading, as it provides the reader with an excellent and diverse selection of studies, bearing on a wide range of empirical research.

SECTION 1

COGNITIVE ISSUES IN
DEVELOPMENT

Cognitive development refers to the child’s acquisition of intellectual skills, including remembering, thinking and problem solving. The eight chapters comprising this section are representative of the range of current research activity into aspects of cognitive development. The full age range from infancy to adolescence is encompassed in this selection of research papers, and a variety of theoretical orientations is expressed. The chapters are arranged developmentally.

The research on infancy contained in this section reflects two separate contemporary concerns. Firstly, one area of research is concerned with the long term effects of various conditions which are often regarded as handicapping later cognitive development. Mohay and her colleagues compare both prenatal and postnatal twin environments and their effects on later cognitive development, taking measures at various ages up to 4 years. They find that while the rate of development of twins may be delayed in the first two years of life, the disadvantages seem largely to disappear thereafter. The prenatal environment per se is not responsible, rather it predisposes the infants to complications which themselves may have adverse repercussions.

Cescato and Mertin explore the effects that a very low birth weight can have on later cognitive functioning, in comparison to a group of appropriate birth weight infants. The results show that although infants with very low birth weights do score lower than the controls on tests of cognitive functioning, they are still achieving scores within the normal ranges. Indeed, when allowances are made for prematurity, the scores of the groups are comparable.

The second area of infant research is represented by the study by Field and Field, who report an experiment on the cognitive capabilities of one-year-olds. Specifically, they investigate the use infants can and do make of auditory spatial information (a loud noise) in searching manually for an object. However, both hidden sounding objects and hidden silent objects are searched for successfully, causing methodological issues to be raised by the authors. Such research provides us with valuable clues regarding the infant’s ability to integrate and use various types of sensory information.

Research on cognitive development is often guided by Piaget’s theory of the growth of knowledge and many papers included in this selection have followed this tradition. The chapter by Gold seeks to establish the reasons for young children’s failure on the standard Piagetian class inclusion and number conservation tasks by considering and evaluating two different interpretations, the ‘misinterpretation’ position and the conceptual deficit position. After reporting a series of experiments, Gold claims that both positions are tenable depending on the particular phenomenon being studied.

The influence of Piaget’s theory is noted in the chapter by Renshaw and Garton, where the processes by which pairs of children solve goal directed problems are examined. However, a different theoretical explanation, namely that of Vygotsky’s is invoked to account for the patterns of dyadic interaction that emerge. The provision of a social context allows the children to make explicit their strategies for solving problems, enabling the children to work together more collaboratively.

The influence of context is further examined in the chapter by Pratt and Pearson, where the memory skills of young children are examined. Drawing on the distinction between embedded and disembedded contexts, they report that children’s memory performance is influenced not by the meaningfulness of the task but by specific factors contained in the particular contexts used in their experiments.

The Australian adolescent has been the focus of much research over the past 20 years, and the two papers using adolescent subjects continue this trend while also making contributions to research in cognitive development. Tan and Hay’s chapter examines the scholastic ability of left handed adolescents. It thus continues to explore the theme of examining the determinants of later cognitive ability, exemplified in the earlier infancy studies. They propose that an interaction between genetic and environmental factors is responsible for the apparent lower ability of left handers in numeracy and reading.

Volet, Lawrence and Dodds’ chapter considers how and why adolescents are less efficient and poorer in planning and cognitive organisation. Experimentally, adolescents’ planning activities show none of the efficiency and adaptability shown by adults. Improvements in the adolescents’ planning behaviour are noted when spontaneous monitoring and self evaluation occur in subsequent planning tasks. Self regulation, derived from an awareness of the need to plan and monitor one’s behaviour, is deemed to be important for efficient cognitive organisation. This research, along with that of Renshaw and Garton, and Pratt and Pearson, represents aspects of a contemporary trend to examine ‘everyday’, practical cognition, or, in other words, the study of cognitive abilities in relevant contexts. Research efforts along these lines, where the practical uses and application of cognitive abilities are being examined and measured can only deepen our understanding of how we learn to deal with our world from infancy to adolescence.

ALISON F. GARTON

1

The Effects of Prenatal and Postnatal
Twin Environments on Development

Heather Mohay, Yvonne Burns, David Luke
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld David Tudehope and Michael O’Callaghan Mater Misericordiae Hospitals, Brisbane, Qld

Introduction

It has been widely reported that the mean IQ of twins is somewhat lower than that of singleton children (Churchill & Henderson, 1974; Drillien, 1964; Record, McKeown & Edwards, 1970). The reasons for this difference are, however, by no means clear. Prenatal, perinatal and postnatal environmental factors have all been implicated by different authors.

The prenatal environment of twins is undoubtedly more hazardous than that of singletons and Churchill (1965) suggested that adverse factors during this period were primarily responsible for the subsequent delayed development observed in twins. This suggestion was strongly challenged by Record et al. (1970). Their monumental study of the verbal reasoning abilities of children taking the 11+ examination in Birmingham, England, confirmed previous findings that the scores of twins were significantly lower than those of singletons. In addition, however, they were able to demonstrate that the scores of single survivors of twin pregnancies were not significantly inferior to those of singleton children. On the basis of this evidence they concluded that the postnatal twin environment had a much stronger impact on development than the prenatal environment. It is important to note that the Record et al. data came exclusively from tests of verbal reasoning and there is considerable evidence that twins frequently display delayed language development (Davis, 1937; Day, 1932; Mittler, 1970; Savić, 1980).

Poor language skills are likely to have an adverse effect on performance in most intelligence tests but especially on the type of tests used by Record et al. Lytton and Conway (1977) provided evidence that the linguistic environment of twins was impoverished compared with that of singletons and suggested that this rather than prenatal or perinatal factors was responsible for their language delay. These findings support the conclusions of Record et al. However, further investigation is required to determine whether the scores obtained by twins in other areas of development are also depressed or whether their lower IQ scores are entirely attributable to problems related to the acquisition and use of language.

The possible influence of perinatal factors in subsequent development cannot be ignored. Twins are more likely than singletons to be born prematurely and to suffer injuries during birth. Thus their perinatal environment would appear to be fraught with more dangers which might have adverse effects on later development (Drillien, 1964). Advances in medical knowledge and technology have led to an increase in the survival rate of very low birth weight infants and a reduction in the incidence of handicapping conditions. A recent study (Tudehope, Rogers, Burns, Mohay & O’Callaghan, 1984) reported only a very small, non-significant, positive correlation between birth weight and developmental outcome at 2 years of age.

In contrast to all the previously discussed studies on twins, Wilson (1974) reported that, although twins were relatively delayed in their development at 18 months of age, by 6 years of age there was no significant difference between their development and that of singleton children. The early delay in development may have been due to the effects of adverse prenatal or perinatal events or to environmental factors related to the fact that parents are kept very busy caring for two young children and are therefore likely to have less time to devote to twins than they would to single children. Whatever the causes, they appeared to have been overcome by the time the twins entered school. Hence the twin environment did not appear to have any long term deleterious effects.

The Study

The majority of the studies reviewed failed to control for either prenatal or perinatal environmental factors. This study attempts to overcome this by:

1. Investigating the differential effects of prenatal and postnatal twin environments on development, and

2. Examining the pattern of development of twins and singletons from the age of one month to 4 years of age.

METHOD

Subjects

All the subjects were selected from a larger population study of infants cared for in the Intensive Care Nursery at the Mater Mother...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• SECTION 1: COGNITIVE ISSUES IN DEVELOPMENT
• SECTION 2: LANGUAGE AND READING DEVELOPMENT
• SECTION 3: PERCEPTUAL MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
• SECTION 4: SOCIAL ASPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT