Week  3 

April 28, 2014

It is amazing to me how much of our life’s development happened between conception and our first birthday.  It’s as though when we are born we come with all our parts and about 100 billion neurons just waiting to receive and transmit information.  I think of it as a scrapbook or memory album.  There is the pretty cover, usually a gender specific color, decorated first page with the name and date of our birth and a picture and announcement that was sent out to the world that a new little person now exists.  When I think about Piaget and his believe that children are naturally curious and they want to make sense of their experiences; and in the process, construct their understanding of the world, I feel we do this though out our life.  Regardless of our age, as we grow and learn new things and are exposed to new situations; a new job, moving to a new state or town, going to school to learn new skills or profession basically assimilating new information that is compatible with what one already knows.  Then there is the need to modify the information based on previous experiences.  I understand that this chapter was based on a specific age and stages of cognitive development but as I was reading this, this is a concept I feel we apply throughout our life while we fill the pages of our scrapbook or memory album. 

From the day we are born we are learning.  I don’t go through life saying to myself, I am learning today, but we are.  Everything we see, hear, taste, touch and smell is an experience and that experience affects the next experience and so on.  Language, we are born and then about age one we are using vocabulary.   Saying words, and then there is no silence.  Language becomes the communication.  Just think for a minute, we are saying words at about a year old our brains are able to put together names for persons, places and things.  In just one year of life we are talking.(and for the rest of our lives we are trying to figure out how to use and write this English language that we have learned to speak J)  As we get older into adult hood it seems like we always go back and use telegraphic speech (only words necessary to convey a message).  We use this to remind us of where we parked in a parking garage example: A- twenty three the spot I parked in, or to remember an answer for a test we put one or two words together.  Taking this class and Psychology one has reminded me that even as complicated as life can get, and as technology seems to be the now and the future the base fundamentals of how we first develop always seems to be the foundation for our future.

 

Week 2

Week 2
April 21,2014

The creation of life is an amazing process.  It seems unbelievable how something that is so small and cannot be seen with the human eye can become a little person.  Even though, we have technologies that allow us to see, research and better understand the process of how a human being develops, there are still some mysteries to how we are created.  This week’s chapters two and three covered a lot of information.  I have studied this information for over 26 years; college past, college present and even having my own child it is still fascinating.

 We are all created in the same way and yet we can be so very different.   A sperm penetrates an egg and two independent sets of 23 chromosomes (threadlike structures in the nuclei of cells that contain genetic material) are interchanged and a new life begins.  The process of how we grow and develop from conception to birth is such a short time when you think of the transformation that takes place.  I think that we as human beings take for granted how amazing we really are.  A little bean size image on an ultra sound machine to a picture perfect “birth” day picture with ten little fingers and ten little toes.  The concept of how we develop, and the forty or so weeks that it takes to get there is truly amazing.  Being pregnant with my daughter I followed every stage of development that I could.  I was on bed rest for my entire pregnancy which was a blessing in a way.  I was part of a study at the University of Washington Medical Center for high risk pregnancies. The study was dealing with the complexity of obstetric hypertension.  I had many complication so was seen every two weeks and then put into the hospital to be monitored 65 days prior to giving birth.  I was consistently monitored and was able to see the progression of my daughters’ development almost weekly that was my blessing.  She was born premature at almost 35 weeks.  I had two-amniocentesis and  have a copy of her chromosomes (the pairs are really interesting to look at).  Every time I read or the subject comes up about how we as human beings are created I am reminded of just what a miracle we really are.

 Our brain, we know so much about it and yet it too is still a mystery in a lot of ways.  It is how we exist, function, it too goes back to nature-nurture.  I think of the brain as well organized storage box.  It is full of what you need.  Open the main box and inside there are smaller boxes.  Each smaller box has information that can be used when needed.  As we grow and learn we may want to add to a box or maybe we can discard from a box because the information is no longer needed.  This to me is how our brain works. The amazing thing is the brain has a mind of its own, and does this all without us thinking about it.   From the reading material it seems like the brain is in charge.  There are genetic, biological and environmental factors that interact and affect the brain, but what a marvel it is.

Week 1

April 13, 2014

Week 1

It seems as though there are endless ways for psychologist, sociologist, doctors, and researchers to study human development.  Apparently we are fascinating creatures that with each stage of our natural/biological development can be researched and studied on how we interact/react to the environment and social world around us.  The environment around us is always changing, and in my opinion the study of human development will have to follow suit.  The studies and theories will have to be adapted to the variables that are affecting the specific time that is being researched.  For example: our world is so much more globally connected today than say 20 years ago.  Technology has made it possible to experience sights, sounds and places within seconds that would have taken days to travel too.  This has to have an effect on the way researchers study human development.    

Take the Information Processing Theory:  How do we process information now in this time of digital immersion compared to years past?  We are bombarded with more information at a faster rate than ever before multitasking constantly.  The book gives the example of developmental changes in thinking, and uses an analogy that human cognition consists of mental hardware and mental software.  Mental hardware refers to cognitive structures, including different memories where information is stored.  Mental software we take in information, store it, and retrieve that information when it is needed to complete specific tasks.  In today’s world are our cognitive processes changing, adapting or will there be consequences with the way we are receiving our information?  Only time will tell.

Entering college twenty nine years ago with the newest technology being, an electric type writer compared to the digital immersion age we now live in has been challenging.  Don’t get me wrong, technology can be and is amazing in a lot of ways, but can be overwhelming and frustrating at the same time.  I am learning to embrace this new world of hand held devices that connects you to any person, place or thing with in seconds of touching a button.  I just feel that there is a changing of the guard.  Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development was the study of how children socialize and how this affects ones sense of self.  The way we interact in this day and age and the immediate information that a child can now retrieve may not allow for ones imagination of what something might look like, just google it and there it is.  I see young children, teens and adults having texting conversations, physically standing right next to each other and interacting with the phone or hand held devise instead of looking up and conversing face to face. This has to have an effect on our development and socialization with one another.    

I was left with more questions than answers after working through this week one module.  The questioned was posed if I had unlimited time and energy to read and discuss and learn about the topics presented this week, what would I take time to learn more about?  The Answer, I would study Life–Course Perspective. The descriptions of how different generations experience the biological, psychological and sociocultural forces of development in their respective historical situation.  With how fast the world moves today compared to generations before us, I think it would be extremely interesting to compare life events in each decade for the past seventy years.