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No chapter abstract available.

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Psychology is concerned with human beings’ under-standing of the physical and social environment, and the bases for their actions, feelings and experiences, as well as their participation in greater and smaller social networks and in society. Developmental psychology also includes the developmental courses of children with sensory and physical disabilities, as well as the vulnerability and risk factors that underlie the emergence of learning disorders and emotional and behavioral disorders in childhood and adolescence, and factors that may prevent the development of such disorders. Development can be defined as an age-related process involving changes in the structure and functioning of human beings and animals as a result of interaction between biological structures, psychological states and ecological factors. Development involves characteristics and abilities that are common to all human beings. Changes in areas such as reasoning ability, social adaptation and moral formation are not quite as easy to quantify.

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Psychology is a relatively young scientific discipline. Its origins are often dated to 1879, the year in which Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig. This marked the transition from largely informal observations to a more systematic methodology in the study of human perception, thinking, feeling and action. Until the late nineteenth century, child development was primarily an educational field, and literature on children mostly dealt with upbringing and education. Developmental psychology encompasses widely different traditions that have moved toward and away from each other throughout history and influenced one another in varying degrees. The theories reflect the knowledge that was acquired, but also the spirit of the age and the overall development of the society. Many attempts have been made to unite different perspectives, but there is still disagreement about basic developmental issues, such as the organization and biological bases of cognition.

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Globalization has become an integral part of modern societal development and has also impacted the development of scientific thinking. Early in the history of developmental psychology, Western European psychology was dominant, and, after World War II, American psychology assumed a leading role. Cross-cultural studies are important for understanding the relationship between nature and nurture in development. In India, the British colonial powers had a considerable impact. Many of the studies involved children from upper-middle-class urban families, and generalization to other social classes is uncertain. While globalization and English as the lingua franca of academia contribute to more equality in the development of theories across national borders, they also highlight the differences between countries and contribute to the establishment of unique cultural scientific identities. In the age of globalization, developmental perspectives with an origin in African, Asian and other cultures will emerge and find their position in international developmental psychology, both locally and globally.

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A smaller group of children have disabilities or disorders that inhibit all or some aspects of development and have to perform many actions in unconventional ways. The most common course is typical development, with unimpaired functions and ordinary individual differences between children. Atypical development is a broad term used to describe all forms of irregular development, such as deaf children with a normal but unusual language development when they learn sign language instead of spoken language, or children with intellectual disability who think and reason differently from their peers. Knowledge of typical development is necessary to understand atypical development, and knowledge of atypical development –of what can go wrong and how to compensate for impaired skills and abilities – is necessary to understand the developmental process in general. Children with atypical development have a narrower range of possibilities and depend on an environment that fits their possibilities.

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The lay belief in genetic inheritance is strong, and parents typically point to similarities between their children and various family members. Cultural differences underline the fact that genes alone have limited value in explaining developmental processes. A somewhat related issue is to what degree research findings can be generalized across species. Similarities and differences between species can provide important insights into the developmental process, including the fact that there are a number of factors that cannot be generalized across species. Culture and language separate humans from other species. Flexibility is a characteristic of human development and children and can follow different pathways, both typical and atypical. Some descriptions of development place emphasis on the outcome, on the various traits and abilities children usually have developed at different age levels and their intercorrelations, while others focus on the processes that lead to new traits and abilities, and the transitions from one state to another.

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Developmental science seeks to model how biological and environmental factors affect children's development. A “developmental effect” will be the result of one or more influences. Developmental models distinguish between main effects and interaction effects, while transaction effects are the result of mutual influences between the child and the environment over time. An interaction effect occurs when the influence of a given factor is moderated by one or several other factors. Analyses based on transactional models are important when the results of empirical studies are “translated” to practical work with children. Remediation aims to change the child's progress and may include all aspects of the child's functioning, such as nutrition, cleft palate surgery or special education for dyscalculia. Redefinition attempts to change the parents’ subjective perception of their child. Parents of children with atypical development may have to learn to understand their child's temperament, thoughts and experiences, for example that blind children explore the surroundings with their hands.

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Human development is complex, and it is difficult to describe even a small number of the conglomerate of interrelated processes involved. Dynamic systems models may be used to go beyond individual interactional and transactional processes and capture more of the complex reciprocal changes among different levels of organization. Changes in children's learning thus are not merely quantitative, but also qualitative. Children acquire more knowledge and learn to think more and faster, but they also learn to understand the world around them in constantly new ways. An important characteristic of dynamic systems is their ability to integrate processes at different levels and allow for interaction between many factors and mechanisms. The term “cascade” is closely associated with dynamic systems. Developmental cascades thus describe the cumulative impact of multiple interaction and transaction effects in a developing system.

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An optimal environment cannot always be taken for granted. Children with attention deficit disorder are vulnerable to developing inadequate interaction strategies and social disorders. Children can be vulnerable or resilient at different times, for example during sensitive or critical periods when they are particularly vulnerable to negative environmental influences or dependent on specific influences to be able to develop normally. An organism with low vulnerability is protected against risk factors in the environment. It is based on a diathesis–stress model that attempts to explain psychological disorders as the result of child vulnerability and stressful experiences. Diathesis is a congenital predisposition, and stress in this context is defined as negative experiences. The model deals exclusively with negative development or absence of negative development, however, and lacks promotive factors – positive development is merely the result of invulnerability and absence of risk.

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Developmental psychology comprises a wide range of issues, and, as has been shown earlier, complexity in phenomena and processes is an inherent characteristic of all human development. The developmental way of thinking is a central tool in both research and practical work with children and adolescents. There is a continuous process of organization and reorganization of abilities and characteristics, where the individual both changes and remains the same. A developmental way of thinking implies seeing children both as they are and what they are in the process of becoming from biological, social and cultural perspectives. Developmental psychopathology is a multidisciplinary field that seeks to reveal and influence the processes that can give rise to mental problems in children and adolescents and uncover factors that can promote or inhibit the development of psychological disorders. As psychopathology represents a deviation from normal functioning, its identification, diagnosis, treatment and prevention must be based on knowledge of the normal course of development.

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No chapter abstract available.

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This chapter provides a brief introduction to the foundations of theory formation and the most important theoretical perspectives in developmental psychology: psychodynamic psychology, behaviorism, logical constructivism, social constructivism, evolutionary psychology, ethological psychology, ecological psychology, information processing and critical psychology. They differ in their emphasis and explanations of developmental phenomena and together they illustrate the breadth of developmental thinking in the twenty-first century. A theory may emerge from some basic assumptions, derived from observations of children, existing developmental theories and philosophical ideas, and gradually grow into a larger and more complex theoretical construction. Theory building goes through a kind of scientific evolution with survival of the fittest, with reciprocal influences between theory and research findings. However, even if a theory's predictions are contradicted on some accounts and the theory eventually is revised or abandoned, it may not imply that the theory has been useless.

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Psychodynamic psychology has its roots in the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud (1916), but most of Freud's original assumptions have been reformulated or replaced by new theoretical constructs. A central element of psychodynamic theory is the development of an internal psychological structure that determines the individual's perceptions of the world, actions and values. Individual mental functions are integrated into a coherent structure as part of the child's adjustment to the surroundings. Many psychodynamic theories maintain that the primary course of development is predetermined and universal, and that the formation of an individual's mental structure follows a set biological course. All psychodynamic theories emphasize the child's relationships with other people and especially with the parents, but they have different assumptions about the motivational bases for these relationships. Although Sigmund Freud rarely worked with children, his theory dominated early child psychology to a greater extent than adult psychology, which has had to contend with several competing types of treatment.

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Genes constrain developmental trajectories, but learning is decisive, and all human functions can be explained on the basis of the same principles of learning, whether it be using language, solving problems, understanding emotions or entering into social relationships. Behaviorists often “translate” concepts from other theories – such as cognitive schema, attachment, joint attention and social referencing – into behavioristic terminology and explanations based on the relationship between stimuli and responses. Albert Bandura is usually placed within behaviorism, although his cognitive or social learning theory differs considerably from traditional behaviorism. He emphasizes that people are conscious, goal-oriented managers of their own lives and includes explanations based on cognitive processes traditionally avoided by behaviorists. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which applies self-instruction and other cognitive strategies, is a common intervention for mood and behavioral disorders in children.

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Logical constructivism is founded on the theory of Jean Piaget. Constructivism assumes that children's understanding of the world does not depend on innate mechanisms but is constructed by the organism. knowledge and insight when they attempt new goals and have to overcome obstacles in order to reach them, for example move around a chair to get at a toy. Mental structures and processes are modified as children overcome challenges and acquire new experiences. They actively explore the environment, gain experiences and test the properties of the physical world. Piaget's vision of the child as active and creative was the critically important breach with contemporary views of cognitive development as the outcome of maturation and passive internalization of knowledge from adults. Piaget describes four cognitive stages characterized by qualitatively different functional capacities. Piaget's theory is still the only coherent theory of cognitive development and a starting point for almost all debate about cognitive development.

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Vygotsky actually shared many of Piaget's views, even though their main lines of argument have diverged. Both are constructive and have a main focus on cognitive development. According to Piaget, the construction is an individual project, while Vygotsky views the construction as socially mediated. Children's cognition is shaped through cooperation with others and internalization of cultural tools and thought patterns. Social constructivist theory assumes that children are born with biological mechanisms which also determine early cognitive development but that the individual cognitive resources are insufficient for the independent acquisition of the higher cognitive functions which characterize adults. Vygotsky describes four stages in development characterized by qualitatively different functional capacities. Vygotsky's premature death at 38 years has meant that many of his theoretical ideas remain incomplete and unclear. The developmental phases are therefore characterized by activities which children and adults do together, with the adults acting as mediators.

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Evolution is central to the understanding of how children develop. All developmental theories assume that abilities and skills may have a genetic basis. It is also a common point of view that children who are alive today carry genes which, during evolution, conferred the possibility of developing characteristics that “fitted in” with their surroundings and increased their survival chances, and that many human characteristics can be explained by the significance they had in the evolution. According to nativism, children are born with core knowledge in many areas, and development proceeds according to a plan represented in the genes. Nativists assume that children are born with mental models which correlate with many aspects of the world, that a newborn's brain already “knows” how to go on to perceive certain types of stimuli and events in its surroundings. Nativism has influenced thinking about most areas of development, from motor skills and object perception to emotions and personality.

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Ethology is the study of animals in their natural setting. The basic idea of Robert Hinde and other ethological psychologists is that under-standing of the development and adaptation of the human and other species has to be based on knowledge about their biological capacities, the ecological niche in which characteristics have evolved and the ecological niche in which individual humans find themselves at present. The ethological tenets influence the research methods. Ethologists prefer a natural science approach and emphasize the importance of describing children and young animals in different situations. Children with genes that contribute to their development of attachment behavior and physical proximity to a caregiver have increased likelihood that they will survive to sexual maturity and thereby transfer their genes to other individuals. It has had a strong influence on clinical psychology, social work with children and attitudes to raising children in general. It has also been an inspiration for ecological psychology.

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Ecological developmental psychology sets out from the premise that children are part of various social and cultural contexts, which they are affected by and also affect. Urie Bronfenbrenner is the key theoretician, and his bio-ecological theory is made up of four elements – process, person, context and time – which are integral components of a model for development. The person is an individual's biological, cognitive, emotional and behavioral characteristics. The context consists of a hierarchy of four ecological levels, or systems, which combine to create the environment in which the child grows up. The microsystem is an individual's situation at a given time in his or her life and consists of the relationships between the child and his or her surroundings. The mesosystem is the individual's developmental niche at a certain point in time and consists of the set of situations that are most important to that individual.

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Theories based on information processing describe mental phenomena as information from the senses or memory being processed in various ways, and with various aims, including understanding of intentions and emotions, thinking and problem solving. Information processing is used to explore what processes are active when children manage different tasks; how the children encode and process information, discriminate between new and old information, and create concepts about people, animals, objects, emotions and so on; and how the processes change over time. The theoreticians agree that differences in the information and the ways it is processed can explain social and cognitive differences between children and adults. Models based on information processing are becoming increasingly influential in developmental psychology, especially in typical and atypical cognitive development but other developmental areas also apply information processing models.

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Most of the developmental theories discussed are founded on a developmental way of thinking. Critical developmental psychology considers its main task is to expose, in political and social terms, the implications and consequences of the other developmental theories. Critical psychology crucially insists that knowledge about development is not cumulative but constructed within a particular historical and cultural context and hence is only valid at that particular point in time. When changes take place in the social and cultural attitudes to children, previously acquired knowledge about them becomes invalid and must be revised. In traditional developmental science, it is not the children who change throughout history but theories and empirical knowledge. In critical psychology there is no accumulated knowledge; children change when the theories change, because both are social constructs. The critical perspective represents a radical break with the very foundation of developmental psychology, not least because it rejects the established understanding of the concept "development".

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This chapter explains the considerable variation in theoretical approaches to developmental psychology, but also the many facets of children's capacities and the complexity of the developmental process. In Piaget's theory, the conflicts are between elements of the child's perception of its surroundings, and the conflicts lead to integration of knowledge and cognitive development. New hypotheses often have their origin in some kind of behavior observation, and there may be consensus about what children do and what happens in a situation. It is the interpretation of the observation, the assumed motives and precursors, and the conclusions reached that differentiate the theories. The theoretical selection process is however made more difficult still by the potential disagreement about the scientific basis and research methodology. Many theoretical views simply cannot be united: acceptance of one view will imply that other views must be rejected. A theory must be wrong if evidence supports a contradictory theory.

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No chapter abstract available.

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Researchers investigate children's typical and atypical development, the presence of variation and how particular characteristics of children and the environment contribute to different developmental trajectories, using a variety of methods. Interested families were recruited from two centers for preschool-aged children. The home visits started by informing families of their rights as a participant and obtaining their consent. All observations began with a child–mother observation, which lasted for approximately 18–20 minutes, followed by child–father observation, which lasted for approximately 12–15 minutes, and took place at either the dining table or a play table in the living room. Field experiments combine naturalistic observation and experimental control by studying the consequences of a systematic change in a natural environment for child and adult behavior. Many factors can influence observations of children. Children may be shy or have trouble understanding verbal instructions in an unfamiliar setting.

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Questionnaires usually consist of close-ended questions with multiple-choice answers to be marked by the child or an adult, for example by indicating on a scale from 1 to 5 whether they see “Kids who hit or push others”. The advantage of questionnaires is that it is relatively easy to collect a large number of answers, sometimes with the help of the Internet. The disadvantage is that the number of questions and alternative answers is limited and allows little insight into the reasoning behind the answers, even if informants can add comments. Interviews are conversations between an interviewer and an interviewee, based on an interview guide. They can be as structured as a questionnaire, but are usually semi-structured, with room for clarifying questions and clearing up of potential misunderstandings. Interviews with children are important because they may give a quite different picture than information from their parents or teachers, but they require sensitivity, ability to listen and good communication skills.

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Many public institutions collect and store information routinely, and this material can to some extent be obtained, analyzed and interpreted (Scott & Attia, 2017). Public records with information about the population are available in most modern societies. Some are widely accessible in the form of a large amount of statistical material that makes it impossible to identify individuals, and analysis may give insight into the influences of different caregiving environments. Box 23.1 is an example of a study based on archival data. Other records have strict limitations on who can access them and how they can be used owing to privacy protection laws. However, analysis of medical records or reports from health centers, hospitals, kindergartens, schools and school psychologists may give important information about the effect of different intervention measures. Archives represent an efficient and time-effective way of accessing information, but their drawback is that researchers cannot influence the information or ask follow-up questions.

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Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are the two main classes of research methodologies. Quantitative methods are used when the phenomena in question can be counted or measured in other ways and are often based on questions such as who, where, when, what and how many. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are rooted in a scientific argument that makes a case for a given phenomenon to be worthwhile and viable for study. If the research questions are best answered by measurable results, a quantitative approach is indicated. Individual children can show a variation in development not otherwise found in the group. Every child grows up in a society with certain values, norms, activities and ways of organizing and doing things, and styles and methods of parenting vary considerably between countries. A consequence of such cultural differences is that the results of studies in one culture are not always transferable to other cultures.

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Children's understanding of the world emerges gradually, and how infants perceive their environment is of great interest to developmental research but challenging from a methodological point of view. As infants cannot directly communicate what they see or hear or solve tasks involving complex verbal or non-verbal instructions, research methods are based on habituation and conditioning, visual exploration and physiological and neurophysiological measurements. The methods are important for obtaining an empirical basis for theories about infant cognition. Preferential looking in particular is frequently used, but what children look at and how long they look at different things and events are affected by many factors and change considerably throughout infancy. Many interpretations of findings are controversial, and several researchers argue that far more knowledge and understanding are often ascribed to infants than warranted by the studies.

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Sound research methodology has to fill a number of special requirements to ensure that the results can be trusted, including transparency, representativeness, reliability and validity. Transparency means that all the details of the method are openly available. The main requirement of quantitative research is replicability, where the method is explained so clearly and unambiguously that another researcher can carry out an identical study and examine whether the outcome can be reproduced or was caused by accidental circumstances. Validity concerns whether the method measures what it is supposed to measure and the results can provide answers to the questions posed by the study. In a study on the impact of dyslexia on school life, she tried to ensure validity by making observations over a long time period, conducting interviews with students and teachers, making field notes and journal entries, reflecting on her own theoretical perspective and potential biases, using “triangulation” and asking participants if they agreed with the descriptions and interpretations.

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The function of clinical assessment of children is usually to gather information on how they understand, think, feel and act, and on the characteristics of their physical and social environment, especially the quality of their relations within the family and with children and adults outside the family. The assessment is usually initiated on the basis of a concern and a referral, and these will guide the assessment. Most assessments of children begin with an anamnestic interview, a conversation with the parents about the child's developmental history and the observations that led to the referral. Assessments of children with severe visual impairments often involve using the language part of the test alone. Checklists have become a common element in assessment. They consist of questions about the child's skills, behavior and everyday functioning. The evaluation of any measures that may have been initiated is an essential part of the assessment process.

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Any observation of children involves a certain degree of intrusion into their privacy and sometimes into the family's life or the practice of professionals around the child. The most fundamental ethical issue is whether to conduct a study when weighing the potential benefits of gathering knowledge against the possible drawbacks and discomfort the study might entail. Parents need to know that they can withdraw the child from the study at any time without the need for justification. Children must be given information they can understand and realize what they will be involved in, but children under 16 years of age should not give consent. Children should know that their parents have given consent, so they can be sure that it is neither dangerous nor harmful for them to participate. Most countries have ethical research guidelines and ethical committees to assess whether a research project meets the necessary ethical criteria before the project can be launched.

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No chapter abstract available.

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This chapter provides a brief description of the major diagnostic systems and the most common disorders in children and adolescents, and their prevalence. Knowledge about the basis for categorizing disorders is important for clinicians to be able to recognize, understand and communicate the problems children can experience. Many disorders require the presence of only a certain number of the symptoms. Children who meet the criteria for a given disorder do not necessarily experience exactly the same problems or symptoms. As activity and participation are directly associated with functioning and disability, an individual's activities and participation are key elements in the characterization of disabilities. Disability is defined as a deviation from what is possible or common, related to impaired body function, restricted activity or limited participation. The child's age is taken into account in the coding of functions and deviations.

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Sensory impairment primarily involves vision and hearing, also in combination with each other. Milder impairments of vision and hearing can be difficult to detect, especially as children have no way of knowing how other children see and hear. Early diagnosis is important for the creation of an environment that provides the children with access to experiences that allow them to establish social relations and create meaning based on their own perceptual abilities. An important distinction is that between prelingual and acquired hearing loss. Hearing loss after children have developed spoken language has other developmental consequences than hearing loss that is congenital or occurs before speech has evolved. The cause is often unknown and may be related to genetic factors, prenatal infections, substance abuse by the mother or a number of different syndromes. About 5 percent of all children with profound hearing loss have Usher syndrome, which leads to the eye disorder retinitis pigmentosa as well as problems with balance.

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Children may have reduced gross or fine motor control, or both. The most common causes of motor impairment in children and adolescents are cerebral palsy, spina bifida and injury from accidents. A number of illnesses and syndromes affect motor control, such as spinal muscular atrophy and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Cerebral palsy (CP) is caused by a congenital or early acquired injury to the brain that results in various degrees of motor impairment. Spina bifida, also called cleft spine, is a congenital sac-like bulge of nerve tissue due to an incomplete closing of the vertebrae during fetal development. The impairment of primary motor functions is related to the location and size of the sac. The amount of cerebrospinal fluid around the brain and spinal cord is affected, and many children need a surgical insertion of a shunt, a valve that regulates the pressure caused by the accumulation of fluid in the brain.

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Neurodevelopmental disorders begin in early childhood and have a varied course of progression clearly related to the organism's maturation and development as well as to the influence of experience. An important reason for defining neurodevelopmental disorders as a higher-order category is the considerable coincidence in symptoms. Co-occurrence of two or more disorders is commonly referred to as comorbidity, based on the assumption that they are independent conditions. Approximately 6–12 percent of all children have delayed language development or language impairment, and 1–2 percent have severe language disorders. Some children have problems with speech, others with the language itself. The disorders are two to three times more common among boys than girls. Mathematics disorders, or dyscalculia, involve major difficulties understanding numbers and mathematical concepts and solving arithmetic problems. The terminology used in connection with more extensive general disorders of development and learning is undergoing constant change.

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Behavioral disorders and emotional disorders are broad diagnostic terms, and it is important to distinguish normal and slightly unregulated behavior from what may be defined as a disorder, such as common testing of limits or adolescent rebelliousness versus oppositional defiant disorders. Externalizing disorders include destructive, bullying, fraudulent and aggressive actions of such scope that they become disruptive to children and adults in the environment and require intervention. Internalizing disorders include mood and anxiety disorders. Bipolar disorder is characterized by depressive periods and periods of mania. Anxiety disorders mainly consist of separation anxiety, phobias and generalized anxiety disorder. Children with selective mutism only speak at home and with their immediate family. Eating disorders have many similarities with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the obsessive thoughts revolve exclusively around food, body, appearance and weight. The most common among these disorders are anorexia, involving under-eating, and bulimia, involving binge-eating and “countermeasures” against food intake such as intentional regurgitation or use of a laxative.

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The children are inhibited and emotionally withdrawn from their caregivers. They rarely seek comfort when distressed and show minimal response to comfort. They exhibit persistent social and emotional disturbance, with little social and emotional responsiveness, minimal positive affect and episodes of unexplained fearfulness and irritability, even when interacting with adults in situations without apparent threat. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a reaction to a stressful or traumatic event a child has experienced or learned about. The distress is persistent and intense, and the child finds it difficult to calm down. Affected children avoid places, things and activities, including thoughts, that remind them of the event and may exhibit selective amnesia. The symptoms of PTSD involve unregulated emotions and can be reminiscent of behavioral problems. Because PTSD can be mistaken for depression, it is important to look for other causes in connection with changes in behavioral patterns.

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Adolescence is characterized by an increase in behavioral experimentation and participation in risky behavior, such as gambling and substance abuse. Problems with alcohol and other substances are most common during adulthood, but also occur in adolescence. Most children and adolescents occasionally participate in online games, and boys spend more time than girls on electronic games. A significant minority spends 5 hours or more a day on computer games and Internet use. The difficulty of defining and delimiting these types of problem is also the reason for the lack of an accepted formal diagnosis. Some adolescents show clear signs of Internet addiction, also known as dysfunctional, pathological or compulsive use of the Internet. Their thoughts are dominated by the Internet, which they use to escape negative thoughts, and they experience discomfort without online access, continuing their online activities even after having decided to stop for the day.

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The majority of childhood and adolescent disorders are developmental, but children can also have acquired disorders. Some diseases lead to dementia and loss of previously acquired skills during childhood and adolescence, including Sanfilippo syndrome and juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis. Establishing that a child meets the criteria for a given disorder is only the beginning of the diagnostic process. It is always necessary to specify a child's strengths and weaknesses, as well as the pressures and opportunities afforded by the environment. Many children have more than one disorder or symptoms resulting from several disorders, but in addition they can have their particular strong areas. It is important to avoid diagnostic shadowing – the use of a single diagnosis to explain all of the child's problems. Initiating treatment based on a particular diagnosis without first examining how the child functions as a whole can lead to poor developmental results.