Advanced Developmental

Psychology

PSY 620PJanuary 27, 2015

Discussion Leader Assignments January 29

Fraley, R. C., Roisman, G. I., & Haltigan, J. D. (2013). The legacy of early experiences in development: Formalizing alternative models of how early experiences are carried forward over time. Dev Psychol, 49(1), 109-126. Sunni1

Adolph, K. E., S. R. Robinson, et al. (2008). "What is the shape of developmental change?" Psychological Review 115(3): 527-543. Mike1

Brody, G. H., Chen, Y-F., Murry, V. M., Ge, X., Simons, R. L., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., & Cutrona, C. E. (2006). Perceived discrimination and the adjustment of African American youths: A five-year longitudinal analysis with contextual moderation effects. Child Development, 77, 1170-1189. BreAnne1

Oller DK, Niyogi P, Gray S, Richards JA, Gilkerson J, Xu D, Yapanel U, Warren SF: Automated vocal analysis of naturalistic recordings from children with autism, language delay, and typical development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2010, 107:13354-13359. Carolyn1

    Optional: Shaw, D. S., Connell, A., Dishion, T. J., Wilson, M. N., & Gardner, F. (2009). I

mprovements in maternal depression as a mediator of intervention effects on early childhood behavior problems. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 417-439.

   

Discussion Leader Assignments

Week 4: February 5th – The biological basis of behavior and development   Champagne, F. A., & Mashoodh, R. (2009). Genes in Context Gene–Environment Interplay and the Origins

of Individual Differences in Behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(3), 127-131. Cf. Szyf, M. and J. Bick (2012). "DNA Methylation: A Mechanism for Embedding Early Life Experiences in the Genome." Child Development.

Burgaleta, M., Johnson, W., Waber, D. P., Colom, R., & Karama, S. (2014). Cognitive ability changes and

dynamics of cortical thickness development in healthy children and adolescents. Neuroimage, 84(0), 810-819. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.09.038

Uddin, L. Q., Supekar, K., & Menon, V. (2013). Reconceptualizing functional brain connectivity in autism

from a developmental perspective. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00458 Chen, E., Cohen, S., & Miller, G. E. (2010). How low socioeconomic status affects 2-year hormonal

trajectories in children. Psychological Science, 21, 31-37. Alternates: Lister, R., Mukamel, E. A., Nery, J. R., Urich, M., Puddifoot, C. A., Johnson, N. D., Lucero, J., Huang, Y.,

Dwork, A. J., Schultz, M. D., Yu, M., Tonti-Filippini, J., Heyn, H., Hu, S., Wu, J. C., Rao, A., Esteller, M., He, C., Haghighi, F. G., Sejnowski, T. J., Behrens, M. M., & Ecker, J. R. (2013). Global epigenomic reconfiguration during mammalian brain development. Science, 341(6146), 1237905. doi: 10.1126/science.1237905

Shaw, P., Greenstein, D., Lerch, J., Clasen, L., Lenroot, R., Gogtay, N., Evans, A., Rapoport, J., & Giedd, J.

(2006). Intellectual ability and cortical development in children and adolescents. Nature, 440, 676-679.

Discussion Leader Assignments

February 12th – Perceptual Development (cont)

Vogel, M., Monesson, A., & Scott, L. S. (2012). Building biases in infancy: The influence of race on face and voice emotion matching. Developmental Science, 15, 359-372.

Maurer, D., Mondloch, C. J., & Lewis, T. L. (2007). Sleeper effects.

Developmental Science, 10, 40-47. Papageorgiou, K. A., Smith, T. J., Wu, R., Johnson, M. H., Kirkham,

N. Z., & Ronald, A. (2014). Individual Differences in Infant Fixation Duration Relate to Attention and Behavioral Control in Childhood. Psychological Science. doi: 10.1177/0956797614531295

Jones, W., & Klin, A. (2013). Attention to eyes is present but in

decline in 2-6-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism. Nature, 504(7480), 427-431. doi: 10.1038/nature12715

Dynamic Systems Theory Application

▪ State Space Grid Analysis▪ 2-dimensional grids reflecting co-occurrence of 2 or

more variables

Messinger

Canalization (Waddington)

Design, Measurement & Analysisin Developmental Research

Design Developmental Designs Internal and External Validity of a Study

▪ Threats to Internal Validity

Measurement Reliability and Validity of Measures Instrument Construction Stages Dealing with missing data

Ethics in Developmental Studies Children as vulnerable population Assent

Analysis Visualizing your data Hypothesis Testing Approaches to Analyzing Change over Time

The crisis in behavioral / developmental science

Replicability Access to samples Replicable (objective?) measurement Addressing the crisis…

Data archiving

Replicable or objective measurement

Strange Situation examples

Mattson, et al.,PLOS One, 2013

Can experiments uniquely demonstrate causality? How?

Messinger

Experimental design

Between subject A treatment (independent

variable) is assigned randomly creating treatment and control

groups Within-subject

All infants get treatment and control

Examples▪ Rating study, Face-to-face still-face

Estimated Marginal Means of MEASURE_1

SMILES

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Ma

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Comparison

Exposed

Messinger

Types of observational research Quasi-experimental

differences in naturally occurring groups Observational -

Differences in naturally occurring conditions

Complementary, not exclusive

Is age (development) studied experimentally or observationally?

Gender-stereotypes during adolescence

Is age the key variable?

Alfieri et al., 1996

T indicates children who

have just transition from

junior high school

Validity threats?

Belfort et al., 2013

Messinger

Observational

Quasi-experiment Between subject

exploration of differences in naturally occurring groups▪ Drug exposure, breast-

feeding, and attachment groups

Observational Differences in naturally

occurring conditions▪ Gazing at mother versus

gazing away

Figure 2b.

Solo Open Mouth Smiling by Gazing at Mother

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ion

of O

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Mou

th S

mili

ng O

nly

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

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Predicted or dependent variables

Experimental and all observational approaches measures variables

Variable - a measurable component of behavior or physiological functioning that can take on different values

Not all aspects of behavior or physiology specific features of interest

Messinger

Qualitative methods

Intensive description in regular language Not measuring variables

▪ E.g., baby biography, one infant described over time Pro: Insight into individual and

developmental process Emerged with romantic emphasis on individual

Con: Not generalizable Complementary, not exclusive

Developmental Designs

Longitudinal vs. cross-sectional designs

Longitudinal-sequential design

Messinger

Longitudinal

Same infants over time

Pro: Answers ‘How do individuals change in time?’

Con: Takes a long time Attrition 1 2 3

Bayl

ey C

ogni

tive S

core

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

YearM = 93.5n = 200

YearsM = 79.1n = 190

YearsM = 82.1n = 132

Typical Trajectory:Cognitive Scores Decline

Other difficulties with longitudinal?

Rosenquist et al. PNAS | January 13, 2015 | vol. 112 | no. 2 | 357

Messinger

Cross-sectional

Different infants at different times

Pro: Efficient, large numbers of subjects

Con: Differences do not necessarily reflect individual’s development e.g. cohort

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

DifferentIndividuals

OneYearTwoYearThreeYear

Messinger

Longitudinal vs. cross-sectional

Development is relatively stable on large time scales Motor, physical,

emotional, communicative

But choppy on smaller scales

Only longitudinal research can show individual development

What is the Shape of Developmental Change?Adolph et al, 2008

Many developmental trajectories

Accurate depiction of trajectory depends on sampling rate of observations

“Microgenetic method” – small time intervals to observe developmental process

Overly large sampling intervals can distort shape of change

Gangi

Messinger

What type of research produced this commonly used chart?

Birth 13.75”

6 mos.. 17”

12 mos. 18”

24 mos. 19”

Messinger

Individual differences

Messinger

Hypothetical example (Lamb et al.)

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Continuity and Stability

Continuity(=absolute change) Behavior level is continuous

(discontinuous) across ages How does a behavior change in form

and/or function over the course of development?

Stability Rank of individual in group is

stable How does a behavior change differently

among individuals in the same group? (=relative change)

1 2 3

Bay

ley

Cog

niti

ve S

core

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

YearM = 93.5n = 200

YearsM = 79.1n = 190

YearsM = 82.1n = 132

Typical Trajectory:Cognitive Scores Decline

Validity of Developmental Studies

External validity =

Internal validity =

Methodological soundness of study allowing changes in DV to be attributed to the IV

Threats to internal validity = uncontrolled confounds▪ Need to control for various methodological confounds

through adequate sampling, random assignment (when possible), inclusion of control group etc.

Threats of particular concern in Developmental Studies (cont)

History:

Maturation:

Testing:

Instrumentation:

Regression: ▪ Example of Regression * Selection effect

Threats of particular concern in Developmental Studies:

Regression High anxious freshmen selected for

intervention in first week of school; by mid-year show significant decrease in anxiety

Pretest Intervention Posttest 90 70

Measurement Issues in Developmental Studies

The process of quantifying abstract concepts such as:

▪ Intelligence▪ Sociability▪ Emotion Regulation

Developmental assessments often rely on indirect measures i.e., habituation/dishabituation in infancy

as index of processing

Messinger

Validity

Are we measuring what we think we’re measuring, Do the variables measured the

constructs mentioned in the research questions?

There is no final answer▪ Reunion behavior = Attachment?▪ Smiling = Joy?▪ Looking = Preference?▪ Heart rate = Arousal?

Measurement Issues in Developmental Studies (cont)

Requires Detailed operational definitions Creation of sensitive instruments Rules for scoring instrument to create

summary scores

Measurement Issues in Developmental Studies (cont)

Validity Does measure provide intended information for intended population?

▪ Can vary with age and subgroup (e.g., ethnicity or SES)

Reliability How consistent is children’s behavior?

▪ Tends to increases with age and diversity of sample

Messinger

Observing behavior

Observed on-line or video-recorded Measured with

Trait rating - global judgement Time sampling Event sampling (frequency) Event sampling (duration)

Messinger

Time-sampling & event-sampling

Messinger

Physiological measures

Heart rate & respiration (video) avoidant infants, infants on visual cliff

Electroencephalogram Relative lateral activation during crying

Actigraphy Index of ADD?

Increasingly important supplement to behavioral measures

Measurement Issues in Developmental Studies (cont)

Missing Data Most common reason for low power in

studies of change over time

Options Deletion Substitution Imputation

Approaches to handling missing data have improved dramatically in recent years.

The methodological literature favors maximum likelihood and multiple imputation a strong theoretical foundation, less

restrictive assumptions, and the potential for bias reduction and greater power.

Benefits are especially important for developmental research where attrition is a pervasive problem

Enders, Craig K.Child Development Perspectives, Vol 7(1), Mar 2013, 27-31.

Messinger

Adequacy of measures

Reliability Consistency of measurement

▪ Inter-rater reliability of observations Bias

Systematic impact of unmeasured variables▪ Blinding in drug studies▪ Keeping observations independent

Ethics in Developmental Studies

Design, Measurement & Analysisin Developmental Research

Analysis Approaches to Analyzing Change over Time

▪ Describing group level patterns of change over time

▪ Describing individual differences in patterns of change

▪ Processes underlying/modifying patterns of change

▪ Mediating and moderating variables