--- module: 099-02 language: en chapter: 99 title: "Learning, Development, Cognition, Stress, and Behaviour Change" module_title: "Lifespan development, cognition, and social-emotional growth" source_sha256: fd221117ec4eeec126dce6589c483525d9f5f37950fb95c76d5ff273872c667b --- # Lifespan development and growth ## Principles of development ### Genes, maturation, experience, culture, history ### Neither rigid timetable nor unlimited plasticity ### Skills emerge in ranges by several viable paths ### Assess domains, change, opportunity, function ### One delayed milestone does not identify a cause ### Loss of an established skill is more concerning ## Brain development and sensitive periods ### Proliferation, migration, differentiation, cell death ### Synapses overproduced, refined by activity ### Myelination and specialisation continue for decades ### Sensitive periods are not absolute deadlines #### Recovery depends on timing, duration, system ## Attachment and temperament ### Infants regulate arousal through caregivers ### Attachment: secure base, not a personality label #### Shaped by availability, temperament, culture ### Atypical patterns may be adaptation ### Temperament: reactivity, attention, self-regulation ### Goodness of fit between child and environment #### Reactive child thrives with calm routines ### "Difficult" label treats tendency as destiny ## Motor and language development ### Motor: maturation, body, strength, practice ### Infants discover solutions to constraints ### New locomotion changes cognitive experience ### Assess vision, hearing, tone, asymmetry, pain ### Language: preparedness plus social learning ### Receptive precedes expressive ### Joint attention and gesture link focus to words ### Passive media lacks contingent feedback ### Multilingual exposure does not cause disorder ## Cognition and executive function ### Children reason well in familiar contexts #### Fail tasks needing language or inhibition ### Stage theories underestimate early competence ### Knowledge is domain-specific ### Executive: inhibition, updating, switching, planning ### Frontoparietal, subcortical, cerebellar networks ### Performance depends on sleep, stress, environment ### Externalise demands with routines and visual cues ## Social and moral understanding ### Theory of mind represents beliefs and intentions ### False-belief task is one milestone ### Real social cognition integrates ambiguous cues ### Difference does not mean absent empathy ### Morality: emotion, learning, reasoning, institutions ### Moral harms distinguished from conventions ### Reasoning expands from punishment to principles ### Moral language does not guarantee behaviour ## Adolescence and identity ### Puberty plus expanding social and legal roles ### Reward systems respond before regulation matures #### Especially in emotional peer contexts ### Not uniformly irrational ### Risk harmful with intense reward, low supervision ### Identity integrates values, roles, body, culture ### Exploration and commitment can be phases ### Distress not automatically due to identity ## Adulthood and ageing ### Intimacy, work, caregiving, generativity ### Processing speed declines gradually ### Knowledge, vocabulary, expertise stable or grow ### Cross-sectional cohort and longitudinal survival bias ### Normal ageing slows retrieval, not dementia ### Sensory loss masquerades as cognitive impairment ### Acute decline: delirium, illness, medication ### Narrowing future time changes priorities ### Grief varies, no mandatory stages ## Context, categories, and formulation ### Nested systems shape daily inputs ### Adversity alters stress physiology, not destiny ### Protective relationships and services buffer risk ### Resilience must not shift responsibility ### Diagnostic thresholds divide continuous traits ### Masking conceals difficulty at a cost ### Formulate profile, context, goals, accommodations ### Compare with own trajectory, not only population