Behavioral Dentistry Second Year

1. Human Psychological
Development

2. Nature vs. Nurture
• Genotype:
• Refers to characteristics that are determined
by information coded on the genes
• Phenotype:
• Refers to a person’s observable and measurable
characteristics,
• Often the result of an interaction between genetics
and the environment

3. Reaction Range
• Refers to each person’s genetic endowment sets a
range (upper and lower boundaries) for development
of a particular trait
• Then, environment factors determine where the
person will end up within that range
• It is believed that the reaction range is larger for
those with high genetic endowment than those with
low genetic endowment
For instance,
• The range is broader for highly intelligent children
than for those with below average intelligence
• Psychosexual Development

4. Critical and Sensitive Periods
Critical period:
• Refers to a limited time span during which a person (or other
organism) is biologically prepared to acquire certain behaviors but
requires the presence of appropriate environmental stimuli for
development to actually occur
• For instance,
• Newly-hatched geese will imprint on (become attached to and
follow) the first moving object – usually the mother goose that they
see during the first 15 hours of life
• If nothing moves during this critical period, imprinting will not
occur

5. Learning by Imprinting
• As an animal matures, it recognizes and socially bonds with others
of its species through a process known as imprinting

6. Konrad Lorenz, 1935
zoologist, ethologist, ornithologist

7. Sensitive Period
• Used for human instead of critical period
• Reflects the fact that though there are optimal time for certain
capacities to develop, those capacities can develop, to some
degree at an earlier or later time
Maturation
• Related to genetically-determined pattern of development.
For example,
• preprogrammed sequences of behaviors,
• Such as learning to walk:
- pulling oneself to a standing position,
- walk while holding on furniture,
- standing alone,
- walking without assistance
• Little or no impact on environmental involvement

8. Canalization
• Refers to some characteristics which seem relatively
resistant to environmental forces, such as
sensorimotor development, which is highly
canalized
• Intelligence and personality are traits that are less
canalized

9. Secular Trends
• Refers to differences in the timing of physical changes
that are found in children belonging to different cohorts
• For example, secular trend in the onset of menarche
• Over the past century, the onset decreased by about 4
months every decade from age17 in mid-1800s to age 12
or 13 in recent years
• This is as a result of better diet, advancements in medical
care, and other factors
• Secular trends provide evidence of environmental impact
on development

10. Cognitive development (Piaget)
Piaget
• A biologist and viewed cognitive development as
a special case of biological growth
• Body has physical structures that enable it to
adapt to the environment
• Also, the mind builds mental structures that
permit it to progressively increase its fit to the
environment

11. Adaptation and Equilibrium
Adaptation (piaget’s key concept)
• Involves building cognitive schemas – are organized
thinking about world, through interaction with
environment
• Adaptation consists of two complementary processes
1. Assimilation
• The child incorporates and interprets new information in
terms of his or her existing schemas
For example,
• A child who sees a zebra at the zoo and calls it a horse
is assimilating the zebra into his horse schema

12. 2. Accommodation
• Child’s schemas are modified to take into
account newly understood properties of objects
• If the child calls a zebra “a horse with stripes”
and eventually learns that the name for animal is
“zebra”, he has noticed that zebras differ in
some ways from horses and has revised his
cognitive schema accordingly
Equilibrium
• Describes assimilation and accommodation as
complementary and how they work together

13. Equilibrium:
• Refers to continuous movement between:
1) Cognitive equilibrium;
• A state in which we use existing schemas to interpret reality
(assimilate)
AND
2) Cognitive disequilibrium;
• A state in which we notice that information doesn’t fit into our
current schemas –
• Disequilibrium accommodate or modify our current schemas
so that we can understand new information – move back to the
state of equilibrium
• Equilibration takes place continuously throughout
development, even at higher levels of cognitive maturity

14. Stages of Development
According to Piaget:
• Cognitive development proceeds
sequentially in four stages
• Each new stage builds upon the earlier
one
• Stages are invariant; they emerge in a
fixed order for all children and there is no
skipping of stages

15. 1. Sensorimotor stage
• Birth to 2 years
• Child learns about objects through:
- sensory information (e.g., how objects look, feel, sound, and
taste) and
- motor activity (e.g., grasping, hitting)
Achievement of this stage:
• Object permanence,
• objects continue to exist even when they are not visible
• Deferred imitation; refers to the ability to imitate an observed
act at a later point in time
• Symbolic thought, which allows child to use words, activities,
and mental images to stand for objects
• Symbolic thoughts is the representation of reality through the
use of abstract concepts such as words, gestures, and
numbers.

16. 2. Preoperational Stage
• 2 to 7 years
• Increase in symbolic thought
• strides in language
• substitute pretend play (objects are used stand for something
different –
• For example, a block becomes a truck – playing daddy mammy
Limitations of Preoperational thought:
Egocentricism:
• Children’s inability to understand that others do not experience
the world in the same way they do
Egocentricism underlies:
a) magical thinking:
- erroneous belief that one has control over objects or events;
b) animism:
- belief that objects have thoughts, feelings, and other lifelike
qualities

17. • In preoperational stage,
• children are unable to conserve or understand that the
underlying property of an object may not change even
when its physical appearance changes
• For example, when water from a tall glass is poured
into a short, wide glass
• Child thinks there is a less water in the short glass
Causes of inability to converse:
Centration:
• tendency to focus on one detail of a situation to the
neglect of other important features,
Irreversibility:
• inability to understand that actions can be reversed

18. 3. Concrete Operational Stage
• 7 to 12 years
• Characterized by development of reversibility and decentration
• Child is able to converse or understand
• Conservation develops sequentially
• First comes the conservation of:
- number,
- then length,
- liquid,
- mass,
- area,
- weight, and
- Volume
• Piaget called sequential conservation “horizontal decalage”

19. • Horizontal decalage
• Refers to sequential mastery of concepts within a
single stage of development
• Transivity:
- ability to mentally sort objects;
• For example;
- cards of different colors
- WCST
• Hierarchical classification:
• The ability to sort objects into hierarchies of classes
and subclasses based on similarities and
differences among the groups

20. 4. Formal Operational Stage
• 12 onward
• Child thinks logically and processes abstract,
hypothetical information very well
• For example, apple and orange (abstract response)
• Hypothetical-deductive reasoning:
- Ability to arrive at and test alternative explanations for observed
events
• Propositional thought:
- Ability to evaluate the logical validity of verbal assertions
without making inference to real-world circumstances

21. Adolescents at this stage:
• With their new powers of abstract reasoning, spend time
constructing:
- grand religious,
- ethical,
- Political and theories
- philosophical
• these theories are unsophisticated and naïve
• Prone to operational egocentricism or a rigid insistence that world can
become a better place through implementation of their idealistic
schemas
• Imaginary Audience:
- belief that others are as concerned with and critical of the their
behavior as themselves
• Personal Fable:
- Belief that he or she is unique and indestructible
- For example, I won’t get in an accident if I drive at 180km an hour)

22. Critique
• Underestimating cognitive abilities of children,
especially in preoperational stage (2 -7 yrs)
• Children as young as age two can recognize that
other people see things from a different perspective
• children as young as three or four can be taught to
conserve
• Only about one-half of the adult population reaches
formal operational stage ( 12 onward)
• Many adults use formal operational thought only in
their areas of expertise and experience

23. Erik ERIKSON'S DEVELOPMENT STAGES
• Accepted Freud’s ideas as basically correct
• Development functions by epigenetic principle
• Emphasizes psychosocial and culture factors in personality development
• Personality development is continuous vs. only 5 stages in Freud
Infant ( 0 – 1 ½ years)
1. Trust vs. Mistrust
Needs maximum comfort with minimal uncertainty to trust himself/herself,
others, and the environment
Toddler ( 1 ½ - 3 or 4 years)
2. Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
Works to master physical environment while maintaining self-esteem
Preschooler ( 4 – 5 or 6 yrs)
3. Initiative vs. Guilt
Begins to initiate, not imitate, activities; develops conscience and sexual
identity
School-Age Child (6 – 12 yrs)
4. Industry vs. Inferiority
Tries to develop a sense of self-worth by refining skills

24. ERIKSON'S DEVELOPMENT STAGES (cont..)
Adolescent (puberty – 18 to 20 years)
5. Identity vs. Role (identity) Confusion
Tries integrating many roles (child, sibling, student, athlete, worker)
into a self-image under role model and peer pressure
Young Adult (20 – 30 yrs)
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation
Learns to make personal commitment to another as spouse, parent
or partner
Middle-Age Adult (30 – 60 yrs)
7. Generativity vs Stagnation
Seeks satisfaction through productivity in career, family, and
civic interests
Older Adult ( 60 and over)
8. Ego Integrity vs. Despair
Reviews life accomplishments, deals with loss and preparation for
death – approaches death without fear is called “Wisdom”

25. • Lev Vygotsky was born in Russia in
1896.
• He died at the young age of 37 from
tuberculosis.
• Due to his early death, most of his
theories were left undeveloped.
• His work in the last 10 years of his life
has become the foundation of much
research and theory in cognitive
development.
Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development?

26. Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Vygotsky
• Described cognition as depending on the social, cultural, and historical
context
• Cognitive development is directly related to social interactions
Learning occurs on two levels:
1) between the child and another person
2) within the child
For example:
• when working with a child on a task, an adult might say “no, don’t do it
that way”
• Subsequently, child may use the same statement to guide his or her
own behavior
Zone of proximal development:
• Refers to the gap between what a child can do alone and what he or
she can accomplish with help from parents or more competent peers

27. Memory in Childhood
• Newborns have some degree of recognition memory
• At age 2 to 3 months, can recall some information
when provided with cues
• By 2 years of age, can recall events that occurred
several months ago
Infantile amnesia:
• When adults are asked about their earliest memories,
cannot recall anything occurred before age 3.
• Memory increases at preschool years and shows
substantial gain at age 7

28. Factors help to increase memory:
1. Increased short-term memory capacity (working
memory)
1. Consistent use of rehearsal and other memory
strategies
3. Increased knowledge about things that are to be
remembered
4. The development of metamemory, or knowledge
about one’s own memory processes

29. Parenting and Personality Development
• Parenting behavior has a strong impact on children’s personality
development
Dimension of parenting:
Warmth versus Hostility
• Warm parents are affectionate, put the child’s needs first,
enthusiastic about child’s activities, empathetic and sensitive
• Hostile parents quick to criticize, rarely shows affection, and
overly rejecting
• Children come from warm families are more securely attached in
the first two years of life, have high self-esteem and IQs, and are
more empathetic and altruistic (‫)غيرى‬

30. Restrictiveness versus Permissiveness
• Restrictive parents
• Highly controlling, demanding, expecting unwavering
obedience to their rules.
• Child tends to be obedient, timid, and having difficulty
establishing close relationships
• Permissive parents
• Have few rules, make few demands, and let children
make their own decisions
• Children are relatively thoughtless toward other,
moderately independent
• Optimal parenting is one that falls in the middle of the
restrictive-permissive continuum

31. Parenting Styles
Authoritarian Parents:
- Controlling,
- demanding,
- expecting children to accept their demands in an unquestioning
manner
- Respond with punitive manner when child is disobedient
- Children are often insecure, timid, unhappy, dependent, lacking
motivation
Permissive Parents:
- Nurturant and accepting but fail to assert their authority
- Children go to bed when they feel like it, and watch as much TV as
they want, etc
- Children have difficulty controlling their impulses, ignore rules and
regulations, not very involved in academic and work activities

32. Authoritative parents:
- Set high standards for their children and expect children to
comply with their rules
- Gain control by explaining rules to their children and
seeking children’s input into family decisions
- Parents are warm and nurturant
• Children have best outcomes:
- independent,
- achievement-oriented,
- friendly, and
- self-confident

33. Uninvolved Parents:
- Parents are undemanding,
- indifferent,
- rejecting,
- display little commitment to being parents,
- keep their children at a distance
• Children are noncompliant, demanding, lack self-control, prone
to antisocial behavior
• Characteristics of parents:
- Weak parental supervision,
- lack of reasonable rules,
- lax or erratic discipline,
- Parent-child relationship is characterized by hostility,
indifference, apathy,
• Predictive of delinquency in adolescence

34. Aggression and Parenting Factors
• Highly aggressive children come from homes where
the parents are rejecting and lacking of warmth
• Parents either very permissive or indifferent toward
their child’s aggressiveness
• Rely on power assertive discipline as a means of
control
• Aggression associated with an insecure/resistant
attachment pattern

35. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION