3 credits
Fall 2026 Lecture
This course provides an overview of (1) foundational and current child development theories and (2) research on typical individual change throughout infancy and childhood within the family context. Emphasis is given to milestones, and to the processes and mechanisms proposed to explain developmental change. The course takes a chronological age-approach to study development within the family context and covers the following stages: prenatal and infancy, early childhood, and middle childhood. Initially the course places the individual within the larger family context and then delineates development/growth within the realms of physical growth, brain, motor, sensation, perception, language, social, cognitive, feeding/eating, sleep, self-regulation, attachment, and temperament/personality development. Across these realms diversity and historical standards around typical development expectations will also be incorporated. Permission of instructor required.
Learning Outcomes1Demonstrate an understanding of basic tenets of influential child development theories. This foundational knowledge will include (but is not limited to) life-history theory, genetics, developmental neuroscience, attachment theory, bioecological theory, social domains theory, and Piaget.
2Analyze, discuss, and critique information about child development theories and research using empirical evidence.
3Demonstrate an understanding of the normative developmental progression (from fetus to middle childhood) in the domains of: Physical growth, brain maturation, language, social, cognitive, feeding/eating, sleep, self-regulation, attachment, and temperament/personality development.
4Think critically about how historic patterns of research, family systems, and isms (e.g., racism, weightism, ableism) influence our standards of typical/normative development for developmental domains.
5Demonstrate an understanding of the family factors that influence variability in typical developmental trajectories. Family factors will include (but are not limited to) individual characteristics (e.g., child gender, innate capacities, and age), dyadic features (e.g., marital conflict / union dissolution, contingent responsivity), and contextual elements (e.g., socioeconomic resources, culture).
Restrictions
made by Purdue students.