PSY210H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Teratology, Heredity
Document Summary
Debate in human development: role of heredity and maturational factors vs. role of learning and experience is the question psychologists are always coming back to. Contemporary psychologists see interaction of both in the development - genes help shape environment and environment in uence genes. Range of reaction= heredity does not rigidly x behaviour but instead establishes a range of possible developmental outcomes that may occur in response to different environments. Ex. when looking at the interaction between environment and genotype and the achieved test scores of children that live in the restricted vs. enriched environment we see that the type of environment in uence the outcomes in test. Environmental risks: teratogens= environmental agent such as drug, medication, dietary imbalance or polluting substance that may cause developmental deviations in the growing human organism; most threatening in human embryonic stage. Teratogen effects are exerted mostly during critical periods, each different teratogen exerts different effects, maternal or fetal genotypes interacts with effects.
