# Development from behaviour to brain and study design

Compare two introductory accounts of child development, extend the question across adulthood, then move to cortical organisation and the setting in which developmental studies are conducted. The recurring task is to separate a target ability from the demands of its measurement.

1. [Lecture 17: Child Development](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011/resources/lecture-17-child-development/)
   Begin with concrete questions about infancy, learning and cognitive development before moving across explanatory levels.
   Task: Choose one ability from the session overview. Specify the task used to observe it and another demand that task places on the participant.

2. [Lecture 5 - What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought](https://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110/lecture-5)
   Compare a second introductory course’s movement from Piaget to infant cognition rather than adopting the first presentation as the only possible framing.
   Task: Compare how the two lectures formulate a developmental question. Separate the historical theory from the kind of observation used to investigate it.

3. [Lecture 18: Adult Development](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/9-00sc-introduction-to-psychology-fall-2011/resources/lecture-18-adult-development/)
   Extend the question into adulthood so that development is considered across the lifespan.
   Task: Choose an adult-development question and explain whether a task used with younger participants would measure the same thing in the same way.

4. [Lecture 10: Development, Nature & Nurture I](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/9-13-the-human-brain-spring-2019/resources/lecture-10-development-nature-nurture-i/)
   Add cortical organisation as a different level of evidence about developmental change.
   Task: Write two proposed accounts involving genes and experience. Specify an observation that would help distinguish them for one narrowly defined question.

5. [Lecture 11: Development, Nature & Nurture II (2018)](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/9-13-the-human-brain-spring-2019/resources/lecture-11-development-nature-nurture-ii-2018/)
   Complete the paired neuroscience discussion and extend its question to change in adulthood.
   Task: Connect one question from the adult-development lecture to the brain-level discussion while stating what evidence would still be missing.

6. [Using Lookit to Run Developmental Studies Online](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-9-008-brain-and-cognitive-sciences-computational-tutorials/pages/using-lookit-to-run-developmental-studies-online/)
   Finish with the practical setting of developmental measurement and who can participate.
   Task: Using the Lookit description, list a barrier online participation could reduce and a new sampling or measurement question it could introduce. Do not assume wider reach guarantees representativeness.

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