Psychology 2090: Developmental Psychology, Spring 2014 Parent Kit Names: _______________________________ Due: April 16

You may do this project in pairs. If you do, please submit only one report per group. Remember to put both of your names on it. Background As developmental psychologists learn more about how children learn and grow, we hope to pass some valuable information along to parents. However, there is a gap between the way research findings get communicated in the scientific community and what parents would find helpful. We need to connect findings from the lab to decisions that real families have to make. In this assignment, you will design a parent kit that incorporates the knowledge we have about children at a particular age, but presents it in a way that is easy to understand and shows how particular research findings could translate into everyday activities. Imagine that you work for a company that markets educational products. Youve been assigned to work with a team on the development of a parent kit. The kit will include information and activities that parents can use to create an ideal developmental niche for their child at a particular age. Creating a Parent Kit Prepare a brief description of all the materials you would need to pitch your design ideas to your boss and the marketing staff. Each item should be described in under a page, and feel free to use illustrations. Combine your descriptions of individual pieces of the kit into a portfolio (clip it together!) along with a brief (one page max) introduction for parents that buy the kit. Limit your kit to three components. Your kit might include the following components: a guidebook with highlights of what develops at this age and what children are still working on. ideas for developmentally appropriate games and activities a toy buying guide that orients parents toward the best toys for children at this age toys, videos, books, or CDs parents could use with their children (Note: You can invent hypothetical materials that your company can make) charts that parents could use to note significant milestones or their childrens improvement in a particular skill There are lots of other things that you might want to include, so dont feel limited to these ideas. Im looking for creativity here.

Make sure that everything you say is explicitly supported by information in the readings, lecture, or articles from the primary scientific literature. Do not use popular press articles or web pages as references. The main purpose of this assignment is for you to put developmental psychology facts to use. Therefore, your grade will be depend on how well you tie in developmental research.

Psychology 2090: Developmental Psychology, Spring 2014 Parent Kit If your last name begins with: AF G-L M-R S-Z Design a kit for the following age range: 0 6 months 7 12 months 13 18 months 19 24 months

If you are working in pairs, you have a choice of age range if your last names correspond to different age categories, Your parent kit will be evaluated in terms of: 1. How accurately youve represented children at your assigned age. I am looking for a balanced and thorough presentationdont fixate too much on one aspect of development. Make sure what youve said is factually correct. 2. How well you support your recommendations with developmental research. You will need to make this crystal clear to me---even if a recommendation makes sense, I need to know that you know why it does.