Developmental Psychology

PSYC20008

Lecture 6
Environmental Influences
14th March 2024
(we will start at 5mins past)
 Today’s Agenda and Objectives
Agenda
• Genotype-Environment interaction
• Typical patterns of growth
• Environmental influences on growth: Nutrition, Illness and Quality of care
Learning objectives
• Aim: Discuss the interplay between gene and experience; typical
developmental patterns of growth and the effects of environmental
influences on the growth of the human body.
• Learning outcomes:
– Able to discuss the relationships between genotype and phenotype and
environment; describe the typical patterns of growth from infancy until
adolescence; describe the effects of malnutrition, illness and social
deprivation on child growth.
• Recommended reading (examinable) : Hoffnung et al. textbook, Chpt 4.5 and
Chpt 6.1, 6.2 & 6.3.
• Recommended reading (non-examinable): Plomin, DeFries, Knopik &
Neiderhiser, 2017.
 Genotype, Phenotype, Environment

• The interplay between genes and experience is

very complex.
• This model of interaction between hereditary and
environmental influences can help to simplify this:
interplay

Siegler et al. textbook

 Behavioral Genetics

Plomin, DeFries, Knopik & Neiderhiser, 2017

 Top 10 Replicated Findings

1. All psychological traits show significant and substantial

genetic influence

2. No traits are 100% heritable

3. Heritability is caused by many genes of small effect

4. Phenotypic correlations between psychological traits

show significant and substantial genetic mediation

5. The heritability of intelligence increases throughout

development

Plomin, DeFries, Knopik & Neiderhiser, 2017

 Top 10 Replicated Findings

6. Age-to-age stability is mainly due to genetics

7. Most measures of the “environment” show significant

genetic influence

8. Most associations between environmental measures and

psychological traits are significantly mediated genetically

9. Most environmental effects are not shared by children

growing up in the same family

10. Abnormal is normal

Plomin, DeFries, Knopik & Neiderhiser, 2017

 Growth over time

• Very rapid growth during first 2 years of life

• Prolonged period of physical development
• Pubertal growth spurt
Source: Hoffnung et al., (2010), fig 8.1
 Hormones influence growth

Fig 6.11 Schaffer & Kipp

 Sexual maturation

Fig 6.11 Schaffer & Kipp

 World Health Organisation growth charts

• The WHO has growth charts available from a sample of

8,500 children from widely different ethnic backgrounds
and cultural settings (Brazil, Ghana, India, Norway, Oman,
USA).

• The WHO growth charts represent a single international

standard that represents the best description of
physiological growth for all children from birth to 18 years

• Over 140 countries have adopted the WHO growth

standards

• http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/en/
Z-scores for length/height
 Height percentiles for different ages

Height-for-age GIRLS
5 to 19 years (percentiles)

180 180

97th

170 85th 170

50th
160 160

15th

150 3rd 150

Height (cm)

140 140

130 130

120 120

110 110

100 100

Months 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9
Years 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Age (completed months and years)
2007 WHO Reference
 Growth monitoring

• Regular measuring of weight and length of child

• Plotting information on a growth curve
• Take action steps if required
• Child’s health should then improve
 Growth monitoring

• In developing nations, the United Nations Children’s

Fund recommends monthly growth monitoring of all
children up to 18 months of age.
• Growth monitoring often co-occurs with complex
development programs aimed at improving nutrition
and it is perceived to mobilize communities.
• In developed countries, growth monitoring is
conducted far less frequently. The purpose is
different and the outcomes that are anticipated are
more modest.
 Abnormal growth

• Growth monitoring helps to detect:

1. Feeding difficulties Take a more
detailed history
2. Chronic ill health
and offer the
3. Social deprivation mother advice
Take a longer
medical history A mix of inputs will be
and the child commonly applied – more
may need to be intensive monitoring, home
treated or visits and targeting by health
referred to a visitors and community health
specialist workers
 Environmental influences

Environmental influences

Three main types of environmental influences on

physical growth of children:
1. Nutrition
2. Illness
3. Quality of care that a child receives
 Nutrition

• Diet is perhaps the most important

environmental influence on human
growth.
• Children who are inadequately
nourished grow very slowly, if at all.
• If undernutrition is neither prolonged
nor especially severe, children usually
recover from any growth deficits by
having a growth spurt once their diet
becomes adequate.
• Children are able to catch up with
short term growth spurts in order to
regain their genetically influenced
growth trajectories.
 Malnutrition

• Prolonged malnutrition has a more serious impact especially

in the first 5 years of life.

• In many developing nations, as many as 85% of all children

aged under 5 experience some form of malnutrition.

• One out of every four children aged under five (~146 million
children) is underweight for his or her age, and at increased
risk of an early death.

• There are two types of nutritional disease related to under-

nutrition – Marasmus and Kwashiorkor.
 Marasmus

• Marasmus affects babies who receive insufficient protein

and too few calories.
• This can happen if the mother is malnourished and does
not have the resources to provide her child with a
substitute for breast milk or if the child is separated from
his/her mother.
• Babies with marasmus become very frail and wrinkled in
appearance as growth stops and the body tissues begin to
waste away.
• If these children survive, they may remain
small in stature and often suffer from
impaired social and intellectual development.
 Kwashiorkor

• Kwashiorkor affects children who receive

enough calories but not enough protein.
• In many poor nations, one of the few high-
quality sources of protein readily available is
breast milk.
• So breast-fed infants do not ordinarily suffer
from marasmus unless their mothers are
severely malnourished.
• They may develop kwashiorkor when they
are weaned from the breast but then have no
other source of protein.
• As the disease progresses, the child’s hair
thins, the face, legs and abdomen swell with
water and severe skin lesions may develop.
 UNICEF child nutrition statistics
% of children 2009-2013
35

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25

20

% children 15
Underweight (%)

Overweight (%)
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Blue bars for Underweight and Red bars for Overweight – Moderate and severe:
Percentage of children aged 0–59 months who are below/above two standard
deviations from median weight-for-age of the WHO Child Growth Standards.
 Overnutrition

• Dietary excess is another form of poor nutrition.

• Increased risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood
pressure, heart, liver and kidney disease.
• Difficulties with friendships.
• Habits.

Obesity epidemic
• 1 billion overweight adults in world;
300 million are obese.
• Obesity and overweight pose major
risks for chronic illness.
• Combination of increased
consumption of energy-dense foods
and reduced physical exercise.
Epigenetic example
Nutrition in gestation

• Cohort and epidemiological studies can provide information

about the role and timing of differences in nutrition on
health, from an epigenetics perspective.

• During the Nazi occupation in Winter 1944, food supply was

extremely shortened in parts of the Netherlands.
– Daily rations were < 700 cals = 2,929 kj

• Lasted for a short period of time and had a major impact on

ongoing pregnancies.

• Dutch cohort studies have analyzed the outcome of

pregnancies during this period of famine and consequences
of massive maternal under-nutrition on offspring over time.

Source: Ruemmele and Garnier-Lengliné, 2012; Heijman et al., 2009

Epigenetic example
Nutrition in gestation

• Prenatal exposure to the famine was associated with

adverse metabolic and mental phenotypes later in life:
– Higher BMI
– Elevated plasma lipids
– Increased risks of schizophrenia
– Increased risk of cardiovascular disease

• Many of these associations were dependent on the sex of

the fetus and the timing of exposure during gestation
(first trimester in particular).

Source: Heijmans et al., 2009, Epigenetics

 Aus Gov vaccine-preventable conditions and diseases

• Chickenpox (varicella)
• Diptheria
• Influenza
• Hepatitis A, B
• Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib)
• Measles
• Meningococcal disease
• Mumps
• Pneumococcal disease
• Polio (poliomyelitis)
• Rotavirus
• Rubella (German measles)
• Shingles (herpes zoster)
• Tetanus
• Whooping cough (pertussis)
Source: https://beta.health.gov.au/topics/immunisation/vaccine-preventable-conditions-and-diseases?page=1
 Measles

• Highly contagious viral infection

• Spread by respiratory droplets or direct
contact by infected saliva
• Vaccinated individuals have immunity to
measles
• No treatment
• People in Australia still die from measles
today
• Major epidemic can be averted by large
scale vaccinations
• Massive increase in measles cases across
the world in 2019
Mumps

• Contagious viral infection

• Spread by respiratory droplets or
direct contact with infected
saliva
• Painful swelling in salivary glands
and testes for men (can lead to
sterility)
• Can occur at any time point in a
person’s life
• No treatment
 Rubella/German measles

• Viral infection
• Spread by respiratory
droplets or direct contact
with infected saliva
• No treatment
• Major complications with
pregnant women*

*cross-reference Lecture 8 Prenatal development

 MMR Vaccine and Autism false link

• In 1998, Wakefield and

colleagues published a paper
suggesting a link between the
measles, mumps and rubella
(MMR) vaccine and autism.
• The work was discredited and
retracted.
• Other studies found no
evidence.
• Resulted in MMR vaccine rate
dropping particularly for
children born in late 90s and
early 2000s.
• Still used as an argument now
for non-vaccination.
 WHO data on vaccinations

• Immunization prevents illness, disability and death from vaccine-

preventable diseases including
– cervical cancer, diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps,
pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia, polio, rotavirus
diarrhoea, rubella and tetanus.

• Immunization currently averts an estimated 2 to 3 million deaths

every year. An additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided,
however, if global vaccination coverage improves.

• An estimated 19.4 million infants worldwide are still missing out

on basic vaccines
– Around 60% of these children live in 10 countries: Angola, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia,
Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Ukraine.

WHO, March 2017

 Selected immunisations

WHO, March 2017

 In Australia

https://beta.health.gov.au/health-topics/immunisation/childhood-immunisation-coverage/immunisation-coverage-rates-for-all-children
 Non-organic failure to thrive syndrome

• Experience of too much stress and/or too little affection may result
in a lagging in physical growth and motor co-ordination.
 Summary

• The influences between genotype, phenotype and

environment is significant for a child’s development.
• There is rapid growth in the first 2 years and thereafter till
puberty, children typically gain ~5-8 cm in height and ~2-4
kgs in weight each year.
• Another growth spurt occurs at puberty.
• A number of different environmental factors will influence
child growth (nutrition, illness, non-organic failure to
thrive).
• The importance of childhood vaccination against vaccine-
preventable diseases.
• MMR vaccine does not cause autistic spectrum disorder.
Post questions on the Discussion Board; also, for open discussions on any
thoughtful topics. I will answer questions or discuss topics for that week on Friday.
 Developmental Psychology
PSYC20008

Next Lecture 7
Calculating Chi-Square
19th March 2024