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Research issues and methods[edit]

 * 1) What develops? What relevant aspects of the individual change over a period of time?
 * 2) What are the rate and speed of development?
 * 3) What are the mechanisms of development – what aspects of experience and heredity cause developmental change?
 * 4) Are there typical individual differences in the relevant developmental changes?
 * 5) Are there population differences in this aspect of development (for example, differences in the development of boys and of girls)?

Empirical research that attempts to answer these questions may follow a number of patterns. Initially, observational research in naturalistic conditions may be needed to develop a narrative describing and defining an aspect of developmental change, such as changes in reflex reactions in the first year. This type of work may be followed by correlational studies, collecting information about chronological age and some type of development such as vocabulary growth; correlational statistics can be used to state change. Such studies examine the characteristics of children at different ages. These methods may involve longitudinal studies, in which a group of children is re-examined on a number of occasions as they get older, or cross-sectional studies, in which groups of children of different ages are tested once and compared with each other, or there may be a combination of these approaches. Some child development studies examine the effects of experience or heredity by comparing characteristics of different groups of children in a necessarily non-randomized design. Other studies can use randomized designs to compare outcomes for groups of children who receive different interventions or educational treatments.

Issues and Differences
When thinking about conducting psychological research on infants and children, there are certain key aspects of infants that need to be considered before embarking on research. The five key challenges to conducting research with infants are that infants:


 * 1) cannot talk
 * 2) have a limited behavioral repertoire
 * 3) cannot follow instructions
 * 4) have a short attention span
 * 5) develop rapidly so methods need to be updated at different ages and developmental stages

Sucking Rate
High-amplitude sucking technique (HAS) is one common way to explore infants’ preferences. HAS is appropriate for infants from the time that they are born until they are four months old since it takes advantage of infants’ sucking reflex. When this is a measure of interest, researchers will code a baseline sucking rate for each baby before exposing them to the item of interest. A common finding of HAS shows a relaxed, natural sucking rate when exposed to something the infant is familiar with, like their mother’s voice, compared to an increased sucking rate around novel stimuli.

Preferential-Looking Technique
The Preferential-Looking Techique was a breakthrough made by Robert L. Fantz in 1961. In his experiments, he would show the infants in his study two different stimuli. If an infant looks at one image longer than the other, there are two things that can be inferred: the infant can see that they are two different images and that the infant is showing preference to one image in some capacity. Depending on the goal of the experiment, infants may prefer to look at the novel and more interesting stimulus or they may look at the more comforting and familiar image.

Eye Tracking
Eye tracking is a straightforward way of looking at infants’ preferences. One example of eye tracking, using an eye tracking software, it is possible to see if infants understand commonly used nouns by tracking their eyes after they are cued with the target word.

Be mindful of different Institutional Review Board (IRB) expectations relating to studies with infants, children, and minors when planning a study.