TASK 1 Review a Journal Article

By Farah Farzana Binti Mohammad Din (930331-04-5280)

I had choose a journal entitled Introduction to the Special Section on The Effects of
Early Experience on Development written by Nathan A. Fox and Michael Rutter.
This journal is basically the studies about how early experience can effect on
children development. This topic had been divided into seven sections which are the
important advances in neuroscience and molecular genetics (Fox, Levitt, & Nelson,
2010; Meaney, 2010) and fetal development and early experience. Thirdly is on
perinatal experiences containing low birth and long sequences on health and also
development, while the fourth section is on the effects of several psychosocial
deprivation, neglect and abuse. Next, are a discussion on early experience and
stress reactivity and the sixth part presents three article that examining basic
mechanism linking early experiences? Lastly, is on an observation by Jack Shonkoff
about the section with an eye toward thinking about the policy implications of the
science.

I choose this article because, in my opinion, early experience plays important
roles towards children development. If anything interferes in the development of the
child, it can affect the childs ability, learn and act in a number of ways. From this
article, the important theoretical that can be identified is the importance of early
experience and the identification of sensitive or critical periods have a long history
within developmental research. Based on psych biologists such as Seymour Levine
(Levine, 1957) and Victor Denenberg (Denenberg, 1964), that claimed that early
experience can effects on early handling and stress reactivity of the child. This can
be supported by the studied that had been stated in two articles (Price, Grosser,
Plomin, & Jaffee, 2010; DOnofrio et al., 2010) which provide readers about the
consequences or the effects of fetal exposure to maternal smoking. DOnofrio et al.
(2010). He observes the long-term consequences on academic achievement focus
on children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, and he concludes that
prenatal environmentally can give large effects of a shared genetic liability.
From the article, as a teacher-to-be I learnt that, in the future I must adapt
myself with the pupils besides varying my teaching techniques. Each pupil has their
own stages of development as an outcome of biological processes, cognitive and
socio-emotional (Santrock, 2008). Therefore, I need to do various activities during
my teaching process since each of my pupil, has their own learning style, as a result,
by doing that, I can motivate them to participate in the activities. From this, I can
produce more conducive and interesting classroom environment. In addition, during
the teaching and learning process, I should exposed my students with the
surroundings as catalysts to enhance their ability to think, give opinion, understand
and also memorise events. As an example, I can do a visit to zoo or parks with them
so that my pupils will have a wide range of experiences as well increasing their
vocabulary. This task has helped me in understand better about children
development. As an example, mother plays important roles in the child development
since the prenatal stage; she needs to take a good care of her foetus like avoiding
herself from taking any medications or smoking which can affects towards my child
development especially on the cognitive development. Not only that, I also increase
my knowledge in the topic of nature versus nurture. In my opinion, both factors play
important roles in children developments. As we know, nature is biological
characteristic which controls the development of the human being and it gives
unique individualities while as what had been suggest by Broffenbrenner Ecology
Theory (1977, 1989) that the child development is a product of his interaction with
the environment on the child and also how the child response and reacts to the
environment.
Through this task also, I acquire new skills in analyse an article from a journal
from a reliable source. Before this, I only used book as a reference when doing tasks
that had been given to me because compared to books, I rarely found journal in our
library. Besides, by doing this task, I also need to think critically because I need to
relate the article that I found with the topics that I learnt in class such as theorists
and stages of children development. Furthermore, I also learnt how to do article
review. I think, this is a new knowledge for me because I did not use to writing an
article review. To write a review, as the first step, I need to understand the main
points and arguments of the article which is essential for an accurate summation. In
a review, there are a few elements that need to be considered such as logical
evaluation of the article's main theme, supporting arguments and implications for
further. Although this may be an unfamiliar exercise, but throughout the process of
completing this task, I realize that it is not as complex a task as writing an essay
which requiring a lot of library research.
As a conclusion, as a brief assessment of the article, the writers have been
clearly lays out the article using the standard format of writing an article of journal.
Both of the writers, had clearly wrote the tittle which is Introduction to the Special
Section on The Effects of Early Experience on Development that strongly describes
the contents of the paper. As for the abstract, the writers clearly express the basic
design of the study, briefly describe the basic methodology that involves
neuroscience, genetics, and improved developmental and statistical methods for
studying the effects of early experience which includes several studies and theories
done by a number of psych biologists as well as provides evidences from articles.
This journal is also had been organised according to sequence of the studies that
had been made by psych biologists which makes me easy to comprehend on the
topic that the writers tried to display through his writing.














Nathan A. F. & Michael R. (2010). Introduction to the Special Section on the Effects
of Early Experience on Development. Retrieved from
http://www.education.umd.edu/EDHD/faculty/Fox/publications/115.pdf

Haliza Hamzah, Joy N.Samuel & Rafidah Kastawi (2008). Child Development for
Program Perguruan Pendidikan Rendah Pengajian Empat Tahun. Selangor :
UG Press Sdn. Bhd.