Imagine you are a new parent. Welcome to some sleepless nights of trying to get your baby to sleep a few consolidated hours, feed every few, and get a few hours of rest of your own, while trying to do everything right by your newborn. For some new parents, with a smartphone at their bedside, a lot of googling happens in those first few weeks and months of their newborn’s life to find out what “normal” behaviour is for a baby – whether it’s about what that baby is currently up to or what their future might hold.
There are many questions and controversies that parents, researchers and others might wonder about throughout the course of a child’s development, for example:
is prenatal testing important?
what are the effects of certain drugs prenatally?
does media purported to make your baby smarter really work?
when should a caregiver introduce solids
is circumcision necessary or important?
where should a baby sleep for the first year?
how does media consumption affect a child?
is there such a thing as too much much screen time?
is homeschooling a good idea?
what are some developmentally appropriate games or toys?
For this paper, you will choose a topic that has captured your interest from our readings so far or your experience raising your virtual baby. Much like your very first discussion board post, your task is to do a comprehensive google search to find what you can on blogs and other non-academic sources and then contrast what you find with some scientific literature. The age range for this first paper can be any time between conception and the preschool-age period.
You will write an academic paper contrasting what you find “out there” on the world wide web, vs. what the academic literature has to say about the topic. Please note that for your web search, you need to find 2 online sources of any kind. For your academic literature search, you need to find 2 academic, peer-reviewed articles to review. Your best source for relevant academic articles is the Douglas College library (online or in-person).
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: Please don’t give your sources equal weight. The goal of this paper is to explore what’s out there on the web and contrast it with what you find in the scientific literature. Is the content the same? Is what’s written on the blog you found backed by scientific evidence? Who wrote it? What are their credentials? Please do some digging into whether you should trust what you have read.
This paper should be between 3-5 pages in length, double spaced. You must include a title page for your paper and write it using APA style. You may use headings if you find them helpful, and you must use 12 point, Times New Roman font. Submit your paper online through Blackboard.