Early Brain Development

When the foetus is ¾ weeks old, a long tube develops in the brain. It forms 3 distinct [Link] 5 weeks old, the forebrain and hindbrain have split into two (anterior and posterior parts).Anterior: front part of the brain. Posterior: back part of the [Link] 6 weeks old the cerebellum develops as well as the medulla [Link]: Joins the midbrain and spinal cord. It is responsible for balance, coordination and moving. Medulla Oblongata: Responsible for automatic/involuntary responses
e.g. breathing, blinking and [Link] birth to three years old is a time of rapid brain development! There is an increase in the amount of neural connections. With 700-1000 forming every second. The brain doubles in size in the 1st year and reaches 80% of its size by three.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Cognitive development are the changes we go through in terms of our thinking, problem solving, perception and [Link] suggested that all children will go through FOUR stages of cognitive development like a transition. These stages are UNIVERSAL and INVARIANT.

Stages of Cognitive Development

0-2 years – Sensorimotor

2-7 years – Pre Operational

7-11 years – Concrete Operational

11+ years – Formal operational

Sensorimotor Stage

Infants explore the world using their senses. They learn through smell, hearing and touch. At 6 months, they develop object permanence and often repeat actions such as dropping items.

Pre-Operational

This stage is divided into two aspects: Symbolic Stage and Intuitive Stage.

Symbolic Stage is when children use symbols to represent objects. Animism can also be seen and children are egocentric.

Intuitive Stage is when children use reasoning to understand the world. Children can only focus on one aspect of a situation. This is known as Centration. There is also Irriversibility. This is when a child is not able to use thought to reverse an event such as knowing that if water from a wide glass is poured into a tall glass so it looks as if there is more water, when the water is poured back into the wide it will look the same as it did.

Concrete Operational

Children can apply rules and strategies to aid their understanding and [Link] in this stage include: Seriation, Classification, Reversibility, Conversion, Decentration

Formal Operational Stage

Children’s thinking has more control. They can understand abstract though, understand time and how it’s changed and can examine consequences.

Evaluating Piaget’s stages of Cognitive Development

Strengths:

Real work application: Piaget’s work has practical applications and can be used in education to help children to develop into the next stage.

Research support: Research shows the existence of the stages which increases the validity of the theory.

Useful: Piaget’s data came from interviews and observations with children which means there is a lot of in depth data which increases the validity of the theory.

Weaknesses:

Lack of research support: Some studies show children develop earlier than Piaget thought which reduces the validity of the theory.

Not useful: Piaget’s theory did not look at the influence of social interactions or cultural setting which could impact on a child’d development.

Not useful: Piaget’s data came from interviews and observations with children. The children may have lied or provided socially desirable responses and the observations may be subjective to the interpreter.

Lack of research support: Repeating Piaget’s research in a more natural setting produced different results therefore the theory is not reliable.
Schema development

Equilibrium: Children experience the world around them and the schemas work for them. For example, a child sees an animal with four legs and calls it a horse this is their schema. Therefore, every four legged animal is a horse = equilibrium

Disequilibrium: As they experience new things in life, new information is added which does not make sense in terms of their schema. E.g. A child sees a zebra, it has four legs but its not a horse??? = disequilibrium

Assimilation: Children need to incorporate new information into their schema to accommodate new info. E.g. A child learns about new animals = assimilation

Accommodate: when new information or experiences cause you to modify your existing schemas

Developmental Study 1

Piaget and Inhelder (1959)

Background: Children in the pre-operational stage sees the world from their own viewpoint. Understanding there are other viewpoints is something that develops. This helps move into the concrete operational stage where they ‘decentre’.

Aims: The extent to what ages do children take the view of another person and children’s system of putting together different views of what they see.

Procedure: 100 participants took part between the ages of 4-12

4 – 6.5 years = 21 children

6.5 – 8 years = 30 children

8 – 9.5 years = 33 children

9.5 – 12 years = 16

Materials:

1.​ A model of three mountains including a house, red cross, snow and a path
2.​ 10 pictures the three mountains from different positions
3.​ Pieces of card in the shape of mountains to represent the mountains
4.​ A wooden doll

Ways of questioning:

1.​ Place the shapes to show how the mountain looked for them and the doll
2.​ Pick out of 10 pictures what they could see and the doll could see
3.​ Choose a picture and position the doll to see that view

Findings:

Pre-operational stage (4-6.5 years): Chooses pictures and shows picture for what they can see.

Concrete operational stage (7-9 years): Start to understand that others see the model differently. Children 9-10 years old understand the doll has a different view.

Conclusions:

●​ Children up to 7 were egocentric

Piaget and Inhelder (1959) Evaluation

Strengths

Validity: Piaget provided a lot of detail about children’s development. We know when children stop being egocentric.

Reliability: Piaget used careful controls in his study. The same mountain was used every time.

Validity: Piaget used qualitative data. Data is in detail and from the individual which makes it valid.

Validity: Children were from Switzerland and familiar with mountain scenery so the task is argued to be a natural task.

Weaknesses
Validity: Piaget’s study did not have a realistic task. Children were asked to look at mountains so the study lacks mundane realism.

Validity: Piaget used qualitative data. Participants may give socially desirable responses which reduces the validity.

Generalisability: Piaget did not have a range of cultures. He only used Swiss children.

Counter research evidence

Helen Borke (1975) stated that children were not egocentric but they found the ‘three mountains task’ too hard as the task was unrealistic.

Borke changed the wooden doll to Grover (a character from Sesame Street) and the mountain model was on a turn table that the children could turn themselves.

Borke found that children of 3 years old accurately recalled the view of Grover over 79% of the time and children ages 4 years old correctly recalled 93% of the time.

Dweck’s mindset theory

Mindset: A set of beliefs we have about our ability to succeed in education and other areas of our life.

Growth mindset: Believing that practice and effort can improve abilities

Fixed mindset: Believing that your abilities are fixed and unchangeable

Key points of the theory

1) Children should be praised for effort rather than ability

2) Children can develop a fixed mindset and give up on challenges because it is not ‘in them’ to succeed

3)Teachers also have fixed or growth mindsets – a teacher with a fixed mindset will focus on a child’s ability whereas a teacher with a growth mindset sees a child can improve with sticking at things (perseverance).

Strengths

Research Support: Dweck’s theory of development has support by scientific [Link] example, Yeager and Dweck found that using a growth mindset improved 1500 low achieving students grades.

Free will: Dweck’s theory acknowledges that we have free will. Dweck believes we have the power to change our thinking and thoughts about challenges and that we can move mindsets.

Weaknesses

Lacks research support: For example David Dadau (2017) wrote an article questioning the theory as he believed that just because you believe you have a growth mindset doesn’t increase your abilities.

Not useful: For example, the methods used to support the theory include questionnaires which are lack validity because participants might lie and provide socially desirable responses.

Willingham’s theory of practice

Willingham suggested that to learn and develop skills you must have previous knowledge. Knowledge frees up space in our working memory. This allows us to practice skills such as problem solving.

Practice and effort

Practicing allows knowledge and skills to move from STM to LTM. Enough practice allows you to do things automatically. This leaves space in your working memory to learn new things.

Cognitive, Physical and Social Development

Willingham believed that we can boost children’s cognitive, physical and social development and suggested strategies that teachers should do to support this:

Cognitive development:

●​ Use problems that are not too far out of student’s reach.
●​ Remember that children’s abilities change every day.

Physical Development:

●​ Focus on what movements would be necessary for a task.

Social Development:
 ●​ Encourage self-regulation (do not be influenced by others)
●​ Demonstrate appropriate behaviour for children to model.

Evaluating Willingham’s theory of cognitive development

Strengths:

Real work application: Willingham’s work can be applied to education and other situations to promote a child’s development in a positive way.

Research support: Betty Repacholi and Alsion Gopnik’s (1997) study provides experimental support, showing that young children needed the knowledge in Piaget’s experiment before they could understand the skills.

Weaknesses:

Not useful: Willingham ignored the importance of individual differences in learning. Some of his theory relates to genes (e.g working memory). What is in someone’s genes cannot be changed easily using strategies.

Not reductionist (holistic): Willingham’s ideas come many areas of neuroscience, memory theory and cognitive development. This means that his ideas are not really one singular theory.

Developmental study 2

Gunderson et al (2013) Parent praise to 1-3 year olds predicts their motivation.

Background: There are two types of praise given to children. The type of praise can affect the type of motivational framework that the child develops.

Person praise (praising the individual) can lead to a child developing an entity motivational framework.

Entity motivational framework: Behaviour and ability is fixed and based on a child’s nature.

Process praise (praising the child’s behaviour) can lead to a child developing an incremental motivational framework.

Incremental motivational framework: Behaviour and ability can be changed with effort

Aims:

1.​ Are children affected by different types of parental praise?

Procedure:

The sample included 29 boys and 24 girls. This included a range of cultures e.g. 64% were white, 17% were African American, 11% were Hispanic, and 8% were multiracial.

Longitudinal study – Children were assessed using a questionnaire at 14 months, 26 months and 38 months. Five years later their motivation was reviewed. The questionnaire included a range of questionnaires about their motivation, morality, beliefs and intelligence

Results: Overall parents gave more process praise than person praise. Process praise was given more to boys than girls.

Process praise = 18%

Person praise = 16%

Boys = 24% process praise

Girls = 10% process praise

A strong correlation between process praise and motivation was strengthened.

Conclusion:

●​ Clear relationship between parents use of process praise and a child’s later use of incremental motivational framework (ability being changeable)
●​ Did not find that parental use of person praise led to an entity motivational framework (ability to fixed)

Evaluating Gunderson et al (2013)

Strengths:

Validity: Gunderson et al conducted their research in naturalistic settings. This increases the ecoglogical validity of the study.
Validity: The researchers who videotaped and analysed the data did not know what the study was on. This means the interpretation is less likely to be influenced by bias.

Generalisability: There were a mixture of participants cultures.

Weaknesses:

Ethical issues: The ethics can be criticised. The participants were told that the study was on child development.

Validity: The parents were observed during the research and so they may have changed their behaviour towards their child.

Issues and Debates: Morality

Morals: Understanding what is right and wrong. This can differ depending on situations and culture.

Moral development: Children’s growing understanding about right and wrong

Piaget

Piaget thought that moral development happens in [Link] 5-10 years old rules are about punishment and right and wrong. = heteronomous. Other people provide rules which govern our [Link] 10 years onwards its about bad actions could have good consequences = autonomous. Individuals are responsible for their own behaviour and decide what is right or wrong.