1. 12.1 Brain Development from One to Three

2. Goals / Objectives The student will be able to:
Relate the connection between brain research & learning.
Describe how intelligence & environment affect learning.
Differentiate among the four methods of learning used by young children.
Explain how children develop concepts in stages.
Summarize how 1 – 3 year olds develop in 7 areas of intellectual activity.

3. Essential Questions What is neuroscience? What is intelligence?
What are the four methods of learning?
Why is curiosity important?
How does an active imagination help children learn about the world around them?

4. The Study of the Brain
The brain plays a major part in directing behavior & determining intelligence.
Neuroscience – the modern study of the brain.
Has provided further important discoveries about the functions of the human brain.

5. The Role of Intelligence
Intelligence – the ability to interpret & understand everyday situations & to use prior experiences when faced with new situations or problems.
Intelligence is also the capacity to learn.
Both heredity & environment shape intelligence.

6. The Role of Intelligence
Everyone is born with certain limits of possible intellectual development.
The extent to which an individual’s potential is actually developed is greatly influenced by that person’s environment.
It is crucial for young children to have an environment that promotes & stimulates the senses.

7. The Role of Intelligence
Environments should include:
Interactions with caregivers.
A variety of appropriate playthings.
Plenty of encouragement.
An enriched learning environment provides the best opportunity for learning during a child’s early years.
A stimulating environment boosts learning.

8. Methods of Learning
Children learn much through everyday experiences and through play.
Four different methods that children use for learning.
Incidental.
Trial and error.
Imitation.
Directed learning.

9. Incidental Learning Is unplanned learning.
An example is when a child happens to push a button on a musical toy and discovers that this action causes music to play.

10. Trial and Error Learning
Takes place when a child tries several solutions before finding one that works.
At 12 – 18 months, this means experimenting.
Trial and error learning for a three year old would be more advanced.

11. Imitation Learning by watching and copying others.
Older children are often annoyed when a younger sibling “copies” everything they do or say.
The younger child uses the older child as a model for behavior of all kinds.
Both skills & attitudes can be learned by imitation.

12. Directed Learning
Learning that results from being taught, often by parents, other caregivers, teachers, & older siblings, is directed learning.
Directed learning occurs in school or other places that offer formal instruction, as well as at home.
Directed learning begins in the early years & continues through years of formal schooling & throughout life.

13. Concept Development
Children learn concepts – general categories of objects & information – and the words for those concepts in stages.
Young children often over-apply labels:
For example, toddlers may think that any round food is a cookie.
Young children also learn to categorize objects by shape, color, & size.

14. Concept Development
The relationship between two objects – big and little – may be recognized as early as 18 months.
Not until age three can children pick out the middle-sized ball from three possibilities.
Concepts about what is alive and what isn’t are not learned until later.
Concepts of time improve during the 2nd and 3rd years.
A child may not understand “today”, “tomorrow”, and “yesterday” until kindergarten.

15. The Mind at Work
Intellectual activity can be broken down into 7 areas:
Attention.
Memory.
Perception.
Reasoning.
Imagination.
Creativity.
Curiosity.

16. Attention
Attention span – the length of time a person can concentrate on a task without getting bored.
At any given moment, the five senses are bombarded with information.
In order to function, adults must have the ability to focus their attention on the task at hand & block out much of the sensory information they receive.
Infants & very young children are unable to do this.
Their attention flits from one bit of sensory information to another as they try to make sense of it all.

17. Memory Without memory, there would be no learning.
Experiences that are forgotten cannot affect later actions or thoughts.
Older children & adults have both short-term and long-term memory.
Short-term memory – brief & allows people to accomplish many everyday tasks without burdening the brain with storing unimportant information indefinitely.
Long-term memory – is for more important data. The ability to remember an event for a long period of time.

18. Memory
For long-term memory, information must first enter short-term memory & be judged important enough to remember.
Then it is stored in the long-term memory.
Babies begin to demonstrate memory early.
They quickly learn to recognize the faces of their primary caregivers.
Between 6 mths – 1 year, babies develop recall memory.
Recall memory – the ability to remember things that had a strong emotional impact.

19. Perception Perceptions – the information received through the senses.
A newborn learns about the world through perceptions.
This sensory information reinforces established connections in the brain & sparks new ones.
Although a newborn’s brain is developing these neural connections & pathways at a rapid rate, an infant is just beginning to interpret the information.
Gradually the brain organizes itself to handle increasingly complex learning as a child grows.

20. Reasoning
Reasoning is necessary to gain the ability to solve problems & make decisions.
It is also important in recognizing relationships & forming concepts.
Babies show the signs of simple problem solving skills at about 4 – 6 months.
1, 2, & 3 year olds learn more sophisticated reasoning skills.
Making decisions involves choosing from different alternatives.
Children learn to make good decisions through practice, so it’s important to give young children plenty of opportunities to make real decisions.

21. Imagination Imagination becomes very apparent at about 2 years of age.
An active imagination enhances learning because it allows the child to try new things & to act out a variety of roles.
Imagination can also help children cope with anxiety & frightening new concepts.
It is important to respect a child’s imagination & respond carefully.
Until about the age of 5, children are not always sure where reality ends & imagination begins.

22. Creativity
A related mental ability is creativity in which the imagination is used to produce original ideas.
These ideas are often displayed through an object that others can see, such as a drawing or finger painting.
The creative product is sometimes not an object, as with daydreams, dramatic play, or silly stories.
Creativity is most readily developed in early childhood and is an asset throughout life.

23. Curiosity
Children are curious about the world around them & that curiosity helps brain development & learning.
It is curiosity that causes children to wonder “why” and “how” about things or to try new activities.
Parents may sometimes stifle that curiosity by overprotecting a child.
Although children need a safe environment, they also need the freedom to explore the world around them.