1. Neurological, Physical/Motor Development, and Cognitive Development

2.  On the day you were born, you had most of the brain cells you would ever have (100 billion)  Rapid growth neural connections occurs from ages 3-6 ◦ Most is in your frontal lobes  Myelination also increases in the first few years of life  Pathway supporting language and agility proliferate into puberty ◦ Then a pruning process shuts down excess connections and strengthens others

4.  Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience ◦ Unfolding of genetic blueprint  Sets the basic course of development; experience adjusts it

5.  As an infant’s nervous system and muscles mature, more complicated skills emerge ◦ Often takes place in “fits and starts”  Cephalocaudal Development: Develop from the head to the foot  Proximodistal Development: Develop from the center outward  Motor development is almost universal ◦ Not imitation – blind babies also progress in the same manner ◦ Differences in individual timing do exist but average ages are called developmental norms  Genes play a role in motor development (twins begin sitting up and walking on nearly the same day)  Maturation creates a readiness to walk by age 1 ◦ Experience before that time has a limited effect (also true for bowel and bladder control!)

8.  Cognitive development in children has been greatly influenced by the work of Jean Piaget  Began studying development after he had worked developing questions for intelligence tests ◦ Was interested in the wrong answers children got – they were all very similar!  Studied his own children  Said that children’s minds develop through a series of stages

9.  Core principle: Driving force behind our intellectual progression is an unceasing struggle to make sense of our experiences  Schema: A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information  Assimilation: Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas (no changes to the existing schema) ◦ Schema for cow = four legs. We see a dog and call it a cow – we interpret it in terms of our EXISTING schema of cow  Accommodation: Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information ◦ ADJUSTING our schemas to fit new information ◦ We change our schema for cow when we learn that dogs are not cows

13.  Sensorimotor Stage (Sensory – Motor)  Preoperational  Concrete Operational  Formal Operational

14.  From birth to age 2  Babies take in their world through their senses and actions ◦ Looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, grasping  Sensations evoke motor responses  Live in the present  Lack object permanence until about 8 months: the awareness that objects continue to exist when not perceived ◦ Out of sight, out of mind ◦ Cannot form memories for objects once they are removed from the immediate present  Language abilities are rapidly developing  End of stage: Developed a capacity for self-recognition

15.  2-6/7  Thoughts are still bound to their physical and perceptual experiences  During this stage they learn how to use mental representations (but still very limited!) ◦ But can understand language  Lots of fantasy play  Very egocentric ◦ Child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view ◦ Example: When asked to show her picture to mommy, 2- year-old Gabriella holds the picture facing her own eyes, believing that her mother can see it through her eyes  Believe that appearances are real

16.  Age 7-11  Beginning to understand logic ◦ More flexible in their thinking  Learn how to classify things  Master conservation ◦ An understanding that certain properties remain constant despite changes in their form ◦ The properties can include mass, volume, and numbers  Can transform mathematical functions ◦ 4+8=12, 12-4=8 is easily understood!  Often take things literally  Children reasoned best when allowed to engage in “hands- on” learning  Can take on another’s point of view (no longer egocentric)

21.  12 and up  Can think logically and think about abstract principles ◦ Can go beyond the “here and now” and examine causes and effect, possible realities, etc.  Can use symbols and imagined realities ◦ Can solve hypothetical problems

22.  Does a child always have to pass from one stage to the next? ◦ Development is much more gradual  Wasn’t very concerned with individual differences ◦ Cognitive development can vary greatly between individuals  Some adults never learn how to reason abstractly  Confused the physical ability and the ability to understand  Didn’t identify any mechanisms responsible for moving from one stage to the next  Underestimated the abilities of children and overestimated the abilities of adolescents  Viewed the developing child in relative isolation from family, community, and culture

23.  Lev Vygotsky: Stressed the role of culture and cultural differences in cognitive development ◦ Piaget said we develop by exploring our world  Vygotsky said we develop though our social interactions with parents, teachers, and community  Theory of Mind: elaboration of egocentricism ◦ Occurs when a person understands that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different form his or her own  Emerges around age 3 or 4 (earlier than in Piaget)  Failure to develop this has been linked to autism