A2 - Intellectual development across the life stages Flashcards
What is intellectual/cognitive development?
During their lifespan, an individual develops useful ways of thinking and learning. Intellectual and cognitive development refers to how individuals organise their ideas and make sense of the world in which they live.
What are the 5 important aspects associated with intellectual development?
1) Language development - essential for clarification, organising thoughts and to share and express ideas.
2) Problem solving - an important skill that is required both to work things out and to make predictions about what might happen.
3) Memory - required for storing, recalling and retrieving info.
4) Moral development - allows for reasoning and making choices, and informs the individual how to act in particular situations and how to act towards self and others.
5) Abstract thoughts and creative thinking - essential for thinking and discussing situations/events that cannot be observed.
Understanding how individuals learn, mature and adapt to their life stage is an essential aspect of human growth and development. As an individual progresses through the various development stages, their intellectual and cognitive ability increase, this is highlighted by studying the difference between adult and children’s learning styles. Here are the stages of intellectual development across the lifespan:
Infancy/early childhood: Stages of rapid intellectual development.
Adolescence/early adulthood: Development of logical thought, problem solving and memory recall skills.
Middle adulthood: Can think through problems and make sound judgements using life experience.
Later adulthood: Changes in the brain can cause short-term memory decline and slower thought processes and reaction times.
Intellectual development and language skills in infancy/early childhood (0-8)
Over an individual’s lifespan, their brain grows at an amazing rate. At birth, a baby’a brain is about 30% of the size of an adult’s brain. By the age of 2, the child’s brain has increased to approx. 80% of the size of an adult’s brain.
Speech and language are essential skills needed to communicate with others. Language development begins before birth and develops rapidly:
Around 3 months: Infants begin to make babbling noises as they learn to control the muscles associated with speech.
Around 12 months: Begin to imitate sounds made by carers such as ‘da da’. This develops into using single words.
Around 2 years: Begin to make 2-word sentences (e.g. ‘cat goed). The infant begins to build their vocab.
Around 3 years: Children begin to make simple sentences (e.g. ‘I want drink’). This develops into the ability to ask questions (like ‘where we go?’). Knowledge of words grows rapidly.
Around 4 years: Begin to use clear sentences that can be understood by strangers. Children can be expected to make some mistakes with grammar (e.g. ‘we met lots of peoples at the shops today’).
5 years: Can speak using full adult grammar. Although vocab will continue to grow and formal grammar will continue to improve, most children can be expected to use language effectively by this age.
Language development can be encouraged in many ways, depending on the life stage:
Infants: Blow bubbles, play with puppets, watch/listen to other children, join in with action rhymes/songs, look at picture books.
Young children: Take part in circle time, take part in group activities, imaginary play in ‘home corner’, share stories/rhymes, play word games and riddles.
Adolescents: Read a wide range of books and journals, take part in group projects, discuss ideas, plan and deliver presentations.
Piaget’s model
Stages of cognitive development:
~ Sensorimotor (birth-2 years): Infants explore through their senses, identifies object permanence, and recognises the ability to control objects. No way of remembering or thinking about the world until they’re approx. 18 months old.
~ Preoperational (2-7): Language development, egocentric thinking, illogical thinking/think of the world symbollically, and plays make-believe. Cannot properly understand ideas like numbers, mass and volume (e.g. if 10 buttons are stretched out in a line and 10 buttons are placed in a pile, a child in this stage might say that there are more buttons in the line because it’s longer).
~ Concrete operational (7-11): Reasoning becomes logical providing the issues are concrete (concrete logical thinking). Children may be able to understand simple logical principle (e.g. ‘Jessica is taller than Joanne, but smaller than Sally, who is the tallest?’ - this might be hard for a 7/8-year-old to imagine the info in their head but if they’re shown a picture then they will know).
Formal operational (11-18): Abstract logical thinking allows adolescents to reason through symbols that don’t refer to real-life objects. Young people can also think about multiple possible outcomes to a problem, not just obvious ones. Abstract thinking enables individuals to think through complicated ideas in their heads without having to see the concrete image.
Piaget’s stages end at adolescence but some psychologists suggest there’s a ‘post-formal operational’ stage in adults as they become more skilled, gain wisdom, and able to make flexible judgements.
The development of schemas = Cognitive frameworks that help us to organise and interpret info. A child develops concepts about the world around them (a state of equilibrium). As they experience situations where new info is presented, their schemas are upset (and reach a state of disequilibrium). As new info is accommodated, the original schemas are modified so they reach equilibrium again.
Criticisms of Piaget
- Based his theory on a small number of children he’d observed.
- The stages may be more fluid than he made out.
- He under/overestimated children’s cognitive abilities.
Chomsky’s model of language acquisition
He believed that the ability to develop a signed/spoken language is genetically programmed into individuals.
Language acquisition device (LAD)
Chomsky states that individuals are born with a LAD that enables children to recognise and develop languages they experience. According to the theory, children are ‘preprogrammed’ to acquire language and it evolves naturally - like the ability to walk. The ability to use language develops because of maturation - the unfolding of a person’s biological potential. Chomsky believes that a child couldn’t possibly learn a new language through imitation alone because the grammar and syntax of the language around them is often highly irregular. He believes that babies need to experience other people using the language but that they don’t need to be trained in order to speak. He noted that even if adults around a child use correct grammar or even correct a child, the child will continue to apply plural ‘rules’ (e.g. deers, geeses, sheeps) if they’ve reached that particular stage of language development. Chomsky applied his theory to all languages; as they all contain nouns, verbs, consonants and vowels.
Criticisms of Chomsky
- Lack of scientific evidence.
Social constructivists, such as Bruner, argue that social interaction has far more influence on children than Chomsky suggested.
- Too much emphasis on grammar rather than meaning.
- Didn’t consider people with delayed language development.
Intellectual development in early/middle adulthood
In early childhood, individuals apply the knowledge, skills and experience they have gained during their life. This helps them to think logically and find realistic answers. At this life stage, they are likely to be in job roles which require them to think through problems and make decisions, sometimes relating to complex situations. New brain cells will continue to develop even though, in middle adulthood, there may be a gradual decline in the speed of processing info.
Intellectual development in later adulthood
It’s assumed that memory loss is associated with the ageing process. However, the brain has amazing capacity to produce new brain cells at any age. Just as exercise can protect muscular strength, lifestyle, health activities and daily activities have an impact on the brain. Age-related memory lapses can be frustrating but are not necessarily a sign of dementia. Physiological changes that can cause a temporary malfunction in the way the brain functions are part of the ageing process. It might take an older person longer to learn and recall info and this is often mistaken for memory loss. There’s a difference between memory lapses and the type of memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
Reaction time is slower and decision-making may take longer. But it’s important to note that older people can still keep their mind active by learning new skills, taking up new hobbies, etc.
