Cognitive Development & Responding to Change Flashcards
How many neurons are there at birth?
How many synapses are there in the human brain?
- 100 bn
- 1000 trn
From what age range does the brain double in size as a child? Why is this?
- from third trimester to age 2
- increased synapses and myelination
What is meant by a ‘critical period’ in brain development?
- A period when environmental stimulation causes active rewiring of particular areas of the brain
What are the 3 steps in developmental process?
- Passive reception
- Perception
- Conception
What determines the way you perceive, think and act?
- Our unique neuronal connections
What significantly affects what is perceived?
Neural schemata
List the three theories of cognitive development in children
- Piaget
- Vygotsky
Theory of Mind
What did Piaget’s theory decide?
That all human children go through the same universal process of cognitive development
Piaget’s theory states that a child is born with a small number of innate ‘schemas’, what is a schema?
Schemas are ‘a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a care meaning.
What do schemas include?
- thoughts, actions and knowledge about a particular situation
Why do children build more and more schemas of increasing complexity?
Due to biological maturation and environmental stimulation
What are the two processes through which a child builds up knowledge?
- Assimilation
2. Accommodation
What are the 4 stages of piagets cognitive development?
- Sensorimotor (0-2 yr) - object permanence (infant looks for an object after it’s hidden)
- Pre-operational (2-7 yr) - egocentric (child sees the world from own perspective, use of symbols)
- Concrete operational (7-11 yr) - conservation of number (logical thinking)
- Formal operations (11+ yr) - abstract thinking (ability to manipulate different aspects of a problem to come to imaginitive solutions)
Explain Theory of Mind
- Children do no automatically know that others do not know the same things they know - it develops over time.
When is a child;s theory of mind expected to develop?
What does this skill help children to do?
- Age 4-5, not expected in children age <3
- Empathise and anticipate actions of others
Where may there be deficits in theory of mind?
- People with autism, schizophrenia and ADHD
When does critical socail and emotional development take place?
- conception - 2 yrs (‘the first 1000 days), brian soubles in size (mostly right side)
What was the hypothesis of the study of Harlow’s monkeys?
- comfort is more important for early development
Why do babies require other humans to help early brain developemnt?
- Babies can’t self-regulate
What is released when a baby feels joy and when a baby is distressed?
- DA - stimulates neuronal connectivity
- Cortisol - impedes neuronal growth and connectivity
What does early positive experience result in the internalisation of?
- a sense of oneself as lovable
- a sense of others as loving
- a sense of how to ‘do’ loving relationships
What is normal human attachment?
An innate, biologically-driven need to seek attachment with other human beings
What does normal human attachment in the critical period help to develop?
social brain
What four things develop due to normal human attachment?
- empathy
- social relational skills
- affect regulation
- control of aggression and impulsivity
What are you born with, and what do you develop?
Born with a temperament, develop a personality. Life experience interacts with temperament to form personality.
According to Piaget, how does change happen? within a person?
- a familiar situation will be assimilated using old schema
- a new situation will require accommodation - this is effortful and potentially uncomfortable
What is needed to open up learning (ie new patterns of neuronal firing)?
- engaged
- not too stressed
- supported
- change needs to be repeated
With this ‘change’ in mind, what do you have to be mindful of in a clinical setting?
- delivering bad news to patients, have to give them time to come to terms with the news as they will never have experience emotions like this before
What should be taken into consideration when caring for children 0-2 yr?
- The way they are treated when young
