Cognitive Development & Responding to Change

Question 1

How many neurons are there at birth?

How many synapses are there in the human brain?

Answer 1

• 100 bn

- 1000 trn

Question 2

From what age range does the brain double in size as a child? Why is this?

Answer 2

• from third trimester to age 2

- increased synapses and myelination

Question 3

What is meant by a ‘critical period’ in brain development?

Answer 3

• A period when environmental stimulation causes active rewiring of particular areas of the brain

Question 4

What are the 3 steps in developmental process?

Answer 4

• Passive reception
• Perception
• Conception

Question 5

What determines the way you perceive, think and act?

Answer 5

• Our unique neuronal connections

Question 6

What significantly affects what is perceived?

Answer 6

Neural schemata

Question 7

List the three theories of cognitive development in children

Answer 7

• Piaget
• Vygotsky
  Theory of Mind

Question 8

What did Piaget’s theory decide?

Answer 8

That all human children go through the same universal process of cognitive development

Question 9

Piaget’s theory states that a child is born with a small number of innate ‘schemas’, what is a schema?

Answer 9

Schemas are ‘a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a care meaning.

Question 10

What do schemas include?

Answer 10

• thoughts, actions and knowledge about a particular situation

Question 11

Why do children build more and more schemas of increasing complexity?

Answer 11

Due to biological maturation and environmental stimulation

Question 12

What are the two processes through which a child builds up knowledge?

Answer 12

1. Assimilation

2. Accommodation

Question 13

What are the 4 stages of piagets cognitive development?

Answer 13

• 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)

Question 14

Explain Theory of Mind

Answer 14

• Children do no automatically know that others do not know the same things they know - it develops over time.

Question 15

When is a child;s theory of mind expected to develop?

What does this skill help children to do?

Answer 15

• Age 4-5, not expected in children age <3

- Empathise and anticipate actions of others

Question 16

Where may there be deficits in theory of mind?

Answer 16

• People with autism, schizophrenia and ADHD

Question 17

When does critical socail and emotional development take place?

Answer 17

• conception - 2 yrs (‘the first 1000 days), brian soubles in size (mostly right side)

Question 18

What was the hypothesis of the study of Harlow’s monkeys?

Answer 18

• comfort is more important for early development

Question 19

Why do babies require other humans to help early brain developemnt?

Answer 19

• Babies can’t self-regulate

Question 20

What is released when a baby feels joy and when a baby is distressed?

Answer 20

• DA - stimulates neuronal connectivity

- Cortisol - impedes neuronal growth and connectivity

Question 21

What does early positive experience result in the internalisation of?

Answer 21

• a sense of oneself as lovable
• a sense of others as loving
• a sense of how to ‘do’ loving relationships

Question 22

What is normal human attachment?

Answer 22

An innate, biologically-driven need to seek attachment with other human beings

Question 23

What does normal human attachment in the critical period help to develop?

Answer 23

social brain

Question 24

What four things develop due to normal human attachment?

Answer 24

• empathy
• social relational skills
• affect regulation
• control of aggression and impulsivity

Question 25

What are you born with, and what do you develop?

Answer 25

Born with a temperament, develop a personality. Life experience interacts with temperament to form personality.

Question 26

According to Piaget, how does change happen? within a person?

Answer 26

• a familiar situation will be assimilated using old schema

- a new situation will require accommodation - this is effortful and potentially uncomfortable

Question 27

What is needed to open up learning (ie new patterns of neuronal firing)?

Answer 27

• engaged
• not too stressed
• supported
• change needs to be repeated

Question 28

With this ‘change’ in mind, what do you have to be mindful of in a clinical setting?

Answer 28

• 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

Question 29

What should be taken into consideration when caring for children 0-2 yr?

Answer 29

• The way they are treated when young