Development Flashcards
What are the stages of development?
Prenatal
Childhood
Adolescence
Adulthood
Define development in terms of humans?
Changes which all humans go through as they grow
Describe the development process in the pre-natal stage.
develops the neural tube, cerebral cortex, neurons and simple synapses
Describe what development happens in the childhood stage
Develop more neural connections, more dense synapses in the pre-frontal cortex, understand the cause and effect as connections strengthen
Describe the development in the adolescent stage
Grey matter reaches is maximum density, maturation of the :
limbic system, pre-frontal cortex and frontal lobes.
Describe the development in the adulthood stage
Fully matured pre-frontal cortex, neurodegenerative diseases can be developed
What are IQ tests ?
Measuring how we can learn,think and problem solve
What does IQ stand for ?
Intelligence quotient
What is the nervous system?
A network of cells and fibres which transmit nerve impulses between parts of the body
What happened to the nervous system as we grow?
The brain and spinal cords start to loose weight,
Nerve cells may being to slow down
Waste products can collect on brain tissue as nerve cells break down, leading to plaques and tangles in the brain.
What are neurons?
Cells that carry messages within brain and from the brain to parts of the body
What are synapses?
Gaps between neurones which nerve impulses pass through
What does the frontal lobes regulate?
They focuses on behaviour, learning, personality and voluntary movement
What is the function of the pre- frontal cortex ?
Deals with complex behaviours, such as planning and decision making
What is the function of the limbic system ?
Controls basic drives and emotions
What are the functions of the temporal lobes?
Concerned with vision, hearing, speech and comprehension
When do the frontal lobes go through a lot of development ?
During the childhood stage
During adolescence what is remodelled last?
The pre-frontal cortex, the grey matter (which is at its peak) is pruned away.
What do people in the adolescence stage rely on and why?
Teens rely on their limbic system to make decisions and solve problems.
This is because the pre-frontal cortex is still undergoing development
What happens in healthy adults in the brain?
The brains volume decreases and the larger changes in the temporal and frontal lobes
What did Piaget believe about cognitive development?
He believed that children’s cognitive development follows invariant stages.
What is cognitive development
The development of the mind and the mental processes
What are schemas ?
They are sets of information which are organised within the brain
What are the four stages of cognitive development according to Piaget?
Sensori-motor = 0-2 years
Pre-operational = 2-7 years
Concrete operational = 7-11 years
Formal operational = 11+
What is the sensori motor stage ?
When children explore their environment through their senses.
Development motor movement
Towards the end object permanence starts to develop
What is object permanence ?
The ability to understand that objects exist even when its not visually present
What happens in the pre-operational stage ?
The development of language skills and mental representations of objects and events happens.
Egocentrism is developed
As well as animism is developed
There is a lack of reversibility
What is egocentrism ?
When a person only sees the world from their POV
What is animism?
Treating inanimate objects as if they hav feelings
What is reversibility ?
Being able to work backward when thinking
What happens during the concrete operational stage ?
Children develop the ability to decentrate - being able to looks at things from multiple angles / being able to have two pieces of info at one time
The ability to conserve is developed
The development of linguistic humour but can’t imagine the world abstractly
What is the ability to conserve?
The ability to to understand that properties of objects remain the same even hen changed in appearance
What happens during the formal operational stage?
Children are capable of forming and testing ideas/hypothesis, they can understand rules of formal logic and can solve abstract problems
What are the limitations to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
It’s too focused on nature - ignores the idea of environmental influences and how children can be taught by peers, teachers or parents
It’s too reductionist - it simplifies learning and behaviours into stages which can differ in culture to culture
W hat type of study was the Blackwell et at case study 1?
Longitudinal over 5 years
What was the sample in the Blackwell et al study 1 ?
373 - public secondary school students in New York, they varied in terms of ethnicity, social economic status and achievements
What ethical standards were used to ensure that the experiment was ethnically correct in the Blackwell et al case study 1 ?
Students and parents both gave consent
What did researchers predict in the Blackwell et al cast study 1?
That students’ beliefs about intelligence - fixed vs growth mindsets - would correlate with their achievement grades on a maths test
What did researchers predict in the Blackwell et al cast study 1?
That students’ beliefs about intelligence - fixed vs growth mindsets - would correlate with their achievement grades on a maths test
What did the participants do in the Blackwell et al case study 1?
At the start of seventh grade, the students completed a motivational questionnaire during lesson time. This used a rating scale to measure the students’ theory of intelligence, their learning goals, their effort beliefs and their helplessness response to failure.
What was compared in the Blackwell et al study 1 ?
The maths test scores from the seventh and eighth grade were compared as a way to measure progress.
What did the Blackwell et al case study 1 find?
- there was no significant correlation between the theory of intelligence and maths test scores at the start of seventh grade
- when the students were tested in autumn term of the seventh grade and the spring of the eighth, their mindset became a significant predictor of their maths achievements
- conclusion - those with a growth mindset made a greater improvement on their maths test scores than those with a fixed mindset
