Development Flashcards
Where is the brain stem?
It connects the brain to the spinal cord and is at the base of the brain.
What is the function of the brain stem?
It carries moratorium and sensory nerves to the brain from the body. It controls autonomic functions e.g heartbeat, breathing etc.
How developed is the brain stem at birth?
Very highly developed at birth
When does the cerebellum mature?
Late in development
Where is the cerebellum located?
Near the top of the spinal cord
What is the main role of the cerebellum?
The coordination. Of movement and sensory information.
Where is the thalamus?
Located deep inside the brain in each hemisphere
What is the function of the thalamus?
It acts as a hub of information receiving signals from other areas of the brain and sending these signals on
When does the cortex develop?
At birth it is basic and it develops throughout life.
How is the cortex split?
Into two hemispheres
And several regions: frontal cortex (thinking), visual and auditory cortex (sight and hearing), motor cortex (movement).
Where is the cortex located?
It is thin, highly folded and covered the brain
What is nature?
The influence of things you have inherited
What is nurture?
The influence of your environment on your development
How does a smoking mother affect development?
The baby can be born smaller with a smaller brain as nicotine slows brain growth.
How can infection in the mother affect development?
Babies can be born with brain damage, such as hearing loss.
How do voices affect the development of babies?
They learn to recognise their mother’s voice and even respond to book passages that had been read to them in the womb (Decasper and Spence)
What did piaget’s theory of development say about stages?
He believed that children’s brains are not mature enough to think in a logical way at the beginning. Their brains develop in stages and at each stage different kinds of thinking occur.
What did Piaget’s theory say about schemas?
As children develop they create mental representations of the world which are stored in the form of schemas. A schema is a mental structure containing knowledge. They become more numerous and more complex through assimilation and accommodation.
What is assimilation?
It occurs when we understand a new experience through adding new information to an existing schema. A car schema is changed when a two-seated sports car is seen for the first time.
What is accommodation?
It occurs when we acquire new information that changes our understanding so we need to for new schema(s). When a child sees a tractor they change their car schema or form a new tractor schema.
What are two strengths of Piaget’s theory?
It has led many studies to be carried out which have helped test the claims of his theory
It has helped change classroom teaching for the better as it led to teachers carrying out more activity-based learning.
What is a weakness of Piaget’s theory?
The research was carried out in middle class Swiss children therefore his theory may not be universal
What is conservation?
The ability to realise that quantity remains the same even when the appearance changes
What did Piaget prove about conservation?
He showed that younger children can’t conserve with number or volume, this was challenged by McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study
What was the aim McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study?
To see if younger children could conserve if there wasn’t a deliberate change in a row of counters.
What was the method of McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study?
4-6 year olds were shown a naughty teddy and two rows of four counters. The teddy jumped out of his box and messed up one of the rows (making it look smaller). Each child was asked before and after the teddy jumped out ‘is there more here, here or are the pay both the same?’
What were the results of McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study?
41% of the children knew the rows had the same number if the counters were changed intentionally (Piaget)
68% could conserve is the change was accidental. Older children gave more correct answers than younger ones.
What were the conclusions of McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study?
Shows that Piaget’s method of testing conservation doesn’t show what children can do. Children aged 4-6 could conserve number when the change was accidental. Piaget believed they could not do this until 7 years. It does support Piaget’s idea of age-related changes but nit the age that conservation develops.
What are two weaknesses of McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study?
The primary age children all came from one school
The children may not have noticed the change in the accidental condition. Moore and Frye showed that, if the teddy did actually take a counter away, the children still said the rows were the same.
What is a strength of McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study?
It challenges Piaget’s theory which helped to refine this type of child development research.
What is Egocentrism?
To see the world from one’s own point of view
What was Piaget’s study of egocentrism?
He tested children with his three mountains task and concluded that they are egocentric until about 7 years of age
What was the aim of Huges’ study?
To create a test of egocentrism that would be more understandable to children younger that 7 years.
What was the method of Huges’ study?
Children aged three and a half to five years old were shown a model with two intersecting walls. The child was asked to hide one boy doll from one policeman doll to ensure the child understood the task. The child’s egocentrism was then tested by asking the child to hide the boy doll from two policemen.
What were the results of Huges’ study?
90% of the children could hide the boy doll from two policemen. When a complex model was used with five or six walls, 60% of 3 years olds and 90% 4 year olds hid the boy doll correctly.
What were the conclusions of Huges’ study?
The study shows that children aged 4 years are mostly not egocentric. Piaget underestimated younger children’s abilities because his three mountains task didn’t make sense to the children. Piaget was right that a child’s thinking changes with age
What were two strengths of Huges’ study?
The task made sense to children so it was a more realistic test
It challenges Piaget’s theory as the results imply that Piaget’s study confused the children so it helped to refine this type of child development research.
What was a weakness of Huges’ study?
The researcher’s expectations may have influenced the children’s behaviour as they may have unconsciously given the children cues how to behave in the naughty policeman task which could cause the results to lack validity.
What age is the sensorimotor stage?
Approx. 0-2 years
What is the focus of development in the sensorimotor stage?
On relating what is seen/heard (sensory) with movement (motor).
When do children achieve abject permanence?
Children under 8 months do not understand that although an object is not visible it still exists.
What age is the pre-operational stage?
2-7 years approx.
How far developed is a 2 year old? (According to Piaget)
The toddler can walk but language is not fully developed
How developed are children at 7/under 7? (According to Piaget)
They can’t think in a consistently logical way so are egocentric and lack conservation.
What is the age of the concrete operational stage?
7-11 approx.
How do children in the concrete operational stage think? (According to Piaget)
Logical thinking is the key characteristic, but can only be applied to physical objects not objects or situations that cannot be seen.
What age is the formal operational stage?
11+ years approx.
How can children in the formal operational stage think? (According to Piaget)
They can come to conclusions about problems presented in an abstract form. They can focus on the form of an argument and not be distracted by its content.
What is a strength of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development theory?
It does show that children’s thinking changes with age, although research has suggested that the changes in thinking occur earlier, the fact remains that they still occur, this shows that the basic principle of the theory is valid.
What are two weaknesses of Piaget’s theory?
He underestimated children’s abilities as other researchers have found that younger children can show conservation and a reduction on egocentrism.
He overestimated what children could do, he argued that 11 year olds should be capable of abstract reasoning when other research has shown that this isn’t true.
What is readiness?
age related changes mean you cannot teach a child something before they are biological ‘ready’, therefore, activities should be at the appropriate level for a child’s age.
What is a strength of Piaget’s theory?
It has had a positive impact in education in the UK as it led to schools taking on a more child centred, activity based approach.
What are two weaknesses of the application of Piaget’s theory to education?
It suggests that practice should not improve performance, in fact children’s thinking can develop at an earlier age than expected if they are given enough practice on a task (Bryant and Trabasso). This suggests that children don’t have to be ‘ready’
Discovery learning may not always be best
What is the overview of Dweck’s theory?
The difference between people who are successful and not successful is their mindset.
What do people with a fixed mindset believe?
Abilities are fixed in genes.
Effort won’t help if you are failing because success is talent based.
Focused on performance and feel good when performing well.
What do people with a growth mindset believe?
You can always improve yourself with effort
They enjoy a challenge rather than focus on success.
They focus on learning goals and feel good when working hard.
What are two strengths of Dweck’s theory?
There is evidence that a growth mindset leader to better grades
It has good real-world application as mindset has been used to improve performance in areas such as schools, businesses, sport and relationships.
What is self-efficacy?
Understanding your own abilities which is related to expectations you have about future performance. Experiencing success is important and opportunities should be provided by parents and teachers.
How does self-efficacy affect motivation?
If it is high you will put in greater effort, persist longer, have greater task performance and more resilience than if you think you can’t do it.
Explain praising effort rather than performance
Praising effort is motivation - it gives a sense of control as people can always put in more effort. Praising others for their performance is demotivating especially when you can’t compete.
What is the positive effect of praise?
Praise is a reward and makes someone feel good so they repeat behaviours. Praise must fit performance and not be used for everything.
What is one weakness of the theory of praise and self efficacy?
It can have the opposite effect as research by Lepper found that children were less interested in doing a task if they had previously been rewarded for it which suggests that praise can be demotivating.
What are two strengths of the theory of praise and self efficacy?
Support for self-efficacy comes from research into the stereotype effect. Steele and Aaron’s on found that African-American students scored lower in an IQ test if they had to indicate their race beforehand. This suggests that their performance was affected by how they expected to do, supporting the theory of self-efficacy.
The value of understanding rewards as the kind of praise given is important.
What is a learning style?
People differ in how they learn and magic teaching to a student’s learning g style should improve learning.
What is a verbaliser?
Someone who prefers to process information verbally, by hearing it or reading it. They remember best by repeating sounds, talking or writing in words.
What is a visualiser?
Someone who prefers to process information visually, by seeing it -especially the spatial relationships. They remember best using diagrams, mind maps, graphs and charts. They find it more difficult to process written information.
What is a Kinaesthetic learner?
A ‘hands-on’ learner, preferring active exploration, making thinks and experimenting. They prefer physical activities rather than watching others or reading.
What is a strength of learning styles?
They have encouraged teachers to focus on other teaching methods rather than just traditional verbal ones.
What are two weaknesses of learning styles?
There is little evidence to suggest that learning styles work as Pashler et al. reviewed many good quality research studies and found no support.
There are too many learning styles as a of field et al. identified 71 different types which is a problem as people may not be able to identify which they are.
What is willingham’s learning theory?
Willingham criticises the theory of learning styles because of a lack of scientific evidence.
What did Willingham say about praise?
Willingham said that praising effort should be unexpected as Lepper et al. found that, if performance depends on praise, a person works to get praise rather than to feel good.
What did Willingham say about memory and forgetting?
Memory research has found that forgetting often occurs because of a lack of the correct cues (Tulving and Psotka). He also said that people should practise retrieving information from memory (Roediger and Karpicke)
What did Willingham say about self-regualtion?
Self-regulation is being able to control your behaviour: your emotions, attention and cognitive processes. This has been assessed with the marshmallow test which is linked to better school progress (Shoda et al.)
What did Willingham say about neuroscience?
Brain waves in children and adults with dyslexia are different from those in people without dyslexia. If a specific pattern is associated with dyslexia they could receive help earlier, which will benefit progress (Willingham and Lloyd)
What are two strengths of Willingham’s theory?
The theory is based on scientific evidence which gives it greater validity.
It has real world applicability and offers an explanation of what you learn.
What is a weakness of Willingham’s theory?
Dyslexia cannot be just diagnosed by observing people’s brainwaves. This makes it unlikely that they could be used for diagnosis.
