Lecture 11:

Question 0

What is development?

Answer 0

The sequence and interplay of physical, psychological, cognitive and social changes and continuities that humans undergo as they grow older

i.e. a dynamic process of growth, change and stability across the lifespan

Question 1

What is cognition?

Answer 1

Mental activity through which human being acquire and process knowledge including the functions of perception, learning, memory, language acquisition, problem solving, thought and imaging

Question 2

How is the model of development dynamic and interactie?

Answer 2

various factors affect development.
These include social emotional & environmental,
Physical development, and cognitive development

these have an affect across the life course

Question 3

Why is a child’s level of cognitive development important for their understanding of health and disease?

Answer 3

It affects

their early development of positive health behaviours
their response to illness, injury and treatment
how they report symptoms and view causes

Question 4

What are the stages of development?

Answer 4

Infancy - sensorimotor (birth - 2 years)
Early childhood - preoperational (2-7years)
Middle childhood - concrete operational (7-11years)
Adolescence, Adulthood and late adulthood - formal operational (11+ years)

Question 5

What is a scheme?

Answer 5

a mental strcture made up of organised group of memories, thoughts and strategies that a child uses to interpret the world

Question 6

What are piaget’s two ways of learning new information?

Answer 6

assimilation (see new concept as similar to one understood before)
accomodation (alteration or rearranging old ideas to fit in new information/concept)

Question 7

What is the snesorimotor stage?

Answer 7

Classified as of birth to 2 years. babies begin with hard wired reflexes. Their maturation of motor skills allows interaction with the environment

reflexive schemes substage 1 (0-1 months)
Newborn reflexes are a basis of sensorimotor intelligence
Suck, grasp and look in much the same way no matter what the circumstances

Question 8

What is the preoperational stage?

Answer 8

2-7 years
Children engage in symbolic thought - clear mental representations of objects and events not physically present
rapid language development

Question 9

WHat are the 2 prelogical stages (aged 2-6 years)

Answer 9

1) phenomenistic stage
where preoperational thought predominates
child often explains the relationship between source of illness and body in ‘magical’ terms or by association

2) contagion stage
where the child understands the need for at least temporal or spatial proximity to illness source

Question 10

What is the concrete operational stage?

Answer 10

7-11 years
learn rules such as conservation
thinking more logical, flexible and organised
core processes mastere: decentration & reversibility

Question 11

What are the 2 logical explanations of the concrete operational stage?

Answer 11

1) contamination stage where child defines illness in terms of multiple symptoms and views it as transmitted through physical contact with source
2) internalisation where child views illness as internalising an external contamination and develops an understanding of the role of avoidance behaviours

Question 12

What does research tell us about concrete operational thought?

Answer 12

The difference in the amount of schooling, context and culture can affect children’s performance if concrete operational tasks
I.e. skills do not emerge spontaneously

Previous health care experiences influences understanding

Cognitive schemes be once automatic with practice, freeing up working memory
I,e, increasingly complex circuits and skills build on simple circuits and skills over time

Question 13

What is the formal operational stage?

Answer 13

12 years onwards

Child has capacity for abstract, flexible, scientific/ systematic thinking

Child has higher order/hypothetico-deductive reasoning

Question 14

What are the formal-logical explanations of illness?

Answer 14

Physiological - non functioning or malfunctioning of an organ or process

Psychophysiological - most mature understanding of an illness
There are Internal physiological processes but child understands additional cause may be psychological

Question 15

Do all individuals reach the formal operational stage?

Answer 15

No, this stage doesn’t exist in many village and tribal societies in which the symbolic skills are not emphasises

Most people are only likely to think abstractly in situations in which they’ve had previous experience

Often, 40-60% of uni students fail the formal operational problems

Question 16

How does the context of formal operations make a difference?

Answer 16

Physics majors are more likely to display formal thought in their area of expertise I.e. pendulum problem, while English majors show a higher % of displaying formal thought in literary problems.

This shows that previous experience plays a large role on formal operations and that the context of the problem is also important

Question 17

What is Kister and Patterson’s contribution to understanding health and illness?

Answer 17

They studied child’s use of immanent justice to understanding illness

Discovered that children with a clearer understanding of the concept of contagion exhibited fewer immanent justice explanations

Question 18

What is the Vygotsky social cultural theory?

Answer 18

A theory that looks at the important contributions that society makes to individual development
It stresses the interaction between developing people and the culture in which they live

Parents, caregivers, peers and culture a responsible for the development of higher order functions in a child,

Every function in the child’s cultural development appears first on the social level, between people and secondly, on an individual level, inside the child,
This is equally true for voluntary attention, logical memory and the formation of concepts

All the higher functions originate as creak relationships between individuals,

Question 19

What is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 19

The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers

Includes all knowledge and skills that a person cannot yet understand or perform on their own yet but is capable of doing so with guidance

Question 20

Where does learning take place?

Answer 20

In the zone of proximal development

Question 21

What do teachers use to help children learn?

Answer 21

Scaffolding where the parent/teacher adjusts the amount and type of support to the child’s level of development

Done through verbal instruction, modelling steps,

Question 22

What is the other aspect of vygotsky’s learning?

Answer 22

Culture which can vary in the institutions or settings the child is in

Question 23

What is vygotsky’s statement on understanding health and illness?

Answer 23

There’s a limit to what a child of a certain age is able to achieve which is termed the “able instruction “

Question 24

What is able instruction?

Answer 24

X= level of child's understanding on their own
X+1 = level of understanding with able instruction (via the zone of proximal development)

Question 25

What may therapists do to promote a child’s progress in learning?

Answer 25

Ask them to complete a task slightly more difficult than what they can achieve

Via modelling the desired movements (social learning theory and observational learning) or giving verbal directions (using positive reinforcement).

Question 26

How is able instruction useful to health professionals?

Answer 26

It can be used to give children a better understanding of their illness

X+1 cannot be beyond what the child is capable of

The scaffolding is best done on a 1 to 1 basis

Question 27

What did Vygotsky stress?

Answer 27

The importance of social context and culture on a child’s development, learning and cognition.
this is especially important to consider in a country of multi-cultural setting

Question 28

What are some differences between Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s contributions?

Answer 28

Vygotsky only constructed an outline whereas Piaget offered richness and exerimental paradigms.

Vygotsky did focus on the socio-cultural context, but may have underestimated the biological underpinnings.

This relates to the biopsychosocial model where we are required to think about all of the factors when it comes to development

Question 29

What are some discoveries made from the Berry et al study of juvenile arthiritis?

Answer 29

Children’s understanding followed developmental progression (older children had a more sophisticated understanding of their illness)

The level of cognitive development was better predictor of understanding than any age

developmental progression was only statistically significant for 2 questions. (different aspects of illness, or their causes, the level of understanding was different)