Week 5 - Childhood & Adolescence Cognitive Development Flashcards
What did this lecture cover?
Piaget: Concrete & Formal operations stage
Brain development that underpins these changes:
~ Synaptogenesis
~ Myelination
~ Prefontal Cortex
~ Development of EF
What changes in middle childhood?
7-11 years
Children move from pre-operational, to concrete operational stage.
Non-conserving (understanding of conservation).
Ability to perform operations = mental actions, on concrete situations/ objects.
What transitions happen in middle childhood?
Decentration = can focus on more than two dimensions of a problem. E.g. amount of water and height of glass in conservation task.
Reversibility of thought = can mentally reverse an action
Transformational thought = can understand how we get from one state to another
E.g. Santa. We use limitations of pre-operational stages (rely on their centration focussing on perceptually salient features), and static thought (not mentally trying to reverse action).
What shifts in concrete operational period? (Middle childhood)
- perceptual salience –> logical thinking
- Seriation = ability to arrange items mentally along quantifiable dimension such as weight or height.
- Transitivity = understanding relationships among elements in a series. E.g. if John is taller than Mark, and Mark is taller than Sam - who is taller, John or Sam?
- Less egocentrism
- Theory of mind improved
- Classification abilities improve =
What stage is adolescence? (Piaget)
Formal operational stage:
~ Large major shift in thinking styles
~ From Piaget’s perspective, this is the last big shift (criticism)
~ Formal operations = mental actions on ideas, systematic and scientific thinking about problems, hypothetical ideas, abstract concepts. Ability to think about thinking, creative approaches.
Provide an example of testing more abstract thinking.
Middle childhood VS adolescence. If you had a third eye, where would you place it?
What is Piaget’s pendulum task?
Assessment of formal operations stage. Children and adolescence asked what effects speed of pendulum swinging. Difference in approaching problem in systematic way = using same length of string/ different weight.
What are some positive vs negative aspects of social developmental shift to formal operations stage?
Positive = sense of identity, complex thinking, appreciation of humour
Negative = confusion, adolescent idealism, rebellion against anything perceived not logical, might lead to adolescent egocentrism. Imaginary audience (thinks everyone is sharing perspective about how stupid a tshirt might look).
Personable fable = your experience is unique. No else else might experience this; leads to difficult in breakup “you wouldn’t understand”
NOTE: You must know limitations of EVERY STAGE (PIAGET)
What are the overall shifts (biologically) in cognitive development?
~ Nervous System = not static, highly plastic and changeable. Constant growth, in response to genetic programming and our experience/ interactions with environemnt.
~ Changes in endocrine functioning (which impacts NS). In response to hormonal chanes - i.e. brain changes (NS) in response to puberty
What changes occur for cells in the NS?
Neurons = permit communication throughout brain.
Glial cells = perform supportive functions. Main glial cell we are concerned with: oligodendrocyte, covers our neuros with myelin, which is critical to effective communication and efficiency of neurons.
Glial cells provide substance around neurons to make sure they are as efficient as possible.
What changes occur in development for brain matter?
Grey matter in brain = comprised of cell bodies & dendrites. Very short unmyelinated axons.
White matter in brain = typically comprised of axons (covered in myelin). Myelinated axons).
When we see changes in the brain, we see changes in both grey & white matter.
What changes occur for synapses and neurons?
Synaptic gap/ cleft = occurs between dendrites of one neuron & terminal buttons of another (typically)
Synaptogenesis = Growth of new synapses. Means there are more connections between neurons – perhaps because of new terminal buttons, dendrites, might create an extra sprout. Underpinning aspects of brain development.
Grey matter = lots of synapses. Where a lot of cells & dendrites are.
Glial cells make this communication effective & efficient.
Neurons communicate from actional potential = molecules need to go in & out of cell membrane.
Myelin on an axon = wraps around in segments, which effectively speeds up communication; only going in and out in the gaps of myeline (nodes of Ranvier). So, essentially speeds up communication allowed by neurons.
Speed of propagation of actional potential determined by = diameter of axon (bigger/f aster), presence of myeline sheath which will make comms more effective and quicker.
Structural brain changes.
Cerebral cortex (very outer layer of cerebral hemispheres). The bark of tree outer layer. Where a lot of grey matter is. Darker grey than other brain tissue.
Grey matter changes = Cortical changes
~ dramatic cortical change in grey matter in childhood.
~ characterised by synaptogenesis
What occurs in grey matter changes?
U shaped changes
Synapse pruning = cell death (adaptive developmental process).
Apoptosis = cell death. Very important. Without this, we would have inefficient communication in brain on large scale.
Cortical changes = synaptogenesis, pruning and neuronal cell death (inverted U pattern of growth)
Pruning = important. Synapses used regularly will remain. Synapses that aren’t used will be pruned. Dependent on our interactions with environment, experience, which will determine which synapses remain and become redundant. Very adaptive for cortex (grey matter).
Often see this just before puberty. Experience of children as if they’ve experienced regression.
What occurs in white matter changes?
Linear progression throughout childhood, adolescence and early adulthood
Mycetogenetic cycles = different brain structures myelinate at different times
Sensory/motor pathways myelinate early.
Regions mediating higher-order functions myelinate late (e.g. pre-frontal cortex). Parallels for scientific/ abstract thinking.
Myelinate = stages where neurons might not be as efficient or most effective until they are fully mature.
Applying our knowledge to Pre-frontal Cortex (in frontal lobe):
Myelinates the latest
Grey matter volume = later than other inverted U development.
Myelination = white matter volume thought to be complex in early 20s.
E.g. think about development in pre-frontal cortex and smoking = would effect myelination
