Intellectual development

• Intellectual development involves learning and organizing thoughts to make sense of the world

  • Children learn through physical development, using their senses like touching, tasting, listening, and playing
  • Cognitive development includes remembering, problem-solving, and decision-making from childhood to adulthood
• Aspects of intellectual development:

  • Language development is essential for organizing thoughts
  • Problem-solving requires working things out and making predictions
  • Memory is needed for storing, recalling, and retrieving information
  • Moral development allows reasoning and making choices in different situations
  • Abstract thoughts and creative thinking are crucial for discussing unobservable situations and events
• Stages of intellectual development:

  • Infancy & early childhood: Rapid intellectual development
  • Adolescence to early adulthood: Development of logical thought, problem-solving, and memory recall skills
  • Middle Adulthood: Thinking through problems and making sound judgments using life experience
  • Later Adulthood: Changes in the brain may lead to short-term memory decline and slower thought processes and reaction times
• The hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in the formation and retrieval of memories, often deteriorates with age
• The brain is capable of producing new brain cells at any age, but this ability decreases with age
• Changes in hormones and proteins that protect and repair brain cells and stimulate neural growth also decline with age
• Lifestyle, health habits, and daily activities have a huge impact on the health of the brain
• Older people often experience decreased blood flow to the brain, which can impair memory and lead to changes in cognitive skills
• The primary difference between age-related memory loss and dementia is that the former isn't disabling
• Learning may take longer as you get older
• Explore the brain activity in Alzheimer's:

  • Frontal lobe: responsible for decision-making, problem-solving, and emotional control
  • Parietal lobe: responsible for sensory information processing
  • Temporal lobe: responsible for memory and language
  • Occipital lobe: responsible for visual processing
• Dementia is a general term for a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life. An example of an effect of dementia is memory loss and confusion