Development

• Brain

  The organ in your head made up of nerves that processes information and controls behaviour
• Divisions of the brain

  • Forebrain
  • Midbrain
  • Hindbrain
• Development of the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain


  1. Long tube develops in the brain

  2. Tube divides into 3 distinct round sections (forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain)

  3. Forebrain and hindbrain each split into 2 cavities (giving 5 in total)

  4. Midbrain does not divide
• Development of the cerebellum and medulla

  1. Cerebellum can be seen at 6 weeks

  2. Cerebellum triples in size in first year after birth

  3. Medulla oblongata forms by 20 weeks and connects brain to spinal cord
• The brain and connections within it are very complex
• While not everything about the brain is known, there is some current understanding about how it develops
• Neural connections


  Links formed by messages passing from one nerve cell (neuron) to another
• There is a huge increase in the number of neural connections from birth to 3 years old, with 700-1000 new connections forming every second
• The brain doubles in size over the first year and reaches 80 per cent of its size by the age of 3 years
• Early neural connections are of great importance and are reinforced by use, so it is important that babies get plenty of stimulation
• Piaget's stages of development

  Distinct stages of cognitive development that a person goes through
• Piaget's four stages of development

  • Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years)
  • Pre-operational (2 to 7 years)
  • Concrete operational (7 to 12 years)
  • Formal operational (12+ years)
• Sensorimotor stage


  Infants use their senses and movements to get information about their world
• Sensorimotor stage

  • Infants live in the present rather than understanding time and space
  • Infants learn by linking what they sense to objects they are using
  • Infants begin with reflex actions and then learn to control their movements
  • Infants develop object permanence around 6 months
• Pre-operational stage

  Children start imitating others and can use objects as symbols
• Symbolic function stage (2-4 years)


  • Children think in pictures and use symbols
  • Children see the world through their own eyes (egocentrism)
  • Children may exhibit animism (believing objects can behave as if alive)
• Intuitive thought stage (4-7 years)

  • Children ask a lot of questions as they realise they know a lot and want to know more
  • Children can only consider one aspect when something is complex (centration)
  • Children do not yet achieve conservation (understanding that changing appearance does not change quantity)
  • Children cannot yet reverse events in their thinking (irreversibility)
• Concrete operational stage (7-12 years)

  • Children begin to apply rules and strategies to help their thinking
  • Children use concrete objects to aid their understanding
  • Children develop abilities like seriation, classification, reversibility, conservation, and decentration
• Formal operational stage (12+ years)

  • Children can think about more than two things at once
  • Children can think about how time changes things
  • Children can understand that actions have consequences
  • Children understand they and others belong in the real world
• Egocentrism

  Unable to see the world from any other viewpoint but one's own
• Animism

  Believing that objects that are not alive can behave as if they are alive
• Centration


  Focusing on one feature of a situation and ignoring other relevant features
• Irreversibility

  Not understanding that an action can be reversed to return to the original state
• Morality


  General principles about what is right and wrong, including good and bad behaviour
• Schema/schemata

  Mental representations of the world based on one's own experiences
• Piaget's theory suggests that children's actions and interactions affect their thinking, and that they cannot do certain things until they reach the appropriate stage of development
• Young children are egocentric and cannot understand the teacher's viewpoint so might not do as they are told because of their lack of understanding
• Children build their own schemas (representations of the world) from their own experiences and so they individually build their own knowledge and understanding
• To help sensorimotor development, children are provided with a lot of stimulation and materials to practise skills and build schemas
• To help pre-operational development, children must do things to learn and keep building schemas, rather than just watching someone else
• To help concrete operational development, teachers can ask children to concentrate on more than one aspect of an issue
• To help formal operational development, children can discuss abstract concepts and be asked complex questions involving mental reasoning
• Implications for teaching from Piaget's stages include a focus on the child's thinking processes rather than just the right answer, and acceptance that children do not think like adults and develop at different rates
• Schemas

  Plans and patterns formed about what we experience. Mental structures that give us frameworks to understand the world.
• Assimilation

  Incorporating new experiences into existing schemas.
• Accommodation

  When a schema has to be changed to deal with a new experience.
• Equilibrium

  When a child's schemas can explain all that they experience, a state of mental balance.
• Example of schema change

  • A young child develops a schema for birds flying and, seeing an aeroplane, calls it a bird. The child will see that birds are alive and aeroplanes are not, and so they will need to change their 'everything that flies is a bird' schema.
• Piaget's theory suggests that the development of intelligence is about building knowledge and skills through stages of development, such as developing object permanence and formal reasoning.
• Fixed mindset

  Believing your abilities are fixed and unchangeable.