development

• Development of the brain

  1. Cells multiply to form neural plate

  2. Neural plate folds to form neural tube

  3. Neural tube divides into spinal cord, forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain

  4. Forebrain divides into cortex and thalamus

  5. Neurons and synapses develop in spinal cord

  6. Cerebellum forms in hindbrain

  7. Brain fully formed by 6th month of pregnancy

  8. Cortex develops wrinkles in last 3 months of pregnancy
• Brain at birth


  25% the size of an adult brain
• Brain stem


  • Shaped like a widening stalk
  • Connects spinal cord to brain
  • Controls basic autonomic functions like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, sleeping
• Thalamus


  • Found at the centre of the brain
  • Sensory processing station
  • Receives messages from senses and translates them into behavioural and motor responses
  • All sensory information passes through thalamus on way to cortex
• Cerebellum


  • Located at back of brain behind brain stem
  • Responsible for coordinating movement and balance
  • Receives information from cortex and other brain areas and "fine-tunes" it into motor activity
• Damage to cerebellum can cause difficulty with muscle coordination, maintaining balance and fine motor skills
• Perspectives on nature vs nurture

  • Nature - characteristics and behaviour inherited from parents
  • Nurture - characteristics and behaviour influenced by environment and experience
• Methods to study nature vs nurture

  • Twins studies
  • Newborn babies
  • Animal studies
• Identical twins have very similar IQ and personality, supporting nature
• Criticism of twin studies - identical twins may be treated similarly by parents/peers, so similarities could be due to nurture
• Newborn babies can recognise faces, suggesting nature, but cannot talk until later, suggesting nurture for language development
• Animal studies show nurture affects brain development - rats with stimulating toys had bigger brains and better problem-solving
• Criticism of animal studies - what applies to animals may not generalise to humans due to complexity of human development
• Schemas


  Blocks of knowledge that develop in response to experiences
• Development of schemas


  1. Assimilation - incorporating new information into existing schemas

  2. Accommodation - adapting existing schemas or forming new ones to understand new information
• Piaget's view on cognitive development


  • Develops from child discovering things themselves
  • Children need to be at right stage of development to gain new concepts
• Piaget's stages of cognitive development

  1. Sensorimotor (0-2yrs) - learn through senses and actions

  2. Pre-operational (2-7yrs) - egocentric thinking

  3. Concrete operational (7-11yrs) - can conserve and think logically about concrete things

  4. Formal operational (11+yrs) - can solve problems systematically
• Criticisms of Piaget's theory - ages for stages inaccurate, small sample sizes, researcher bias in experiments
• Despite criticisms, Piaget's theory had major impact and is still used in early years education
• Hughes Policeman Doll Study

  • Aim - test if children can see things from another's perspective earlier than Piaget suggested
  • Standardised procedures in lab setting
  • 30 children aged 3.5-5 years participated
• Hughes Policeman Doll Study method

  1. Child hid doll so policeman couldn't see it

  2. Policeman placed in different positions on model

  3. Child had to hide doll each time
• Hughes Policeman Doll Study 1978

  Aim: To see if children are able to see things from another person's perspective at an earlier stage than Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggested
• Study design - policeman doll


  • Conducted in a laboratory with control over extraneous variables
  • Standardised procedures to ensure replicability
• Participants - policeman doll


  • 30 children between the ages of 3.5yrs and 5yrs
• Method - policeman doll


  1. Children shown a model with two intersecting walls and a policeman doll

  2. Asked to hide a "boy doll" so the policeman couldn't see it

  3. Policeman placed in different positions, child tasked with hiding the boy doll

  4. Actual experiment with two policeman dolls, child tasked with hiding the boy doll from both
• McGarrigle and Donaldson's Naughty Teddy Study 1974

  Aim: To see if children developed conservation skills at an earlier age than Piaget's theory predicted if the change to the materials was accidental
• Study design - naughty teddy


  • Laboratory setting with control over extraneous variables
  • Standardised procedures to ensure replicability and reliability
• Participants - naughty teddy


  • 80 children between the ages of 4yrs and 6yrs
• Method - naughty teddy


  1. Children shown two rows of counters and asked if they were the same

  2. A "Naughty Teddy" puppet was introduced and "accidentally" messed up one row

  3. Children asked if the rows still had the same amount of counters
• Other researchers have found evidence supporting McGarrigle and Donaldson's findings when replicating Piaget's conservation of numbers study
• McGarrigle and Donaldson's study can be criticised for lacking ecological validity and external validity as it was conducted by a stranger in an unusual environment
• McGarrigle and Donaldson's study was important as it contradicted Piaget's theory, but over 30% of children still failed to conserve
• Subsequent replications of the study have found similar findings, although not as high as the original
• Dweck's Mindset Theory of Learning


  Attempts to explain how students can achieve success in their learning
• Mindsets proposed by Dweck

  • Fixed mindset
  • Growth mindset
• Fixed mindset


  Individuals believe their intelligence is unchanging and down to genetics
• Growth mindset


  Individuals believe their intelligence derives from hard work and can be increased with effort
• Mindset affects how individuals deal with challenges


  Fixed mindset more likely to give up, growth mindset more likely to keep trying
• Research has shown mixed support for Dweck's Mindset Theory
• Bouchard and McGue (1981) study found a strong case for genetics playing a strong role in intelligence