Early Brain Development

When the foetus is ¾ weeks old, a long tube develops in the brain. It forms 3

distinct sections.

By 5 weeks old, the forebrain and hindbrain have split into two (anterior and

posterior parts)

Anterior: front part of the brain

Posterior: back part of the brain

At 6 weeks old the cerebellum develops as well as the medulla oblongata.

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Cerebellum: Joins the midbrain and spinal cord. It is responsible for balance,

coordination and moving.

Medulla Oblongata: Responsible for automatic/involuntary responses e.g.

breathing, blinking and sneezing.

Neural connections development

From birth to three years old is a time of rapid brain development! There is an

increase in the amount of neural connections. With 700-1000 forming every

second. The brain doubles in size in the 1st year and reaches 80% of its size by

three.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Cognitive development are the changes we go through in terms of our thinking,

problem solving, perception and language.

Piaget suggested that all children will go through FOUR stages of cognitive

development like a transition. These stages are UNIVERSAL and INVARIANT.

Universal: Relating to all everyone

Invariant: Never changing

Stages of Cognitive Development

0-2 years – Sensorimotor

2-7 years – Pre Operational

7-11 years – Concrete Operational

11+ years – Formal operational

Sensorimotor Stage

Infants explore the world using their senses. They learn through smell, hearing and

touch. At 6 months, they develop object permanence and often repeat actions

such as dropping items.

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Object permanence: They know that an object exist even when it is out of sight.
Pre-Operational

This stage is divided into two aspects: Symbolic Stage and Intuitive Stage.

Symbolic Stage is when children use symbols to represent objects. Animism can

also be seen and children are egocentric.

Animism: believe that all objects are alive e.g. children talk to their teddies and

dolls

Egocentric: Only see the world from their own view.

Intuitive Stage is when children use reasoning to understand the world. Children

can only focus on one aspect of a situation. This is known as Centration. There is

also Irriversibility. This is when a child is not able to use thought to reverse an

event such as knowing that if water from a wide glass is poured into a tall glass so

it looks as if there is more water, when the water is poured back into the wide it will

look the same as it did.

Concrete Operational

Children can apply rules and strategies to aid their understanding and thinking.

Abilities in this stage include:

Seriation: Sorting objects, such as into size

Classification: Naming and identifying objects

Reversibility: can reverse actions

Conversion: Understanding quantity and length stay the same

Decentration: Taking multiple views

Formal Operational Stage

Children’s thinking has more control. They can understand abstract though,

understand time and how it’s changed and can examine consequences.

Evaluating Piaget’s stages of Cognitive Development

Strengths:

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Real work application: Piaget’s work has practical applications and can be used in

education to help children to develop into the next stage.

Research support: Research shows the existence of the stages which increases the

validity of the theory.

Useful: Piaget’s data came from interviews and observations with children which

means there is a lot of in depth data which increases the validity of the theory.

Weaknesses:

Lack of research support: Some studies show children develop earlier than Piaget

thought which reduces the validity of the theory.

Not useful: Piaget’s theory did not look at the influence of social interactions or

cultural setting which could impact on a child’d development.

Not useful: Piaget’s data came from interviews and observations with children.

The children may have lied or provided socially desirable responses and the

observations may be subjective to the interpreter.

Lack of research support: Repeating Piaget’s research in a more natural setting

produced di erent results therefore the theory is not reliable.

Schema development

Equilibrium: Children experience the world around them and the schemas work for

them. For example, a child sees an animal with four legs and calls it a horse this is

their schema. Therefore, every four legged animal is a horse = equilibrium

Disequilibrium: As they experience new things in life, new information is added

which does not make sense in terms of their schema. E.g. A child sees a zebra, it

has four legs but its not a horse??? = disequilibrium

Assimilation: Children need to incorporate new information into their schema to

accommodate new info. E.g. A child learns about new animals = assimilation

Accommodate: when new information or experiences cause you to modify your

existing schemas

Dweck’s mindset theory

Mindset: A set of beliefs we have about our ability to succeed in education
and other areas of our life.

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Growth mindset: Believing that practice and e ort can improve abilities

Fixed mindset: Believing that your abilities are fixed and unchangeable

Key points of the theory

1) Children should be praised for e ort rather than ability

2) Children can develop a fixed mindset and give up on challenges because

it is not ‘in them’ to succeed
3)Teachers also have fixed or growth mindsets – a teacher with a fixed
mindset will focus on a child’s ability whereas a teacher with a growth
mindset sees a child can improve with sticking at things (perseverance).

Strengths

Research Support: Dweck’s theory of development has support by scientific

evidence.For example, Yeager and Dweck found that using a growth
mindset improved 1500 low achieving students grades.

Free will: Dweck’s theory acknowledges that we have free will. Dweck
believes we have the power to change our thinking and thoughts about
challenges and that we can move mindsets.

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Useful: Dweck’s theory is useful. For example, we can use the theory in
schools. Teachers are now instructed to praise e ort and give continuous
feedback about how to improve their work, rather than being grade
focused.

Weaknesses

Lacks research support: For example David Dadau (2017) wrote an article
questioning the theory as he believed that just because you believe you
have a growth mindset doesn’t increase your abilities.

Not useful: For example, the methods used to support the theory include
questionnaires which are lack validity because participants might lie and
provide socially desirable responses.