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Updated 11 October 2006 |
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WHAT DID WE LEARN ABOUT PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT? --------- Physical development: IS ORDERLY AND PROGRESSIVE HAS A GENETIC BASIS IS GOVERNED BY THE PROCESSES OF DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION, BOTH IN STRUCTURE AND IN FUNCTION IS INFLUENCED BY TRANSACTIONS WITH ENVIRONMENT ADAPTS TO CIRCUMSTANCES IMPROVES THROUGH PRACTICE DEGRADES WITH DISUSE, MISUSE, ABUSE VARIES IN STYLE AND SKILL DIFFERS BY SEX DIFFERS BY SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND RACE WE ARE BORN WITH SPECIES-SPECIFIC PREPARATION FOR THE EXPECTABLE ENVIRONMENT. What did you eat for lunch? How do you get from here to home? Draw a falling stick. ----------- What does it feel like to eat a piece of chalk? How does it taste when you eat a piece of chalk? What is the difference between "feel" and "taste"? ----------- What is a word? Where do words come from? ----------- What do you have to understand to be a good soccer player? QUESTIONS ABOUT COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT ------- HOW DO WE THINK? HOW DO WE ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE OR UNDERSTANDING? HOW DO WE CHANGE OUR KNOWLEDGE OR UNDERSTANDING? HOW DOES THINKING CHANGE ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN? HOW DOES THE PROCESS CHANGE? PROCESS= HOW HOW DOES THE CONTENT CHANGE? CONTENT = WHAT WHAT ARE THE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES AMONG US? IS THERE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONTENT AND PROCESS? I.E., DO WE USE DIFFERENT PROCESSES TO THINK ABOUT DIFFERENT CONTENT? HOW IS COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT RELATED TO THE BIOLOGICAL DOMAIN? Mind/Body Connections: Experience depends on the senses, which feed information to the brain, which accumulates information, processes information, and applies information to guide action. The brain changes in response to experience. Information processing and understanding change as the brain develops, and as the brain changes with age. Some differences among people in mental processes have a genetic basis. Mind includes awareness of bodily processes. Body responds to ideas, mental images. A TOUR OF YOUR MIND Sensation Perception Qualities Concept Patterns Sequences Memory Recognition Recall Representation Image/Action Objects/Action Relationship Reference Symbol Word Language Similarity/Difference Comparison/Contrast Group/Category/Classification Hierarchy Systematic Relationships Logic Rules Grammar Reasoning Application What do you have in your mind? Representations: images, words, remembered sounds and actions and feelings Developed through experience -- role of memory Recall Rehearsal Evoked by new stimuli Generated -- imagination Relationship between Biology and Cognition: Brain is a biological organ, Mind is a manifestation of the functioning brain Biological processes in the brain underlie the processes of cognition. The human brain has evolved to permit more effective adaptation to the environment. Intelligence is an evolved aspect of our functioning, our biology, our adaptation, our relationship with our environment. Intelligence [the use of cognition] develops across the life span. Development of Intelligence and Knowledge What does a child know? How does that knowledge develop? What does the child not yet know? What can she not yet do? Two tasks: Describing the knowledge Explaining the gaps/errors What is your brain good for? With sensory organs and systems, Brain scans and experiences awareness Recognizes repeated experiences memory for familiar Creates memory of patterns “scheme” “schema” Compares patterns cognition Expands patterns construction Expects familiar Interprets new experience using familiar assimilation If known schemes don’t fit, experiences surprise disequilibrium Creates new scheme or alters old to fit new accommodation Experience Rehearse or review schemes consolidation People explore environment curiosity Finding the familiar and new examples of familiar schemes and encountering new experience Combine schemes coordination Schemes are Sensory patterns, and Action patterns, Then become concepts or “ideas”. Schemes can be Characteristics, Similarities, differences, Relationships First schemes are neurosensory reflexes or “wired in” patterns, based on brain biology. Through use or exercise or practice or action, development schemes become more complex and interconnected. We construct ways to refer to our schemes. reference We re-present some schemes As we develop our schemes become more complex, Organizing our understanding into Categories; Dimensions of characteristics; Classifications; Hierarchies logic Systems If the cell is the fundamental unit of the biological organism, that proliferates, differentiates and becomes integrated into complex systems, is there also a Fundamental unit of knowledge? Scheme: An “organized” pattern of behavior. A repeatable action. ------------- Action scheme --> Concept --> Relationship --> System Action scheme + Symbol --> Concept Concept + Concept --> Relationship Relationship + Relationship --> System System + System --> ? -------------- Organization: Differentiation and integration. To make schemes become more elaborate, complex, variable, coordinated. As we elaborate and integrate schemes, we become able to access them, put them together in new ways, coordinate them, And apply them to a current or new situation. Evolution: Brain and Intelligence and Language all evolved as adaptations Biological and behavioral adaptations. Therefore they reflect transactions with the expectable environment/reality [transaction between environment and adapting organism] Individual Brain grows and develops, following a biological course, and adapting to specific experience The Mind A phenomenon of a functioning brain awareness changes as the brain develops adapts to [changing] experience experience is interpreted and applied to new experience Knowledge is accrued understanding, constructed from experience. Development of knowledge includes organizing it, keeping it accessible. It is transformable, and applicable to new experience, and used to guide action. To study knowledge, have to figure out how it is organized: logic; operations As brain and mind and knowledge develop, knowledge is organized, transformed, and applied in more complex ways The Mind/Body connection again: EXPERIENCE DEPENDS ON BODY ACTIONS. TEMPERATURE -- CONTACT WITH FINGERTIPS OR PALM TEXTURE -- SIDE TO SIDE RUBBING VOLUME -- ENCLOSING WITH THE HAND WEIGHT -- HEFTING HARDNESS -- EXERTING FINGER PRESSURE SHAPE -- FOLLOW CONTOURS WITH THE FINGERS TASTE -- TOUCHING WITH TONGUE Infant brains are built to process information about the world, to notice, retain, and think about particular features of objects and experiences. Those features become the basis for important schemes. The schemes become the basis for concepts. Brain is designed to process particular types of information. Initial potentials are very broad: Example: Infants can distinguish all phonemes used in human language. And infants can produce all of them. But the possibilities are narrowed by experience. Gradually distinguish and produce sounds of the language around us, and lose the ability to distinguish and produce those we don’t hear. Pruning of the unused potential. Consolidation and strengthening of the practiced. Brain receives and perceives in several different modes. Visual image Sound Movement Texture Smell Can create schemas of familiar patterns in each, and elaborate them and integrate them through experience and practice. As we develop, more complex information is created: Emotional expressions Knowledge of self Number relationships Language Musical patterns Can represent all those schemas Can represent them linguistically Can connect them and integrate schemas across content or modality. Can compare schemas, detecting similar patterns, and creating analogies. What becomes of those different modes, or types of thinking? Howard Gardner proposes each represents an intelligence. That humans have several intelligences, or ways of knowing and thinking about experience, and creating knowledge.
Piaget describes four major causes of development: 1. Maturation – the essentially biological changes in the body and its structures and organization. Sensory systems, brain, and motor systems become more complex and interconnected. 2. Experience – activity in the world. Schemas of familiar activities, observations of actions and their consequences, phenomena to be explained, attempts to use and explain, and experiences of failure to effect desired outcomes or to explain satisfactorily. 3. Social transmission – linguistic, education, conversation, teaching, reading, etc. Requires having a structure of knowledge into which to assimilate the information transmitted. Readiness to receive and process what is presented. 4. Equilibration. Reaction to disequilibrium. Mental activity designed to restore equilibrium. Self-regulation, built into the human mind. Reorganizing knowledge at successively higher levels of complexity. Transitions from one stage to the next stage involve changes in all four. PIAGET: THREE ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES ----- 1. ORGANIZATION -- THE TENDENCY TO ORDER AND TO RELATE INFORMATION TO OTHER INFORMATION, AND TO CREATE SYSTEMS. [INTEGRATION] 2. ADAPTATION --MODIFICATION TO FIT NEW CIRCUMSTANCES-- ROLE OF EXPERIENCE/ENVIRONMENT 3. EQUILIBRATION -- TRYING TO STAY BALANCED, TO UNDERSTAND, TO REDUCE THE GAPS IN WHAT WE KNOW OR UNDERSTAND, TO MAKE SENSE OUT OF THINGS THAT ARE NEW OR THAT DON'T FIT. ADAPTATION INVOLVES ASSIMILATION AND ACCOMMODATION ASSIMILATION -- I INTERPRET NEW EXPERIENCES USING CURRENT UNDERSTANDING ACCOMMODATION -- I CHANGE MY UNDERSTANDING TO INCORPORATE NEW EXPERIENCES As you work through the various tasks Piaget used, what should you know? And how do you apply a Piagetian constructivist perspective to any task? 1. What did the person learn at each stage that contributes to solving or understanding the task? 2. How would a person at each stage approach the task and what would the person think the task requires? 3. What does the person who can’t solve the problem, or who doesn’t understand what it requires, not yet understand or know? 4. What other tasks or problems would the person who could solve this one also be able to master? For any problem: The contribution of development at each stage to the solution of the problem; The difference between responses at the pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational levels; The difference between form and content; The general principle of finding abstract patterns to compare, and then being able to apply those patterns to new content; How the concept of iso-morphism is illustrated in the task. |
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| Piaget’s Stages of Development: Adding new ways of representing experience. Continue to use the old ways. Gradual process. Constructivism: implies the possibility of de-construction. If you construct your understanding from your experience, in a series of steps, we should be able to trace your current understanding back through the steps to its origin in sensorimotor experience. Theoretically, can define every step along the way--in motor, cognitive, language, interpersonal development. Continuity from where we start to where we are. Overview of Piaget's theory--the stages connected to each other. Everything we understand begins with our experience [sensorimotor]. How we assimilate experience changes as we develop. What aspects of experience cause disequilibrium change as we develop. How we accommodate experience changes as we develop. How we understand and represent experience change as we develop. We constantly review our understanding. We constantly re-construct our understanding, using our new ways of representing and organizing it. We compare to each other different aspects of our understanding. We construct general schemes that encompass different experiences. We apply those general schemes to new situations to solve problems. We construct principles or abstract structures, truths, beliefs, assumptions from those generalizations. We can compare those general abstract structures and systems to each other. Comparing schemes to identify similarity and difference is fundamental to our understanding and to solving problems. When two schemes have the same pattern, they are “isomorphic”. Finding instances of isomorphism and non-isomorphism is central to understanding and solving problems. How we approach tasks and problems changes as our understanding develops. |
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| Language Development: |
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SPEECH: - - - - - VOCALIZATION: FROM REFLEX TO CONTROL TO INTENTION; DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION, COORDINATION INTO LARGE PATTERNS OF USEFUL ACTION. CRY COO--consonants and vowels BABBLE MODULATED OR REDUPLICATED BABBLING WORDS - - - - PHONETICS--sounds ARTICULATION Representation and Reference. Refer to = connect Apply a word to a scheme SEMANTICS = MEANING WORDS REFER TO ASPECTS OF EXPERIENCE -- THINGS, PEOPLE, ACTIONS, QUALITIES VOCABULARY GESTURE, POINTING ACTIONS REFER TO THINGS, PEOPLE, ACTIONS, QUALITIES -- CHARADES -- AND WORDS REFER TO THINGS SIGNS REFER TO EXPERIENCES -- REST ROOM SIGN, OR NO SMOKING SYMBOLS A SYMBOL IS ARBITRARY--AGREED ON--NO CONNECTION TO THE THING OR EXPERIENCE IT REFERS TO . HOLOPHRASE--ONE WORD TO SYMBOLIZE THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH--MORE THAN ONE WORD, BUT WITH WORDS LEFT OUT. GRAMMAR--RULES FOR PUTTING WORDS TOGETHER TO EXPRESS EXPERIENCE TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR--CHOMSKY EACH RULE TRANSFORMS THE MEANING IN A PARTICULAR WAY EXAMPLE: BABY AND SLEEP RULES: UNDERAPPLY AND OVERAPPLY, OR OVERREGULARIZE, IN PAPALIA AND OLDS' TERM Refer--to direct attention to Gestures refer to objects. - - - - - - Representation: -- to express, stand for, denote, portray, depict Things represent other things [pretend] Words represent concepts/things/actions/relations Drawings represent concepts/things/actions/relations |
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Acquiring the Human Language [Noam Chomsky] The human brain/mind has evolved language as one of its skills. The mind/brain has evolved to organize experience into particular patterns [schemas]. Examples: objects and actions; single, plural; past, present, future; before, after; actual, potential; cause, effect; inside, outside; negation; smaller, same, bigger. All languages reflect those universal patterns. Not all languages express all the possibilities. Some schemas can’t be expressed in some languages. Some languages have much more complex schemas to represent in some areas. Children’s brains are designed to construct language from their experiences. Children understand language before they can utter it. Linguistic communication is two-way: We use language to express our meaning, and when we hear language, we can construct new understanding. Grammatical rules are the directions for generating or changing utterances to reflect specific differences in meaning. Children abstract the rules from the language they participate in. As children construct each element of grammar, they can then generate infinite examples that apply that element to communicate their understanding. Children construct and apply the rules before they learn the exceptions to the rules of their specific language. We say they “over-regularize” the language. Adults provide the experience from which children abstract the specifics of the language they hear as part of those experiences. Expanding and correcting the child’s utterances are important because the child then refines the schemas that generated the original version. |
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DEVELOPMENT: 1. Constructing awareness, knowledge, and understanding of things, actions, states, qualities. 2. Constructing understanding of differences and relations between things, actions, states, qualities. 3. Constructing knowledge of changes or transformations. 4. Learning to represent the knowledge in ways others can comprehend -- language, actions, problem solving, construction. All come through active participation, experience. CONCEPT OR CATEGORY--EXACTLY WHAT DOES A WORD REFER TO? CAN ONLY BE LEARNED BY TRIAL AND ERROR, OR BY DEFINITIONAL EXPANSION WHEN WE EXPAND ON A CHILD'S UTTERANCE, WE ARE FILLING IN DETAIL, MAKING THE EXPRESSION MORE SPECIFIC. TO INTERPRET TELEGRAPHIC UTTERANCE, HAVE TO KNOW THE CONTEXT, SO WE CAN GUESS AT THE CHILD'S MEANING. WE ELABORATE, OR ASK QUESTIONS THAT PERMIT THE CHILD TO ELABORATE, SO WE GET CLOSER TO THE CHILD'S MEANING. SEMANTIC ARGUMENTS -- THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT-- ARE ABOUT THE SPECIFICITY OF REFERENTS. DOES YOUR LANGUAGE DESCRIBE YOUR MEANING IN SUFFICIENT DETAIL FOR THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE COMMUNICATION? LANGUAGE AND CONCEPTUAL OR SYMBOLIC THINKING USHER IN PIAGET'S PRE-OPERATIONAL STAGE. ANIMISM--attributing life to non-living objects TRANSDUCTION--linking experiences that aren't EARLY CHILDHOOD: CENTRATION AND DECENTRATION EGOCENTRISM FOCUS ON ONE DIMENSION, RATHER THAN COMPENSATION SEGMENTS OR STATES, RATHER THAN SUCCESSIVE STEPS IN A TRANSFORMATION. FAILURE TO REVERSE, OR UNDO-- LIKE CHILD WHO CRAWLS UNDER A CHAIR. TO BE REVERSIBLE, OPERATION HAS TO FIT INTO A LARGER SCHEME, COORDINATED WITH OTHER ACTIONS. YOUNG CHILD IS PRE--OPERATIONAL. SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE OPERATIONAL? A MENTAL LOGICAL OPERATION IS A THOUGHT PROCESS--A WAY OF DEALING WITH CONCEPTS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS. INTERNALIZED AND FULLY REVERSIBLE. 5 - 7 SHIFT USHERS IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD AND THE USE OF CONCRETE OPERATIONS. CONSERVATION: REQUIRES CONCEPTUALIZING CHANGE DECENTRATION-- LOOK AT TWO ASPECTS OF STIMULUS AT THE SAME TIME-- COORDINATE THEM-- CHANGE IN ONE COMPENSATED FOR BY CHANGE IN THE OTHER, AND THEN THE TWO TOGETHER ARE COORDINATED OR INTEGRATED INTO A LARGER CONSTRUCT-- WIDTH AND HEIGHT AND DEPTH, COORDINATED BECOME VOLUME SERIATION--COMPARISON OF LENGTHS, OR WIDTHS, ORDERING INTO A SEQUENCE. LENGTH IS THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE TWO ENDS. TO ORDER BY LENGTH, HAVE TO COMPARE LENGTHS, WHICH REQUIRES COORDINATING THE TWO ENDS, SO THE COMPARISONS ARE CONSTANT. CHILD INTEGRATES OR COORDINATES UNDERSTANDING OF TWO OR MORE CONCEPTS TO DEVELOP A MORE COMPLEX CONCEPT. "DECENTERING" OR EXPANDING FOCUS. THEN CAN WORK TO SEE HOW THAT MORE COMPLEX CONCEPT FITS WITH EVERYTHING ELSE SHE KNOWS--ACCOMMODATION. ONCE CHILD CONSTRUCTS THE MORE COMPLEX CONCEPT, THEN IT BECOMES OBVIOUS. REVERSIBILITY MEANS THAT THE CHILD HAS CONSTRUCTED A MORE COMPLEX CONCEPT -- CAN HOLD MORE ELEMENTS IN MIND AT THE SAME TIME, AND DEAL WITH THEM AS A SINGLE SCHEMA. CONSERVATIONS ARE BASED ON 1. CONSTRUCTION OF ONE OF THOSE MORE COMPLEX SCHEMAS: HEIGHT AND WIDTH = AREA HEIGHT AND WIDTH AND DEPTH = VOLUME OR 2. FURTHER DIFFERENTIATION OF MEANING: NUMBER REFERS TO HOW MANY THERE ARE, NOT HOW THEY ARE ARRANGED. MASS REFERS TO HOW MUCH THERE IS, NOT THE SHAPE. CONCRETE OPERATIONAL CHILD HAS CAPABILITY OF CONSTRUCTING AND USING MORE COMPLEX CONCEPTS, LARGER SCHEMAS, AND IS RAPIDLY ACCUMULATING EXPERIENCE--INFORMATION--DATA-- TO HANG ON THEM. THINKING BECOMES MORE LOGICAL, FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW, BUT IS STILL TIED TO THE CONCRETE EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE THE CHILD LIVES IN. |
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| AROUND THE PUBERTAL
TRANSITION, THE CHILD ADDS OR REFINES SOME IMPORTANT NEW SKILLS. I CALL THIS AN "INTELLECTUAL PUBERTY" BECAUSE IT RENDERS THE IMMATURE THINKER CAPABLE OF ADULT THOUGHT. CONCRETE OPERATIONAL REASONING VS FORMAL OPERATIONAL REASONING FORMAL RATHER THAN CONCRETE BECAUSE THE NEW LOGICAL OPERATIONS ARE PERFORMED NOT ON THE CONTENT OF THE IDEA BUT ON THE FORM OF THE IDEA, THE PATTERN. ISOMORPHISM = HAVING THE SAME FORM, OR PATTERN OR SHAPE, REGARDLESS OF THE CONTENT "COMPARE AND CONTRAST" QUESTIONS ARE Formal Operational QUESTIONS RE DEGREE AND LOCUS OF ISOMORPHISM: ------ COMPARE AND CONTRAST PLATO'S THEORY OF TRUTH TO ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF TRUTH |
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| INSTANCES OF APPLICATION OF ISOMORPHISM AND NON-ISO-MORPHISM IN LITERATURE: SIMILE -- MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE SYMBOLISM --STORM CLOUDS GATHERING OVER THE TREATY METAPHOR -- WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY....... IRONY=A FIGURE OF SPEECH IN WHICH THE WORDS EXPRESS A MEANING THAT IS OFTEN THE DIRECT OPPOSITE OF THE INTENDED MEANING SATIRE=ALICE IN WONDERLAND, DOCTOR STRANGELOVE IN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE: SARCASM IN RELATIONSHIP: HYPOCRISY--HYPO-CRITICAL IN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: SENSE OF IDENTITY--ISOMORPHISM ACROSS: TIME/ SITUATIONS/ RELATIONSHIPS/ PEOPLE/ INSIDE AND OUT INTEGRITY/FIDELITY Adolescents and adults, using formal operational reasoning: • Assume there is a systematic set of possible combinations or possibilities • Understand the need to record information when there is too much to remember [Metacognition] • Derive and test hypotheses, using hypothetico-deductive logic [Scientific thinking] • Can coordinate two or more different systems of reference into a single complex structure • Appreciate the similarities and dissimilarities of complex relationships [Isomorphic and non-isomorphic schemas] • Analyze abstract systems of relationships mentally [Internal representation and transformation of complex schemas] IMPORTANCE OF "HYPOTHETICO-DEDUCTIVE" -- IT'S THE COMBINATION OF SKILLS INTO A SYSTEM OF ANALYSIS THAT IS NEW TO ADOLESCENCE. FORMAL OPERATIONS UNDERLIE ALL MATURE THINKING, AND ALMOST ALL OF US CAN DO IT, BUT ARE MOST LIKELY TO DO SO IN AREAS THAT WE USE AND THAT ARE FAMILIAR TO US. POST-FORMAL THINKING--INTEGRATION OF ANALYTIC AND SUBJECTIVE William
Perry: Development across the college years
Dualism -- Right and wrong answers; Black and white thinking; Difficulty accepting two different viewpoints as equally valid. Multiplicity -- There may be several different answers, but one will eventually be found to be correct. Relativism -- There may be more than one right answer, depending on the perspective taken. Some questions may not have answers. Adulthood: K. WARNER SCHAIE -- RECOGNITION OF WHAT IS IMPORTANT -- THE USES OF ONE'S INTELLECT -- • ACQUISITION • ACHIEVING • RESPONSIBLE RESPONSIBLE AND EXECUTIVE CO-EXIST IN MIDDLE ADULTHOOD • EXECUTIVE • REORGANIZATIONAL • RE-INTEGRATIVE • LEGACY-CREATING ROBERT STERNBERG: THREE ASPECTS OF INTELLIGENCE COMPONENTIAL -- CRITICAL -- SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS, TAKING APART, AND APPLYING PRINCIPLES EXPERIENTIAL -- INSIGHT -- UNTAUGHT, UNSYSTEMATIC UNDERSTANDING OF HOW SOMETHING WORKS OR IS RELATED TO OTHER SOMETHINGS. CONTEXTUAL -- PRACTICAL -- SEEING THE REAL SITUATION AND HOW THE INFORMATION OR RELATIONSHIPS APPLY. AND STERNBERG DESCRIBES THE IMPORTANCE OF TACIT INFORMATION -- SAVVY OR SMARTS -- IN ALL THREE ASPECTS. FLUID VERSUS CRYSTALLIZED INTELLIGENCE SOME SKILLS DECLINE ACROSS ADULTHOOD AND OTHERS DON'T. THE DEFINITION OF WHAT IS FLUID, OR CHANGES, AND WHAT IS CRYSTALLIZED, OR RELATIVELY STABLE OVER ADULTHOOD IS AN EMPIRICAL ONE: IF A SKILL DECLINES, IT'S FLUID. IF IT DOESN'T, IT'S CRYSTALLIZED. THEN WHAT THE TEXT DOES IS TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHY THE ONES THAT DECLINE DO SO, AND WHY OTHERS STAY OR ACTUALLY IMPROVE OVER LATER ADULTHOOD. THE ONES THAT DECLINE SEEM TO BE MORE CLOSELY LINKED TO PHYSICAL PROCESSES, LIKE REACTION SPEED. THE SKILLS THAT DON'T DECLINE SEEM TO BE MORE ABSTRACT, OR REMOVED FROM PHYSICAL PROCESSES, AND ARE ONES THAT WE CONTINUE TO USE REGULARLY. |
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| The study of cognitive changes across adulthood
illustrates the dangers of using cross-sectional research. Cross-sectional studies seem to indicate greater decline across adulthood than is shown in longitudinal studies. Cross-sectional studies compare different cohorts, and cohorts differ in education and health experiences. The education and health differences contribute to differences in intellectual performance. |
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Factors Associated with Good Cognitive Functioning in Later Life 1. Absence of cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases. 2. Living in favorable circumstances. [SES, Education, Occupation, Income, Family] 3. Substantial involvement in complex and intellectually stimulating activities. 4. Flexible personality style at mid-life. [Adjust to change, cope with surprises] 5. Spouse with high cognitive functioning. [Lower of pair maintains or improves performance] 6. High levels of performance speed. 7. Personal satisfaction with one's life's accomplishments in mid-life or early old age. |
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| As with physical development, the general
principle for cognitive skills is "USE IT, OR LOSE IT." |
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| Intellectual
test scores often decline during the months before death, even when
physical changes are not evident. In longitudinal studies, this
tendency, called "terminal drop," makes group averages lower, so the
last scores of people in the study who die are often removed to give a
more valid estimate of change. |
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What
Did We Learn About Cognitive Development?
- - - - - - 1. Cognitive development is orderly, progressive 2. Cognitive development is dependent on or based on brain function and development 3. Cognitive development and differences in thinking have a genetic basis 4. The brain, cognition, and language represent species-specific preparations for the expectable environment 5. Adaptation to circumstances 6. Transactions with the environment lead to knowledge, understanding 7. Differentiation and integration of information, schemes, concepts, relationships 8. Variations in style and skill 9. Improvement through practice 10. Socioeconomic status differences 11. Degradation through disuse 12. Potential for development throughout life 13. Physical health and fitness affect cognitive fitness |
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| Sample Essay Questions: 1.
With what does a baby begin intellectual development?
2. Describe and explain two examples that illustrate the relationship between biological and cognitive development. 3. How do the thinking of concrete operational children and formal operational adolescents differ? 4. How are a child's actions important to the child's intellectual development? 5. What happens to intellectual development during adulthood? |
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