pugs

pugs

Developmental stages:
Childhood
David Moreau
d.moreau@auckland.ac.nz

Plasticity decreases throughout
the lifespan

Stability-plasticity dilemma
(Rakic, 1985):
•  A neuronal network that is very plastic will
learn very well, but what has been learned
will not last. Any new information will
overwrite the previously learned items
•  A stable network can remember for a long
time and is resistant to this damage due to
new information, but it cannot learn new
things.

Period of great brain plasticity
•  Brain is malleable throughout the lifespan
•  In childhood and teenage years, plasticity
is at its best
•  Pruning: the elimination of neurons and
synapses that are not used, or not
functional
•  Consequence: system works better &
faster

Interactive mapping of the
developing brain

Introducing the work of Jean Piaget
•  Swiss psychologist
•  1896-1980
•  Theory of cognitive
development
•  Still influential today

Theory of Cognitive Development
•  Thought of children as “little scientists”
•  Trying to construct more advanced
understandings of the surrounding world
•  Understandings are what he called
schemas

Schemas
•  Frameworks to organize knowledge
•  Develop progressively, through stages
•  Assimilation: process of acquiring new
information or experiences and
incorporating them into a preexisting
schema
•  Accommodation: process of modifying
existing schemas of creating new ones to
integrate new information

Experimental approach
Piaget asked children to solve various
problems
•  Asked questions about their reasoning
•  Found out that children think differently
depending on their age
•  Thought of development in terms of stages
differing in the way the world is
apprehended and understood

Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 yrs old)
•  Knowledge is acquired
through senses and motor
actions
•  Perception, manipulation of
objects but no reasoning per
se
•  Motor learning is specific
• ...

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