This presentation explains early childhood processes and mostly uses Piaget's theories.

1. TOPIC 1
DEVELOPMENT

2. Development of the midbrain,
forebrain and hindbrain
■ When the foetus is about 3-4 weeks old, a long tube develops in the brain,
whcih is divided from the front into three distinct round sections. In order from
the top;
 Forebrain
 Midbrain
 Hindbrain

4. ■ Below the hindbrain is the spinal cord.

5. ■ By 5 weeks old the forebrain and hindbrain each split into a further two cavities.
The forebrain splits
Anterior (front) Posterior(behind)

6. ■ The hindbrain splits throught the middle.
■ The midbrain does not split.

7. Development of the cerebellum and
medulla
■ Cerebellum (little briain) can be seen in the foetus around 6 weeks.
■ A year after birth the cerebellum is three times its size.
■ Cerebellum controls physical skills which develop over time with the growth of
the cerebellum.
■ It is responsible from fear and processing sense information.

8. CEREBELLUM

9. ■ The medulla oblongata is in the hindbrainin front of the cerebellum.
■ It controls involuntary responses such as sneezing, breathing, heart beat and
blood pressure.
■ It is formed by the time the foetus is 20 weeks old and connects the rest of the
brain to the spinal cord.

10. Building neural connections from birth
■ There is a huge increase in the baby’s neural connections from birth to 3 years
old with 700-1000 new connections forming every second.

11. ■ These connections allow fast communication between different parts of the
brain.
■ The brain doubles in size by the age of 3.
■ Early connections are very important and develop by use, so babies need plenty
of stimulation.

13. Piaget’s stages of development and
their role in education
■ Jean Piaget suggested that we go
through distinct stages of
development.
■ A change in thinking indicates
when the next stage is reached.
■ During each stage there is
consolidation (combining more
than one idea into a whole to
make it more meaningful) of
abilities in preperation for the next
stage.

16. Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years)
■ Infants use their senses and movements to get information about their world.
■ At firts they live in the present without understanding time and space around
them.
■ They learn by linking what they see, hear, touch, taste and smell.That is why
they grasp and suck on objects most of the time.
■ Their actions in the begining are more reflexive but they become more
controlled over time.
■ They develop object permanence at 6 months. Object permanence is when the
child learns that the object is still there even when it is out of their sight.
■ At 4 months old the child begins to repeat actions that they done by mistake
before. Eg: dropping a toy on the floor .

19. Pre-operational stage(2 to 7 years)
■ There are two stages withing this stage; the symbolic function stage and the
intuitive thought stage.
The symbolic function stage ( 2 to 4 years)
Children start imitating others and use symbols.
Symbolic play involves using one object to represent another for eg:using an empty
box as a house.
Children think in pictures and use symbols.
Children see the world from their own eyes not from others which is known as
egocentrism.
Animism is also seen at this stage where the child believes that objects are alive.

24. Intuitive thought stage( 4 to 7 years)
This is the start of reasoning. Children ask a lot of questions and want to learn a lot
more.
They can only focus on one aspect when something is complex which is known as
centration.
Conservation is not yet achieved which is when children do not realize that
changing how something looks does not change its volume, size or weight.
There is also irreversability where the child is unable to reverse events.

28. Concrete operational stage( 7 to 12
years)
■ Children begin to apply rules and strategies to help their thinking and use
concrete objects to aid their understanding.
■ They have difficulty with abstract ideas such as morality (general principle
about right and wrong good an bad).

29. Abilities in this stage include;
■ Seriation: sorting objects into size.
■ Classification: naming and identifying objects.
■ Reversability
■ Conservation
■ Decentration : the ability to take multiple views of a situation.

31. Formal operational stage(12+
years)
■ In formal operational stage the child can think about more than two things such
as thinking about height, age and gender when describing a person.
■ They have the ability to see how time changes things.
■ They can understand that event have a sequence.
■ They can see that actions have consequences.
■ They also know that they and others exist in the real world and seperate from
each other.

33. Using Piagets stages in education
■ Piagets theories have been applied to classroom practices.
■ His theory suggests that childrens actions and interactions affect their thinking
and that they cannot do certain things until they reach the appropriate stage of
development.
■ For example: young children are egocentric and do not understand the teachers
viewpoint and so might not do as they are told because of lack of understanding.
■ Children build their own schemas from their own knowledge and understanding.

34. To help sensorimotor development;
 Children need to be treated as individuals.
 Provide them with a lot of stimulation and materials so they can practise skills
and build schemas.
 Using bright colours or things to stimulate their senses.
 Singing and rhythm is a good stimulation for children and help their language
development.

35. To help pre-operational development;
 Children must do things in order to learn instead of just watching.
 They need a lot of experiences to understand something.
 They need to be encouraged to discover the environment because thats how
they learn things.
 Models, objects and visual aids should be used with short instructions.

36. To help concrete operational stage;
 Teachers can ask children to concentrate on more than one aspect at a time.
 Teachers should structure tasks accordingly.

37. To help formal operational stage;
 Children can discuss abstract concepts and be asked complex questions
involving mental reasoning.

38. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
and the development of intelligence
Piaget’s explanation of understanding
the world
■ Children learn through
adaptation. As they adjust to the
world and learn new things about
the world they develop schemas
that represent the world. They can
always change schemas and
create new ones.
Piaget’s theory and the development
of intelligence
■ The development of intelligence is
about building knowledge and
skills.
■ Intelligence is developed through
building schemas via adaptation
and through the four stages of
development.

39. ■ Schemas are plans and patterns
formed by what we experience.
They are mental frameworks of
what we understand.
■ For ex: a person has a house
schema or a dentist clinic schema

40. ■ Assimilation : incorporating new
experiences into existing
schemas.
■ For example:

41. ■ Accomodation : a schema no
longer works and has to be
changed to deal with the new
experience.
■ Example:

42. ■ Equlibrium : when a child’s
schemas can explain all that they
experience; a state of mental
balance.

43. Strengths and weaknesses of
Piaget’s theory
Strengths
■ Objective
■ Practical applications
■ Generates research
Weaknesses
■ Subjective
■ Lacks validity
■ Cultural differences are not taken
into consideration.

44. Dweck’s mindset theory and the
effects of learning on development
■ Mindset is the set of beliefs that we have about our ability to succeed in
education and other areas.
■ Mindset is important for a child because if we influence them in a positive way
about the future than they will be more successful.
■ According to mindset theory, children who think they can improve and do better
will continue to put in the effort needed, whereas those who think they do not
will stop trying.
■ Mindset theory tells us that children with a fixed mindset can change into growth
mindset.

45. Fixed and growth mindset: ability and
effort
■ Dweck is an American
psychologist who has focused on
how praising children affects
children’s development

46. ■ It is better to praise children for effort as they believe they can achieve
something and so carry on trying.
■ If a child is not praised for something they can assume they do not have the
ability and will not carry on trying.
■ We have to make the child think that as long as they put the effort they will be
successful.

47. Key points of Dweck’s mindset theory
■ Believing that your abilities are fixed at birth and cannot change will make
children stop taking challenges, they will become depressed. A growth mindset
allows the idea that effort brings success. Feedback is taken notice of.
■ Teachers also have a fixed or growth mindset. A teacher with a fixed mindset
can see children as lacking a particular ability, whereas a teacher with a growth
mindset sees that a child can improve.

48. Experimental evidence
Mueller and Dweck 1998 found that praising students ability led them to a fixed
mindset and they were vulnerable to issues such as coping with setbacks.
Praising effort led to students persevering more.
Yeager and Dweck 2012 found that more than 1500 students who were low
achieving who learned to use growth mindsets did better compared to a control
group who did not have that learning.

49. Strengths and weaknesses of
mindset theory
Strengths
■ Practical applications
■ There is evidence to support this
theory.
Weaknesses
■ Most studies have been
experiments and have an artificial
setting. This means that they lack
validity.
■ The focus may be on the child
rather than the quality of teaching.

54. Willingham’s learning theory and the
effects of learning on development
Factual knowledge comes before skill
Knowing facts helps when building the skills of problem-solving and reasoning.
Knowledge can also free up space in our working memory to allow us to use mental
skills such as problem solving.
When someone already knows something it leaves them more processing power to
solve a problem and aid understanding.

55. The importance of practice
and effort
■ Willingham emphasizes that
practise and effort enable us to
master knowledge and skills. It is
important to practise enough to be
able to do things automatically.

56. Importance for building knowledge
Short term memory involves practice,
which means rehearsing what is
needed to be remembered.
Once we learn something it goes into
our long term memory where material
has to be reviewed and practised in
order to remember.
There is enough practise and effort.
The material is fixed in the long term
memory.

57. Importance for building skills
■ Problem solving and creative thinking are skills that are needed by the student.
These skills need to be developed so that they become automatic and use little
space in our working memory.

59. Strategies to support development
Cognitive development
■ Teachers should use problems that
are new and within a students
ability but require effort.
■ Understand the students stages of
development and make plans
accordingly.
■ Remeber that childrens abilities
vary.
■ Consider factors other than
developmental level.
Physical development
■ Focus on what movements will be
suitable and in what order they
should take place.
■ Practise a lot so that the
movements become automatic.
■ Use conscious effort.

60. Social development
■ Build on a childs ability to take the view of someone else. If we teach the child to
decentrate ( being able to seperate yourself from the world and take different
views), they will learn not be egocentric anymore.
■ Demonstrating appropriate social behaviour that the child will imitate.
■ Help the child stop impulsive behaviour. We can do this by organising classroom
environment and remove any triggering behaviours.
■ Encourage practice, which requires self regulation. Self regulation can be based
on nature or nurture.
■ Delay giving a reward so the child can keep working for it.

61. Strengths and weaknesses of
Willingham’s learning theory
Strengths
■ Can be applied to education.
■ Other studies that support his
theory. Experimental evidence is a
strength.
■ Did not emphasize on individual
differences for learning.
■ Willinghams ideas come from
many areas of cognitive science
so this means that his ideas are
not really one singular theory that
can be tested. –testing for
reliability is low.

63. Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Three
mountains task

64. ■ Aim :To study the perspectives of children and investigate relationships between
the child’s viewpoint and their perception of the viewpoint of others.
■ Procedure: Sample – 100 children were used:
21 were aged between 4 and 6 years old
30 were aged between 6 and 8 years old
33 were aged between 8 and 9 years old
16 were aged between 9 and 12 years old
A metre square model was made to represent three mountains. There are four
different viewpoints – A, B, C and D – and a doll is moved around the mountain
model to each of the positions.

66. ■ The child is given 10 pictures of the mountains taken from various positions around
the model. They also have three pieces of board, shaped and coloured to match
each mountain in the model of the three mountains, which they can move and
arrange to represent the model. In trial one, the child is seated in position A and
asked to arrange the boards to represent the mountains they can see in the model
from position A. Next the doll is placed in position C and the child is asked to
arrange the boards to represent what the doll can see. The procedure is repeated
with the doll being moved to position B and then D.
■ This procedure is again repeated with the child moving to position B, and the doll
being placed in positions A, C and D. The procedure continues until the child has
viewed the model from all four of the positions – A, B, C and D. In these tests, the
child is also asked to reconstruct their boards from one of their previous viewpoints;
for example, when seated in position C they may be asked to recreate what they
could see when they were in position A. Following this test, a second trial is
conducted. The child and doll are again moved around the mountains in the same
manner, but the child is asked to select the viewpoint of the doll from ten
photographs presented to them at the same time. Finally, a third trial is conducted
whereby the child selects a picture and decides where to place the doll on the model
in order to be able to see the view that matches the picture.

67. ■ Results: 4 to 6 year olds Trial one: the children rearrange the boards but the
outcome is their own viewpoint of the three mountains. Children towards 6 years
old show an attempt to represent the dolls, but often revert to their own
perspective. The children were usually able to recollect and reproduce their
previous viewpoints from memory. Trial two: the children select the picture that
represents their own viewpoint of the three mountains, or appear to randomly
select any image of the model.
■ Trial three: the doll is mostly placed anywhere on the model, or not moved from
where it is already placed. 7 to 12 year olds The children aged 7 to 9 years
attempt to reflect the viewpoint of the doll, but this is not consistent. Between 9
and 12 years old, the children demonstrate a mastery in the skill of viewing the
model from the viewpoint of the doll.

68. ■ Conclusions : Children in stage 2 (pre-operational) fail to see the viewpoint of
the doll, instead regarding their own point of view as the only one possible.
Piaget and Inhelder suggest that this is due to the egocentrism of children in
stage 2. While the children are able to replicate their previous viewpoints from
memory, they appear unable to predict other viewpoints of the mountains.
Piaget and Inhelder suggest that this is due to the reasoning skills of children in
stage 2.
■ Children in stage 3 (concrete operational) begin to show understanding of other
people’s viewpoints. At the younger age, the children were seen to select a
picture from their own perspective but to turn this towards the doll so that the
image could be seen by the doll. This indicated the start of an ability to
understand that the doll has a different viewpoint. By the end of this stage,
children could alter their boards and select pictures that represented the doll,
demonstrating that egocentrism had subsided.

69. Strengths and weaknesses of the
study
■ Strengths
Qualitative data was gathered which
makes the information rich and in
detail.
An experimental method was used
which was highly controlled.
It is reliable
■ Weaknesses
Evidence shows that stages are not
different as what Piaget stated.
Cultural differences have not been
taken into consideration.
Using a more realistic scenario other
than the three mountains task may
result in different findings.

70. Gunderson et al.(2013) Parent praise to 1-3
year olds predicts children’s motivational
framework
■ Aim: Gunderson et al. investigated the use of praise by parents of children aged
14 months to 48 months old. They looked at the category of praise that parents
gave their children and what type of praise was most used. They also looked at
whether person praise or process praise can be a predictor of motivational
frameworks five years later.
■ Procedure : Sample: 53 children from Chicago (29 boys, 24 girls) taken from a
larger sample of 63 families who had been taking part in a study of language
development. The sample represented the demographics of Chicago (income,
race, ethnicity).

71. ■ Participants (children and parents) were visited at home every four months from
when the child was 14 months old as part of the original study. This meant that
the data gathered was double-blind as neither the families nor researcher or
transcriber at the time were aware that their interactions would later be studied
for praise.
■ The video recordings from the language study lasted 90 minutes, and
Gunderson et al. used the interactions recorded at 14 months, 26 months and
38 months old. The speech from the video recordings was also transcribed by
the original researchers.

72. ■ Parent praise was measured by coding the transcripts of the interactions.
Distinctions were made between explicit praise (words such as ‘good’, ‘nice’,
‘great’) or implicit praise (by affirming actions ‘you got it’). These were then
categorised in one of three types of praise as shown in Table 1.

73. ■ The coding was tested for reliability on 20% of the transcribed scripts, where the
coding was also completed independently by a minimum of two further coders.
There was a kappa value of .81 indicating high agreement between coders, so
inter-coder reliability is considered high. When the children reached 7 to 8 years
old, they took part in two verbal questionnaires about their motivational
framework, which were completed 3 months apart. Each of these questionnaires
was part of a larger cognitive assessment lasting 2 hours.
■ The questionnaires each had similar content and consisted of 11 and 13 items
respectively. The results were combined to give an overall score for each child.
They aimed to test the domains of intelligence (18 items) and sociomoral
attributes (6 items). These questionnaires were adapted from Heyman and
Dweck (1998).

74. ■ Intelligence domain items included 5 point Likert-scaled questions such as:
“Imagine a kid who thinks that a person is a certain amount of smart, and they
stay pretty much the same. How much do you agree with this kid?” Sociomoral
domain items included yes/no questions such as: “Imagine a girl who gets in
trouble a lot at school. Some people think she will keep getting into a lot of
trouble even when she is in high school. Do you think this is right?” Parents of
the children also completed an 8-item questionnaire to test how malleable they
considered cognitive ability to be. Items included questions about fixed
intelligence, fixed maths ability and other cognitive skills. This was also
administered as part of a larger questionnaire assessing their beliefs about
academic development.

75. ■ Results :Use of praise The results of the coding of praise utterances are shown
in Table 2. Praise was measured cumulatively using all three visits. The mean
percentage score for each category of praise is shown as a percentage of all
utterances by the parent, and as a percentage of all praise comments made by
the parents.

76. ■ Overall, praise of any type was, on average, 3% of all utterances by parents.
Person praise as a percentage of all praise was significantly less at 38 months
old than it was at 14 months old, whereas process praise showed no significant
change and other praise was significantly higher at 38 months old than 14
months old. Boys received more process praise than girls, and girls received
more person and other praise than boys.
■ Motivational frameworks data Average sociomoral scores correlated with
average intelligence scores. Boys reported marginally more incremental
motivational frameworks than girls and, when broken down, this was
significantly higher for the intelligence domain but not for the sociomoral domain.
There were few significant correlations between parental scores and the praise
type or frequency they used with the children. However, a higher score for
malleable cognitive development correlated with higher use of person praise.

77. ■ Relationships between praise style and motivational frameworks There was a
significant correlation between process praise (as a % of total praise) when
children were 14 months to 38 months old and children’s incremental
(malleable) motivational framework scores at 7 to 8 years old.
■ There was no significant correlation between person praise and children’s entity
(fixed ability) motivational framework scores at 7 to 8 years old.
■ Conclusions: The amount of process praise (effort of the child) that parents gave
their children between 14 and 38 months old was a predictor of children’s
incremental (cognitive traits are malleable, effort is important) motivational
frameworks at 7 to 8 years old.

78. ■ Children whose parents used more process praise were more likely to have
beliefs and behaviours associated with an incremental motivational framework,
measured in the sociomoral and intelligence domains. Gunderson et al. also
found a gender difference in the types of praise children received.
■ Boys received significantly more process praise than girls, even though, overall,
boys and girls received the same amount of praise. This could explain why
existing research highlights that girls tend to attribute failures to lack of ability
and show decreased persistence and motivation after failure.
■ Finally, parents with stronger incremental theories were more likely to give
person praise. This could be explained as parents who believe that intelligence
is malleable believe that the way to make their child smarter is to increase the
child’s self-esteem by saying how smart they are using person praise.

79. Strengths and weaknesses of the
study
■ Strengths
This study was done in a natural
environment. Experiment and
observation was used.
A double blinded experiment was
used where neither the family nor the
experimenter knew the real aim of the
study.
■ Weakneses
Participants were deceived.
Lacks validity because parents may
have changed their type of praise
knowing that they were being
observed.

80. Issues and debates
The development of morality
■ Morals refer to what is right and wrong in human behaviour.

81. ■ Morals differ between cultures. What is seen as right in one country may not be
seen right in the other.
■ Morals refer to proper behaviour.
■ Moral development: refers to how children reason about what is right and wrong,
and how they make moral decisions.

82. Development of morality
Piagets theory of moral development
 Between 5-10 years, a child believes that rules cannot be changed. Ideas of
morality come from people around them mainly their parents and teachers.
Focus is on the action’s consequence. Eg: breaking the rules lead to
punishment= HETERONOMOUS.
 From about 10 years old the child knows that the intentions of an action is
important. Morals are seen agreed between people and the child knows that
following rules is about more than the consequences. This stage is called the
AUTONOMOUS stage.

84. Kohlberg’s theory of development
■ Kohlberg suggests that there are three levels of moral reasoning.

85. Weaknesses of these theories
■ Both Piaget and Kohlberg used stories that were artificial and might not
represent real thinking – lack ecological validity.
■ Kohlberg used male only sample which means that it was about male morality
only.

86. Damon 1999 developing a moral self
■ Damon concludes that moral identity comes from the many social influences a
child experiences. Therefore, children must hear a consistent message about
shared standards in order to develop moral understanding.

87. What can help children to develop a
moral understanding?
■ Children who experience different views and ways of looking at things may
develop more. These types of experiences get them thinking.
■ It could be useful to give children a chance to solve problems with others and
get them to experience the thinking of others.