Child Development From Infancy to Adolescence. Laura E. Levine
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Scaffolding: When more knowledgeable adults and children support a child’s learning by providing help to move the child just beyond his current level of capability.
Modern Applications of Vygotsky’s Theory
Like Piaget’s theory, Vygotsky’s ideas have had a powerful influence in the field of education. One specific educational practice that developed out of Vygotsky’s ideas is known as dynamic assessment. In this approach, instead of testing what a child knows or can do at one particular time, the instructor uses an interactive assessment process to identify the child’s zone of proximal development and provides the help the child needs to progress to a higher level of achievement. The teacher asks a question to assess the child’s understanding of a concept. When a child answers the question incorrectly, the instructor starts with the most indirect help, such as a hint that the child think about whether he or she has seen a problem like this before. If this help is not enough, the adult will increase the level of direction, potentially ending by explaining the correct answer. Some children will only need the small hint, while others need a more direct approach (Poehner, 2007). You will read about dynamic assessment as an alternative to standardized testing in Chapter 12.
Dynamic assessment: A testing procedure that uses a test-intervene-test procedure to assess the examinee’s potential to learn.
Information Processing
Whereas Piaget and Vygotsky provide more global concepts about cognition and its development, information processing theory breaks down the way we understand and use information into steps, such as acquiring information, storing it, and retrieving it (Robinson-Riegler & Robinson-Riegler, 2008). When this approach first appeared in the scientific literature, it proposed that we process information in a way that is similar to the way that computers process information, with input of information, activity to use that information, storage of the information, and retrieval when needed. Since then we have realized that our brains are much more complicated than computers, so a newer way of thinking about the memory process has developed, known as the connectionist or neural network model. Using this model, you can think of memory as a neural network that consists of concept nodes interconnected by links, as shown in Figure 2.5 . For example, when we see a white duck, different concept nodes may be activated. One node can represent a specific concept (white), one can represent a higher-order concept (duck), and one can represent a superordinate concept (bird) depending on how the neurons are activated (Robinson-Riegler & Robinson-Riegler, 2008). The concept nodes are analogous to nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain, and the links are connections between individual neurons. When information is stored in memory, it becomes a new node that is connected to other nodes in the network.
Connectionist/neural network model: A model of the processes of cognition envisioned as a neural network that consists of concept nodes that are interconnected by links.
Figure 2.5 Neural network model of memory.
Although each node is connected in some way to other pieces of information in our memory, the strength of these connections can vary, and learning involves modifying the strength of the connections. When input comes into the system (for example, the sight of a bird in flight), certain nodes are activated. If the links between those nodes are strong enough, the output is a concept (in this case, bird). This way of thinking about information processing more closely reflects our current understanding that neurons operate through multiple simultaneous connections with other neurons throughout the brain.
Modern Applications of Information Processing
Information processing theory has led to an enormous amount of research on growth and changes in cognitive processes during childhood and adolescence. One new approach is the use of technologies that allow researchers to link specific cognitive processes with changes in both the structure and the function of the brain and nervous system. This area of study, known as developmental cognitive neuroscience, allows us to understand how the developing brain both promotes and limits certain cognitive abilities. For example, the ability to think in an abstract way rather than dealing only with the concrete world around us develops throughout adolescence. Brain imaging studies have shown changes during adolescence in the activation of parts of the brain that deal with aspects of abstract thought (Dumontheil, 2014). Such studies support the idea that the immaturity of the adolescent brain limits cognitive abilities. Therefore, teachers, judges, and others should not expect teens to operate at the same level as adults. You will learn more about brain development and its relation to cognitive development at different ages throughout this book.
Developmental cognitive neuroscience: The study of the relation between cognitive development and the development of the brain.
Check Your Understanding
Knowledge Questions
1 How are Piaget’s theory and Vygotsky’s theory different and how are they similar?
2 What is constructivism?
3 What is developmental cognitive neuroscience?
Critical Thinking
How does the concept of embodied cognition add to our understanding of the link between brain function and cognitive development?
Evolutionary Theory: Ethology
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is based on the idea that living things that adapt to their environment are more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation. His focus was largely on physical characteristics, but his basic idea that human behavior that has adaptive value will persist is central to the field called ethology. Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) is considered the father of modern ethology, which is the study of the adaptive value of animal and human behavior in the natural environment. As a zoologist studying animal behavior in Munich, Germany, Lorenz found that ducks and geese would immediately follow their mothers after they were born. This automatic behavior, called imprinting, is adaptive because the mother provides her offspring with food and protection from predators. Lorenz showed that this behavior was innate and not learned. When he removed the mother goose and substituted himself, the newly hatched geese responded to him in the same way they would have responded to the mother goose: by following him.
Ethology: The study of the adaptive value of animal and human behavior in the natural environment.
Imprinting: In ethology, the automatic process by which animals attach to their mothers.
Konrad Lorenz and imprinting. Konrad Lorenz observed the behavior of geese (left) and demonstrated the presence of imprinting by removing the mother goose and substituting himself. The goslings then treated him as if he were their mother (right).
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Nina Leon/ Contributor via Getty Images
Some researchers attempted to apply the idea of imprinting to human behavior. They claimed that infants must have skin-to-skin contact with their mother within