Brain Development in early childhood is dependent on many factors. As the brain develops, cognitive, social and language acquisition activities build up. During cognition development language will naturally emerge. There are many factors that give to the outcome of brain development. As stated in The Development of Children, 2013 early brain development increases at a rapid rate. The brain does slow down its growth after infancy until there is another spurt around adolescence. The brain reaches about eighty percent of its mature weight at the onset of early childhood. At about five years of age, the brain is closer to ninety percent of its mature weight. Many significant changes occur during this slower time of early brain stages. “As seen within the brain the growth allows for myelination to continue. Myelination is when the brain that increases the spread of neural impulses to various areas of the head. During early childhood myelination occurs in the frontal cortex section of the brain. This fosters more cognitive protocol for the child” (Lightfoot, Cole 2013). At this point the brain develops, and continued growth will take place. Memory supports are still very immature, besides the brain develops at various rates and makes its connections at unusual times. This could explain for the unequal cognitive progress during early childhood. As myelination happens at a rapid rate in the cortical areas, growth occurs in the psychological locations of the brain (Lightfoot, 2013). Adversely, when brain systems are immature little performance is not apparent. Language acquisition during early childhood could be determined by a biological explanation. This may show how the brain is wired so children can acquire language ev... ... middle of paper ... ...ain development in various regions. Language acquisition is the result of how the brain forms early on in life. Memory is an important cognitive function that reinforces complex thinking during early childhood. One of the subjects of great interest to me is traumatic brain injury. I had two concussions in high school. After the second, I slowly lost my speech and could not speak. It was a very difficult time and there was not much I could do to solve the problem. The speech eventually returned after about 4 weeks. The effects of language acquisition after an injury on an adult may have a more serious result then that of early childhood brain injuries. These traumas are reflected in the participation of athletes playing contact type sports. A deeper understanding of the long-lasting effects of this type of injury on adults is an area for me to learn more.
During middle-to-late childhood, growth and development begins to slow down a bit. However, while the development may not be as rapid as it may have been in previous stages, it is more consistent and steady. The development that occurs during this stage begins to incorporate the skills learned in previous years, and the skills gained during this time are more applicable to real world situations. Cognitive development, intellectual development, and disabilities are key aspects to consider during this time.
In acquiring this new-found knowledge Piaget stated that when the child is given a more complex problem they can use logical and cognitive processes to answer instead of just their imagination and/or visual prospects (Feldman, 2006, pp. 286-287). Although some kids may not fully just jump into the concrete operation stage Piaget says it is completely normal that kids shift back and forth between preoperational and concrete operational thinking during the two years before they completely reach the stage. When the process is complete you should notice how your child becomes more sophisticated in handling their information. Their concepts of speed and time also highly increase. During the middle childhood stage, short term memory improves significantly. For example, a child will be able to repeat a set of numbers back to you with more ease and less concentration then they could before (Feldman, 2006, p. 289). Vocabulary of children also begin to rapidly increase during the school years. They can take in what the teacher says and store it in their brains so more knowledge is obtained. This is the stage in which your child usually learns to read and
Rollins, Kristin. (2005). Brain not fully developed until age 25. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from http://www.academic.marist.edu/mwwatch/fall05/science1.htm
The brain develops rapidly during childhood, and within the first ten years of development millions of brain cell connections are made which enable children to absorb information and learn complex skills which
With time and sufficient environmental exploration, regions become specialised and differentiated through the process of activity-dependent specialization, whereby-they interact and compete to acquire specialised computational abilities. Specialisation allows for faster and more efficient information processing and has been attributed to age and myelinisation, a process which allows nerve impulses to travel throughout the brain more quickly and efficiently, increasing integration of brain activity and supporting-efficient cognitive maturation. The general principle of structural brain development states areas related to simple functions reach full maturation faster than those supporting high-order complex-functions. Faster processing speed and lower mental effort via myelination enable automatic processing which is beneficial but only for older-children and adults who have mastered a particular behavioural or cognitive ability. In contrast, prolonged plasticity supports efficient cognitive development in young-children in two ways. Firstly, studies of adopted children with past experiences of maltreatment have shown that adoptees largely outperformed their peers left behind on cognitive tasks, provided being adopted at an early age (before 12 months of age). The fact-that adoption can be an effective intervention enabling significant cognitive catch-up demonstrates the benefits of plasticity during development (van Ijzendoorn & Juffer, 2006). Secondly, in the context of childhood learning, prolonged plasticity is considered beneficial, facilitating adaptive change and learning in response to environmental stimuli via formation of new neural connections (Anderson, 2011). Although time-consuming, effortful and non-automatic, non-differentiated learning protects children from premature acquisition of
The question concerning the plasticity of the mature human brain is one of the unsolved neuroscience issues. Neuroplasticity relates to the different levels of learning ability, ranging from cellular adjustments to large-scale adjustments in cortical remapping. Neuroplasticity is important in the overall healthy development, learning, and memorizing, as well as in the recovery from various types of brain damage. During the 20th century, most neuroscientists agreed that the brain structures were active only during early childhood (Rentería, 2012). However, this assumption has been questioned by various findings that suggest that the brain remains plastic even in adulthood. The growth of the human
Children begin learning before they are even born. Some people may wonder how this is possible if the child hasn’t even taken its first breath yet, but it is true. Brain development begins in week four of their first trimester in the womb. This is important because the development helps a child learn and grow, effecting their future learning, education, and social skills. Brain development begins right in the womb and continues to flourish after birth. A child’s brain develops through neurons and their connections by synapses. Neurons communicate at synapses through the use of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemicals sent between neurons as well as the muscles and organs they work with. They attach to receptors on receiving cells, translating into messages. Synapses, the connections in the mind between nerve cells, must be reinforced in order for them to remain active. For example, if a parent incorporates music into a child’s life, those connections will be strong, allowing the child to be musically talented, and more likely able to switch from instrument to instrument. On the other hand, if a parent does not reinforce musical skills on a child, they may not be able to ever learn how to play an instrument in the future. Furthermore, brain development is influenced by nutrition, speech, environment, nurture or neglect, and early childhood programs, all occurring in two periods of life. A child’s brain development is influenced by events while in the womb and after birth.
The period of childhood is the most significant in the establishment of human beings as mature, independent and socially active people. Thus, no wonder that children 's psychological development was thoroughly studied by such psychologists as Piaget, Freud, Vygotsky and many more. All of them have seen their own principles of development and pointed the key topics and elements that influenced the most. Why is it so important to explore the childhood development? Multiple researches and evidences show that the brain is especially sponge like during the first few years of growing up. This is the time, when kids
“If you think about the brain and the brain development if we don’t stimulate the brain then of course there is going to be lack of development.” (“Unruh”). Development is sempiternal in life, it moves through many stages into life such as learning to grasp a fork properly to grasping the thought of death. General development stages begin at birth and last till about age of 18, but the most important development stages start from birth and last till about six years of age. These early stages will affect how one will behave, interpret, and learn throughout the duration of one’s life. While bodily changes are rapidly occurring and the beginning of thought, opinion, and reason are just forming. It is important to understand as future parents or caregivers how and when their child, even if premature, is developing socially, cognitively, or physically.
Communication between an infant and its caregiver plays a very important role in a child’s language development. Language development begins at an early age, but it has to be learned. A baby’s language may not be something that we understand, but as adults we eventually learn how to distinguished what they want. As a mother of three I have learned that the more I
During this corse I lean multiple ways that the brain changes mentally as a person ages, such as cognitive development. There are many theories about how cognitive development occurs in children. Jean Piaget had a theory of cognitive development that included 3 different stages, the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, and the concrete operational stage. The stages begin with learning though senses and actions, to have magical and egotistic thinking, to being able to think logically but not abstractly. Piaget also believed that people’s brains create schemas, almost like folders for the ideas of the brain, in order to organized they can understand them. When someone takes in new information,
What a child experiences in the first few years of life largely determines how their brain will develop and how they will interact with the world throughout their life. Brains are built up over time, from the bottom up. The basic architecture of the brain is constructed though an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues on through adult hood. For children’s brains to become highly developed for learning, repeated experience are essential. Children will developed bet if they are proved with: positive supportive relationships, routines and consistency, chance to repeat activities, hands on interaction
Physical development is the process that starts in human infancy and continues into late adolescent concentrating on gross and fine motor skills as well as puberty. Puberty is the period of sexual maturation during which a person becomes capable of reproducing . Physical development focuses on increasing the skill and performance of the body. The sequence of physical development involves firstly gross motor skills that require control of large muscles in the body, arms and legs. Gross motor skills are larger movements your baby makes with his/her arms, legs, feet, or his/her entire body. Physical and cognitive development are closely linked, especially during the early years. When most teens mature their frontal lobes continue to develop. (Kuhn 2006 and silveri 2006) says that myelin is the fat tissue which forms around axons and speeds the neurotransmission which can enable the better communication with other regions
Language acquisition is perhaps one of the most debated issues of human development. Various theories and approaches have emerged over the years to study and analyse this developmental process. One factor contributing to the differing theories is the debate between nature v’s nurture. A question commonly asked is: Do humans a...
Nearly every member of the human race learns a language or more to the degree of proficiency only in the first few years of life. How children achieve this astonishing skill in such little time has sparked controversial debates among linguists, psychologists, and scientists throughout centuries. Some believe that language is an innate ability possessed by all human beings due to the remarkable function of the brain, while others maintain that language is learned from childhood experience. However, many are beginning to realize that nature and nurture go hand-in-hand when explaining how children develop their language(s). Despite the claims that language is either pre-learned or environmentally learned alone, the combination of both genes and experience better explains the aspects of first language acquisition.