Child Development Theories and Education.

by caudy92 (student)

Unit 7 Task 3

Neuroscience

There has been much research into the development of the brain in young children in recent years, with the findings that the first three years of a child’s it the most important period of their life. At the early stages of life this is when the brain learns and takes things in more easily in the early stages of life. This period of growth is called “potential growth” which is the most critical period of development. In order for the brain to learn new things and develop the brain cells have to form connections, which are needed between the neurons and the brain cells to pass electrochemical messages. In order for messages to be sent and received synapses which are junctions between two nerve cells, where the club-shaped tip of a nerve fibre almost touches another cell in order to transmit signals, need to form between the neurons. The wiring which is between the synapses and neurons is called axons, which are an extension of a nerve cell which is similar in shape to a thread that transmits impulses outwards from the cell body, by having this wiring the messages can be sent through the brain. All of the connections within the brain influence learning and help the brain develop. At birth the brain is the only incomplete organ in the body, as the neurons are formed in the brain but no synapses are formed to allow messages to be sent and received. So in order for the brain to recognise the needs of the baby, in the first eight months the brain rapidly develops synapses, with wiring taking place primarily at night time through rapid eye movement (REM). Rapid eye movement is a normal stage of sleep which occupies around 80% of a new born child’s sleep. During REM the brain takes all the information in throughout the day, process and organises the information for the brain to store and remember the information. Although the brain stores this information, if not frequently used the information which is in the synapse are lost, and only the frequently used synapse are maintained. Although if information is lost up to the age of ten years old the brain will remain flexible and any lost information has a possibility of been retrieved.

It is a fact that in the first three years of a child’s life they can learn new and understand languages more clearly than any other time throughout their life. By having this ability this allows children to learn foreign languages with ease, and helps children be bi-lingual. This is because studies have shown us that the brain is more able to develop new connections in early life, although the brain can make connections in later life the brain finds this much harder to accomplish. In order for the brain to make connections quicker and more effectively, the brain requires constant stimulation to learn and function effectively. Young children require and need that stimulation through experiences, as the helps the brain develop. It is proven that babies who don’t receive this constant stimulation have smaller brains than those who receive the sensory stimulation. A child who is deprived from this stimulation and has not been spoken to can have brains as much 20% smaller than children at their age, who have received this stimulation. There are many traumatic experiences which can affect the brains development and have many side effects, such as high levels of stress hormone cortical will affect the brain. In order for the brain to develop correctly and to give the child the best start in life they can receive we need to make sure they are loved, cherished, cared and stimulated in the early years of their life.

There are many factors which will influence all children’s learning weather it may be in a positive or negative way. Below are an insight into the major theories and how they affect learning in today’s practice.

Burrhus Skinner 1904-1990

Skinner was one of the major theorists and well known for his behaviourist theory. Skinner had his own beliefs of the behaviour of children and wanted to prove his theory by trying out experiments on rats and pigeons, to see if this could be transferred across to children. This method of approach by Skinner is called operant conditioning, which is where any spontaneous behaviour is either reinforced by a reward or praise, or discouraged by punishment. He believed that by this kind of positive reinforcement, the principals involved would have a strong influence on behaviour. His idea of trying his theory out on animals came as his view is that people and animals are organisms, but differentiate in the complexity of learning.

As Skinner is a behaviourist theorist, he believed that behaviour is learned and can be shaped to how it is taught, which is called nurture. All theorists debated between each other, the balance of nature v nurture and which has the most effect on learning and development. The most admired view of skinner and all adults working in children’s settings today is that behaviour is moulded by punishment and rewards, and it is natural through all humans that we seek rewards and try our upmost to elude punishment. Skinner believed that we can seek good behaviour from children, by positive reinforcement and rewarded behaviour. To prove his theory he experimented on animals and gave them tasks to achieve, but to promote positive behaviour through his tasks he broke them down into sections to reward or punish at each step learned. In doing this every step which was learned was rewarded and reinforced and promoted the animals to carry on with more learning and positive behaviour. Once Skinner accomplished this with animals he was able to convince himself and other people that this will apply to children and his theory is correct, which is what he did. He applied his theory to children and worked with many parents to promote, reinforce and reward positive behaviour. This theory of operant conditioning has a huge effect on how professionals will treat children, and how to create a programme to change a child’s behaviour. By having this programme for an individual child we can turn unwanted behaviour into positive behaviour by positive reinforcement. Professionals should reward good behaviour in order to see this kind of behaviour again, and punish and not reinforce negative behaviour which we don’t want to see.

Skinners theory is mainly based on nurture and I strongly agree that this theory is used widespread throughout all settings today. This theory influences all children’s learning as throughout all settings professionals want to see positive behaviour. Skinner suggests “behaviour is learned by reward”-(L.Pound-2005). In order to see this positive behaviour, or to change children’s behaviour positive reinforcement is used all the time. Positive behaviour is needed and expected in all children’s settings, to allow children to learn and to allow the adult to teach the children. In children’s settings, there will be some children who demonstrate attention seeking behaviour, which not only is disruptive alone, but it affects all other children in surroundings as this is disruptive to them, and in turn this kind of disruptive behaviour is not good for other child to witness as they could pick up on this negative behaviour and perform this behaviour. To combat this behaviour we should not reward disruptive behaviour and not reinforce this behaviour, but on the other hand we should reward any positive behaviour so the child will display positive behaviour again, with other children noticing there are rewards for positive behaviour which will influence children’s learning and behaviour as they will be fully focused on learning and not instigating any unwanted behaviour. Within my setting we apply this theory of Skinner`s of positive reinforcement to encourage the children to display superior behaviour to help create a positive stimulating learning environment. An example of positive reinforcement/ rewards from my placement is when the children are displaying excellent well-mannered behaviour which adults want to see within settings, they are rewarded by moving up a rocket to get a prize if they reach the top. By doing this we are positively reinforcing good behaviour, but not only rewarding this behaviour once. The children have to display positive behaviour on numerous occasions to reach the top of the rocket to be rewarded, so with this method we are positively reinforcing good behaviour throughout the day for the child to get a reward. There is also the opportunity for a child to be moved down the rocket if they display any unwanted disrupted behaviour which by doing this in turn we are promoting positive behaviour as the children’s aim is to reach the top of the rocket to receive a reward.

From my experience of placement and my general knowledge of working and studying children’s development, my own personal opinion of skinners theory is that I strongly agree with his theory and use it when working with children. I believe through Skinners research and my own experience that his theory is correct and to gain positive behaviour out of young children, we should use positive reinforcement and give them a goal to reach, to receive a reward.

Jean Piaget 1896-1980

Piaget is one of the major theorists, which has had a major influence in children’s settings for many years. Piaget ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Jean Piaget 1896-1980

Piaget is one of the major theorists, which has had a major influence in children’s settings for many years. Piaget was very opinionated and believed that for our behaviour to change the brain takes in information which influences and affect behaviour, which he sways towards a nature view and that all children are the same. He believed that all children went through four vital stages of development in which the order of theses stages will always be the same just at different rates for each child. He was mainly interested in the intellectual development of children, and believed that all children had to be at a particular stage of development to learn new concepts.

The first stage Piaget identified is the sensorimotor stage, which is the first two years of a child’s life, in which he believed that all children gained knowledge and understanding through physical action, and their senses- sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. By children using all of these senses Piaget believed that children will learn better in their first two years of their life by primarily learning from these senses. He believed that all children remain selfish and self-centred for their first two years as this is the best way for a child to learn and develop.

The second stage is the preoperational stage which covers the ages of around two to seven years. Piaget believed that during this stage, children’s though processes are developing rapidly. Although we still see them as far from “logical thought” they are making first steps to this. During this stage the children’s vocabulary is expanding and developing as the children are developing from babies and toddlers into “little people”. Children also believe in this stage that everything is like them, and that because they have emotions, feel pain everything else around them must. An example of this is where children will believe that a car will not start or work because it is feeling sick and will not work till it feels better. Along with this characteristic of this stage, another aspect is “symbolism”. This is when something is allowed to stand or symbolise something else, an example of this is children may think that the “trees make the wind” – (L.Pound, 2005).

The concrete operational stage is Piaget`s third stage of development. This stage covers children around the age of seven to eleven. In this stage logical though process develops, matures and becomes more adult like. He believed that during this stage the ability to develop logical though about objects is if they can visualise them. Children begin to understand not everything is what it appears to be as they are developing “operational though”. Children are also able to develop different scenarios in their mind and think what if something was to happen. All of is because of their development of “operational thought” into more adult like thinking. Once they have learnt this, they then move onto learning about “reversibility”. This is where children learn that if things changed, they can still be the same as they used to be, an example is where is a tower of blocks is laid out on the floor there is still the same amount of blocks, just spread out more.

Finally, the last stage is the formal operational stage, which begins at around the age of eleven and carries on through to adulthood. This stage opens the children up to reality with a world of possibilities instead of a concrete world. During this stage, children develop the ability to think about abstract concepts and develop their logical thought. Piaget believed that in this stage children are able to see the consequences and conclusion of their thinking.

Piaget’s theory of development had a huge inspiration of the learning of children in early year’s settings for many years and is still used in today’s society. Piaget had a very constructivist view and strongly backed up his findings. He believes that children need to experience as many things as possible, to give them the knowledge and understanding they require at an early age. Piaget thought we could give children as much information about something to children, but they will never fully understand something until they experience it firsthand. Piaget suggests “the term schema describes the mental representations that develop as children have new experiences”-(L.Pound-2005). Piaget used this phrase “Schema” to support how his theory influences behaviour, as he used this term to describe a repeated pattern of behaviour, as he thought that children would repeat something until they get it right.

Although Piaget`s theory still influences and affects children’s learning in today’s settings, I’m very critical of his findings and theory as all his observations were carried out on his own children, and not on a wide range of children from all different backgrounds. Although I disagree with Piaget’s method of receiving his findings, I agree with some of his findings as I have witnessed his theory in my setting. From my placement I agree with his suggestion of “Schema” as I have witnessed children following the term of “Schema” of repeating something until they are able to achieve success.

Lev Vygotsky 1896-1934

Vygotsky’s theory is one of the foundations for constructivism, and believed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of language. Another aspect of Vygotsky's theory is the idea that the potential for cognitive development depends upon the "zone of proximal development”.

Vygotsky theory stresses the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition, as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the language development of each child, as he believed that thinking skills and language skills develop separately until around the age of two years old. Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic materials/abilities for intellectual development and that social interaction will help develop theses abilities. He believed that the pre-intellectual language of babies is without though and this is where Vygotsky retrieves the ides from about been born with the ability ready to talk. Along with the pre-intellectual language for talking, there is also the pre-linguistic though of children, which is where babies recognise people and objects without language. By Vygotsky splitting these two sectors up for the first two years of a baby’s life, he then believes that they connect and form together, which is where language and though become and aid cognitive development. Vygotsky suggests that “talking with adults about familiar everyday experiences as crucial”-(L.Pound-2005). He believed that this was crucial to build up language development, and their knowledge and understanding of the world, which is where both nature and nurture come into context about building a picture up of the world and their environment. Vygotsky believed that talking is pivotal especially when discussing with other people as this helps children understand the purpose and importance of communication.

Along with his views on his language for thinking, Vygotsky`s theory also consisted of Zone of proximal Development, which supported the language for children. Along with the Zone of actual development, this supported the independent use of language. This is an important concept that relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from an adult or another child. Vygotsky sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given, allowing the child to develop skills they will then use on their own which is developing higher mental functions. Vygotsky also views interaction with peers as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. He suggests that “teachers use cooperative learning exercises” (L.Pound-2005), which is where less competent children develop with help from more skilful peers, an example of this is sitting a skilful child next to a less competent child. This example is within the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky`s perception of proximal development ended up in new techniques for identifying children’s needs and the development of new teaching strategies and techniques to meet the needs of children. This theory of Vygotsky`s has a huge impact on learning, as since his theory came into publish there has been many changes in children’s settings. In today’s settings practitioners match tasks to the individual needs of the child’s present competence; this has all come from the view of Vygotsky. His theory has had a huge impact on the way educators deem children’s learning. Vygotsky’s has only come under slight criticism for his work due to his young age. Vygotsky’s theory concentrates hugely on the nurture of the child, and comes under criticism due to their not been enough though on the nature side of a child’s own development, along with most of his work consists of untested ideas. Taking this into consideration I agree with most of Vygotsky’s theory as from my experience his theory has influenced learning in children’s settings, an example of his influence and theory is Vygotsky’s believed that “children solve practical tasks with the help of speech, as well as with their eyes and hands” (L.Pound-2005). I entirely agree with Vygotsky`s on this element of his theory as from carrying out observations on children, it has come to many attention that most children I’ve observed are always talking while carrying out practical tasks.

Jerome Bruner 1915-1980

Bruner is one of the best known and influential psychologists of the twentieth century. He was one of the key figures in influencing education through social constructivist. Bruner brought together the work of Vygotsky, Freud and Piaget, to develop his own theory of cognitive development.

Bruner believed that every child follows structures and routine to develop their intellectual development. Every child has their own experiences, in which these experiences will teach children to develop and shape their own views. Bruner suggested that “children learned through doing, then imagining what they have been doing and then translating that into symbols of drawing, writing or numbers”- (G.Squires-2007). In order for children to learn from these experiences and the “doing” Bruner believed that, adults play an important role in this development of the children as they move through Bruners stages of development.

His stages of development are;

Enactive (0-1) - The learning through doing stage, with physical movements.
Iconic (1-7) - The developing mental images stage, one thing stands for another.
Symbolic (7+) – The stage which using symbols such as language and other representational modes to transfer thoughts.

Children will pass through theses stages of development represent their experiences into knowledge. Theses stages are similar to the stages of development of Piaget, with the difference been piaget stages of development are a one way process and children will always go through the stages and not in a different order, whereas Bruner believes his stages which the children will go through depends on the level of experience. He believed things that are new to us and haven’t seen or experienced before we will choose the “Enactive” stage and learn through physical doing, then following onto the symbolic stage as we become more familiar and experienced to the situation. Along with the stages bruner introduced the scaffolding theory in which an adult supports the learning in an activity to further and monitor their development, while scaffolding he suggest that the negative behaviour should be ignored, and positive reinforcement should be used regularly. In my placement I adapt the theory of Bruner to scaffold and monitor children. I will help promote development when scaffolding children a positively reinforce children on a regular basis.

Noam Chomsky

Chomsky is considered one of the most important linguists in the twentieth century with a laissez-fair view and argues that language acquisition is an innate structure, or function, of the human brain. The laissez-fair view is centred on the conception that children will naturally, regardless of adult intervention.

He made this decision as it is not clear how humans grasp and learn a language, so Chomsky believed that we are born with the ability to speak with a built in structure within the brain which allows all humans the ability to learn and speak languages. There are many factors to support Chomsky’s theory of language acquisition. The first factor is that between the age’s three to ten, children are most likely to learn a language and grasp the fluency of this language, and after this age it’s difficult for any child to learn and grasp a language.

The second factor which he believes supports his theory is that children do not need a trigger to begin language acquisition as it happens on its own. If the child is around language production, the child will work to produce the language their self. There are many things which can progress the development of a child, but Chomsky believes that these only have a small effect on children’s development, and the child will still learn to speak eventually.

Another factor Chomsky believed supports his theory is that children go through stages of language acquisition in which they learn certain parts of the language. They all go through these stages at the same time, around the same age. All children will go through these stages regardless of what language they speak. Chomsky argues that language is organised and that eventually all children will learn language.

Although Chomsky is a highly regarded theorist and had an effect in children’s settings his theory of that adult intervention is not required, is not agreed with in today’s settings. I don’t agree with Chomsky’s theory from my personal experience of working in children’s settings. Children need adult intervention, not just for language development, but language development links into social and emotional development, with promoting language children will build up confidence and self-esteem to communicate with other adults and children. In settings today we should promote a stimulating learning environment, which influences learning and adult intervention with children. By doing all of these things in my setting we are doing the opposite of Chomsky’s theory to promote the development of children as I believe that children need to be active learners and adults communicate with children to promote language development.

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov was the creator of the famous classical condition theory, of the transmission models of learning. Pavlov carried many experiments and research on animals, mainly dogs to understand the theory of classical conditioning.

Pavlov wanted to find out if he could condition dogs and apply this theory to children. He set up an experiment with dogs where when he gave dogs food, he would ring the bell and the dogs would produce saliva ready to know it was time for their food. Once Pavlov had learned the dogs that the bell was associated with food, he then rung the bell when there was no food, in turn the dogs produced the saliva expecting food to come as they associated the bell with food. This process is called classical conditioning, which is a learned response where they are expecting something.

By Pavlov finding this process of classical condition it has influenced many areas of education and health in history and today. Settings use the theory of classical conditioning, to condition children’s behaviour to promote positive behaviour, which is described as behaviourism. Settings today still encourage the theory of behaviourism and classical conditioning. I have noticed from my placement that all children are conditioned into routines and behaviour. An example of classical conditioning from my placement is the children associate the bell with tidy up time. When the bell is rung the children know that it is time to tidy up and get ready for what’s coming up next. I support and agree with Pavlov and use his theory to promote positive behaviour when I am out in practice.

High Scope

High scope approach has come from many years of research and practice from theorists & professionals working within settings. This kind of approach has many key concepts and concentrates on supporting and recognising differences in children between the ages of two and six. The idea of this approach is to develop confidence and self-esteem of children to build on and develop what they are good at.

This approach encourages children to be active learners, and this is still widely been promoted and developed in today’s settings. It encourages parents, carers and teachers to extend their expectations of children and themselves as children and yourself should always aim higher than your potential.

High Scope is a comprehensive educational approach that strives to help children develop in all areas. The goals of high scope for young children are:

To learn through active involvement with people, materials, events, and ideas
To become independent, responsible, and confident — ready for school and ready for life
To learn to plan many of their own activities, carry them out, and talk with others about what they have done and what they have learned
To gain knowledge and skills in important academic, social, and physical areas

All of the theory and work of high scope has been influenced by Piaget. Piaget`s theory of development supported the high scope curriculum and the development of the theory. High scope is based on the wheel of learning, with the centre focus on being the child is an active learner. The wheel of learning is split up into four different sections with each area playing an important role in the development of children, with these four principles giving a guide to practitioners’ in their daily work.

High scope has had a huge impact in the classroom. Things such as the positioning of readily available materials easy to access, providing clear visual information for the children, so any resources the children have had out they can easily find their location to put them back ready for other children to use them. Group times and available opportunities have also come out of high scope, to create a logical learning environment. High scope allows children to solve problems, and reflect and review on their own learning process. High scope has developed courses for professionals to attend to spread their knowledge of this learning path.

Susan Isaacs

Isaacs was a highly regarded early educator, who was down to earth with parents and achieved credibility with her practical work with children. She set up her own school to try out new methods of learning to see if they could discover any new more advanced style of learning.

Isaacs believed in the importance of play and through play children would make sense of the world for themselves. She was very sensitive towards the emotional needs of children, and to be sensitive towards children she said adults should never be sarcastic, break any promises made, and the fantasies of children should never be crushed with any questions regarding their fantasy answered in a respectful serious way. All of her findings and believes have come from the recordings of observations as everything she witnessed was recorded down into detail. The school which she worked at had many aspects to it from a different school to try and promote a different style of learning.

The school had many interesting points with the emphasis on curiosity and letting the children find things out for themselves. The use and development of language was emphasised a lot to promote thinking, with much attention paid to children’s emotional needs. All of this varied from a traditional school, and was an experiment to see if the development of children were faster than from normal schools. Susan`s writing and findings had a huge impact on the educational system, with her new ideas which was based on the original idea of Frobel. Isaacs’ creative use of the outside space at the Malting House School will be familiar to early year’s settings, who are using their outdoor areas more and more in today’s settings. Isaacs’ understanding of the need for emotional security to support learning is also a major issue in todays practice with the evidence present in the EYFS: ‘To mentally or physically engage in learning, children need to feel at ease, secure and confident’ (Learning and Development – active learning. Isaac has had a huge impact on learning and learning styles with her impact still felt in today’s educational system. Isaacs also had a vision for all young children to have the opportunity to attend a nursery or pre-school, with her vision been a reality today.

Froebel

Many early childhood educators supported the idea that children should be trained as soon as possible to become productive members of society. Several early educators believed that childhood is an important period of human growth and development, and that adults should not impose their views and ways upon young children. Froebel was one of the pioneers of early childhood educational reform. As an idealist, he believed that every child possessed, at birth, their full educational potential, and that an appropriate educational was necessary to encourage the child to grow and develop. Frobel believed that outdoor play was really important, if not more important than indoor. He suggested that there should be just as much outdoor play as there is indoor play as this is vital to children’s development. He believed that all children should explore their surrounding environment as much as possible to develop their knowledge and understanding of the world. He also suggested that this should be promoted from an early age as parents are the first children’s educators.

Steiner

Steiner’s passion was to create an education which gave all children the strength of their own will and sensitivity of feeling with clarity of thought. He believed and aimed for all children to experience an expression he called “thinking feeling and willing” which was that children should experience science and bother arts. In doing this he though children would gain valuable knowledge to develop their own feelings. Steiner also believed that there are seven year cycles of development, which these stages connect with the development of human qualities of thinking, feeling and willing. These stages are;

From birth to seven- The active or will predominate
From seven to fourteen- The affective or feeling predominates
From fourteen to twenty-one- The cognitive or thinking ability predominates

Steiner’s school consisted of a structured environment to develop the personal and social development of children, with the pace of learning in the school set by the children. Steiner also believed that play and imitation is a key part of children’s development and gives children a more advanced imagination, with this helping children’s concentration within settings. Steiner strongly believed that learning through play is the most valuable development of children, with the most learnt through play been at the first stage of his cycle; from birth to seven.