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In this extensively revised edition, Martha Ann Bell and her contributors synthesize the newest research on how cognitive and emotional processes influence each other in child development. Historically, research in child development has treated cognitive processes as separate and distinct from social-emotional processes. However, many of the factors that influence self-regulation are also closely linked to cognitive development. For example, genetics, prenatal environment, relationships, language, and physiological processes are all links between emotion and cognition in child development. The first edition of this volume greatly increased our understanding of emotion-cognition integration. This second edition incorporates new longitudinal research demonstrating this integration during infancy and throughout childhood. Chapters incorporate new research methods based on technological advances that have greatly enhanced our ability to examine early human brain development. The resulting volume is a critical read for those interested in understanding how brain development influences our behavior and social interactions.

How do we get from helpless baby to knowing teenager? What impact do iPads, social media, video games, and evolving technology have on the way children's minds develop?How we learn to think, perceive, remember, talk, reason, and learn is a central topic in psychology – and one that sees constant new research. How the Child's Mind Develops discusses the latest studies and covers all the controversies that have dogged the subject for nearly 150 years. David Cohen examines the fundamental issues of how children learn to read and write, of how their intellectual abilities are measured and the development of their morality. This fully updated Fourth Edition incorporates issues of cultural differences in brain development and skin-to-skin contact, and how they effect development, addiction to social media, the effect of trauma and stress, and emotional development.This book is an integrated and thought-provoking account of the central issues in child development. Students, parents, and professionals will find it an invaluable introduction.

This concise guide offers an accessible introduction to cognitive development in childhood and adolescence. It integrates insights from typical and atypical development to reveal fundamental aspects of human growth and development, and common developmental disorders. The topic books in this series draw on international research in the field and are informed by biological, social and cultural perspectives, offering explanations of developmental phenomena with a focus on how children and adolescents at different ages actually think, feel and act. In this volume, Stephen von Tetzchner explains key topics including: theories of cognitive development; attention, memory and executive function; conceptual development and reasoning, theory of mind; intelligence; and learning and instruction.Together with a companion website that offers topic-based quizzes, lecturer PowerPoint slides and sample essay questions, Typical and Atypical Child and Adolescent Development 4: Cognition, Intelligence and Learning is an essential text for all students of developmental psychology, as well as those working in the fields of child development, developmental disabilities and special education. The content of this topic book is taken from Stephen von Tetzchner's core textbook Child and Adolescent Psychology: Typical and Atypical Development. The comprehensive volume offers a complete overview of child and adolescent development – for more information visit www.routledge.com/9781138823396

This integrative text spotlights what educators need to know about children's cognitive development across grade levels (PreK-12) and content areas. The book provides a concise introduction to developmental neuroscience and theories of learning. Chapters on general cognitive abilities probe such crucial questions as what children are capable of remembering at different ages, what explains differences in effort and persistence, and how intelligence and aptitudes relate to learning. Domain-specific chapters focus on the development of key academic skills in reading, writing, math, science, and history. Multiple influences on academic achievement and motivation are explored, including school, family, cultural, and socioeconomic factors. Each chapter concludes with clear implications for curriculum and instruction.

This landmark text integrates diverse perspectives on how humans understand others'minds (or ‘theory of mind') beyond early childhood into middle childhood and adolescence. It explores how the neural, cognitive, and social changes of middle childhood and adolescence shape the ongoing development of theory of mind, and how theory of mind helps children navigate their lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research from leading international experts, this book provides a survey and analysis of the current state and future direction of the field. It is organized around three themes relating to the key issues in contemporary research. The first part focuses on the biological and cognitive bases of theory of mind in middle childhood and adolescence. The second part goes on to explore the social predictors and consequences, considering how theory of mind is shaped by social experiences and, in turn, impacts children's social lives in middle childhood and adolescence. Finally, the third part focuses on theory of mind in the context of neurodiversity, disability, and youth mental health in middle childhood and adolescence.Offering in-depth understanding for all students and scholars of developmental and cognitive psychology, neuroscience, clinical psychology and psychiatry, and education, this valuable text also identifies an agenda for future scholarship on this exciting topic.

“A remarkable book. Whether you are an educator, parent, or simply a curious reader, you will come to see, hear, and understand children in new ways.”—Howard Gardner, author of Multiple IntelligencesAdults easily recognize children's imagination at work as they play. Yet most of us know little about what really goes on inside their heads as they encounter the problems and complexities of the world around them. Susan Engel brings together an extraordinary body of research to explain how toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary-aged children think.A young girl's bug collection reveals how children ask questions and organize information. Watching a boy scoop mud illuminates the process of invention. When a child ponders the mystery of death, we witness how ideas are built. But adults shouldn't just stand around watching. When parents are creative, it can rub off. Engel shows how parents and teachers can stimulate children's curiosity by presenting them with mysteries to solve, feeding their sense of mastery and nourishing their natural hunger to learn.“A fascinating read for parents who wonder, simply, what is my child thinking? Why do they love collecting? Where did that idea come from? A celebration of children's innovation and sense of wonder.”—Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better“Combining insight, scientific acumen, and exquisite narrative, The Intellectual Lives of Children allows readers to peer into the minds of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers as they explore and learn in everyday moments, emphasizing what constitutes real learning.”—Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Science

In On the Genesis of Thought and Language, linguist Alexey Koshelev explores fundamental questions of how human concepts arise in a child, why concepts appear in a child before words, the genesis of language, and why there are so many languages. Chapter One introduces the fundamental dichotomy “visual (exogenous) vs. functional (endogenous)” cognitive units; these units are used to give non-verbal definitions of mental representations of various objects, actions, and situations. In particular, definitions of such concepts as GLASS, CHAIR, BANANA, TREE, LAKE, RUN, and some others are given. Chapter Two discusses how children form concepts, hierarchical relationships, and propositions (conceptual ‘utterances'). It is shown that the initial units of the child's representation of the world are pre-conceptual cognitive units—mental representations of whole situations. In the course of two consecutive cycles in the child's cognitive development, these units transform into (a) primary notions—object and motor concepts, and (b) binary role relationships. Together, they constitute the elementary language of thought which, in the process of thinking, is used to build conceptual structures—propositions. It is further demonstrated that, immediately after the formation of thought, the child begins to develop his native language in which concrete and motor concepts become initial meanings of nouns and verbs, while propositions become the meanings of the child's expressions. The chapter concludes with a contrastive analysis of the proposed approach and Aristotle's and Chomsky's views on thought and language. Chapter Three analyzes how a community's culture affects its language. It is demonstrated that the progress of a community, the main constituent of the civilizational component of its culture, enhances the development of the content component of language by extending the range of its lexical and grammatical meanings. In the context of this analysis, Daniel Everett's (2008) hypothesis that culture affects language structure is discussed. In the subsequent sections, models of the development of human and social activity are offered. These models comprise three components: Activity (main component), Thought, and Language (auxiliary components that ensure the successful realization of activities). The models are illustrated with examples of some concrete societies.

Cognitive Development and Cognitive Neuroscience: The Learning Brain is a thoroughly revised edition of the bestselling Cognitive Development. The new edition of this full-colour textbook has been updated with the latest research in cognitive neuroscience, going beyond Piaget and traditional theories to demonstrate how emerging data from the brain sciences require a new theoretical framework for teaching cognitive development, based on learning. Building on the framework for teaching cognitive development presented in the first edition, Goswami shows how different cognitive domains such as language, causal reasoning and theory of mind may emerge from automatic neural perceptual processes. Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Development integrates principles and data from cognitive science, neuroscience, computer modelling and studies of non-human animals into a model that transforms the study of cognitive development to produce both a key introductory text and a book which encourages the reader to move beyond the superficial and gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Cognitive Development and Cognitive Neuroscience is essential for students of developmental and cognitive psychology, education, language and the learning sciences. It will also be of interest to anyone training to work with children.

In this book, Veronika Rybanska explores how ritual participation affects the cognitive abilities of children. Rybanska argues that, far from being a simple matter of mindless copying, ritual participation in childhood requires rigorous computation by cognitive mechanisms. In turn, this computation can improve a child's'executive functioning': a set of cognitive skills that are essential for successful cognitive, social and psychological development. After providing a critique of existing literature on religion and ritual, Rybanska presents a new interdisciplinary approach that draws from anthropology, psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Using cross-cultural examples, including a comparison between Melanesian culture and Western culture, Rybanska shows that some of the most socially important effects of rituals seem to be universal. The implications of this research suggest that we should rethink multiple aspects of child-rearing and educational policy, and shows that the presence of some form of ritual during childhood could have positive evolutionary benefits.

The third edition of this essential book presents a comprehensive and accessible overview of contemporary theory and research about young children's developing thinking and understanding. Sue Robson's detailed exploration of the ideas and theories is enlivened by transcripts of children's activities and conversations taken from practice and contemporary research, helping readers to make links between theory, research and practice. This new edition brings together up-to-date research into neuroscience and digital learning, combining theory with discussions for best practice. Each chapter also includes ideas for further reading and suggested activities.Key chapters explore the following: Theories of cognitive development The social, emotional and cultural contexts of children's thinking Developments in brain science and young children The central roles of play and language in young children's developing thinking Children's conceptual development; visual thinking and thinking in music This book is crucial reading for all those interested in how young children develop through their thoughts and actions, including students of Early Years studies, teachers and early years practitioners.

“[A] well-researched and well-written book... linking traditional folklore studies to current scientific research and to thinking about human behavior.” —American Journal of PlayWiggling a pencil so that it looks like it is made of rubber, “stealing” your niece's nose, and listening for the sounds of the ocean in a conch shell—these are examples of folk illusions, youthful play forms that trade on perceptual oddities. In this groundbreaking study, K. Brandon Barker and Claiborne Rice argue that these easily overlooked instances of children's folklore offer an important avenue for studying perception and cognition in the contexts of social and embodied development. Folk illusions are traditionalized verbal and/or physical actions that are performed with the intention of creating a phantasm for one or more participants. Using a cross-disciplinary approach that combines the ethnographic methods of folklore with the empirical data of neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology, Barker and Rice catalogue over eighty discrete folk illusions while exploring the complexities of embodied perception. Taken together as a genre of folklore, folk illusions show that people, starting from a young age, possess an awareness of the illusory tendencies of perceptual processes as well as an awareness that the distinctions between illusion and reality are always communally formed.“With clear focal points, sound and carefully explained methodology, and thought-provoking, substantial analysis, this book makes an excellent contribution to children's folklore and related fields.” —Elizabeth Tucker, author of Children's Folklore: A Handbook“A compendium of perceptual illusions, gathered from performers across the country, sorted into formally related perceptual categories, and analyzed under various theories of perception.” —Journal of Folklore Research

3-System Theory of the Cognitive Brain: A Post-Piagetian Approach to Cognitive Development puts forward Olivier Houdé's 3-System theory of the cognitive brain, based on numerous post-Piagetian psychological and brain imaging data acquired from children and adults. This ground-breaking theory simultaneously anchors itself in a deep understanding of the history of psychology and fuels current debates on thinking, reasoning and cognitive development.Spanning the long-term history of psychology, from Plato and Aristotle to more current experimental psychology, this pioneering work goes beyond the approaches of Kahneman (i.e. System 1 theory) and Piaget (i.e. System 2 theory) to put forward a theory in which the inhibitory-control system (i.e. System 3) takes precedence. Houdé argues that the brain contains a third control system located in the prefrontal cortex which is dedicated to inhibiting Kahneman's intuitive heuristics system and activating Piaget's logical algorithms system anywhere in the brain on a case-by-case basis, depending on the goal and context of the task. 3-System Theory of the Cognitive Brain simultaneously explains the early logical abilities discovered in babies, the dynamic, strategic and non-linear process of cognitive development in children, and the fast heuristics and biases observed in adults. Houdé considers the exciting implications of this theory on neuro-education using examples from the classroom. This book is essential reading for students and researchers in cognitive development and education, child psychology, reasoning and neurosciences.

This accessible text--now revised and updated--has given thousands of future educators a solid grounding in developmental science to inform their work in schools. The book reviews major theories of development and their impact on educational practice. Chapters examine how teaching and learning intersect with specific domains of child and adolescent development--language, intelligence and intellectual diversity, motivation, family and peer relationships, gender roles, and mental health. Pedagogical features include chapter summaries, definitions of key terms, and boxes addressing topics of special interest to educators. Instructors requesting a desk copy receive a supplemental test bank with objective test items and essay questions for each chapter. (First edition authors: Michael Pressley and Christine B. McCormick.) New to This Edition •Extensively revised to reflect a decade's worth of advances in developmental research, neuroscience, and genetics. •Greatly expanded coverage of family and peer relationships, with new content on social–emotional learning, social media, child care, and early intervention. •Discussions of executive function, theory of mind, and teacher–student relationships. •Increased attention to ethnic–racial, gender, and LGBT identity development. •Many new and revised practical examples and topic boxes.

Originally published in 1974, a wide and interesting set of intellectual abilities in children are examined here. Volume 1 of 4 (Organization of Length and Class Concepts: Empirical Consequences of a Piagetian Formalism) converts an axiomatization of classes and asymmetrical relationships (proper to Piaget's discipline of Genetic Epistemology) into a model of the development of these notions in children. Here may be one of the only attempts to derive predictive consequences from the more philosophically oriented writings of the Genevan School.

Originally published in 1974, the second volume of four (Logical Inference: Underlying Operations) provides a process-model for the solution of certain syllogistic reasoning problems. Testable predictions of the model are easily derived, and the available evidence supports the model's description of the real-time mental steps mediating these logical abilities. A theory of development, connected to the model, makes these volumes all the more important for cognitive, developmental, and educational psychologists, as well as educators and linguists.

Originally published in 1975, this volume (3 of 4) presents an expanded model of certain deductive abilities in children and adults. A partial explanation of the growth of these abilities was suggested in Volume 2 of this series, and it is amplified here, both with regard to propositional logic and the logic of class inclusion. A new methodology is employed, the issue of the effect of content in deductive reasoning is covered, and developmental questions are reformulated. Although only data from experiments with adolescents are presented here, the volume sets the stage for potentially illustrating developmental comparisons, a topic pursued in Volume 4 of this novel and inventive series.

How do we get from helpless baby to knowing teenager? What impact do television, computers and iPads, the internet, video games and evolving technology have on the way children's minds develop? Is cognition a question of learning and environment or of heredity? How we learn to think, perceive, remember, talk, reason and learn is a central topic in psychology - and one that sees constant new research. In this very readable book, David Cohen discusses the latest studies and covers all the controversies that have dogged the subject for nearly 150 years. He examines the work of the'greats'like Piaget, Freud and Vygotsky and shows how the issues that have intrigued psychologists relate to any child growing up today.This book is for everyone who lives with, works with or studies children. David Cohen examines the fundamental issues of how children learn to read and write, of how their intellectual abilities are measured and the development of their morality. He examines child crime and looks at how modern media affect the way the child's mind develops.This fully updated new edition of How the Child's Mind Develops, which incorporates new extracts from a mother's weekly diary, is an integrated and thought-provoking account of the central issues in child development. Parents, professionals and students will find it an invaluable introduction.

Originally published in 1993, this monograph addresses a central problem in Piaget's work, which is the temporal construction of necessary knowledge. The main argument is that both normative and empirical issues are relevant to a minimally adequate account of the development of modal understanding. This central argument embodies three main claims. One claim is philosophical. Although the concepts of knowledge and necessity are problematic, there is sufficient agreement about their core elements due to the fundamental difference between truth-value and modality. Any account of human rationality has to respect this distinction. The second claim is that this normative distinction is not always respected in psychological research on the origins of knowledge where emphasis is placed on the procedures and methods used to gain good empirical evidence. An account of the initial acquisition of knowledge is not thereby an account of its legitimation in the human mind. The third claim relates to epistemology. Intellectual development is a process in which available knowledge is used in the construction of better knowledge. The monograph identifies features of a modal model of intellectual construction, whereby some form of necessary knowledge is always used. Intellectual development occurs as the reduction of modal errors through the differentiation and coordination of available forms of modal understanding. Piaget's work continues to provide distinctive and intelligible answers to a substantive and outstanding problem.

Cognitive Development in Digital Contexts investigates the impact of screen media on key aspects of children and adolescents'cognitive development. Highlighting how screen media impact cognitive development, the book addresses a topic often neglected amid societal concerns about pathological media use and vulnerability to media effects, such as aggression, cyber-bullying and Internet addiction. It addresses children and adolescents'cognitive development involving their interactions with parents, early language development, imaginary play, attention, memory, and executive control, literacy and academic performance. - Covers the impact of digital from both theoretical and practical perspectives - Investigates effects of digital media on attention, memory, language and executive functioning - Examines video games, texting, and virtual reality as contexts for learning - Explores parent-child interactions around media - Considers the development of effective educational media - Addresses media literacy and critical thinking about media - Considers social policy for increasing access to high quality education media and the Internet - Provides guidance for parents on navigating children's technology usage

Children think in a different way to adults. They also think differently at different ages. This book, originally published in 1984, studies the growth of those processes by means of which thinking evolves from infancy through childhood and adolescence into adulthood. It covers perception, memory, language and, above all, the development of mental ‘programmes', or strategies, through which people structure and hence comprehend the information coming to them from their environment.The study of cognitive development has obvious educational implications. Development in the pre-school period, the appropriateness of schooling for levels of cognitive competence, and the significance of ageing are just some of the issues considered.

Originally published in 1976, this fourth and final volume in a series that met with critical acclaim is concerned with a certain kind of answer to the question'What distinguishes the concepts that are a natural part of human languages from those that are merely expressible in language?'The kind of answers contemplated rely on formal properties of the logics that overlay the two sorts of concepts. The author presents a substantive theory of natural concepts which helps to make concrete the methodological proposals. In order to make the theory more manageable, it is restricted to sentential modifiers expressed in English. Although these proposals are substantive, the methodology they exemplify may be of even more significance. Some of the ideas in the author's approach derive from the work of Chomsky, and several issues relevant to the growth of logical thinking are also treated with data that speak to questions raised in Volume 3, concerning qualitative change through development. This final volume in the series will be essential reading for all concerned with both logical abilities in children, their development, and novel methodological approaches to research bearing on this and related issues.

How children's thinking develops and how it can be developed in education are among the most important questions in psychology. Studies of cognition in adults need to be supplemented by the developmental perspective, which often transforms them. Educational objectives will be most efficiently achieved only if we understand children's thought.Like all important problems, the nature of developing thinking is far from simple. A wide variety of different approaches have been taken to it, and in the few years before publication had come together to produce new understanding and new ideas. Originally published in 1983, each chapter in this book addresses itself to major issues in the area and the advances that were being made at the time.

Executive Functions in Children's Everyday Lives captures the diversity and complexity of the executive system that underlies children's everyday life experiences. Acquisition of executive functions, such as interpreting communication cues and the perspectives of others, is foundational to and a function of children's early social and communicative competencies. From the soccer field to the classroom, executive functions support children's strategic thinking and control of their environment. Knowing about executive functions and how this system of cognitive resources emerges in young children is important in understanding children's development. Recent research points to the importance of also considering environmental influences on the executive system. This book is unique in its focus on how experiences in children's early lives influence and are influenced by executive functions. Viewing executive functions through this broad lens is critical for professionals who intervene when children's access to executive functions is less than optimal. This book addresses a wide range of topics, including the neurological basis of executive functions in young children, the assessment of children's executive functions, theoretical and historical conceptions of executive functions, the relations between executive functions and theory of mind, multilingualism, early school transitions, and the relationship of executive functions to Autism and ADHD. This volume will be useful to professionals in applied psychology, undergraduate and graduate students, and social science and applied researchers.

‘How do children see the world?'is a question of immense importance which fascinates not only psychologists but also parents and all those concerned with education. In this English translation, first published in 1976, the author, who was Professor of Psychology at the René Descartes University in Paris, provided the most comprehensive review at the time of the development of visual perception in children, a field to which she herself had made a substantial contribution. Her book, which gave the first comprehensive study of the relationship between cognitive development and perceptual activities in small children, explores how they interpret visual information and gradually build up a picture of the world. The author had devoted fifteen years to research on the visual world of the child and possessed an exhaustive knowledge of the experimental literature on the subject in English, French, Russian and other languages. She saw perception as a form of knowledge which the child exploits and adapts in a variety of ways at different stages of development. This is brilliantly demonstrated in her own research on the strategies children use in judging things as ‘different'or ‘the same'and the way these relate to the structure of their perceptual organisation.This book is essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in developmental and cognitive psychology; it also provides an object lesson in the application of experimental methods. In addition the organisation of the material made it a valuable textbook for advanced undergraduate and post-graduate teaching and will still be of interest in its historical context today.

The new edition of The Child as Musician: A Handbook of Musical Development celebrates the richness and diversity of the many different ways in which children can engage in and interact with music. It presents theory - both cutting edge and classic - in an accessible way for readers by surveying research concerned with the development and acquisition of musical skills. The focus is on musical development from conception to late adolescences, although the bulk of the coverage concentrates on the period when children are able to begin formal music instruction (from around age 3) until the final year of formal schooling (around age 18). There are many conceptions of how musical development might take place, just as there are for other disciplines and areas of human potential. Consequently, the publication highlights the diversity in current literature dealing with how we think about and conceptualise children's musical development. Each of the authors has searched for a better and more effective way to explain in their own words and according to their own perspective, the remarkable ways in which children engage with music. In the field of educational psychology there are a number of publications that survey the issues surrounding child and adolescent development. Some of the more innovative present research and theories, and their educational implications, in a style that stresses the fundamental interplay among the biological, environmental, social and cultural influences at each stage of a child's development. Until now, no similar overview has existed for child and adolescent development in the field of music. The Child as Musician addresses this imbalance, and is essential for those in the fields of child development, music education, and music cognition.

In this book, top scientists from a variety of fields investigate the development of executive function (EF), a term that encompasses a range of mental processes that together regulate our social behavior and our cognitive and emotional well-being.

Originally published in 1980, this title considers the relationship between feeling able to cope and being able to learn – that is, the interdependence of affect and cognition in children under five. It argues that in order to make full use of his cognitive capacities the child must first develop the belief that he is able to cope and be effective.When the child enters school at the age of five his behaviour will reflect the influence of various important developmental factors. It is only by understanding the nature of the interactions of these influences that one can sympathetically appreciate and, if necessary, modify the child's perception of the situation with which he is faced. The argument presented follows the discrete strands of development which form the plait of individual differential perception and draws upon the case of work of clinicians using psychoanalytic concepts, experimental investigations of infants and children, naturalistic observations and longitudinal studies, since it is believed that these contemporary, yet distinct, approaches draw attention to different aspects of the multifaceted human child. As such the book was both a useful survey of this important complex field of study at the time and is still a stimulating contribution to the debate.

Sandra W. Russ reviews the theory and research on pretend play and creativity, arguing that pretend play in childhood provides a foundation for adult creativity. She describes cognitive and affective processes involved in play and creativity, as well as the possible evolutionary purposes of play and its cultural variations. In particular, she highlights the importance of pretend play in helping children to access emotional memories and fantasies and presents interventions designed to encourage children s creativity.

Although originally published in France in 1951 this English translation was not published until 1975. The book supplements the authors'previous publications on the development of thought in the child and is the result of two preoccupations: how thought that is in the process of formation acts to assimilate those aspects of experience that cannot be assimilated deductively – for example, the randomly mixed; and the necessity of discovering how the mental processes work in the totality of spontaneous and experimental searchings that make up what is called the problem of ‘induction'. Induction is a sifting of our experiences to determine what depends on regularity, what on law, and what on chance.The authors examine the formation of the physical aspects of the notion of chance; they study groups of random subjects and of ‘special'subjects; and they analyse the development of combining operations which contributes to determining the relationship between chance, probability, and the operating mechanisms of the mind.

Integrating cutting-edge research from multiple disciplines, this book provides a dynamic and holistic picture of the developing infant mind. Contributors explore the transactions among genes, the brain, and the environment in the earliest years of life. The volume probes the neural correlates of core sensory, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social capacities. It highlights the importance of early relationships, presenting compelling findings on how parent-infant interactions influence neural processing and brain maturation. Innovative research methods are discussed, including applications of behavioral, hormonal, genetic, and brain imaging technologies.

Despite all our highly publicized efforts to improve our schools, the United States is still falling behind. We recently ranked 15th in the world in reading, math, and science. Clearly, more needs to be done. In The Learning Brain, Torkel Klingberg urges us to use the insights of neuroscience to improve the education of our children. The key to improving education lies in understanding how the brain works: that is where learning takes place, after all. The book focuses in particular on'working memory'--our ability to concentrate and to keep relevant information in our head while ignoring distractions (a topic the author covered in The Overflowing Brain). Research shows enormous variation in working memory among children, with some ten-year-olds performing at the level of a fourteen-year old, others at that of a six-year old. More important, children with high working memory have better math and reading skills, while children with poor working memory consistently underperform. Interestingly, teachers tend to perceive children with poor working memory as dreamy or unfocused, not recognizing that these children have a memory problem. But what can we do for these children? For one, we can train working memory. The Learning Brain provides a variety of different techniques and scientific insights that may just teach us how to improve our children's working memory. Klingberg also discusses how stress can impair working memory (skydivers tested just before a jump showed a 30% drop in working memory) and how aerobic exercise can actually modify the brain's nerve cells and improve classroom performance. Torkel Klingberg is one of the world's leading cognitive neuroscientists, but in this book he wears his erudition lightly, writing with simplicity and good humor as he shows us how to give our children the best chance to learn and grow.

Originally published in 1976, here is a comprehensive account of the role of cognitive styles in early childhood. The author considers the possible precursors of these styles in infancy, and offers a new classification scheme that helps to clarify the relation of cognitive styles to ability and intelligence. In separate chapters, field independence–dependence, reflection–impulsivity, breadth of categorization, and styles of conceptualization are examined, along with a chapter on the interrelationships between these styles. The final chapter integrates and critically summarizes the significance of cognitive styles during the early years of life. Throughout the volume the author attempts to link cognitive styles with other theoretical constructs (for example, unilinear versus multilinear models of development, Inhelder and Piaget's studies of classification stages), and finally, the author advances a set of seven conclusions to reflect the contemporary state of knowledge in regard to the character and function of cognitive styles during the early years of life.This volume provides information about the beginnings of cognitive styles in infancy and the course of their development in preschool years. Research is examined both from the viewpoint of developmental change and individual differences among children. The role of sex differences in cognitive styles is thoroughly examined, and, contrary to earlier claims of ‘no difference', the author convincingly demonstrates that females manifest clear-cut superiority across a wide band of cognitive functions during the pre-school years.

Developing Thinking and Understanding in Young Children presents a comprehensive and accessible overview of contemporary theory and research about young children's developing thinking and understanding. Throughout this second edition, the ideas and theories presented are enlivened by transcripts of children's activities and conversations taken from practice and contemporary research, helping readers to make links between theory, research and practice. Each chapter also includes ideas for further reading and suggested activities. Aimed at all those interested in how young children develop through their thoughts and actions, Sue Robson explores: theories of cognitive development the social, emotional and cultural contexts of children's thinking children's conceptual development visual thinking approaches to supporting the development of young children's thinking and understanding latest developments in brain science and young children the central roles of play and language in young children's developing thinking. Including a new chapter on young children's musical thinking, expanded sections on self regulation, metacognition and creative thinking and the use of video to observe and describe young children's thinking, this book will be an essential read for all students undertaking Early Childhood, Primary PGCE and EYPS courses. Those studying for a Foundation degree in Early Years and Childcare will also find this book to be of interest.

How do we get from helpless baby to knowing teenager? What impact do television, computers, the internet, video games and evolving technology have on the way children's minds develop? Is cognition a question of learning and environment or of heredity? How we learn to think, perceive, remember, talk, reason and learn is a central topic in psychology - and one that sees constant new research. In this very readable book, David Cohen discusses the latest studies and covers all the controversies that have dogged the subject for nearly 150 years. He examines the work of the'greats'like Piaget, Freud and Vygotsky and shows how the issues that have intrigued psychologists relate to any child growing up today. This book is for everyone who lives with, works with or studies children. David Cohen examines the fundamental issues of how children learn to read and write, of how their intellectual abilities are measured and the development of their morality. He examines child crime and looks at how modern media affect the way the child's mind develops. This fully updated edition of How the Child's Mind Develops is an integrated and thought-provoking account of the central issues in child development. Parents, professionals and students will find it an invaluable introduction.

Every parent wants to raise a bright, happy, and moral child, but until Stanley Greenspan investigated the building blocks of cognitive, social, emotional, and moral development, no one could show parents how and when these qualities begin. In this book Dr. Greenspan, the internationally admired child psychiatrist, identifies the six key experiences that enable children to reach their full potential. In Building Healthy Minds, he draws upon discoveries made in his research and practice as he describes the many ways in which games, fantasy play, and conversations with and without words encourage this development. No one has looked so deeply into the very earliest stages of human development, and no other book makes such vital and effective information available to every parent.

Tying together almost four decades of neo-Piagetian research, Cognitive Development provides a unique critical analysis and a comparison of concepts across neo-Piagetian theories. Like Piaget, neo-Piagetian theorists take a constructivist approach to cognitive development, are broad in scope, and assume that cognitive development is divided into stages with qualitative differences. Unlike Piaget, however, they define the increasing complexity of the stages in accordance with the child's information processing system, rather than in terms of logical properties. This volume illustrates these characteristics and evidences the exciting possibilities for neo-Piagetian research to build connections both with other theoretical approaches such as dynamic systems and with other fields such as brain science.The opening chapter provides a historical orientation, including a critical distinction between the'logical'and the'dialectical'Piaget. In subsequent chapters the major theories and experimental findings are reviewed, including Pascual-Leone's Theory of Constructive Operators, Halford's structuralist theory, Fischer's dynamic systems approach to skills, Case's theory of Central Conceptual Structures, Siegler's microgenetic approach, and the proposals of Mounoud and Karmiloff-Smith, as well as the work of others, including Demetriou and de Ribaupierre. The interrelation of emotional and cognitive development is discussed extensively, as is relevant non neo-Piagetian research on information processing. The application of neo-Piagetian research to a variety of topics including children's problem solving, psychometrics, and education is highlighted. The book concludes with the authors'views on possibilities for an integrated neo-Piagetian approach to cognitive development.

Katherine Nelson re-centers developmental psychology with a revived emphasis on development and change, rather than foundations and continuity. She argues that children be seen not as scientists but as members of a community of minds, striving not only to make sense, but also to share meanings with others.A child is always part of a social world, yet the child's experience is private. So, Nelson argues, we must study children in the context of the relationships, interactive language, and culture of their everyday lives.Nelson draws philosophically from pragmatism and phenomenology, and empirically from a range of developmental research. Skeptical of work that focuses on presumed innate abilities and the close fit of child and adult forms of cognition, her dynamic framework takes into account whole systems developing over time, presenting a coherent account of social, cognitive, and linguistic development in the first five years of life.Nelson argues that a child's entrance into the community of minds is a slow, gradual process with enormous consequences for child development, and the adults that they become. Original, deeply scholarly, and trenchant, Young Minds in Social Worlds will inspire a new generation of developmental psychologists.

Filling a tremendous need, this is the first graduate-level child development text written specifically for future educators. From eminent authorities, the volume provides a solid understanding of major theories of development, focusing on how each has informed research and practice in educational contexts. Topics include the impact of biology and early experiences on the developing mind; the development of academic competence and motivation; how learning is influenced by individual differences, sociocultural factors, peers, and the family environment; what educators need to know about child mental health; and more. Every chapter features a quick-reference outline, definitions of key terms, and boxes addressing special topics of interest to educators. Special feature: Instructors considering this book for course adoption will automatically be e-mailed a test bank (in RTF format) that includes objective test items, essay questions, and case questions based on classroom scenarios.

Knowledge under Construction investigates how young children develop spatial, geometric, and scientific thinking skills-particularly those associated with architecture. Based on original research and analysis of videotapes of children's play with blocks, the authors'findings suggest that such play is anything but pointless. Their conclusions fill in gaps in our current understanding of how children learn to think spatially and scientifically even while challenging portions of that understanding, including some of Piaget's thesis about the primacy of topological space in children's learning. A system of measurement developed to identify and categorize children's spontaneous behavior at play allows adults to observe patterns of behavior as children play and record the development of process skills and cognitive abilities, enhancing our understanding of how children begin to learn about space and architectural relationships. The book also examines the educational implications of our enhanced understanding. One possible development is a new, alternative way to measure cognitive abilities and development in children based on their work with blocks.

This book was first published in 1979. The authors'examinePiaget's Theory starting by considering and commenting on the kinds of question one must ask of a scientific theory. None of the questions demands an absolute answer. Theories are judged in some respects with reference to competing theories. In other respects they are judged against our sense of scientific progress. In subsequent chapters the authors'look at Piaget's theory in detail with such issues in mind. They also endeavour to locate Piaget's theory in the context of other views of intellectual development. In that section we focus on the issue we first nominated, that is the problem of making choices about the kinds of question to ask and the kinds of data to select.

This second edition of The Child as Thinker has been thoroughly revised and updated to provide an informed and accessible overview of the varied and extensive literature on children's cognition. Both theory and research data are critically examined and educational implications are discussed.After a brief discussion of the nature and subject of cognition, Sara Meadows reviews children's thinking in detail. She discusses the ways children remember and organise information in general, the acquisition of skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic, and the development of more complex reasoning as children grow to maturity. As well as studies that typically describe a generalised child, the book also reviews some of the main areas relevant to individual differences in normal cognitive development, and critically examines three major models of cognitive development. In outlining the work of Piaget, information-processing accounts and neo-Vygotskian theories, she also evaluates their different explanations of cognitive development and their implications for education. Finally, the book examines biological and social factors that may be involved in normal and suboptimal cognitive development. Sara Meadows provides an important review of the crucial issues involved in understanding cognitive development and of the new data and models that have emerged in the last few years. This book brings together areas and approaches that have hitherto been independent, and examines their strengths and weaknesses. The Child as Thinker is essential reading for all students of cognitive development.

To what extent do creativity and imagination decline in childhood? What factors might influence a decline? Theories of cognitive development show only uni-directional progress (although theorists may disagree whether such progress occurs steadily in small continuous improvements or comes in stages separated by plateaus during which developmental gains are consolidated). Declines in levels of skill are quite uncommon, yet many have observed just such an unusual pattern with regard to the development of creativity and of the imagination. Is there something about the development of one kind of thinking that undermines imaginative and creative thinking? Is it perhaps the process of schooling itself, with its focus on the acquisition of knowledge and the production of correct (rather than imaginative) answers, which promotes this decline? This book explores these questions from a variety of perspectives. Essays from psychologists and educators from diverse backgrounds discuss the relationships among creativity, reason, and knowledge.

Sue Robson explores the underlying theories behind nature and nurture, models of cognitive development, basic neuroscience and language and thought in children. Each topic is accompanied by observations from the classroom and the author's critical analysis.

Decades of work in psychology labs have vastly enhanced our knowledge about how children perceive, think, and reason. But it has also encouraged a distorted view of children, argues psychologist Susan Engel in this provocative and passionate book--a view that has affected every parent who has tried to debate with a six-year-old. By focusing on the thinking processes prized by adults, too many expert opinions have rendered children as little adults. What has been lost is what is truly unique and mysterious--the childlike quality of a child's mind.Engel draws on keen observations and descriptive research to take us into the nearly forgotten, untidy, phantasmagorical world of children's inner lives. She reminds us that children fuse thought and emotion, play and reality; they swing wildly between different ways of interpreting and acting in the world. But just as a gawky child may grow into a beauty, illogical and sometimes maddening childishness can foreshadow great adult ability.Engel argues that the'scientist in a crib'view encourages parents and teachers to expect more logical reasoning and emotional self-control from children than they possess. She provides a concise and valuable overview of what modern developmental psychologists have learned about children's developing powers of perception and capacity for reasoning, but also suggests new ways of studying children that better capture the truth about their young minds.

What can the study of young monkeys and apes tell us about the minds of young humans? In this fascinating introduction to the study of primate minds, Juan Carlos Gómez identifies evolutionary resemblances—and differences—between human children and other primates. He argues that primate minds are best understood not as fixed collections of specialized cognitive capacities, but more dynamically, as a range of abilities that can surpass their original adaptations.In a lively overview of a distinguished body of cognitive developmental research among nonhuman primates, Gómez looks at knowledge of the physical world, causal reasoning (including the chimpanzee-like errors that human children make), and the contentious subjects of ape language, theory of mind, and imitation. Attempts to teach language to chimpanzees, as well as studies of the quality of some primate vocal communication in the wild, make a powerful case that primates have a natural capacity for relatively sophisticated communication, and considerable power to learn when humans teach them.Gómez concludes that for all cognitive psychology's interest in perception, information processing, and reasoning, some essential functions of mental life are based on ideas that cannot be explicitly articulated. Nonhuman and human primates alike rely on implicit knowledge. Studying nonhuman primates helps us to understand this perplexing aspect of all primate minds.

This book presents theories and clinical practices for dealing with children diagnosed with pervasive developmental disability or PDD. These are children who have a wide range of disabilities that affect their participation in even the most routine events of daily life, such as eating, dressing, bathing, and so on. Unlike many who are diagnosed with classic autism, however, these children seem to have normal social behavior, normal physical appearance, the ability to learn, hear, see, and move their bodies at will—in other words, none of the well-known reasons that cause autistic and other children to develop differently. These children have the use of all their senses, but their brains are unable to process the information that is fed through them. While much new research is being done in genetics and neurobiology to explain why something in these children has gone fundamentally wrong with their development, clinicians and therapists who deal with them on a daily basis have needed to develop practical therapies based on how the children react to their environments. Movement and Action in Learning and Development suggests that when therapists plan treatment strategies, children's experiences and interactions with the world should be given the same consideration as the limits of their biological makeups. Too often children diagnosed with PDD are lumped into therapy groups for the classically autistic, where the focus tends to be on the distance senses—hearing and vision. Case studies presented in the first half of the book suggest that for children with PDD, there is a disconnect between the brain and the tactile-kinesthetic senses that involve body movement and physical interaction with the world. Movement, in turn, seems to be connected to perception, interpretation of the world around, and ultimately, the acquisition of knowledge. For children with PDD,'normal'learning seems to be limited not only by their tactile-kinesthetic sense but also by the lack of collaboration between all the senses. The second half of the book demonstrates how these new theories translate into clinical practices.

A festschrift to honor Jean Mandler, this volume contains contributions from leading scholars focusing on the child's development of memory, visual representation, and language. It is appropriate for students and researchers in cognitive psychology, language acquisition, and memory.