Developmental Psych Notes

Flashcards from the notes. Developmental Psych

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis

A warm intimate and continuous relationship must be formed with the child and caregiver during their critical period- if this is failed to form, the child may experience emotional maladjustment in the future

Deprivation

Disruption or sudden loss of an attachment during critical period (2-3 years)

Privation

Failure to form any sort of attachment during critical period- can be due to poor parenting or child raised in isolation (an attachment has never been formed)

Evolutionary theory

Believes a tendency to form an attachment is innate

Bowlby’s evolutionary theory

Based on Bowlby’s 44 Juvenile thieves study ASCMI
A- Attachment is adaptive: believes children are more likely to survive if kept safe
S- Social releases of an infant (physical: their cute baby face features, behavioural: ‘cooing/crying’) which attracts the adult to the child= attention
C- Critical Period: Important time for a child to form an attachment with caregiver- failure to do so will effect the childs future negatively
M- Monotropy: Infant forms one special attachment with mother- if mother isn’t available then any other primary caregiver
I- Internal Working Model: Through monotropic attachment infant would form an IWM- special schema for relationships= Future relationship would be impacted by this

Evaluation of John Bowlby’s Study

+Ecological Validity & Application

Application to real life proves high ecological validity: introduce policies to avoid young children being separated from their primary caregiver for long periods.

+Empirical Research

Bowlby's Juvenile Thieves study was one of the earliest empirical studies to investigate the link between early maternal separation and later behavioural problems in children. This research provided insights into the potential consequences of maternal deprivation, and led to more research.

-Reductionist 

Oversimplified concept of MDH: Michael Rutter argued that Bowlby overlooked the long term effects of the loss of attachment, separation and complete lack of attachment.

-Results Validity 

Bowby’s theory does not show a  cause-and-effect relationship between the separation from the mother and the development of affectionless psychopathy. Furthermore , other factors could have been involved, such as the reason for separation, role of the father,  etc…

-Researcher Bias & Validity 

Study is vulnerable to researcher bias as he knew whether the children were in the theft group or control group, consequently, his findings may have been unconsciously influenced by his own expectations. 

-Theory Validity

Many of the 44 thieves in Bowlby;s study had been moved around a lot during childhood, and had probably never formed an attachment. This suggested that they were suffering from privation, rather than deprivation

-Reliability 

Recalling memories from the past regarding their upbringings may not always be accurate.

Strange Situation procedure

• Mother and child shown to room and child shown toys to play with

• Mother is nonparticipant while the child explores. 

• Stranger enters the room and tries to interact with the child 

• (First separation) Mother leaves the room so child is left with the stranger, stranger tries to interact with child 

• (First reunion) Mother reuters, comforts the child and the stranger leaves 

• (Second separation) The mother leaves, the child is left alone 

• The stranger reuters and tries to interact and console the child 

• (Second reunion) The mother returns and greets the child, stranger leaves.

• Experiment was a controlled observation

• About 100 middle-class American infants and their mothers participated in the strange situation. 

• Observations were recorded every 15 seconds and placed into behavioural categories (i.e. smiling, crying, moving towards or away from mother)

Mindfulness ao1

being in control of your emotions and thoughts. improves wellbeing, focuses on nurturing positive emotions, helps manage stress and anxiety

+Mindfulness

no side effect, crane et al used it to deal with stress

-mindfulness

can bring back traumatic memory, isnt originally developed for mental illness

Aim of Ainsworth strange situation

develop bowlby’s idea of creating a way of measuring the attachment style of an infant

Situation of ainsworth strange situation

1. mother and infant

2. stranger in, mother out

3. mother in, stranger out

4. baby alone

5. stranger in

6. mother in, stranger out

Findings of Ainsworth strange situation

• Secure = 66% (textbook stats: 70%)

• Insecure Avoidant = 22% (textbook stats: 20%) 

• Insecure Resistant = 12% (textbook stats: 10%)

+Ainsworth strange situation

The Strange Situation provides a controlled and standardized way to assess attachment, fostering reliable research and comparisons. It offers valuable insights into early parent-child relationships and their potential impact on later

-Ainsworth Strange Situation

- ecol val - mothers demand characteristics, knows she is being observed
- validity, separation can vary in different cultures
some critics argue that the procedure can be overly stressful for infants and may not capture the full complexity of attachment dynamics in real-world settings.

Aim of Erikson

Build upon Freuds theory by drawing parallels in childhood and expanding it to include the influence of social dynamic

Stages of Piaget

sensori motor= child interacts with environment
pre operational= use language and symbols, bases knowledge on what they sense to be true but do not know why
concrete operational= knowledge through concrete knowledge
formal operational= abstract reasoning, able to think logically

+Piaget

generated huge research increasing our understanding.
practical use in understanding and communication with children (educational field)

-Piaget

some of his findings were confusing or hard to understand
small sample only composed of European children with high socioeconomic status
some argue that there are no stages and that its a continuous process

Bowlby’s 44 thieves aim

investigate the long term effects of maternal deprivation on peoples live in order to see if delinquents have suffered deprivation

Bowlby’s 44 thieves procedure

• Opportunity sample of 88 children selected from a detention centre.

• Of these, 44 were juvenile thieves (31 boys & 13 girls) because of their stealing 

• Bowlby selected a control group of 44 children (34 boys & 10 girls) with emotional problems but no crimes. 

• Each child had their IQ tested by a psychologist who assessed their emotional attitudes towards the test. 

• The two groups were matched for age and IQ 

• The children and parents were interviewed by three people in separate reports  regarding the details of the child’s early life

Findings of Bowlby’s 44 thieves

• 14 children from the thief group were identified as affectionless psychopaths (they were unable to care about or feel affection for others). 

• 12 had experienced prolonged separation of more than 6 months from their mothers in their very first years of life - critical period.

• Out of the 44 children in the control group only two experienced prolonged separations, and none were affectionless psychopaths, 

+Bowlby’s 44 thieves

- privacy maintained
- bufulco studied 250 women who had lost mother before 17, found it doubles risk of depression and anxiety

-Bowlby’s 44 thieves

he diagnosed with affectionless psychopathy (long term labelling)
- michael rutter said its privation, deprivation is the loss or damage to attatchment

Skinner ao1

language is learnt
shaping- + reinforcement for anything that sounds remotely to the word, practice until is correct
babbling- sounds to only obtain something
positive punishment- stop learning incorrect words by sayinf ‘no’ ‘stop’

+Skinner

feral children raised by dogs in the forest until 7, imitate actions and language

-Skinner

over simplistic, ignores learning erroes, doesnt explain children who frequently make grammatical errors

Aim of O’ Connor aim

To what extent a parent intervention programme promotes change in a parent-child relationship, (To investigate whether or not the child-parent relationship can be improved by social learning theory based on attachment theory with intervention)

O’ Connor ppts

174, 4-6 yrs children from 24 classes in 4 primary schools in an urban area in London.

O’ Connor procedure

• Random sampling method gathered 174, 4-6 year old children from 24 classes in 4 primary schools in an urban area in London.

• Study test type had repeated measures and was longitudinal for 3 years (2001-2004.)

• Informed consent was received from the parents and the local research ethics committee also gave approval for the study. 

• Children were randomly allocated to the intervention condition (88)  with several parenting programs, and non-intervention condition (86)

• Intervention was a 12-week parenting program done through observation and group discussion.

  • Parents were taught new parenting techniques to apply at home. 

  • 6-week literacy program with techniques such as ‘pause-prompt-praise’ approach when children learn new words. 

• Observations of parent-child interactions were carried out pre & post treatment. All observations were videotaped for further coding. 

• Post treatment had In-home observations of parent–child interactions and was assessed in three tasks by 2 researchers: 

1. Free play: 10 mins session with no instructions given by observers. 

2. Challenge tasks: 20 minute instructed challenge

3. Tidy up: 5 min session where minimal instructions given to parents. 

• Observers rated each of the 3 tasks noting down if there was a positive or negative parenting style.  Based on ‘sensitive responding’ which is the extent to which parents showed awareness to the child’s needs and signs, and ‘Mutuality’ where the parents corporation was observed.

Results of O’ Connor

improvements in sensitive training. Parents in the intervention condition showed a higher number of positive behavioural changes and increased sensitive responding compared to the non-intervention control group.

+O’ Connor

informed consent, applies to real world in promoting +behaviour in children

-O’ Connor

low generalizable, young people from high need areas in London
not distinguish the role of reading interaction and whether this has any impact

Punch ao1

used an ethnographic approach to gather the data
lived with a family
5 task based methods to collect qualitative data, photos, diaries, drawings
how young people negotiate constraints over their choices

+Punch

increase internal validity, fluent in local language
observation during play, at school, freetime= real world appreciation

-Punch

data= emic approach
culturally bias- may not improve and for all cultures
based on punch experiences, not replicable

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg ao1

believed that patterns of attachment might be better understood if a large set of data was examined

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg ppts

32 studies from 8 different countries
1990 children smaller than 24 months

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg findings

insecure avoidant= least common, 3% uk, 30% israel
insecure resistant= germany- most common. japan- least common

+Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg

many studies, shows consistency of results, replicable

-Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg

wrong to assume that in all cultures everyone has the same practices, western culture studies

Vygotsky ao1

ZPD= more knowledgeable help
allows for children to take a different role that they would not have in real life
learn from problem solving

Vygotsky believes

developmental depends on social and cultural factors- knowledge is socially constructed

+Vygotsky

- nichols found that high school students who worked in groups were more motivated
- berk found 6yr olds spend 60% time talking to themselves while doing maths - performed better

-Vygotsky

- ignores biological and individual factors, expected to learn faster if only social interactions
- vague, what kind of social interactions more beneficial

Chomsky ao1

Language is innate (LAD in brain)
Learn language like we learn to walk
agreed with skinner- reinforcement
must learn native language before critical period 11 or we cant speak fluently

+Chomsky

skinner agrees, study B, more ppts and more modern

-Chomsky

lacks testability, cant open brain
reductionist, only focuses on individual and developmental

Cassiba aim

test the universality of attachment theory in a meta- analysis comparing italian samples to standard studies

Cassiba ppts

italian studies 1990-2009
17 ssp compared to us samples 50 aai

Cassiba finding

Shows cross cultural similarities in terms of secure attachment

+Cassiba

looks at both clinical and non clinical studies
publication bias avoided, unpublished studies included

-Cassiba

ethnographic, only compared with american children, reflect US terms, based on interview data, bias ppts

Vygotsky interactionalist approach ao1

relies on child- mko interactions
learn through scaffolding
mko frequent conversations
child more confident= more independent

+Vygotsky interactionalist approach

real life applies, teachers use scaffolding, new terminology, place them with more able peers

-Vygotsky interactionalist approach

reductionist, relies to a heavy on IA
genie failed to learn language before critical period

Attachment theory

Focus on the emotional bond formed between infants and their caregivers. Emphasis on how these early relationship can shape an individual’s social and emotional development, influencing their ability to form relationship later in life.

According to Bowlby infants have a universal need to seek close proximity with their caregiver when under stress or threatened - supported by harlow 1958 (monkey love experiment)

Stages of Attachment Procedure

• studying 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life (longitudinal study). 

• The children were all studied at home, and a consistent pattern in attachment development was discovered.

• For around a year, the newborns were visited monthly, their interactions with their caretakers were monitored, and the carers were questioned.

• The mother kept a diary in order to investigate the evidence for attachment development. Three measurements were taken:

  • Stranger Anxiety - response to arrival of a stranger.

  • Separation Anxiety - distress level when separated from carer, degree of comfort needed on return.

  • Social Referencing - degree that a child looks at a carer to check how they should respond to something new (secure base). How curious the child becomes.

Stages of Attachment Findings

• sensitive responsiveness is important in attachment.

• Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and interacted with their child. Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact.

• The most important fact in forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child but who plays and communicates with him or her. Therefore, sensitive responsiveness to the baby's signals, appeared to be the key to attachment.

Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

• Bowlby’s evolutionary theory of attachment suggests that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others for survival. 

• Bowlby argued that a child forms many attachments, but one of these is qualitatively different. This is what he called primary attachment, Monotropy. 

• Bowlby suggests that there is a critical period for developing attachment (2.5 years). If an attachment has not developed during this time period, then it may not happen at all. 

• Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis suggests that continual attachment disruption between the infant and primary caregiver could result in long-term cognitive, social and emotional difficulties for that infant. 

• Consequences of maternal deprivation: An inability to form attachments in the future (see the Internal Working Model)

• Affectionless psychopathy (inability to feel remorse)

• Delinquency (behavioural problems in adolescence)

• Problems with Cognitive Development

• Bowlby believed that disrupting this primary relationship could lead to a lighter incidence of juvenile delinquency. Emotional difficulties, and antisocial behaviour. To test his hypothesis, he studied 44 adolescent juvenile delinquents in a child guidance clinic.

44 Juvenile thieves study (1944

44 Juvenile Thieves study (1944)
AIM	To investigate the long-term effects of maternal deprivation on people to see whether delinquents have suffered deprivation.
PROCEDURE	Opportunity sample of 88 children selected from a detention centre. Of these, 44 were juvenile thieves (31 boys & 13 girls) because of their stealing  Bowlby selected a control group of 44 children (34 boys & 10 girls) with emotional problems but no crimes.  Each child had their IQ tested by a psychologist who assessed their emotional attitudes towards the test.  The two groups were matched for age and IQ  The children and parents were interviewed by three people in separate reports  regarding the details of the child’s early life
FINDINGS	14 children from the thief group were identified as affectionless psychopaths (they were unable to care about or feel affection for others).  12 had experienced prolonged separation of more than 6 months from their mothers in their very first years of life - critical period. Out of the 44 children in the control group only two experienced prolonged separations, and none were affectionless psychopaths,
CONCLUSION	Bowlby concluded that maternal deprivation in the child’s early life caused permanent emotional damage.  He diagnosed this as a condition and called it Affectionless Psychopathy This condition involves a lack of emotional development, a lack of guilt and an inability to form meaningful and lasting relationships.

Evaluation of John Bowlby’s study

Aim of O’ Connor et al. (2013)

To investigate whether or not the child parent relationship can be improved by social learning theory based on attachment theory with intervention

Procedure of O’Connor

• Random sampling method gathered 174, 4-6 year old children from 24 classes in 4 primary schools in an urban area in London.

• Study test type had repeated measures and was longitudinal for 3 years (2001-2004.)

• Informed consent was received from the parents and the local research ethics committee also gave approval for the study. 

• Children were randomly allocated to the intervention condition (88)  with several parenting programs, and non-intervention condition (86)

• Intervention was a 12-week parenting program done through observation and group discussion.

  • Parents were taught new parenting techniques to apply at home. 

  • 6-week literacy program with techniques such as ‘pause-prompt-praise’ approach when children learn new words. 

• Observations of parent-child interactions were carried out pre & post treatment. All observations were videotaped for further coding. 

• Post treatment had In-home observations of parent–child interactions and was assessed in three tasks by 2 researchers: 

1. Free play: 10 mins session with no instructions given by observers. 

2. Challenge tasks: 20 minute instructed challenge

3. Tidy up: 5 min session where minimal instructions given to parents. 

• Observers rated each of the 3 tasks noting down if there was a positive or negative parenting style.  Based on ‘sensitive responding’ which is the extent to which parents showed awareness to the child’s needs and signs, and ‘Mutuality’ where the parents corporation was observed.

Results and Conclusion of O’ Connor

R= Parents in the intervention condition showed a higher number of positive behavioural changes and increased sensitive responding compared to the non-intervention control group
C= Standard social learning theory based interventions can change aspects of parent-child relationship quality, as proven by the study results. 

Evaluation of O’ Connor et al. (2013)

Ainsworth’s theory of attachment (The Strange Situation)

• Method devised by Mary Ainsworth in the 1970s to observe attachment security in children within the context of caregiver relationships. 

• Infants (the child) were between the age of 9 and 18 months.

• Procedure involves a series of eight episodes lasting approximately 3 minutes each, whereby a mother, child, and stranger are introduced, separated, and reunited.  

• Two observers were present in this

Procedure of Strange situation

• Mother and child shown to room and child shown toys to play with

• Mother is nonparticipant while the child explores. 

• Stranger enters the room and tries to interact with the child 

• (First separation) Mother leaves the room so child is left with the stranger, stranger tries to interact with child 

• (First reunion) Mother reuters, comforts the child and the stranger leaves 

• (Second separation) The mother leaves, the child is left alone 

• The stranger reuters and tries to interact and console the child 

• (Second reunion) The mother returns and greets the child, stranger leaves.

• Experiment was a controlled observation

• About 100 middle-class American infants and their mothers participated in the strange situation. 

• Observations were recorded every 15 seconds and placed into behavioural categories (i.e. smiling, crying, moving towards or away from mother)

Attachment theory (include 3 main attachment style)

Attachment theory, initially developed by John Bowlby, posits that infants are born with an innate tendency to form emotional bonds or attachments to their caregivers. These early attachments are believed to be critical for the child's emotional and social development.

Ainsworth (1970) identified three main attachment styles, Secure, Insecure avoidant, and insecure ambivalent. She concluded that these attachment styles resulted from early interactions with the mother.

• Secure Attachment: Children with secure attachments showed distress when separated from their caregivers but were easily comforted upon reunion. These children had caregivers who were consistently sensitive to their needs.

• Insecure-Avoidant Attachment: Children with insecure-avoidant attachments appeared indifferent to their caregiver's absence and return. These children often had caregivers who were unresponsive or dismissive of their needs.

• Insecure-Ambivalent/Resistant Attachment: Children with insecure-ambivalent attachments displayed intense distress upon separation and were difficult to comfort upon reunion. These children often had caregivers who were inconsistently responsive.

Caregiver Sensitivity Hypothesis (Ainsworth)

Ainsworth's caregiver sensitivity hypothesis posits that the quality of the attachment bond between an infant and their caregiver is largely influenced by the caregiver's ability to respond to the infant's needs in a sensitive and consistent manner.

• Secure Attachment and Caregiver Sensitivity: 

children with secure attachments had caregivers who were consistently sensitive and responsive to their needs.

Suggests that; sensitive caregivers = securely attached children

• Insecure Attachments and Caregiver Sensitivity: 

Children with insecure attachments often had caregivers who were less sensitive and consistent in responding to their needs. 

Suggests that; less sensitive caregivers = insecure attached children

Evaluation of The Strange Situation

Reliability Standardised procedure following the same steps and timings for each child, hence making it replicable.  Since observations were made every 15 seconds it allows the observer to tally observations into pre-arranged groupings, it also makes the observation replicable. So the results have greater reliability.	Generalisability & Population Validity  Original study used American infants from middle-class families, Hence due to the cultural bias, it cannot be generalised to other populations and cultures, who might behave differently towards their children & have different expectations.  The study in Germany found, parents encourage independence in their children, so they are less likely to show enthusiastic reunion behaviour than children from other cultures.
Internal Validity  Due to the use of a controlled condition, she could control many of the factors within her experiment.  Ainsworth used the same stranger throughout the whole study, and the amount of time spent with and without the child was also controlled, hence making it more reliable and accurate.	Ecological/External Validity  Unfamiliar situation and surrounding, hence the child may be reacting to this rather than the mother leaving.  Artificial setting that has been staged with precise timings as to who enters when. However in real life, that may not be the case.
Sroufe (1983) Found that children showing secure attachments at the age of 2 were more popular, showing more initiative, having higher self- esteem, being less aggressive and being social leaders.	Unethical  Children were put under stress (separation & stranger anxiety), the study has broken the ethical guideline protection of participants.
Validity  The study provided empirical evidence to support the caregiver sensitivity hypothesis hence resulting in it being  highly reliable and valid.	Validity  Does not take into account individual differences or that the children had more experience of being separated from the mother (e.g; day care)

Def. Cross- cultural Research

Cross Cultural Research is when the same procedure from one culture is used in another culture in order to make comparisons on behaviour. If the same behaviour is found across multiple cultures it would suggest the behaviour is universal/ innate. However, if differences in behaviour is found it could suggest the behaviour is culture specific and cannot be generalised to all cultures.

The Strange Situation procedure used in diff cultures

Experimenter	Country	Secure	Insecure Resistant	Insecure Avoidant
Ainsworth	USA	66%	22%	12%
Sagi	Israel	37%	50%	13%
Grossman	Germany	33%	18%	49%
Miyake	Japan	68%	32%	0%

Israel: Childcare is shared and children are raised by fosters. This explains the high levels of insecure resistant types as caregivers are often absent and cannot provide individual attention.

Germany: Independence is valued and encouraged in children. From a young age they are taught to not depend on anyone. Germans are an individualistic culture. 

Japan: Children are rarely left alone without their mother and encouraged to depend on her. Avoidant behaviour is considered rude in Japanese culture. 

Evaluation of Strange Situation Cross cultural

EVALUATION 

Validity & Reliability  The strange Situation is a standardised procedure and the same method was replicated in different cultures, hence results are reliable.	Generalizability & Validity  Sample sizes & participants (family backgrounds etc) are different in the different cultures. Hence comparisons and conclusions are hard to make.
Theory Validity  There was a consistency in that all cultures showed the same general attachment types, secure attachment being the main attachment type.	External Validity  Number of variables that might affect findings in different cultures, and therefore it is difficult to draw any conclusions in general.

Mention the 3 theories of cognitive development

• Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD)

• Piaget's stages of cognitive and language development

• stages of language development

• theories of language: learning including Skinner; nativist including Chomsky's language acquisition device (LAD); interactionist including Vygotsky.

Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD)

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. 

ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial. 

To learn, tasks that are out of our ability range should be presented, as challenging tasks promotie maximum cognitive growth. 

To assist someone through the ZPD, it is encouraged to focus on the three components which aid the learning process: 

1. More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) - presence of someone with more knowledge and skills beyond that of the learner. 

2. Social Interactions - through social interactions with a skillful tutor who models behaviours and or provides verbal instructions for the child, who then internalises the information using it to guide their own performance. 

3. Scaffolding - consists of the activities provided by the educator. Or a more competent peer, to support the student as he or she is led through the ZPD. 
   

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Developmental Theory

STAGE	PERIOD	DETAILS
STAGE 1:  THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE	Learn about their environment through their senses and motor activities. This stage has 6 substages as follows:
	Use of Reflexes (0-2 months)	ABILITIES:  Children typically use their reflexes DIFFICULTIES:  Cannot consolidate/ integrate  information from their sensory organs into a single, unified concept.
	Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months)	ABILITIES:  Start consolidating  information from different sensory organs.  Engage in behaviours that satisfy the way their body feels or needs. (repeat pleasurable behaviours) They turn to  or respond to sight & sound
	Secondary circular reactions (4-8 months)	ABILITIES:  Children behaviours become more intentional  Repeat behaviours that generate interesting responses
	Coordination Of Secondary Schemes (8-12 months)	ABILITIES:  Behaviour is more goal oriented. Can combine different behaviours to achieve goals.
	Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months)	ABILITIES:  They now try new purposeful actions to achieve different results.  Can combine more complicated behaviours and even perform a behaviour similarly but not the same to get the desired result.
	Mental Combination (18-24 months)	ABILITIES:  Rely on mental abstractions to solve problems, use gestures & words to communicate.
STAGE 2:  THE PRE- OPERATIONAL STAGE	(2 - 7 Years)	ABILITIES:  Ability to use mental representations, rather than the physical appearances of objects or people, improves greatly.  Can understand identities, where items and people remain the same even if they look different.  Learn more about categorization. Can classify items based on similarities and differences.  Start to understand numbers & quantity (eg: ‘more’ or ‘bigger’) DIFFICULTIES:  Tend to consider only their viewpoint or perspective. And struggle to take some else’s POV  Struggle to understand conservation (the volume of liquid in two different shaped glasses)  They can focus on only one dimension at a time (i.e. centering) causing them to struggle to understand conservation  Do not yet understand reversibility
STAGE 3: THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE	(7 - 11 Years)	ABILITIES: More capable of solving problems because they can consider numerous outcomes and perspectives Can understand conservation better and can solve problems. All cognitive abilities are better developed.  Categorization abilities improve: relate one object to another. Numerical abilities improve: carry out better mathematical operations. Spatial abilities improve: estimate time, distance & read maps  Can understand reversibility (items can be returned to original states), identity (item remains same even if it looks different) and can dencenter (concentrate on multiple dimensions than one)
STAGE 4: THE FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE	(11 Years - Adulthood)	ABILITIES:  Children can think about abstract concepts and are not limited to a current time, person or situation.  Can think about hypothetical situations and various possibilities of situations that dont even exist.  Can apply their reasoning skills to apply more complicated problems in a systematic, logical manner.

Stages of Language Development

Language acquisition

Language acquisition refers to the process by which individuals learn and develop their native or second language.

It involves the acquisition of grammar, vocabulary, and communication skills through exposure, interaction, and cognitive development.

Skinner: Behavioral Theory (Based on Operant conditioning and Social learning Theory)

• Skinner believed that children learn language through operant conditioning; (positive reinforcement) learning that uses rewards and punishments to modify and reproduce behaviour where a child receives positive reinforcement for appropriate noises and vocalisations. 

• Skinner believed that the ‘babbling’ and ‘cooing’ of babies may be innate.

• Skinner also suggested that children learn language through imitation of others. prompting, and shaping.

• He argued that language is a result of external stimuli and reinforcement, emphasising the role of the environment in shaping linguistic behaviour.

• Social learning theory: Listening to (attention and retention) and then imitating (reproduction) the words and grammar of role models (parents, siblings, friends) is also considered as an explanation for language development. social learning would occur if the following criteria were met:

• Attention: Attention must be paid to the role model for learning to take place.

• Retention: Individuals must be able to retain or store the behaviour they have observed so that they can easily recall and reproduce the behaviour. 

• Reproduction: Involves showing of the modelled behaviour.

Chomsky: Nativist Theory (Based on Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and Universal Grammar)

• “Children have an innate pre-programming to understand language” 

• Noam Chomsky believed that every child has a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which is a hypothetical tool in the human brain that lets children learn and understand language quickly. 

• He also argued that there are Universal Grammar principles that guide language development across cultures, and languages, suggesting that language acquisition is driven by innate linguistic knowledge rather than solely by environmental factors. 

Piaget: Cognitive Theory (Based on Assimilation and Accommodation)

• Jean Piaget’s theory of language development suggests that children use both assimilation & accommodation to learn language

• Assimilation is the process of changing one’s environment to place information into an already existing schema

• Accommodation is the process of changing one’s schema to adapt to the new environment. 

• Schemas are pre existing packets of information about an object or event. 

• Piaget believed that children need to first develop cognitive faculties before language development can occur. This development takes place over four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational , concrete operational and formal operational. 

• According to him, children first create mental structures within the mind (schemas) and from these schemas, language development happens.