Mental Functions and Learning Across the Lifespan

Group of distinct mental processes involving a wide range of functions

Involves all aspects of knowing, remembering, perceiving, reasoning & decision making

Cognition

Dynamic interaction between sensory experiences and the mind

Cognitive activity

Defines cognition as psycho-physiological function

ICF

These 2 functions work together to create the ICF

Global Mental Functions

Specific Mental Functions

Largely unconscious function

Subtle

Essential for human activity

Important predictive factors in rehab outcomes

Ex. Orientation function, intellectual function, energy and drive function

Global Mental Functions

A state of awareness and alertness that includes an individual’s ability to sustain a wakeful state

Required for all other mental functions to occur

Consciousness

An awareness of one’s relation to self, to others, to time, and to place

Develop in early childhood

Orientation functions

By what age can most children clearly describe time as it is measured and valued in their own cultural context

Age 6

Those aspects of cognition, both psychological and social, that are required for individuals to understand and constructively integrate information from all types of mental functions

Ability to reason, solve problems, think abstractly, and learn

Intellectual Functions

A numerical score based on standardized tests which attempt to measure intelligence

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

The ability to think on your feet, in the moment

Peaks in early adulthood and begins to decline by late adulthood

Fluid intelligence

Accumulated knowledge and experience to apply

Increases with age + experience

Crystallized intelligence

Intellectual impairments can look like what (3)?

Developmental (infant with Down Syndrome)

Brain pathology (dramatic head injury or brain tumor)

Disease (Alzheimer’s/dementia)

Is the term used in the ICF to describe the essential mental abilities that allow individuals to integrate aspects of social experience, personality, and emotions to provide a foundation for the formation of interpersonal skills

Global Psychosocial Functions

A collection of inborn differences between individuals that is closely associated with personality

Present in early childhood

Temperament

Physiological and psychological mechanisms that result in an individual’s energy level, motivation, appetite, craving (including craving for substances that can be abused), and impulse control

Energy and Drive Functions

The periods of mental disengagement from one’s immediate environment accompanied by characteristic physiological changes

Sleep function

Being alert in an emergency

Consciousness functions

Knowing where you are

Orientation functions

Taking a test, problem solving

Intellectual functions

Maintaining friendships, understanding social queues

Global psychosocial functions

Reactivity

Temperament and personality functions

Knowing when to rest

Energy + drive functions

Taking a nap, setting a timer

Sleep functions

Defined in the ICF as a specific mental function that involves focusing on a stimulus or internal experience for a required period of time

Attention

Registering and storing information and retrieving it as needed by the individual

Memory functions

Control over physical and motor skills

Psychomotor functions

Those specific mental functions related to feelings, or the affective reactions of individuals

Emotional functions

The ideas and imaginings of individuals,are recognized as the source of creativity and individuality in problem solving

Thought functions

Complex goal-directed behaviors such as decision making, abstract thinking, planning, problem solving, carrying out plans, mental flexibility, and deciding which behaviors are appropriate under what circumstances are described in the ICF as higher-level cognitive functions

Higher-Level Cognitive Functions

An important higher-level cognitive function that involves complex goal-directed thinking that allows us to plan, organize, execute, and evaluate our day-to-day activities

Metacognition

Those cognitive abilities that enable individuals to respond to novel situations or unexpected challenges

Decision making, abstract thinking, planning and carrying out plans, mental flexibility

Executive function

Recognizing and using signs, and recognizing and using symbols as they relate to a language

Includes spoken and written language

Mental functions of language

Specific mental functions related to the awareness of one’s identity, one’s body, one’s position in the reality of one’s environment, and of time

Experience of self and time functions

Conscious and effortable learning of new skills

Used primarily in the cognitive stage

Declarative learning

Refining skills, little conscious processing required

Used primarily in the associative stage

Procedural learning

More automatic

Autonomous learning

Thinking about moving, practicing changing

Motor learning

What are the three stages of learning?

Cognitive stage —> Associative stage —→ Autonomous Stage

What we use when we have practiced until the task is automated

Procedural knowledge

Acquisition of behaviors within a social context (interaction with peers) that can take place at any stage in life.

Social learning