What We Learned About Cognitive Development - Essay Example

Personality​

            The journal article entitled; ‘Imaging the developing brain: what have we learned about cognitive development?’ by B.J. Casey et al provides a detailed narrative about various changes that take place in the human brain in both its structural architecture and functional organizations. Here, the authors review a range of literature about the neurobiology of cognitive development, particularly which focuses on cognitive development changes measured in brain psychology and anatomy across adolescence and childhood. The article appears on TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences in March 2005.

Summary of the journal article

The article begins with a brief introduction about the process of cognitive development and the changes that happened in human brain anatomy and psychology across childhood and adolescence. It illustrates about different areas of the development process like neuro-anatomical development of the human brain, functional organization of the developing human brain, development of human brain connectivity, performance differences versus maturational differences, and cortical organization with learning. Existing neuroimaging methods and studies give information about cognitive and neural changes underlying human development. But this information is not sufficient for explaining brain structure and function. MRI-based anatomical studies highlight various structural changes with development over the period of childhood and adolescence. The study explains various stages of changing in numerical status. Sub-serving primary functions like sensory and motor systems come first. Secondly, sequential and parietal connection cortices related to basic language skills and spatial attention maturing appear. Higher order association areas including prefrontal and lateral temporal cortices, language process, and sensory-motor processor come in final (Casey et al. 2). The study clearly mentions that structural changes that happened in the human brain affect cognitive development and behavior formation.  The association between structural maturation and memory function is identified through the use of neuropsychological measures. The study offers a detailed discussion of the functional organization of the developing human brain. It reveals that the development of the prefrontal cortex plays an important role in the maturation of higher cognitive abilities. Mature cognition is related to the ability to filter and ignore irrelevant information. The ability to filter unimportant information continues to develop first two decades of a child’s life. Children with a strong response inhibition did not collect the same prefrontal region as those active by adults and they received a subset of the same posterior areas. Children with poor response inhibition did not activate that subset of the same posterior areas. The significance of tracking cortical changes in human brains over time is most evident in the area of higher research. The study concludes with some notable concepts and viewpoints about the process of maturation and cognitive development. Brain regions associated with more basic and important functions like the motor and sensory processes mature first, and control of thought and actions followed next. This way of development is paralleled by a change from dispersed to more focal recruitment of cortical regions with cognitive development and learning process.

The article illustrates cognitive developments and neurological changes happening in the human brain. The authors put forward a relevant thesis for the paper which facilitates reliability and authenticity. They introduce the thesis statement that neurological changes which occurred in the human brain affect cognitive development and both of them have a significant role in the development process. The entire paper is developed by analyzing the keywords and phrases mentioned in the thesis statement. The methodology mainly consists of a literature review and the paper draws its conclusion from the vast number of literature. Previous studies about MRI-based anatomical research, MRI- morphometric research, and DTI – based measures are reviewed in this study. Magnetic Resonance Image provides cross-sections of the brain and also gives three dimensional images of various components of the brain (Stuart-Hamilton 47). Some graphical representations and diagrams about the structural images of the brain are analyzed for getting scientific evidence.

The journal article entitled; ‘Imaging the developing brain: what have we learned about cognitive development?’ is appropriate for a psychology classroom. The paper makes it discusses the two significant topics of human development and psychology. Developmental psychology is considered as an important branch of psychology that describes both the constancy and changes in human behavior across the complete life span of a person. The web article entitled Principles of Developmental Psychology comments that; “Developmental psychologists are concerned with diverse issues ranging from the growth of motor skills in the infant to the gains and losses observed in the intellectual functioning of the elderly” (Sagepub.com 1). After reading the article, one can comprehend the fact that psychology is a science that deals human mind and behavior formation. Readers can also find neurological changes and cognitive developments are highly interrelated. The above-mentioned article illustrates the process of neurological development in the human brain and how it affects cognitive development. The conclusions of the study put forward some relevant thoughts about the development process. One can find supporting shreds of evidence from eminent psychological theories like Cognitive and behaviorist theories. In his studies, Jean Piejet identified the process of cognitive development in the human brain.

            When it concludes, the reader may feel some doubts in other words; he or she needs further information for some areas. Initially, Further information is needed in the area that, how neurological changes affect behavior formation? Secondly does age difference among individuals affect the process of cognitive development? Finally, how cognitive development is associated with knowledge acquisition?