- Outline Piaget’s stages
- Explain attachment theory
- Describe adolescent brain development
Child Development
Watch a toddler insist the tall thin glass holds more juice than the short wide one. They’re not being silly — their thinking genuinely works differently from yours.
Attachment is the deep emotional bond between infant and caregiver (Bowlby). Secure attachment — from responsive caregiving — becomes a template for later relationships.
Key points
- Piaget’s stages: sensorimotor → preoperational → concrete operational → formal operational.
- Preoperational children are egocentric and fooled by appearances (conservation tasks).
- Bowlby: attachment is an evolved survival system; Ainsworth’s ‘strange situation’ classified secure/avoidant/resistant styles.
- The prefrontal cortex — judgement, impulse control — isn’t fully wired until the mid-20s.
Mischel offered children one marshmallow now or two if they waited. Waiters tended to do better later in life — though later work shows the test also measures trust and background, not just willpower.
Practice
In the preoperational stage, children centre on one striking feature (height) and can’t mentally reverse the transformation.
A bond built on reliable, responsive care; it gives the child a ‘secure base’ to explore from and templates healthy later relationships.
- Children’s thinking develops in stages (Piaget).
- Attachment bonds shape emotional development (Bowlby).
- The brain — especially judgement centres — develops into the mid-20s.
- Development is nature and nurture intertwined.