Question one:
Locating sources: All sources are provided for you in the examination. Please do not use outside sources.
Readings for Question One:
Reading One:
Please view a very short clip from a Howard Hughes Medical Center Holiday Lecture about prenatal and infant brain development. (It is about 2 minutes long.) This is about the numbers of neurons in a baby’s brain from conception to birth. The Holiday Lectures are given each December at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to acquaint high school students with cutting edge medical and genetic and neuroscience information. To view reading one copy and paste the link below in your browser:
• https://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/prenatal-development-human-brain
Reading Two:
Here is a set of very short (2-to-5-minute) videos will introduce you to important issues about development of brain architecture in infants and toddlers. There are many of these short videos, so you are welcome to “browse” through them beyond the basics suggested here. The most important of these is the one about “serve and return.” Oh! Important! You will find the scientists rarely mention loving, warm and gentle care, but you see it in every frame of these videos. Important: Don’t forget warm and gentle and loving care! I suggest these and I suggest you type in exactly the words I have given you. If you type in Harvard Center for the Developing child and try to find these topics you will be lost in thousands of similar titles:
Each of these videos runs from approximately 2 to 5 minutes. I use Chrome and type in every one of these exact words for each one to get to the video you want:
• Harvard Center for the Developing Child serve and return (https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/serve-and-return/)
• Harvard Center for the Developing Child experiences build brain architecture (https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/experiences-build-brain-architecture/)
• Harvard Center for the Developing Child toxic stress derails healthy development (https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/toxic-stress-derails-healthy-development/)
• Harvard Center for the Developing child the science of neglect (https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/the-science-of-neglect-the-persistent-absence-of-responsive-care-disrupts-the-developing-brain/)
• Harvard Center for the Developing child in brief: The Science of Early childhood Development (https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/)
• Harvard Center for the Developing child in brief: executive function: skills for life and learning (https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-executive-function-skills-for-life-and-learning/)
Question One: Infant brain development: (7 points)
Please read the following example from a classmate and, using information from reading and the Harvard short videos, explain for us what has happened to this normal baby since he was born. In fact, this example also illustrates the effects on babies and toddlers of leaving a television running all day long, so don’t forget to discuss that.
Example: A student last term wrote about friends of hers. The friend’s husband lost his job so the wife went out to work, leaving the husband to care for their child for the last two years. He chose to turn on the television and lie on the couch watching TV all day long,, possibly because he was depressed about being unemployed. He left the one-year old toddler to play on his own in front of the TV all day long. Now that this toddler is turning three years old he cannot speak a single word. The pediatrician has recommended sending this couple to experts to determine if the child has brain damage and if so, how extensive it is. Here I need your opinions: What might have caused this developmental delay? And, what do you think the parents should do from now on to help their child?
Length of your answer: Please write around a page and a half or two pages double-spaced.
Question Two: (13 points). Question two is new material that we have not studied before. This question is about executive functions. They are a set of behaviors young children are capable of teaching themselves if they are allowed to play unstructured, old-fashioned play rather than have structured activities and sports and electronics time offered to them by parents and teachers. Executive functions include behaviors such as self-regulation and private speech. Taken together the executive functions help children regulate their behavior themselves and get along well with others. Executive functions help children plan and learn how to deal with others and with many tasks.
I will provide you with all the sources of information you need for this brief essay, so please use these sources and not others you find on the web.
We start with an audio program as the first reading:
Reading One for Question Two:
Alix Spiegel (21 February 2008) Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills (audio) National Public Radio: Your Health. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514?storyId=19212514
Please notice that the Alix Spiegel reading has a transcript with it. Look around on the opening page of the Spiegel article and over to the left somewhere it says Transcript. I couldn’t follow the audio program well enough to take notes, but the transcript really helps.
From the viewpoint of psychologists, educators and parents, this program will help you discover:
• what private speech is,
• what self-regulation is
• and what old-fashioned play is,
• and why they all matter.
• why these are critical for normal development
• in what sort of play self-regulation and private speech occur and why they matter.
• what things around the home and at school can derail or prevent normal development of self-regulation and private speech.
Reading Two for Question Two: to define and describe executive functions:
These are more materials from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child. This is a reading on executive function, an umbrella term for the issues in the audio program.
To locate this video and readings: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/executive-function/
Short Video: There is a wonderful short video offered to you right under the title of the paper. I would watch that video first. It is about executive function and self-regulation. Please take the time to look at the video a second time to see exactly what the children in the video are doing.
Just below the video is a two-page paper that you may read or you may skip!!! It is a bit heavy and I have summarized it here below in a table: Key Concepts: Executive Function and Self-Regulation. This two-page paper gives you the pieces that children need to learn in order to have executive function and self-regulation.
Sadly, this two-page paper lacks two important introductory definitions! Here they are:
Executive Function: Here is a formal definition of executive functioning: The executive functions are a set of processes that all have to do with managing oneself and one’s resources in order to achieve a goal. It is an umbrella term (belongs at the top of the outline) for the brain-based skills involving mental control and self-regulation. Source: Idonline.org.
Self-regulation: noun. Self-regulation is when a person or group governs or polices itself without outside assistance or influence. An example of self-regulation is when you limit, of your own accord, how much you will eat. (Or, for our case, when a young child is willing to wait to see some thing or toy and then also willing to share it with another child when she finishes looking at it.) Source: yourdictionary.com/self-regulation.
Question Two: Length of your answer: Please write one page or two pages, double-spaced, defining executive functions, and especially those of self-regulation and private speech and explaining why they are important for normal development. Please also mention what can derail or prevent normal development of self-regulation and private speech.
Sources: There are two sources, the Spiegel audio program and the Harvard Center on the Developing Child videos. Please put these on a simple reference list.
Sample Solution
