Читать книгу Child Development From Infancy to Adolescence - Laura E. Levine - Страница 120

Information processing theory has led to an enormous amount of research on growth and changes in cognitive processes during childhood and adolescence. One new approach is the use of technologies that allow researchers to link specific cognitive processes with changes in both the structure and the function of the brain and nervous system. This area of study, known as developmental cognitive neuroscience, allows us to understand how the developing brain both promotes and limits certain cognitive abilities. For example, the ability to think in an abstract way rather than dealing only with the concrete world around us develops throughout adolescence. Brain imaging studies have shown changes during adolescence in the activation of parts of the brain that deal with aspects of abstract thought (Dumontheil, 2014). Such studies support the idea that the immaturity of the adolescent brain limits cognitive abilities. Therefore, teachers, judges, and others should not expect teens to operate at the same level as adults. You will learn more about brain development and its relation to cognitive development at different ages throughout this book.

Developmental cognitive neuroscience: The study of the relation between cognitive development and the development of the brain.