Early brain development

The brain develops in a set order, both before and after birth. AQA wants you to know these structures and their broad roles:

• Brain stem — controls automatic functions like breathing and heart rate; develops early.
• Thalamus — relays sensory information to the right part of the brain.
• Cerebellum — controls movement, balance and coordination.
• Cortex — the outer layer responsible for thinking, language and higher functions; develops later.

Order: autonomic (brain stem) → sensory (thalamus) → movement (cerebellum) → cognition (cortex).

Which structure?

Piaget: schemas & stages

Piaget said children build mental frameworks called schemas and pass through four stages of cognitive development:

• Sensorimotor (0–2) — learn through senses and movement; develop object permanence.
• Pre-operational (2–7) — use language but are egocentric and cannot conserve.
• Concrete operational (7–11) — can conserve and reason logically about concrete things.
• Formal operational (11+) — can think abstractly and hypothetically.

Piaget's view of language: language depends on thought — a child must first develop a concept before they can use words for it.

Piaget's stages

Sort Piaget's stages

Tap a feature, then tap the stage it belongs to. (Some apply to every stage.)

The effect of learning: Dweck's mindset

Dweck's mindset theory explains how beliefs about ability affect learning:

• A fixed mindset — believing ability is set and can't change — makes people give up after failure.
• A growth mindset — believing ability grows with effort — makes people persist and improve.
• Praise matters: praising effort encourages a growth mindset; praising ability can push a fixed mindset.

Self-efficacy — a person's belief that they can succeed at a task — also supports learning and effort.

Dweck's mindset

Willingham's learning theory

Willingham challenged the popular idea of fixed learning styles (e.g. 'visual' or 'kinaesthetic' learners):

• He argued there is little scientific evidence that matching teaching to a preferred 'style' improves learning.
• What matters more is the meaning of the material and how it is practised, not a fixed learning style.
• He stressed the importance of factual knowledge, practice and self-regulation.

Exam tip: Willingham is used to criticise the learning-styles idea, so use him when evaluating that approach.

Match the developmental idea

Tap a description on the left, then its matching term on the right.

Willingham's view

Evaluating Piaget's theory

Piaget's theory is influential but has been challenged:

• Strength: huge influence on education (active, stage-appropriate, discovery learning).
• Weakness: he may have underestimated children — later studies (e.g. using more child-friendly tasks) show some skills appear earlier.
• Weakness: stages may be less rigid than Piaget claimed.

Nature and nurture in development

Development involves both nature and nurture:

• Nature — the brain matures in a set order (brain stem → cortex).
• Nurture — experience, teaching, praise and mindset shape learning.
• Dweck and Willingham both stress how experience (nurture) affects how well we learn.

The big ideas to know

You've covered the AQA Development topic — brain, Piaget, Dweck and Willingham. Press Finish to see your score.