3. Intelligence changes on a biological basis
Biologically, intelligence is closely connected with brain development in children. A newborn baby has over a trillion nerve cells that communicate through even more synapses. At this point, children have more developed central nerve system (later CNS) than they need and synapses grow even more in the time to adolescence. The rate of synapse formation responsible for higher cognitive functions - one of them is intelligence reaches a peak at 3 years, but is still relatively high from the age of few months to the age of 13 as it is seen in the picture. Some of the connections become stronger because they are used more, and in some connections pruning occurs - they are too weak and not used and are …show more content…
A strong study in favour of empiricists is the Project Head Start, founded by United States in order to hep children from socially unprivileged conditions. Created in 1965, it is the longest running programme in order to fight poverty. It supplies low-income families with proper education, nutrition, and parent-involvement programmes. Till 2005, more than 22 million of children have been a part of this study. There were different approaches, in some teachers visited the families and provided a stimulating educational experience, in others, children attended classes where they took part in learning activities. The outcome of Project Head Start received mixed reviews, from critical to approving. One of the main critics was Steven D. Levitt, who concluded that participation in this programme has had no impact on the long term school achievements and increase in IQ score. Magnuson and Ruhm (2004) on the other hand also concluded that participation in Head Start project had a positive effect on mathematical and logical skills when the children enter the school but also increases the behavioural problems in class. Increase in mathematical skills dissipate throughout children's schooling but …show more content…
From Dobson C.B. (1981), page 200 evidence for the importance of environment in development of intelligence. But from another point of view, the nativists have studied intelligence with twin studies. This is the example of a study where intelligence of monozygotic (later MZ) or dizygotic (later DZ) twins is observed and compared. MZ twins share 100% of DNA information and DZ twins share 50% of DNA. Twin studies are appropriate, especially the section MZ twins reared apart correlation - if only genetics is responsible for IQ, the correlation should be very high and if environment accounts for more, the correlation should be
Biologically, intelligence is closely connected with brain development in children. A newborn baby has over a trillion nerve cells that communicate through even more synapses. At this point, children have more developed central nerve system (later CNS) than they need and synapses grow even more in the time to adolescence. The rate of synapse formation responsible for higher cognitive functions - one of them is intelligence reaches a peak at 3 years, but is still relatively high from the age of few months to the age of 13 as it is seen in the picture. Some of the connections become stronger because they are used more, and in some connections pruning occurs - they are too weak and not used and are …show more content…
A strong study in favour of empiricists is the Project Head Start, founded by United States in order to hep children from socially unprivileged conditions. Created in 1965, it is the longest running programme in order to fight poverty. It supplies low-income families with proper education, nutrition, and parent-involvement programmes. Till 2005, more than 22 million of children have been a part of this study. There were different approaches, in some teachers visited the families and provided a stimulating educational experience, in others, children attended classes where they took part in learning activities. The outcome of Project Head Start received mixed reviews, from critical to approving. One of the main critics was Steven D. Levitt, who concluded that participation in this programme has had no impact on the long term school achievements and increase in IQ score. Magnuson and Ruhm (2004) on the other hand also concluded that participation in Head Start project had a positive effect on mathematical and logical skills when the children enter the school but also increases the behavioural problems in class. Increase in mathematical skills dissipate throughout children's schooling but …show more content…
From Dobson C.B. (1981), page 200 evidence for the importance of environment in development of intelligence. But from another point of view, the nativists have studied intelligence with twin studies. This is the example of a study where intelligence of monozygotic (later MZ) or dizygotic (later DZ) twins is observed and compared. MZ twins share 100% of DNA information and DZ twins share 50% of DNA. Twin studies are appropriate, especially the section MZ twins reared apart correlation - if only genetics is responsible for IQ, the correlation should be very high and if environment accounts for more, the correlation should be