PSYCH 211 - Schooling & Cognitive Skills: A Parent-Friendly Summary

This report summarizes a LEARN article by Brod, Bunge, and Shing (2017) that investigates the impact of schooling on children's cognitive control and associated brain activation. The article highlights the significant cognitive enhancements observed in preschoolers aged five to seven, particularly in their ability to exercise dominance over consciousness and conduct, ultimately improving their decision-making skills. The study involved MRI experiments on two groups of children—primary graders and kindergarteners—revealing that primary graders exhibited better cognition due to the development of the right caudal parietal cortex region in the brain, which facilitates prolonged attention and upgraded accuracy. The report emphasizes the article's accessibility to non-professionals, making it a valuable resource for parents seeking to understand how formal education shapes brain structure and cognitive abilities, offering a breakthrough opportunity to sharpen children's intellectual and comprehensive skills.

Running head: PARENT PSYCHOLOGY
PARENT PSYCHOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Cognition is an important process in the early development phase of humans. In
medical science, it is regarded to be a vital process of obtaining fruitful understanding
through perception, practice and sensation. The cognition process in humans broadly covers
the concepts of comprehension, observation, retention, discernment, calculation and others.
The phase of cognition, which occurs in humans, utilizes the notion of prevailing information
and initiates new information (Anderson, 2013). This essay outlines the fact to construct a
summary research of a LEARN article stating its relevance and uniqueness to the parents and
convincing them to take an active interest in the article.
The article, “Does One Year of Schooling Improve Children’s Cognitive Control and
Alter Associated Brain Activation?” written by Brod, G., Bunge, S. A., Shing, Y. L tries to
convey to the readers that the concept of five to seven year change leads to the concentration
of miraculous enhancements in a pre-schooler’s comprehension abilities, especially in their
skill to exercise dominance over their consciousness and conduct (Brod, Bunge and Shing
2017). Generally, it aids in perfecting their decision-making flair. Nowadays, many nurturing
articles related to parenthood are published in the market on a monthly basis. Resultantly it
becomes very difficult for the prospective parents to select and read a particular article, which
would adequately guide them in their parenting journey.
Unlike other articles, this particular article definitely falls in the rank of premium
parenting articles, which clearly displays the intricacies and complicacies involved in
polishing the cognitive or the reasoning skills of children. Apart from learning about the
general concept of cognition, the parents can also decipher the distinct effect of the five to
seven year change on children belonging to the different age groups. In this article, two sets
of children were selected to conduct the MRI experiment (Dale, Brown & Semelka, 2015).
One set consisted of children who were already enrolled in the primary grade and the other
set comprised children who were in the kindergarten grade. The singularity of this article is

2PARENT PSYCHOLOGY
that any nonprofessional other than a guardian or a researcher can effortlessly grasp the
outcome of the experiment. The conducted experiment in the article finds out that the primary
graders developed better cognition ability than the kindergarteners because of their gradual
amelioration of the region of right caudal parietal cortex in the brain (Cabeza, Ciaramelli &
Moscovitch, 2012). If the above-mentioned region develops in rapid pace, then it would
automatically facilitate prolonged attention and upgraded accuracy.
Conclusively, it can be derived from the above intensive discussion that the conducted
experiment in the concerned article brilliantly shows that how the mise-en-scene context of
ritualistic tutelage configures the brain structure with latent refined focus on apprehensively
challenging activities. This article indeed undertakes a very crucial examination of the human
mind. Human mind is very complex. Human mind has been the subject of various researches
and experiments conducted all over the world. At the stage of infancy, human mind is at the
preliminary developmental stage and can be evolved to sharpen the intellectual and
comprehensive abilities of the children. This article provides a breakthrough opportunity to
do the same. The experiment conducted in the article has also been carried out in an adept
manner making it suitable for the parents, who are not familiar with research study, to easily
apprehend and conclude the topic matter.

3PARENT PSYCHOLOGY
References
Anderson, J. R. (2013). The architecture of cognition. Psychology Press.
Brod, Garvin, Silvia A. Bunge, and Yee Lee Shing. 2017. "Does One Year Of Schooling
Improve Children’S Cognitive Control And Alter Associated Brain
Activation?". Psychological Science 28 (7): 967-978.
doi:10.1177/0956797617699838.
Cabeza, R., Ciaramelli, E., & Moscovitch, M. (2012). Cognitive contributions of the ventral
parietal cortex: an integrative theoretical account. Trends in cognitive sciences, 16(6),
338-352.
Dale, B. M., Brown, M. A., & Semelka, R. C. (2015). MRI: basic principles and
applications. John Wiley & Sons.