Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Denis Mareschal
• Assessment: a written essay (100%)

This module illustrates how the typical and atypical development of cognitive abilities could be yoked to the processes of brain development.

We begin with a review of basic brain development during infancy and childhood and neuroimaging methods for use with developmental populations. We will then survey the development of cognitive abilities in a number of target domains across a range of typically and atypically developing populations (e.g. children with autism, William's syndrome, Down's syndrome, ADHD).

We will adopt an information-processing approach. In each lesson, you will be asked to reflect on how the abilities in the current lesson could be accounted for in terms of neural development and the development of information-processing abilities studied in previous lessons.