Brain Research Confirms Importance of Praise for Young Children

It seems that almost every week a new and exciting piece of “brain research” is released. The most recent, summarized at Science Daily, reveals an amazing distinction in the brain development of younger children versus those youngsters on the verge of adolescence.

Researchers, utilizing the latest in Magnetic Resonance Imaging technology, examined which parts of the brain were activated as children received feedback regarding their performance on a specific task. The differences in brain response for 8- and 9-year-olds to that of 11- and 12-year-olds was nothing short of astonishing.

Cognitive Control
To activate the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain responsible for cognitive control, researchers gave children a computer task that asked them to determine specific rules. During the process, the children were provided two types of feedback, a tick for a correct answer and a cross for a wrong answer.

When the younger group of children, ages 8 to 9, received positive feedback, MRI technology revealed a strong activation of the cerebral cortex. In contrast, when these children received negative feedback that same cognitive control aspect of the brain barely registered any activity.

However, for 11 to 12-year-olds, positive feedback did little to activate the cognitive control areas. Instead, for the second age group, it was the negative feedback that caused strong activation of the control areas.

The experiment was replicated with 18 to 25-year-olds and the results for the young adult age group were very similar to those for the 11- and 12-year-olds.

The overall findings were summarized in Science Daily thus: “Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback (‘Well done!’), whereas negative feedback (‘Got it wrong this time’) scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring.”

Ultimately, it appears that 8-year-olds are simply not able to process negative feedback very well while 12-year-olds can actually use negative feedback in a way that helps them learn from their mistakes. The young adult group was able to do the same, with the findings indicating that the older age group could learn from their mistakes more efficiently than the pre-adolescent group.

The research, the work of developmental psychologist Dr. Eveline Crone and her colleagues from the Leiden Brain and Development Lab, represents the first attempt to look at children of different ages. In the past, distinctions in brain study have generally been done by comparing children to adults.

The research also focused on a different area of the brain than the basal ganglia, a region just outside the cerebral cortex. That region also responds strongly when a subject is exposed to positive feedback. The activity in that area of the brain remains unchanged as we age; it is extremely active in all age groups, for adults as well as children, and for both 8-year-olds and 12-year-olds.

Surprising Outcome
The results came as a major surprise to Crone who acknowledged, “We had expected that the brains of 8-year-olds would function in exactly the same way as the brains of 12-year-olds, but maybe not quite so well.”

The results of course have enormous potential impact on teaching and learning. Crone notes further, “Children learn the whole time, so this new knowledge can have major consequences for people wanting to teach children: how can you best relay instructions to 8- and 12-year-olds?”

Crone went on to elaborate further, stating that, “You start to think less in terms of ‘good’ and ‘not so good’. Children of eight may well be able to learn extremely efficiently, only they do it in a different way.”

The results also reiterate some long-standing knowledge from the field of child development. Experts in that field have long postulated that young children respond much better to reward than they do to punishment.

Crone acknowledges that from a developmental standpoint that makes perfect sense. “Learning from mistakes is more complex than carrying on in the same way as before. You have to ask yourself what precisely went wrong and how it was possible.”

Why Does the Difference Exist?
While there is now conclusive evidence that there is a difference with how 8- and 12-year-olds process feedback information, there is no current research that yet can explain why there is such a difference. Immediate speculation has one thinking it could just be that time is needed for the brain to develop more fully.

However, it may also be a result of experience, i.e., the need for children to have more life lessons before such feedback provides meaningful information. In fact, Crone suggests that it “is probably a combination of the brain maturing and experience.”

In the meantime, many other questions emerge including what is the ideal age for such brain activity? For example, would it be better if children developed their ability to learn from mistakes at an earlier age? At the same time, what specific experiences would be helpful to such development and at what corresponding ages should those experiences occur?

Could Risk-Averse Critics Find Some Ammunition
Yet another thought also comes to mind based on a post we did a few months back regarding our current risk-adverse culture for children. In our post, Risk Taking, Part of Growing Up, Part of the Learning Process, we noted that the safety zone for children is becoming ever smaller. The current aversion to risk-taking in our children has many experts concerned that we are cutting our children off from a number of very valuable learning opportunities, especially in regards to learning how to interact with the world around them.

One very interesting step would be to replicate the study in future years to see if over time the age at which children learn from mistakes tends to increase. Given our propensity to reduce risk and subsequently limit the experiences of children, it is entirely possible the current age at which learning from mistakes is the norm could be pushed into the teen years.