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Course Prerequisites:  

Graduate or senior undergraduate course in human neuropsychology.
Graduate or senior undergraduate course in cognitive development.
Graduate-level course in clinical neuropsychology, or equivalent clinical experience.

(Any two).
    Course Description:  

The course has four aims:
1)    To review the typical development of the frontal lobes with respect to brain microstructure, brain macrostructure, and functions such as working memory, inhibitory control, intentionality, and social cognition.
2)    To review the atypical development of the frontal lobes in children with congenital or acquired neurodevelopmental disorders, with reference to disorders of memory, inhibition, theory of mind, and social comportment.
3)    To review evidence from both typical and atypical development about the nature of the relations among different frontal lobe functions (e.g., between working memory and inhibitory control).
4)    To analyze the contribution of studies of typical and atypical frontal lobe development to broader theories about frontal lobe function .

   Course Plan:  

•    NEUROCOGNITIVE MODELS FOR STUDYING CHILDREN
•    OVERVIEW OF FRONTAL LOBE FUNCTIONS; NORMAL DEVELOPMENT OF FRONTAL LOBE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
•    ABNORMAL DEVELOPMENT OF FRONTAL LOBE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
•    CHILDHOOD ACQUIRED BRAIN INJURY AND THE FRONTAL LOBES
•    THEORETICAL POSITIONS ABOUT RELATIONS AMONG FRONTAL LOBE FUNCTIONS
•    ORAL CLASS ASSIGNMENT: THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS

   Class Assignments:  

Assignment 1
•    There is an oral class assignment but no written assignment or examination.
•    The assignment is to design a thought experiment about a problem arising from the course. This can be based on any part of the material covered in class, which means it may be concerned with any one or       more of the following:
•    Normal frontal lobe development
•    Abnormal frontal lobe development
•    Normal frontal lobe function
•    Abnormal frontal lobe function
•    Relations between brain structure and cognition in the immature frontal lobe.

Assignment 2
•    A thought experiment is an empirical study without actual data. It involves formulating a problem, articulating specific aims and hypotheses, describing participants and methods, listing possible results and           their implications for different positions about the problem. The purpose of a thought experiment is to provide practice in thinking through a problem from start to finish and in articulating the interpretation of       possible outcomes.
•    You may work alone or in pairs. Thought experiments will be presented in class on Thursday 8 July 2004. Each thought experiment will be allocated 10 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for                       discussion.

Assignment 3
•     In preparing the thought experiment, make sure that you cover these elements:
•     The Problem
            –      Describe briefly a problem that interests you and why it is interesting. Explain where the problem came from.
•     Specific Aims and Hypotheses
                –     Describe 2-3 specific aims that you think are a good way to explore your problem. Identify a hypothesis for each aim.
•     Method
                –    Describe the participants and how they would be included or excluded. Outline the general tasks and procedures you would use in the study. Explain how the tasks fit the specific aims.
•     Results
                –     Outline the possible results for each specific aim and explain how each result bears on the original problem. For example, “One result is that…., which would mean that our hypothesis about aim                         1….”
•     Discussion
                –     What would patterns of data tell us about the original problem?  What is the “big picture” of the problem?


Class Material:

June 22nd


Reading List Reading List

Dennis, M. (2000). Childhood medical disorders and cognitive impairment: Biological risk, time, development, and reserve. In Yeates KO, Ris MD, Taylor HG (eds) Pediatric neuropsychology: Research, theory and practice  (pp. 3-22). Guilford Press, 2000.

Diamond, A. (2002). Normal development of prefrontal cortex from birth to young adulthood: cognitive functions, anatomy, and biochemistry. In  Stuss, D. T., & Knight, R. T. Principles of frontal lobe function (pp. 503). New York: Oxford.

Eslinger, P. J., Biddle, K. R., & Grattan, L. M. (1997). Cognitive and social development in children with prefrontal cortex lesions. In Krasnegor, N. A., Lyon, G. R., & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. Development of the prefrontal cortex (pp. 295-335). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.

Huttenlocher, P. R., & Dabholkar, S. (1997). Developmental anatomy of prefrontal cortex. In Krasnegor, N. A., Lyon, G. R., & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. Development of the prefrontal cortex (pp. 69-83). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.