Childhood Prejudice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Childhood Prejudice - Essay Example This will be elaborated and pointed out in the succeeding pages. According to Piaget, the stages of cognitive development, plays an important role in the learning ability of a child. Learning process involves the introduction of a stimulus for orientation and it teaches the child the manner of response in accordance with what is learned. Furthermore, cognition involves a schema that follows a chronological order that allows no interruption, otherwise will create an adverse effect. This involves the encoding of the perceived stimuli followed by the storing of the data encoding in the memory. Finally the retrieval of such memory when the need arise thus completing the entire process. This cycle follows a patter in processing information along with the other psychological and biological skills. The impact of this process is also determined by the social and environmental factors present, together with the constant reinforcement aid of education and authorities. Should there be a flaw, disruption or inadequacies to that process, learning becomes defi cient. Thus the child begins to form biases or preferences. According to Frances E. Aboud (1988), prejudice is not genetically inclined to happen, as it happens along with the development of the cognitive skills. In her book entitled Children and Prejudice, she asserted that at a very juvenile age, beginning 3 to 4 years, "children already notices racial distinctions, absorbs racially related images and assumptions, begin to learn and express racist ideologies (Aboud. 1988). Biases are formed due to the primary obvious aspect particularly noticed by the child at first glance, like the colour of the skin. The child absorbs everything that is perceived by the senses like sponges, and because they are incapable of discerning the right from wrong, therefore requires guidance from authority figures such as the parents. Thus the acquisition of preference among children is parallel with that of the parent's. The research further concluded that the meagre cognitive skills as well as the predisposition to ethnic preferences becomes gradually diminish as the child learns the distinction between virtues and mere peripheral. But this conjecture was opposed by Author Rupert Brown (1995), emphasizing that prejudice do not disappear with adulthood. In his book Prejudice: it's a social psychology, he said; "thirdly, and Aboud (1988) has noted, there had been some marked changes in measured prejudice level in adults over the past 40 years and yet recent studies of children's ethnic prejudice have shown that children below the age of 10 still continues to manifest various kinds of bias and discrimination" (p. 154). Nevertheless, he agreed to Aboud's finding about the three-stage model in which cognition is governed solely by perception and affective process occurring until the age of five. To strengthen her claim about the correlation of cognitive development to the development of prejudice in children, Aboud, together with Amato came up with a book in 2001 entitled Developmental and socialization influence of prejudice on inter-group bias, in which it claims the existence of prejudice even at the time when the child begins to form social organization. As earlier stated

Dementia Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Dementia - Research Paper Example Dementia is a condition that affects the nervous system of the individual. It is mainly labeled to be a disease of the old people but it may occur in the younger age groups as well. Dementia mainly presents with loss of memory and the condition deteriorates with time. The functioning of the cerebral hemisphere is affected in this condition and thus the day to day performance of the individual greatly suffers as a result of dementia. Dementia can result owing to many underlying pathologies which include Alzheimer's disease, Huntington’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. There is no definitive cure for this disease but early diagnosis can make a difference. Dementia Dementia is a degenerative neurological disorder. Previously dementia was considered to be a normal part of aging but researches and studies have proved that it is a pathological condition that results from varying illnesses or disorders present in the body.As a number of disorders or factors can be responsible for causing dementia,it is better known as a syndrome rather than a disease.It can also present as a clinical sign or symptom of an underlying disorder.Dementia is sudden or spontaneous in onset and progresses with time and age.The risk of onset of dementia is most likely at the age of 60 and it is seldom seen before this age.The risk of onset increases with the advancement in age. Dementia seriously affects the emotional behavior and social attitude of the victims of this disorder and sometimes it can also be associated with life threatening consequences. It is a pathological condition of the brain which causes impairment of normal mental activity and deterioration of cerebral functions with difficulties in carrying out the routine chores due to regression of certain areas of brain that maintain and regulate the normal functions of life. The individual suffering from dementia faces memory loss and the magnitude of loss is directly related to the severity of the disease. The disease affects the patient's personality and alters the emotional and social behavior. (Cox, 2007; Jacques & Jackson, 2000) Dementia involves gradual deteriorating changes in the brain of an individual which results in the decline of cerebral functions with time. The patient undergoes these changes for quite a long time before presenting with some solid differences in his or her personality. The patient can present with complaints which include deterioration of memory, decreased rate of performance at any type of work, compromised skills, mismanagement of personal or business affairs, uncertain and unreliable attitude, the decline in social activities, varying moods and delirium. The dementia is divided into two types depending on the time of its onset. These two types are pre-senile and senile dementia. The two groups differ as the pre-senile dementia is seen in mostly young patients while senile is in much older individuals. Both the disease processes however, follow the same course of development with very little differences in the signs and symptoms shown by the patients suffering from pre-senile or senile dementia (Boon & Davidson, 2006; Jacques & Jackson, 2000). The causes of dementia vary according to the type. Dementia may either be resulting from vascular pathologies which include disease of the small blood vessels, numerous emboli in the vessels or inflammation of the vessels in the brain. Degenerative or the inherited type of dementia results due to pathologies which include Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Wilson's disease, cortical Lewy body disease and mitochondrial encephalopathies. Dementia may also be associated with cancerous conditions. The tumors may spread from distant sites and lead to dementia or there may be tumors originating with the brain itself for example the primary cerebral tumor. Sarcoidosis and Multiple Sclerosis lead to inflammation and thus they are classified as inflammatory causes of dementia. Trauma can a lso be an underlying cause of dementia and it may be due to