Developmental Psychology Television Show Project

Name:______Block:______

Have you ever been home sick and viewed a television show geared pre-school and kindergarten children? What did you think of it? Did it make you laugh (or groan) because of how simplistic it seemed? Developmental psychologists have designed the plot line, dialogue, and even scheduling of these shows with a purpose. Each show is carefully designed to be entertaining, engaging, and serves as a learning medium for children at each stage of development, according to Piaget and Vygotsky.

For this project, you will choose one children’s television show (IE: Sesame Street, Blue’s Clues, Teletubbies, Barney, Kipper, Doc McStuffins, Dinosaur Train, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, Curious George, etc).Many of these shows can be found on Youtube, Netflix, or can be viewed on television during a half day or vacation day.

After choosing one television show, you will create a presentation in which you will explain:

The premise of the show (what is the typical plot) and what time/ network it airs(ed) on
What age group this show is appropriate for and why based on the stages of development (according to Piaget, Vygotsky, and physical cognitive development).
Fully explain the characteristics of that stage of development or brain development
Why a child at that age would find this show entertaining and not monotonous (some shows, like Blue’s Clues will play the same episode every day for an entire week), or silly.
Why the child would find these shows challenging, especially the ones which pose problems or questions to the children.
How the show uses the principles of psychology to help children learn before entering into formal education.
Do you believe this show is successful according to the psychology? Why or why not.

You may create a power-point presentation to share with the class, create a Prezi, or write a standard paper.

We will share these presentations in class on ______.

EXAMPLE:

Blue’s Cluesis a children’s show geared for children age 2-4, according to the Netflix rating scale. The show has two main characters; Blue, a dog, and Steve, her owner. Each episode involves Blue hiding from Steve, and then leaving three clues for him to put together to find her.

When Blue’s Clues was on Nick Jr., a network geared for pre-school children, the same episode would air at the same time each day for a week. Older children, or adults, who watched the show found the airing of the same episode each day incredibly boring; however toddlers came back every day with the same excitement, and wonder about where Blue was hiding. Developmental psychologists had a purpose for making this scheduling decision. According to psychologists like Chugani and Giedd, different portions of a child’s brain develop at different times. The hippocampus of the brain is responsible for storing explicit memories, which include declarative and event based memories. This portion of the brain begins to develop prenatally, however will not be fully formed until adult hood. Although children as young as 7 months old have the capability of conscious memory, they do not have capacity for full retrieval of these memories until between the ages of 3 and 7 (Bauer, 2008). Blue’s Clues has been scheduled to repeat in order to help children develop more dendritic connections in their hippocampus. The show gives them clues, and then frequently requires them to recall the information. The learning theorist Vygotsky argued that the best way to teach children is through scaffolding. This means requiring a child to continuously repeat a task just above their ability level, in order to strengthen the synaptic connections in the brain to develop the ability. The show is geared for children age 2-4, and it is during this time that children begin to have the ability for declarative recall, and by repeating memory tasks will increase that ability before entering into formal schooling.

Blue’s Clues is known for its vibrant colors and sounds. Researcher, like Gelman, have found that by the age of two, children have the ability to recognize new and different stimuli, and they are more likely to pay attention to this stimuli. Because of this, the show uses bright colors and different sounds to bring a child’s attention to important “clues” throughout the show. Infantile attention spans are very short; however by age three children have the capacity to pay attention for about a half hour. This is why the show is scheduled to run of a half an hour. Anything beyond that may lose the child’s attention.