中国科学院心理研究所机构知识库

发展心理学中关于儿童心理发展一直以来存在阶段论和连续论两种观点，阶段论和连续论都有各自的支持依据，但目前心理学家倾向于认为儿童心理发展是阶段性和连续性的统一，一些脑电生理的数据也支持这一观点，脑电发展对认知发展有很好的提示作用。但现有的脑电生理研究在探讨这一问题尚存在一些不足。由于童年中期是个体发育成熟前的最后一个关键期，大脑重量、额叶发育都非常显著，因此，本研究自童年中期大脑发育的特点入手，从自发脑电和诱发脑电两个角度考察童年中期儿童自发脑电基本频谱相干的发展特点及不同认知发展水平、不同年龄的儿童认知发展与脑电发展的关系。研究一主要考察童年中期自发脑电频谱相干发展特点；研究二考察重量守恒水平不同的儿童在完成重量守恒任务时的脑电活动的时间进程；研究三考察不同年龄儿童完成认知任务的脑诱发电位表现。所得结果如下：

1. 自发脑电频谱相干研究发现在童年中期大脑发育存在7-8岁的加速期，并在11岁存在转折，在9、12岁达到高峰。支持儿童发展是阶段性和连续性的统一的观点。

2. 不同守恒水平儿童在完成重量守恒任务时，主要表现为晚正成分的波幅差异，且波幅存在守恒水平与电极位置的交互作用，守恒组倾向于激活右侧额中央区，而不守恒组则倾向于激活中央额区。结果不能支持阶段论，但发展是否表现为连续性，有待于进一步探索。

3. 9-10-11岁三组儿童在完成同一任务时的大脑活动存在显著差异，在脑电水平上，主要表现为N2波幅和电位图的差异，11岁组明显不同于9、10岁组。进一步考察9岁组、10岁普通智力组、10岁高智力水平组、11岁组四组儿童的诱发电位特点（潜伏期、波幅和电位图），发现，9岁组与10岁普通智力组之间N2波幅和电位图差异不显著，而10岁高智力水平组与11岁组在N2波幅和电位图上差异不显著。本实验结果提示认知发展在不同年龄段表现为阶段性，而由于同一年龄段的不同水平与其他年龄组存在水平相当的现象，认知发展从整体上看来表现为一定的连续性。

综合EEG与ERP的研究结果，得出结论，童年中期认知发展和脑电发育是阶段性和连续性的统一。

Whether the development of children is continous or discontinous is disputable in developmental psychology. Currently, researchers hold the view that development is both continous and discontinous. Electrophysiological studies support this viewpoint, but some questions still remain in this area. The developmental patterns of electroencephalography (EEG) coherence and event-related potentials (ERP) indices of brain maturation were studied in two parts of experiments in children between 6 and 12 years old. In the first part, the development of both short/medium-distance and long-distance EEG coherence (which is the squared cross-correlation between two EEG signals at different scalp locations and can be regarded as an index for cortico-cortical connectivity) were explored for children aged from 6 to 12. In the second experiment, weight conservers and nonconservers performed an adapted weight conservation task while ERP were recorded. In the third experiment, Children with different ages were instructed to finish an INRC task when ERP was recorded.

1．Coherence was found to have spurts at 7-8 and 11 years old and peaked at 9 and 12 years. This could be a support of qualitative stage transition of Piaget’s theory as previously suggested using behavioral and EEG data.

2．Results showed that amplitudes and topography of ERP component (LPC) was significantly different between children with different cognitive level.

3．Children aged from 9 to 11 had different N2 amplitude and topography when finished an INRC task. Then, another group of 10-year-old children were divided to two groups by their intelligence level. We compared the ERP of these two groups of children with 9 and 11 years children when they finished the same task, the N2 amplitude and topography show significant difference among 9-year group, low-IQ 10-year group, high-IQ 10-year group and 11-year group. These results suggested that children with different age could have same levels of cognitive level, while children with same age could have different level of cognitive level, which makes development as a whole a combination of discontinous and continous change.

In conclusion, the development of children aged from 6 to 12 is both continous and discontinous.