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Process Of Mental Change: Within the constructivist theory of children's learning, well documented and strongly held by many science educators, children's ideas do not develop from scratch. Harlen and Jelly (1989, p. 39) explain this simply by saying that children learn by linking new ideas with existing ones and changing them when necessary as more evidence comes available. Piaget described this process as assimilation - i.e. dealing with new situations and problems and accommodating them through the process of mental change (Althouse 1988, p. 4), therefore the level of children's understanding depends on their ability to be Flexible in their thinking.
In the case of most mental disorders as well, the causes are complex and uncertain. One obtains a variety of clinical pictures in any type of chiJdhood psychosis. The interaction between hereditary and environmental influences is diverse and devious. An important part is played by ccmstitutionaV tactois suc as unusual sensitivity and functional disturbances during the process of maturing. Moreover, a disturbed mother-child relationship is almost always involved.
The whole process is so Flexible that it will copy any sequence of the four bases, always using the same catalyst. On rare occasions one of the bases in DNA is altered by an accident or by an incorrect choice of bases made during the copying process. In such cases a mutation, or change, in the base sequence results. Because the copying mechanism does not recognize the mutation as an error, the mutation is preserved in the DNA each time it is copied. Such a change in the base sequence may, of course, be reflected in a physical alteration of some kind in the organism carrying the changed DNA. |
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