Criminal Intent Under Age 7

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Running Head: CRIMINAL INTENT UNDER AGE 7 A Child Under Age 7 Is Not Developmentally Formed to Commit Criminal Intent Marion Johnson Psychology 210-D0-LUO Liberty University Online In studying the three major developmental factors in our textbook, Berger uses the developmental factors biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial developments to prove that a child under age 7 is not developmentally capable of forming criminal intent. Berger states that the “biosocial development” dealing with the “body changes” and “growth patterns.” “Bodies and brains mature in size and function.” (Berger, 2011, p.209) This states that “from 2 to age 6, a child spends most of their walking hours discovering, creating, laughing, and imaging, as they acquire the skills they need.” (Berger, 2011, p. 207) Between ages 2 and 6, the brain grows from 75 percent to 90 percent of adult weight, with increases particularly in the areas that allow advanced language and social understanding (2011). In this developmental stage the child is taught right from wrong, however but does not know how to make conscious decisions as an adult. “Parents must still be patient when listening to young children talk, helping them to get dressed, or watching them to write the first letter of their name.”(Berger, 2011, p. 2013) The processing at this stage of development is slower because of the young age. Motor and gross skills are also being development and improved. Cognitive Development in chapter 9 is “describing thinking and learning from ages 2 to y6, including advances in thought, language, and education, and explores how this develops.” (Berger, 2011, p. 237) In Piaget and Vygotsky, their theories have some commonalities of how children think verses what they say. Piaget’s “Preoperational Thinking” theory says “preschoolers usually cannot perform logical operations. They

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