Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

1. Chapter 9 Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

2. Grow approximately 2-3 inches per year between 6-11 • Double weight • Girls retain more fatty tissue • Required sleep 11 hours at age 5; 9 hours by age 9 Motor development • Improved coordination allows for sports, gymnastics

3. Recess time • Informal and spontaneous • Boys play more physically • Girls play games involving verbal expression or counting out loud (hopscotch, jump rope) • 10% of play involves rough and tumble play- vigorous, peaks about middle childhood • universal patterns •  Organized sports • best to allow trying variety of sports

4. Obesity • 16% of 6-11 year olds are overweight • little exercise • improper diet • emotional and physical/medical consequences • social problems • high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease

5. Medical problems • Acute medical problems- common • Chronic medical conditions- 18% under age 18 • Vision and hearing- 13% under age 18 • Asthma- 12% children/adolescents • HIV/AIDS- 2.2 million under age 15 • Accidental injuries- common

6. Cognitive development Piaget: the Concrete Child • The major cognitive achievement of middle childhood (ages 6 to 12) as the development of logical thinking. Less egocentric. • In the sensorimotor stage, the infant’s actions and expectations show that they have begun to appreciate certain regularities in their environment. • In the Preoperational Stage, the child is able to form mental images and to represent and communicate their practical knowledge of the world symbolically.  

7. The preschooler: • can talk about people and events, make drawings, reenact events in symbolic play, and invent stories • their verbal explanations of time, space, and cause and effect may be poetic, but they are rarely logical • their thinking is intuitive. • They leap to conclusions and often confuses desires with reality, coincidence with cause and effect • The preoperational child deals in particulars; they have not discovered general rules, and don’t seem to feel a need for them

8. The concrete operationalchild: • Thinks more like an adult • Spatial thinking: can use a map, give someone directions, judge distances • Adult logic takes the form of deduction and induction • Both modes of thought establish connections between generalizations and particulars • Deduction is reasoning from the general to the particular (if all men have hearts of gold, then this man has a heart of gold)

9. Cause and effect- understands this • The preoperational child reasons from particular to particular; therefore often assuming connections that do not exist; now Induction is reasoning form the particular to the general • Catagorization- sorts objects into categories; knows subclasses • Transitive reasoning occurs for the child: “I have not had my nap so it is not afternoon”)- understanding the relationship between two objects by knowing the relationship to a third object (three sticks, identifies longer one)

10. Changes in the Concrete Operational Stages: • Thought becomes more systematic and planful • They can think ahead • Can shift mental gears • The preoperational child is a spectator, viewing the world as scenes seen while looking out a train window, have not explored the view/world yet. Now the child is in control; can sped up or slow down the thinking as the situation demands • Can think of alternate routes

11. Most important, can shift mind into reverse, retrace their mental route, and maybe discover where they made a wrong turn • These new found abilities Piaget named “operations” • An operation is a mental activity that organizes and transforms information • The difference between operations and schemes is that operations are mental manipulations of information, not physical or sensory associations • It is the difference between winding up and throwing a baseball and contemplating your next move in a chess game.

12. Inductive and deductive reasoning- inductive reasoning(conclusions about an entire class- my dog barks; your dog barks; all dogs bark); • deductive reasoning- usually develops in adolescence- general statement about a class (premise) and applies to particular members of that class (all dogs bark, Spot is a dog, therefore, Spot barks)

13. A child in this stage is limited to operations on the concrete or physical world; hence the term concrete operations: they think about real people, real objects, and possible events. • When formal operations occur, they will be able to deal with abstractions and hypothetical situations. • Concrete operations help the child to the discovery of logical relationships among objects and actions.

14. Conservation • Mastery of conservation is the major achievement of the concrete operational stage. • For the preoperational child, seeing is believing: they don’t understand that certain properties of a substance remain the same (are conserved). • Between ages 5/6, the child vacillates.

15. There comes a time somewhere between ages 6½ and 7 years, 8 months when the child’s attitude changes: they do not need to reflect, but rather decide, and may even look surprised that a question is asked, they are certain of the conservation. Complete conservation may not fully develop until adolescence. Piaget believes that conservation reflects a basic reorganization of the child’s mind. They are able to coordinate different pieces of information in their mind.

16. The preoperational child focuses on one dimension (e.g., length); the conserver is able to decenterattention and consider two or more dimensions simultaneously. They can comprehend the functional relationship between height and width; focusing on the transformations that occur (the clay is rolled into different shapes). They have reversibility: they can mentally undo the transformation by imagining rolling the clay back into its original shape.

17. Identity- By age 5/6, the child is able to add classes together into more general categories, and most children by age 6/7 can construct hierarchies: they know that the class of people includes children and adults, and the class children includes both boys and girls. clay is clay no matter the shape.

18. Children master class inclusion between ages 7 and 11: ability to see the relationships between a whole and its parts. This involves ability to utilize three mental abilities: • sort individual items into classes (girls and boys); • add these together to form a higher-order class (children); and • understand that the higher-order class can be broken down again into subclasses (girls and boys)

19. Moreover, the child must be able to do this mentally. The child who cannot perform this mental operation “translates” the question into one that they can handle and answers as if the experimenter had asked whether there were more boys or girls.

20. Seriation & Transitive Inference The ability to arrange things in a logical order (from shortest to longest, thin to fat); to arrange on a dimension Transitive inference- ability to infer a relationship between two objects from relationship with a third object. Can place item in its place (stick two goes between 1 & 3) Preoperational children have difficulty with relational concepts (longer than or shorter than)

21. The child begins to understand reciprocal relationships: e.g., if Sue is taller than Carol, then Carol is shorter than Sue. Later in the concrete operational stage, can begin to comprehend transitive inferences (or transferring reasoning): the child must be able to compare two isolated relationships: Sue is taller than Carol, Carol is taller than Jane. Is Sue taller than Jane? Coordinating these bits of information demonstrates considerable mental agility.

22. The child begins to understand reciprocal relationships: e.g., if Sue is taller than Carol, then Carol is shorter than Sue.  Later in the concrete operational stage, can begin to comprehend transitive inferences (or transferring reasoning): the child must be able to compare two isolated relationships: Sue is taller than Carol, Carol is taller than Jane. Is Sue taller than Jane?  Coordinating these bits of information demonstrates considerable mental agility. Numbers & Mathematics- ability to count in their heads and perform calculations.

23. SUMMARY The child’s thinking is better coordinated, able to think about more than one dimension at a time.

24. Neurological development Impacts abilities for cognitive development Shifts from rigid, illogical to flexible, logical thinking Moral reasoning Three stages (Piaget & Inhelder) Approximately ages 2-7 (preoperational stage)- based on obedience to authority. Rigid; rules come from adults and not to be bent or changed; either right or wrong.

25. Approximately ages 7-11 (concrete operations)- increasingly more flexible, some degree of autonomy; based on mutual respect and cooperation. No absolute standard of right and wrong; develop own standard of justice based on fairness; considers multiple aspects of situation. Approximately age 11-12 (formal reasoning)- everyone treated equally; concept of equity with specific circumstances taken into account.

26. Information Processing Reaction time improves, processing speed increases, processes in head Unneeded synapses are pruned away Meta Memory Frontal lobes undergo significant development and reorganization Meta memory- knowledge about the processes of memory Meta cognition- awareness of one’s own awareness of thought and thinking process

27. Mnemonics- Strategy for remembering Mnemonic strategies- external memory aids (list, timer), rehearsal, organization (categorizing), elaboration (associate with something else, image or scene) Selective attention is now possible Assessment of Intelligence Compare a child’s score with normative data

28. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Third Edition (WISC-III) • Full scale IQ • Verbal IQ • Performance IQ • Verbal Comprehension Index • Perceptual Organization Index • Freedom from Distractibility Index • Processing Speed Index

29. IQ controversy IQ scores taken in middle childhood are fairly good predictors of school achievement IQ at age 11- predictive of length of life and presence or absence of functional independence and dementia in late adulthood Construct

30. Underestimates IQ of ill children- who do not do well on tests Intelligence equated with speed of processing and penalize those who work slowly and deliberately. Therefore, diagnosing learning disabilities with IQ testing is questionable Do not directly measure native ability- rather infer intelligence from what children already know Validated against measures of achievement (school performance) and therefore impacted by schooling and culture, wealth

31. Also debate over what constitutes intelligence- a single general ability or multiple types • Influence of schooling does impact tested intelligence; if delayed beginning school, lost 5 or more points; also drop following summer break. • Race/culture: unfair to minorities. Typically score 15 points lower than whites; interestingly; Asians have superior scholastic achievements, yet do poorly on IQ tests! • Cultural biases: tendency to include questions that use vocabulary, information, or skills, more familiar or meaningful to some cultural groups than to others. • No culture free tests.

32. Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence • Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test (STAT) • States that intelligence cannot be understood outside a socio-cultural context. • Part of intelligence is the ability to adapt to one’s environment. Fitting into existing circumstances. • Intelligence is viewed as purposeful, goal-directed, relevant behavior.

34. Three elements • Componential element (executive processes):the analytic aspect of intelligence; how efficiently people process information; how problem solve, evaluate solutions. • Experiential element (knowledge acquisition):the insightful or creative; how approach novel tasks; compare new information with that already known; development new ways to putting facts together. • Contextual element (performance) practical; used to carry out a strategy; how deal with environment; problem solve; adapt. Everyone has these three abilities but to different degree.

35. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences Rejects the notion of general intelligence and the exclusive use of IQ tests to measure intelligence. He argues that human intelligence is far too complex to be reduced to a single factor, much less a single score.

37. He argues that each separate intelligence follows a somewhat different developmental path. Musical intelligence often appears quite early: many great composers and performers were child prodigies. In contrast, poets usually go through a period of apprenticeship and imitation before they find their own voice. Logical-mathematical intelligence peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood.

38. Mathematicians and physicists often consider themselves burnt out by age 35 or 40. But many painters and composers do some of their finest work in their eighties. Different cultures emphasize different abilities. Multiple intelligences come from idiots savants. Some children who seem mentally retarded in mot respects perform complex mathematical calculations in their heads that most adults would find impossible.

39. Finally, brain damage often causes highly specified dysfunctions. An injury to one part of the brain causes an adult to communicate in short, concrete sentences, such as Ernest Hemmingway’s style. An injury to another part of the brain causes adults to speak in long, intricate passages whose meaning is obscure, such as a parody of William Faulkner’s style. Criticism: most psychologists do not view these as representing intelligence.

40. IQ testing Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children is option to test ages 3-18.

41. Language & Literacy Vocabulary Syntax (rules of grammar)- after age 9, not fully until teens. Pragmatics: practical use of language to communicate Some 7 year olds are better conversationalists than adults! 6 year olds can tell the plot of stories

42. Literacy: Learning to read and write Reading: Decoding: sounds out the word, translating it, then retrieving meaning from memory. Must master phonetic code/sound. Visually based retrieval: looks at word and retrieves it. Phonetic or code emphasis approach- emphasizes decoding. Whole-language approach- emphasizes visual retrieval and use of contextual cues. Children learn naturally. Make learning language enjoyable and improve comprehension if approach as way to gain information and express ideas and feelings.

43. Writing Acquisition of writing occurs with development of reading. Writing skills emerge as practice and memory increase. Have to remember rules, grammar, etc. Typical classroom- children discouraged from discussing work with other students believing they will distract.

44. Vygotsky- social interaction theory, found that students working in pairs, wrote stories with more solutions to problems, more explanations and goals, fewer errors in syntax and word use, than those working alone.

45. Influences on school achievement All aspects of child’s life impact school achievement. Self-efficacy – believe that can master school work and regulate own learning are more likely to try to achieve and more likely to succeed.  Parenting also impacts school achievement. Create environment for learning; keep a place to study and books and supplies; set time for meals, study, play; monitor time for tv, after school activities; parental involvement at school. Also extrinsic rewards: money or treats. Intrinsic rewards: praising for hard work, most effective.

46. Authoritative parentshave highest-achieving fifth graders; children curious and interested about learning; liked challenges; enjoyed problems solving themselves. Authoritarian parents, kept after children to study and supervised closely, relied on extrinsic motivation, had lower achieving students. Permissive parents-uninvolved in and not caring how children did in school- poor achievement.

47. Socio-economic status Family atmosphere, neighborhood, parenting practices More negative home and school atmospheres, stressful events, chaotic homes, deteriorating and dangerous neighborhoods, low-quality schools; all may limit parent’s ability to provide environment that enhances learning

48. Schooling No child left behind-(2001); accountability, parental options, expanded local control and flexibility. Federal funding, emphasis on reading and mathematics Criticisms: emphasizes punishment versus assistance for failing schools; rigid and largely unfounded mandates rather than support for proven practices; standardized testing rather than teacher-led, classroom-focused solutions. School environment also impacts learning. Learning second language, especially if native, improves self-esteem and achievement.

49. Learning Problems Mental retardation • Significantly subnormal cognitive functioning • IQ of 70 or below • Deficiency in age-appropriate adaptive behavior (communication, social skills, self-care) • Most benefit from schooling. Borderline, moderate, and mild retardation can maintain jobs. Those with Profound retardation require constant care.

50. Learning disabilities Interfere with specific aspects of school achievement (listening, speaking, reading, writing, mathematics) resulting in lower achievement. Not necessarily less intelligent!!!!!! Approximately 8-10%