Section 5:

Middle and Late Childhood

EXERCISE
NOTE:

Chapter 9:
Physical and Cognitive Development in
Middle and Late Childhood
1
Physical Changes and Health

Exercise - plays an important role in childrens growth and

development
Percentage of children involved in daily P.E. programs in
schools decreased from 80% (1969) to 20% (1999)
Television watching is linked with low activity and obesity in
children
more fatigued and more active children
aerobic exercise

HEALTH, ILLNESS, AND DISEASE

BODY GROWTH AND CHANGE
Middle and late childhood time of excellent health
2 to 3 inches and 5 to 7 pound growth per year

Accidents and Injuries

4 feet, 9 inches women
4 feet, 10 inches men

Injuries - are the leading cause of death during middle and late
childhood

head proportional to the body

Motor vehicle accidents - are most common cause of severe

injury

waist proportional to the height

Overweight Children

NOTE:

Muscle mass and strength gradually increase; baby fat

decreases
Ossification of bones
Boys have a greater number of muscle cells and are typically
stronger than girls

Overweight - child is a risk factor for being obese as an adult

Girls - are more likely than boys to be overweight
Changes in diet and total caloric intake - may be one reason
for increasing obesity rates

THE BRAIN
Body mass index categorizes an individual to be obese,
NOTE:

Brain volume stabilizes

Significant changes in structures and regions occur,
especially in the prefrontal cortex
o
Improved attention, reasoning, and cognitive
control
Thickening of cerebral cortex
Activation of some brain areas increase while others decrease
o
Shift from larger areas to smaller, more focal
areas
o
Due to synaptic pruning

overweight, and at risk of overweight that computed by formula

that takes into account the height and weight of a child.

NOTE:

Raises risks for many medical and psychological problems

Pulmonary problems, such as sleep apnea
diabetes,
high blood pressure
Low self-esteem,
depression,
exclusion from peer groups

MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

Cardiovascular Diseases

NOTE:

Cardiovascular diseases uncommon

NOTE:

Gross motor skills become smoother and more coordinated

o
Boys usually outperform girls on gross motor skills
Improvement of fine motor skills during middle and late
childhood
o
Increased myelination of the central nervous
system
o
Girls usually outperform boys on fine motor skills

Many elementary-school children already possess risk factors

for cardiovascular disease

Cancer
Cancer - is the 2nd leading cause of death in children 514 years old

Leukemia - most common child cancer

- cancer in which bone marrow manufactures an abundance of
abnormal white blood cells

Other types of cancer:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

bone
lymph nodes
kidney
brain
muscles
nervous system

2
CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES

Possible Causes:

Genetics (many tend to run in families)

Environmental influences
Problems in integrating information from multiple brain regions
Difficulties in brain structures and functions

Intervention:

Improving reading ability through intensive instruction

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Syndrome (ADHD)

ADHD a disability in which children consistently show one or more
of the following characteristics: (1) inattention, (2) hyperactivity,
and (3) impulsivity

Inactive difficulty in focusing on any one thing that they may be

SCOPE OF DISABILITIES

bored with a task after a few minutes

Hyperactive show high levels of physical activity

Impulsive difficulty in curbing their actions
Possible Causes:

Learning Disabilities
Learning disability difficulty in learning that involves
understanding or using spoken or written language, and the
difficulty can appear in listening, reading, thinking, writing, and
spelling

boys girls stats of learning disabilities

Definition of learning disability includes three
components:

Minimum IQ level
Significant difficulty in a school-related area
Exclusion of severe emotional disorders, second-language
background, sensory disabilities, and/or specific neurological
deficits

Three types of learning disabilities:

1. Dyslexia category reserved for individuals who have a
severe impairment in their ability to read and spell
2. Dysgraphia learning disability that involves difficulty in
handwriting
- may write very slowly
- writing products are illegible
- make numerous spelling errors because of
their inability to match up sounds with letter

3. Dyscalculia aka developmental arithmetic disorder

- learning disability that involves difficulty in
math computation

Genetics
Brain damage during prenatal or postnatal development
Cigarette and alcohol exposure during prenatal development
Later peak for cerebral cortex thickening

ADHD Treatment:

Stimulant medication (Ritalin or Adderall) is helpful

Combination of medication and behavior management seems
to work best
Exercise may reduce ADHD symptoms

NOTE:

Critics argue that physicians are too quick to prescribe

medications

Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Emotional and behavioral disorders serious, persistent
problems that involve relationships, aggression, depression, fears
associated with personal or school matters, as well as other
inappropriate socioemotional characteristics.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aka pervasive
developmental disorder

- range from severe disorder

labeled autistic disorder to the milder syndrome called Asperger
syndrome
- characterized by problem in
social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, and
repetitive behaviors.

Autistic disorder a severe spectrum disorder that has its onset in

the first three years of life
- includes deficiencies in social relationships,
abnormalities in communication, and restricted, repetitive, and
stereotyped patterns of behavior

Asperger syndrome a relatively mild ASD in which the child has

relatively good verbal language, milder nonverbal language
problems, and a restricted range of interests and relationships

Causes:

Genetics
Brain dysfunction with abnormalities in brain structure and
neurotransmitters
Mutations missing or duplicated pieces of DNA on
chromosome 16

Classification important ability in concrete operational thought

- can move up and down a level, and up and down
and across within the system

Evaluating Piagets Concrete Operational Stage

EDUCATIONAL ISSUES
1975 laws passed requiring all public schools to serve disabled

Criticism:

children

Individualized Education Plan (IEP) - written statement that is

specifically tailored for the disabled student

Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) - a setting that is as

similar as possible to that of non-disabled children
Inclusion- educating a child with special education needs in the
regular classroom

Piaget proposed that various aspects of a stage should

emerge together
o
Some concrete abilities do not appear at the same
time
Education and culture exert stronger influences on childrens
development than Piaget believed

Neo-Piagetians argue that Piaget got some things right, but that
theory needs considerable revision
- more emphasis on attention, memory, and
strategy use

INFORMATION PROCESSING

3
COGNITIVE CHANGES
PIAGETS COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL
THEORY
Concrete Operational Stage
Concrete operational stage
-

ages 7 to 11
children can perform concrete operations and reason logically
reasoning can only be applied to specific, concrete examples
ability to classify things into different sets and consider their
interrelationships

operations reversible mental actions

Memory
long-term memory relatively permanent and unlimited type of
memory, increases with age during middle and late childhood

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE

Expertise ability to remember, reason and solve problems
- affects ability to remember, reason, and solve problems
NOTE:

Older children usually have more expertise about a subject

than younger children do

STRATEGIES
Strategies deliberate and mental activities to improve the
processing of information

concrete operations operations that are applied to real,

Strats:

concrete objects

- coordinates information about width and

height

Seriation - the ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension

Transitivity the ability to logically combine relations to understand
certain conclusions

Encourage children to engage in mental imagery.

Motivate children to remember material by understanding
rather than by memorizing it.
Repeat with variation on the instructional information and link
early and often.
Embed memory-relevant language when instructing children.

FUZZY TRACE THEORY

Fuzzy trace theory states that memory is best understood by
considering two types of memory representations: (1) verbatim
memory trace and (2) gist.
- older childrens better memory is attributed to
the fuzzy traces created by extracting the gist of information

Verbatim memory trace precise details of the information

NOTE:

Limited to other children

Limited knowledge about their own memory.

Brainstorming a technique in which individuals are encourage to

come up with creative ideas in a group, play off each others
ideas, and say practically what comes to their mind

Gist central idea of the information

INTELLIGENCE
Thinking

Intelligence problem-solving skills and the ability to learn from and

adapt to everyday life.

Aspects of thinking
1. Critical Thinking thinking reflectively and productively,

2.

are different from each other

The Binet Test

Creative Thinking the ability to think in novel and

Binet Tests designed to identify children with difficulty learning in

unusual ways, and to come up with unique solutions to

problems
Convergent thinking
produces one correct answer

Divergent thinking
- produces many different answers to the same
question

3.

Individual differences stable, consistent ways in which people

and evaluating evidence

Mindfulness being alert, mentally present, and
cognitively flexible while going through lifes everyday
activities and tasks

Scientific Thinking

children tend to:

o ask fundamental questions about reality
o place a great deal of emphasis on causal
mechanisms
o be more influenced by chance events than
by overall patterns
o maintain old theories regardless of evidence
tools of scientific thought are not routinely taught in
schools

school

1905 Scale consisted of 30 questions on topics ranging from the

ability to touch ones ear to the ability to draw designs from
memory and define abstract concepts

Mental age (MA) -

an individuals level of mental development

relative to others

Intelligence quotient (IQ) - a persons mental age divided by

chronological age, multiplied by 100

Stanford-Binet Tests revised version of the Binet test

- revised to analyze an individuals response
in five content areas : fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative
reasoning, visual spatial reasoning, and working memory

normal distribution a bell-shaped curve

Strategies for Fostering Creativity:

Encourage brainstorming
Provide environments that stimulate creativity
Dont overcontrol students
Encourage internal motivation
Build childrens confidence
Guide children to be persistent and delay gratification
Encourage children to take intellectual risks
Introduce children to creative people

Metacognition
Metacognition cognition about cognition
- knowing about knowing
- knowledge about strategies

- symmetrical, with a majority of the scores

falling in the middle of the possible range of scores and few
scores appearing toward the extremes of the range

The Wechsler Scales

Wechsler Scales - give scores on several composite indices
- three versions for different age groups
Include:
1. Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of
Intelligence Third Ed.
- 2 years and 6 months to 7 years and 3 months
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children 4 ed.
- 6 to 16 years

3.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale 3 ed.

Metamemory knowledge about memory

5 to 6 years of age familiar items are easier to learn

th

2.

rd

Types of Intelligence

Sternbergs Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

- intelligence comes in three forms:
1. Analytical intelligence ability to analyze, judge,

2.
3.

evaluate, compare, and contrast

Creative intelligence ability to create, design,
invent, originate, and imagine
Practical intelligence ability to use, apply,
implement, and put ideas into practice

Gardners Eight Frames of Mind people learn best what they

can so in a way that uses their stronger intelligences

Cons:
o
o
o

Motivated educators to develop programs that

instruct students in multiple domains
Contributed to interest in assessing intelligence
and classroom learning
Multiple-intelligence views may have taken the
concept of specific intelligences too far
Research has not yet supported the different types
Are there other types of intelligences?

Interpeting Differences in IQ Scores

A. Influences of Genetics:

Frames of the mind:

1. Verbal: ability to think in words and use language to express
meaning
Occupations : authors, journalists, speakers

2. Mathematical: ability to carry out mathematical operations

Occupations : scientist, engineers, accountants

3. Spatial: ability to think three-dimensionally

Occupations : architects, sailors, artists

Heritability the variance in a population that is attributed to

genetics
o
Heritability of intelligence is about .75
o
Problems:

Heritability index is only as good as the

data entered into the analysis

Assumes we can treat genetic and

environmental influences as separate
One strategy is to compare the IQs of identical and fraternal
twins
Most researchers agree that genetics and environment
interact to influence intelligence

4. Bodily-Kinesthetic: ability to manipulate objects and be

physically adept

B. Environmental Influences:

Occupations : surgeons, dancers, athletes, craftspeople

5. Musical: sensitivity to pitch, melody, rhythm, and tone
Occupations : composers, musicians, sensitive listeners
6. Interpersonal: ability to understand and interact effectively
with others

Occupations : teachers, mental health professionals

7. Intrapersonal: ability to understand oneself
Occupations : theologians, psychologists

C.

Group Differences:

8. Naturalist: ability to observe patterns in nature and

understand natural and human-made systems

Occupations : farmers, botanists, ecologists, lansdcapers

D.

Evaluating the MI Approach

Heredity and genetics versus environment (increasingly

higher scores suggest role of education)
Flynn effect
Bell curve: U.S. is developing large underclass of intellectually
deprived
Racial and cultural bias
Use and misuse of IQ tests
Classifying types of mental retardation
Classification as being gifted

Evaluating Multiple-Intelligence Approaches:

Pros:
o

Stimulated teachers to think more broadly about

childrens competencies

E.

On average, African American schoolchildren score 10 to 15

points lower on IQ tests than White American schoolchildren
o
Gap has begun to narrow as African Americans
have gained social, economic, and educational
opportunities

Culture-Fair Tests - tests that are intended to be free of

cultural bias

Controversies and issues in intelligence:

Communication of parents
Schooling
Flynn Effect: rapidly increasing IQ test scores around the
world
o
Increasing levels of education attained by more
people
o
Explosion of available information
Interventions designed to help children at risk for
impoverished intelligence

Items that are familiar to children from all backgrounds

Nonverbal intelligence tests

Using Intelligence Tests:

Avoid stereotyping and expectations

Know that IQ is not the sole indicator of competence
Use caution in interpreting an overall IQ score

EXTREMES OF INTELLIGENCE

Mental Retardation
Mental retardation a condition of limited mental ability in which
an individual has a low IQ (usually below 70) on a traditional test
of intelligence, and has a difficulty adapting to everyday life

Categories:
1. Mild
- 55 to 70
- able to live independently as adults
- work at variety of jobs
2.

4
LANGUAGE

Moderate
- 40 to 54
- attain a second-grade level
- support themselves as adult through some types
of labor

3.

Severe
- 25 to 39
- talk and accomplish simple tasks
- require extensive support

During middle and late childhood:

Changes occur in the way childrens mental vocabulary is

organized
Rapid increase in vocabulary and grammar skills
Improved logical reasoning/analytical skills

Metalinguistic Awareness

Causes:
1. Organic retardation
- caused by genetic disorder or by brain damage
- organic refers to the tissues or organs of the
body
- 0 to 50
2.

VOCABULARY, GRAMMMAR, AND

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS

Cultural-familial retardation
- Mental deficit with no evidence of organic brain
damage
- 50 to 70

- knowledge about language

- knowing what a preposition is or the ability to discuss the
sounds of language
- improves significantly during elementary school years

READING
NOTE:

Children with a large vocabulary have an advantage in

learning to read

Two approaches to teaching reading:

1. Whole-language approach
-

Giftedness
-

Giftedness people who have 130 IQ or higher and/or superior

talent for something

2.

Phonics approach
-

Three criteria:
1. Precocity master earlier than peers, inborn high ability
2.

Marching to their

own drummer

reading instruction should parallel childrens

natural language learning
recognize whole words; use context to guess at
meaning
reading is connected with listening and writing
skills

minimal

reading instruction should teach basic rules for

translating written symbols into sounds
research suggests that instruction in phonics
should be emphasized, although both methods
can be beneficial

scaffolding, resist explicit instruction

A passion to master obsessive interest

3.
NOTED:

Giftedness is likely a product of both heredity and

environment
Many experts argue that education programs for gifted
children need a significant overhaul

WRITING
Note:

Children often invent spellings

Corrections should be selective and done in positive ways

BILINGUALISM
NOTE:

Learning a second language is easiest for children

U.S. students are far behind other countries in learning
multiple languages
Ability to speak two languages has a positive effect on childs
cognitive development
Bilingual children perform better on tests of:
o
Control of attention (focus)
o
Concept formation
o
Analytic reasoning
o
Cognitive flexibility
o
Cognitive complexity