Psychology 2314 Chapter 7 Middle Childhood: Body and Mind Cognitive theory Parental role/language development Causes of Obesity Special needs DSM-IV-TR Vygotsky theory Developmental Psychpathology Hidden Curriculum Metacognition Selection attention Special needs in school Automation Short term/Long term memory Memory Aptitude/Achievement tests Language development Learning disabilities Phonics/Whole language approach Colloquial language No Child Left Behind Act Mental retardation Autistic spectrum disorders

Middle childhood is a time of relatively smooth and uneventful development Growth slows down during the preschool years Children become slimmer, their muscles become stronger, their lung capacity increases Most fatal diseases and accidents occur before or after middle childhood What is the most serious health problem for children at this age? Asthma is a serious problem for children; a disorder characterized by chronic inflammation of the airways and it is the leading cause of missed school and the most common medical condition that requires ongoing treatment

The best approach to treating childhood diseases is primary prevention (requires changes in the entire society)-includes proper ventilation of homes and schools Secondary prevention reduces new cases among high-risk children by advising parents to rid the house of allergens and to take their children for regular checkups Tertiary prevention would be the use of injections or inhalers Another serious problem in childhood is obesity, children are said to be overweight when their body mass above the 85 th percentile for their age and height

A child is considered obese when their body mass index is above the 95 th percentile for their age and height Obesity reduces exercise and increases blood pressure, can persist into adulthood School achievement and self-esteem decrease and loneliness increase as weight increases(Psychosocial implications) Genes are part of the explanation for one child being heavier than another because they affect body type, metabolic rate, activity level, and food preferences People who inherit the FTO gene allele from both parents are more likely to be obese

Obesity is affected by genes and environmental factors such as the diet of the child, parents, and grandparents; lack of physical activity, and excessive television Children that watch more than 2 hours of TV and have more than 2 servings of soda a day are also prone to obesity Physical activity promotes better health, less obesity, cooperation with others, an understanding of fair play, and improves problem solving and social skills maturation of the body and mind, as well as lateralization enable children to enjoy sports and physical activity…but can also lower self-esteem, cause prejudices, and injuries Why have children’s play decreased? Technology, cable, stranger danger

Building on Theory Piaget believed that: ages of 7 and 11- children are in the concrete operational thought stage More recent research suggests that some logical thought appears before middle childhood Piaget revealed that school-age children can use mental categories flexibly, inductively, and simultaneously The child’s ability to classify objects into categories according to some common property improves steadily during middle childhood a key concept in concrete operational thought…family, people, animals, foods...”are there more daisies or more flowers?” Transitive inference is another example of the ability to apply logic that involves making connections that are implied and not stated “John is taller than Jim. Jim is taller than Davis…Who is taller? Transitive inference-  seriation, putting in a series

School age children understand the logical principle of identity-the idea that certain characteristics of an object remains the same even when other characteristics are changes Reversibility-the principle that a transformation can be restored to its original state by undoing it Vygotsky agreed with Piaget’s attention to the actual thinking of the child, but, unlike Piaget, regarded peers and teachers as crucial to cognitive development Vygotsky’s emphasis on the sociocultural context contrasts with Piaget’s more maturational approach Children’s cognition patterns are the same worldwide Children’s understanding of classification is influenced not only by age (Piaget) but also by factors related to social interaction (Vygotsky)…the more people know, the more they learn and remember, expanding their knowledge base According to information-processing theory, incoming stimuli are held for a split second in the sensory memory after which most of it is lost or discarded

Advances in Brain Function reaction time: The time it takes to respond to a stimulus, either physically (with a reflexive movement such as an eye blink) or cognitively (with a thought). How does reaction time change from early to middle childhood? Ah... Yeah! 8

Brain Development As the executive functions of the brain continue to develop in middle childhood, several behaviors that were common in early childhood can be controlled, including emotional outbursts Ongoing maturation of the prefrontal cortex allows children to analyze the consequences of their behaviors before engaging in them Brain maturation is a key factor in reaction time, which naturally improves with age Two other advances in brain function become evident in middle childhood: selective attention and automation *selective attention-the ability to attend to information from many areas of the brain at once and focus on the most important elements about age 7 *automation-the repetition of thoughts and actions allows skills to become automatic

Incoming stimuli is stored for a second in sensory memory Meaningful material is transferred into working memory (aka short term memory) –this part of the memory handles mental activity that is current and conscious Long term memory stores information for days, months, or years Storage of information and retrieval from long-term memory are crucial to development Retrieval is easier for some memories than for others One difference between younger children and older children is that the latter are quicker thinkers Children who can think faster can also think about some things at once; their processing capacity is also increased

School children are more advanced than preschoolers in metacognition, the ability to identify appropriate cognitive strategies for solving particular problems, to monitor problem-solving performance, and to use external problem-solving aids This ability becomes evident by age 9 Metagognition  Metamemory Neurological maturation, including ongoing myelination, helps account for the increased processing speed and capacity of school-age children Repetition makes neurons fire in a coordinated and seemingly instantaneous sequence, so children’s mental activities become routine and automatic Another reason children become better learners in middle childhood is that they have an expanded knowledge base, to which new knowledge becomes progressively easier to add

The mechanisms that put memory, processing speed, and knowledge together are the control processes of selective attention, metacognition, and emotional regulation Control processes are both spontaneous and taught

Language Every culture creates its own hidden curriculum, the unofficial priorities that influence every aspect of school learning The hidden curriculum is reflected in the way the school is organized, the segregation of schools by ethnicity and income, the school’s schedules, and the physical condition of the school During middle childhood, some children learn as many as 20 new words a day and apply grammar rules they did not know before The practical application of linguistic knowledge (pragmatics) also improves markedly at this time Children are increasingly able t switch from proper speed (formal code) to a more colloquial (informal code) with their peers Language development and socioeconomic status are strongly correlated Children from families that are low in income tend to fall behind in talking and then reading

Two other factors that strongly affect language development are parental expectations and language exposure SES influences language development, children in higher SES families hear about 2,000 words an hour, children in lower SES families hear about 600 words…the reasons for lack of adult input correlate with variables associated with low income (financial stress, lack of time, single parenthood, stressful neighborhoods)

Teaching and Learning Two distinct approaches to teaching reading are the: *phonics approach-children learn the sounds of letters first *whole-language approach-children are encouraged to develop all their language skills together Most developmentalists and many reading specialists now believe that teachers should use a variety of methods and strategies Worldwide, many ideological debates swirl around the content and the practice of elementary education Nations vary in how and what they teach and how much they spend to do it They vary in when, how, and whether second-language and religious instruction occur

Two international approaches to objective assessment of children’s school achievement are: *Trends in Math and Science Study (TIMSS) *Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) Subject matter, gender, and nationality are all variables that leave test results open to interpretation Japanese children outcome US children in math and science on academic achievement tests: this is one reason why US passed the No Child Left Behind Act The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a federal law that mandates annual standardized achievement tests for public school children beginning in the third grade This act implemented the Reading First program, reflecting the idea that the primary item of curriculum should be reading

The National Assessment of Education Program (NAEP) measures achievement in reading, mathematics, and other subjects Math education is more problematic than instruction in reading-this is because advances in science and technology seem to be connected to a nation’s economic development, many children hate math, and Western nations are behind East Asian nations A new approach in math replaces rote learning with an emphasis on engagement and active learning In one study, US teachers presented math at a lower level with more definitions but less connection to other learning In contrast, teachers in Japan and Germany worked more collaboratively to build children’s knowledge Most teachers, parents, and politicians assume that children learn best with fewer students in each classroom-this is supported by research, but this research is left to interpretation Aptitude tests are designed to measure learning potential Achievement tests are designed to measure what a child has learned The most commonly used aptitude tests are intelligence tests, referred to as IQ tests

Measuring the Mind What is a theoretical distribution of IQ scores? aptitude: The potential to master a specific skill or to learn a certain body of knowledge. IQ test: A test designed to measure intellectual aptitude, or ability to learn in school. Theoretical Distribution of IQ Scores Moderate to severe retardation Mild retardation Slow learnerSuperior Gifted Genius Average 0.14% 2.13% 13.6% 68.26% 13.6% 2.13% 0.14% 18

The average IQ scores of nations have increased, a phenomenon called the Flynn Effect Historically, children with IQs below 70 % were classified as having mental retardation Today, they must also be unusually low in adaptation to daily life; Gifted children usually have IQs above 130 IQ testing is controversial because no test can measure aptitude w/o also measuring achievement Intellectual potential changes over time, and culture comes into play Robert Sternberg believes that there were three distinct types of intelligence: academic, creative, and practical

Children with Special Needs About 13 % of children have special needs Children with special needs require extra help in order to learn because of the difficulties posed by psychological disorders such as attention-deficit Some of the conditions that are labeled as special needs are: anxiety disorder, autism, conduct disorder, clinical depression, developmental delay, learning disabilities Special needs: Down syndrome, attachment disorder, attention-deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, and Asperger syndrome These conditions begin with a biological anomaly

The field of developmental psychopathology applies insights from studies of normal development to the origins and treatment of childhood disorders, and vice versa Research in this area has provided four lessons: a. Abnormality is normal b. Disability changes over time c. Adulthood may be better or worse d. Diagnosis begins with the social context The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM-IV-R) recognizes that each child’s cultural frame of references needs to be understood before any disorder can be diagnoses

Developmental Psychopathology What are some disorders that school-age children experience? dyslexia: Unusual difficulty with reading; thought to be the result of some neurological underdevelopment. ADHD (attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder): A condition in which a person not only has great difficulty concentrating for more than a few moments but also is inattentive, impulsive, and overactive. autistic spectrum disorder: Any of several disorders characterized by inadequate social skills, impaired communications, and unusual play. 22

Attention-deficit disorder (ADD) is a puzzling childhood problem The most common type is ADHD (attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder) in which the child has great difficulty concentrating for more than a few moments at a time and is almost always in motion A child with ADHD is: inattentive, impulsive, and overactive, seems to have a neurological difficulty that hinders their ability to pay attention Conditions such as delinquency are comorbid with ADHD

The most effective treatment for ADHD is a combination of medication, psychological therapy, and training for parents and teachers For unknown reasons, drugs that stimulate adults, such as Adderell and Ritalin, have a reverse effect on hyperactive children Most psychologists agree that drugs are both overused and over prescribed for children with ADHD A learning disability is a marked delay in a particular area of learning that is not caused by any apparent physical disability, by mental retardation, or by an unusually stressful home environment A common learning disability is dyslexia, which is unusual difficulty with reading, originating with speech and hearing problems Early speech therapy may reduce or prevent later reading problems Autistic spectrum disorders are characterized by inadequate social skills, impaired communication, and abnormal play Autism is one of several types of autistic spectrum disorders

Autistic children are unable to relate to other people normally, are self-absorbed, and they are unable to acquired normal speech The problem may be a deficit in the brain’s mirror neurons Asperger syndrome (also called “high functioning autism”) is a disorder in which a person has impaired social interaction but near-normal communication skills and brilliance in some areas Although genes make some embryos vulnerable to autism, another possibility is that some teratogens harm their developing brains Some teratogens are pesticides, cleaning chemical, and some ingredients in nail polish One suspected teratogen was the antiseptic thimerosal, which was used in childhood immunizations but this hypothesis was disproved and thimerosal was removed from vaccines

Various programs have been developed to treat autistic children; some emphasize language, others stress attachment, and still others encourage social connections For all children with special needs, individual instruction before age 6 often helps to develop better learning strategies The process of formally identifying a child with special needs usually begins with a teacher referral, which may ultimately lead to agreement on an individual education plan (IEP) for the child. About 35 years ago, a US law mandated that children with special needs must learn in the least restrictive environment (LRE), which meant mainstreaming them in a regular classroom. Some schools developed a resource room in which special-needs children would spend time with a teacher who worked individually with them; very controversial (targeted) In the most recent approach, inclusion, learning-disabled children receive targeted help within regular classrooms

About 10 % of the student population in the United States are English language learners (ELLs) A good time to learn a second language is in middle childhood Many American children, most notably from Asian American backgrounds, make a language shift-replacing their original language with English Many bilingual education classes have been tried: *total immersion-instruction occurs entirely in the second language, to the opposite, in which the second language is taught as a “foreign” language *bilingual education-teachers teach children in both their native language and English In ESL (English as a second language) programs must master the basics of English before joining regular classes with other children

The crucial difference between success and failure in second-language learning rests with the attitudes of parents, teachers, and the community Immersion programs tend to fail if the child fees shy, stupid, or socially isolated