1. Chapter 7: Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle and Late Childhood

2. Body Growth and Change Growth averages 2–3 inches per year
Weight gain averages 5–7 pounds a year
Muscle mass and strength increase as “baby fat” decreases

3. The Brain Brain volume stabilizes
Significant changes in structures and regions occur, especially in the prefrontal cortex
Characterized by pruning of unused synaptic connections.

4. Motor Development Motor skills become smoother and more coordinated
Hitting a tennis ball over net:
3-Years-Old: 1 in 1000
10-Years-Old: Vast majority.
Boys generally outperform girls in gross motor skills involving large muscle activity
Improvement of fine motor skills during middle and late childhood due to increased myelination of the central nervous system.

5. Exercise

6. Exercise
Study: 45 minutes of moderate physical activity and 15 minutes of vigorous physical activity daily correlated with decreased risk of being overweight.
Higher level of physical activity is linked to:
Lower level of metabolic disease risk based on measures:
Cholesterol, waist circumference, and insulin levels
Parents set examples:
Mothers most likely to intervene if child is overweight.
Father have strong influence on their sons’ physical activity by example.

7. Exercise (Play) Benefits: Better overall health, including less asthma
Less obesity
Appreciation of cooperation and fair play
Improved problem-solving ability
Respect for teammates and opponents (socialization)

8. Exercise (Play) But there are hazards as well:
Loss of self-esteem because of critical teammates or coaches
Increases in stress
evidenced by altered hormone levels, insomnia
Injuries
the infamous "Little League elbow”
Prejudice
especially against the other sex

9. Health, Illness, and Disease
Middle and late childhood is a time of excellent health
Disease and death are less prevalent
Many face health problems that harm their development
Most fatal diseases and accidents occur before or after middle childhood.

10. Health, Illness, and Disease
Overweight children
1970’s = 15%
Today = 30%
Causes of children being overweight
Parent’s eating habits (overweight parents)
Availability of food
Food quality
Screen time

11. Health, Illness, and Disease
Consequences of being overweight
Diabetes, hypertension, and elevated blood cholesterol levels
Target of teasing (by peers and family members); Low self-esteem
Intervention programs
Best interventions include parents changing lifestyles as well.
TV Study
Children’s watching of TV made contingent of exercise.
Screen time decreased
Exercise increased

12. Health, Illness, and Disease
Cancer
Second leading cause of death in children 5–14 years old
Most common child cancer is leukemia
Over production of white blood cells.
Children with cancer are surviving longer because of advancements in cancer treatment
80% cure rate with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
50% cure rate for adults

13. Types of Cancer in Children

14. The Scope of Disabilities
Learning disability: Difficulty in learning that involves understanding or using spoken or written language, and the difficulty can appear in listening, thinking, reading, writing, and spelling
Dyslexia - Severe impairment in the ability to read and spell
Dysgraphia - Difficulty in handwriting
Dyscalculia - Developmental arithmetic disorder
Learning aided with special or alternative instructions
There is no clear cause for learning disabilities.

15. The Scope of Disabilities
DSM V
Specific Learning Disorder - A marked delay in a particular area of learning that is not caused by an apparent physical disability, by intellectual disability, or by an unusually stressful home environment.
With impairment in reading
With impairment in written expression
With impairment in mathematics

16. The Scope of Disabilities
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity
Number of children diagnosed has increased
Awareness has increased
Referral Bias: Boys more likely diagnosed than girls (learning disabilities)
Using identical vignettes: boys diagnosed 20% more than girls.
Possible causes
Genetics
Brain damage during prenatal or postnatal development
Cigarette and alcohol exposure during prenatal development
Low birth weight
Based on brain imaging techniques (ADHD & Learning Disorders)
Marked delay in thickness of cerebral cortex.
Primarily frontal lobe.
Treatments*
Behavioral modification
Medication (Adderall – amphetamine)
* Does not decrease attention problems to level of child without ADHD.

17. Regions of the Brain in Which Children with ADHD had a Delayed Peak in the Thickness of the Cerebral Cortex

18. The Scope of Disabilities
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Range from severe (formerly autistic disorder) to relatively mild (formerly Asperger syndrome).
Autistic disorder
Deficiencies in social relationships, abnormalities in communication, restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior
Asperger syndrome - Good verbal language skills
Milder nonverbal language problems
Restricted range of interests and relationships
Thimerosal & vaccine safety.
Research does not show any link between thimerosal and autism spectrum disorder.

19. Educational Issues
Public Law / IDEA: Requires that all children with disabilities by given a free and appropriate public education.
Individualized Education Plan (IEP): Written statement that is specifically tailored for the disabled student
Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): Setting that is as similar as possible to the one in which non-disabled children are educated
Inclusion: Educating a child with special education needs full-time in the regular classroom (Do special education students benefit from this?)
This growing trend influences the movement from institutional model to residential model for adults with severe intellectual disabilities.

20. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
Concrete operational stage
Ages 7 to 11
Children can perform concrete operations and reason logically, and are able to classify things into different sets
Seriation: Ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension.
Seriation is crucial for understanding the number sequence.
Transitivity: Ability to logically combine relations to understand certain conclusions
Adam is taller than Bill. Bill is Taller than Charlie.
Who is taller Adam or Charlie?
Limits of concrete operations: Incapable of abstract reasoning or hypothetical concepts.

21. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
Neo-Piagetians: Argue that Piaget got some things right but that his theory needs considerable revision
Concrete operational abilities do not appear in synchrony
Elaborated on Piaget’s theory, giving more emphasis to:
How children use attention, memory, and strategies to process information

22. Information Processing
A perspective that compares human thinking processes, by analogy, to computer analysis of data, including sensory input, connections, stored memories, and output.
Automatization- A process in which repetition of a sequence of thoughts and actions makes the sequence routine, so that it no longer requires conscious thought.
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).

23. Information Processing
Your brain works in interesting ways.
For instance: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

24. Stroop Test

25. Theories About Cognition
Sensory memory- The component of the information processing system in which incoming stimulus information is stored for a split second to allow it to be processed.
Working memory- The component of the information processing system in which current, conscious mental activity occurs. (Also called short-term memory.)
Long-term memory- The component of the information processing system in which virtually limitless amounts of information can be stored indefinitely.
The capacity of long-term memory is virtually limitless by the end of middle childhood.
Memory storage (how much information is deposited in the brain) expands over childhood, but more important is retrieval (how readily stored material can be brought into working memory).

26. Information Processing
Strategies: Deliberate mental activities that improve the processing of information
Elaboration: Extensive processing of the information
Engage in mental imagery
Understanding the material
Repeat with variation
Embed memory-relevant language
Mnemonic device
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos

27. Information Processing
Fuzzy trace theory (dual process theory of memory): Considering two types of memory representations:
Verbatim memory trace (recollective retrieval)
Gist (nonrecollective retrieval)

28. Information Processing
Thinking:
Involves manipulating and transforming information in memory
Critical thinking: reflecting and productively, evaluating evidence.
Superficial testing in school (including college) does not encourage critical thought.
Creative thinking (creative problem solving): Ability to think in novel and unusual ways
Come up with unique solutions to problems
Convergent vs Divergent thinking
Convergent thinking: Produces one correct answer
Kind of thinking tested by standardized intelligence tests
Divergent thinking: Produces many answers to the same question
Creativity on decline (T.V. and video games are blamed for this as well)

29. Information Processing
Metacognition: Cognition about cognition
Metamemory - Knowledge about memory
We know the multiple choices tests are easier than essay tests.

30. Intelligence
Intelligence: Ability to solve problems and to adapt and learn from experiences
Aptitude: The potential to master a specific skill or to learn a certain body of knowledge.

31. Intelligence Binet tests
1904 French ministry of Education asked Alfred Binet to devise method of identifying child who were unable to learn in school.
Binet-Simon Scale (later revised with IQ scale to Stanford-Binet)
Mental age (MA): Individual’s level of mental development relative to others

32. The Normal Curve and Stanford-Binet IQ Scores
Intelligence quotient (IQ): Person’s mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100.
Normal distribution: Symmetrical distribution
Most scores falling in the middle of the possible range of scores
Few scores appearing toward the extremes of the range
Standard Deviation = 15

33. Intelligence
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V)- An IQ test designed for school-age children. The test assesses potential in many areas, including vocabulary, general knowledge, memory, and spatial comprehension.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale(WAIS-IV)
Flynn effect - The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations.

34. Sample Subscales of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)

35. Intelligence Types of intelligence
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence
Analytical intelligence: Analyze, compare, contrast.
Creative intelligence: Create, design
Practical intelligence: Implementing new ideas/street smarts.
Argues schools do not take creative and practical intelligence into consideration.

36. Intelligence Gardner’s eight frames of mind:
Verbal
Mathematical
Spatial
Bodily-kinesthetic
Musical
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalist (good with plants)
Evaluating multiple-intelligence approaches/Defining intelligence

37. Intelligence Interpreting differences in IQ scores
Influences of genetics vs Environmental influences
Nature vs Nurture
Intelligence

38. Intelligence Culture and intelligence Group differences
Variations among ethnic groups (possibly result of cultural bias). Decreases among students who make it to college.
Culture and intelligence
Cultures may emphasize different aspects of intelligence.
Culture-fair tests: Designed to be free of cultural bias
Possible?

39. Extremes of Intelligence
Intellectual Disability (formerly referred to as: Mental Retardation): Limited mental ability in which an individual has a low IQ and has difficulty adapting to everyday life
In practice, people are considered to have an Intellectual Disability if they score below 70 on an IQ test and if they are markedly behind their peers in the ability to meet the basic requirements of daily life (activities of daily life (ADLs)).

40. Extremes of Intelligence
Organic Intellectual Disability: Caused by a genetic disorder or brain damage.
Lissencephaly-
Down Syndrome
Cultural-familial Intellectual Disability:
No evidence of organic brain damage
IQ is generally between 50 and 70
Normal variations of intelligence & limited simulating environment.

41. Extremes of Intelligence
Gifted: Above-average intelligence and/or superior talent for something (130 IQ or higher).
Three criteria
Precocity: early mastery
Marching to their own drummer: require little instruction or resist instruction
A passion to master: self motivated
Domain-specific giftedness and development
Gifted children tend to have one primary domain.
Education of children who are gifted
Excluded from other students
Under-challenged in classroom

42. Reading
Whole-language approach: Reading instruction should parallel children’s natural language learning
Phonics approach: Reading instruction should teach basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds
Both approaches have benefits
Phonics better for early readers or those having difficulty
A focus on phonics need not undercut instruction that motivates children to read, write, and discuss with their classmates and their parents.

43. Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning
Bilingualism has a positive effect on children’s cognitive development
Subtractive bilingualism
Bilingual education
Research supports bilingual education
Children have difficulty learning a subject when it is taught in a language they do not understand
When both languages are integrated in the classroom, children learn the second language more readily