1. Infants, Children, and Adolescents
Eighth Edition
Chapter 12
Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

2. Learning Objectives (1 of 3)
12.1 What are the major characteristics of concrete operational thought?
12.2 Discuss follow-up research on concrete operational thought.
12.3 Cite basic changes in information processing, and describe the development of attention and memory in middle childhood.
12.4 Describe the school-age child’s theory of mind and capacity to engage in self-regulation.
12.5 Discuss current perspectives on teaching reading and mathematics to elementary school children.

3. Learning Objectives (2 of 3)
12.6 Describe major approaches to defining intelligence.
12.7 Describe evidence indicating that both heredity and environment contribute to intelligence.
12.8 Describe changes in metalinguistic awareness, vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics during middle childhood.
12.9 Describe bilingual development, along with advantages of bilingualism in childhood.
12.10 Describe the impact of class size and educational philosophies on children’s motivation and academic achievement.

4. Learning Objectives (3 of 3)
12.11 Discuss the role of teacher–student interaction and grouping practices in academic achievement.
12.12 Describe benefits of, as well as concerns about, educational media.
12.13 Under what conditions is placement of children with mild intellectual disability or learning disabilities in regular classrooms successful?
12.14 Describe the characteristics of gifted children and efforts to meet their educational needs.
12.15 How well-educated are U.S. children compared with children in other industrialized nations?

5. Piaget’s Theory: The Concrete Operational Stage
Conservation
Decentration
Reversibility
Classification
Seriation
Transitive inference: ability to seriate mentally
Spatial reasoning
Cognitive maps: mental representations of spaces

6. Maps Drawn by Older School-Age Children from India and the United States
Figure 12.1: Maps drawn by older school-age children from India and the United States
Figure 12.1
(From G. Parameswaran, 2003, “Experimenter Instructions as a Mediator in the Effects of Culture on Mapping One’s Neighborhood,” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23, pp. 415–416. Copyright © 2003, reprinted with permission from Elsevier, Ltd., conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.)

7. Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought
Children’s mental operations
are most effective when dealing with concrete information.
work poorly with abstract ideas.
Continuum of acquisition:
Children master concrete operational tasks step by step, not all at once.
Gradual mastery of logical concepts indicates limitations of concrete operational thinking.

8. Follow-Up Research on Concrete-Operational Thought
Impact of culture and schooling:
Experience of attending school promotes mastery of Piagetian tasks.
Certain informal, nonschool experiences can also foster operational thought.
Neo-Piagetian theories:
Operational thinking represents expansion of information- processing capacity.
Central conceptual structures enable children to think effectively in wide range of situations.
Neo-Piagetian approaches account for unevenness in cognitive development.

9. Information-Processing Perspective
Executive function
improves, supporting gains in planning, strategic thinking, and self-monitoring.
is influenced by combination of heredity and environmental factors.
Working-memory capacity
benefits from increased efficiency of thinking.
is often deficient in children with persistent learning difficulties in reading and math.
can be increased through direct training.

10. Attention in Middle Childhood
Attention becomes more
selective (increased ability to attend only to relevant aspects of a task).
flexible (ability to flexibly adapt attention to situational requirements).
planful (increased ability to evaluate a sequence of steps in advance).

11. Memory Strategies Memory strategies improve:
Rehearsal: repeating items to oneself
Organization: grouping related items together
Elaboration: creating relationship between pieces of information from different categories
Combining several strategies is most effective approach.
Organization and elaboration combine items into meaningful chunks, further expanding working memory.

12. Culture, Schooling, and Memory Strategies
People in village cultures see no practical reason to use memory strategies.
Strategy use is motivated by tasks that require isolated recall, as in classrooms.
Children in developed nations do not use other memory cues, such as spatial location or object arrangement.
Societal modernization predicts
extent of schooling.
children’s scores on cognitive measures, including memory.

13. Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Symptoms:
Unable to stay focused on task requiring mental effort for more than a few minutes
Often ignore social rules and lash out when frustrated
Origins:
Highly heritable, but also related to environmental factors
Associated with a stressful home life
Treatment:
Stimulant medication reduces symptoms in 70% of children, but drugs have risks.
Best approach is medication combined with interventions that model and reinforce appropriate behavior.

14. Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood
School-age children view the mind as an active, constructive agent that selects and transforms information.
Children understand more about sources of knowledge, including mental inferences and second-order beliefs.
Children appreciate second-order false belief—incorrect beliefs about other people’s beliefs—which requires recursive thought.
ERP and fMRI evidence reveals increasing selectivity in brain regions recruited when thinking about another’s mental states.
Schooling contributes to more reflective, process-oriented view of the mind.
Children develop greater consciousness of how and why mental strategies work.

15. A Second-Order False Belief Task
Figure 12.3: A second-order false belief task
Figure 12.3
(Adapted from Astington, Pelletier, & Homer, 2002.)

16. Cognitive Self-Regulation
Process of cognitive self-regulation involves
continuously monitoring progress toward a goal.
checking outcomes.
redirecting unsuccessful efforts.
Parents and teachers can foster self-regulation by
pointing out important features of a task.
suggesting strategies and explaining their effectiveness.
Acquiring effective self-regulatory skills promotes a sense of academic self-efficacy.

17. Applying Information Processing to Academic Learning: Reading
Whole language:
Children are exposed to text in complete form from the beginning.
Promotes appreciation of communicative function of written language.
Phonics:
Children are first coached on phonics—rules for translating written symbols into sounds.
Complex reading material is introduced only after mastering these skills.
Children learn best with a mixture of whole-language and phonics approaches.

18. Sequence of Reading Development
Age
Development
2–5 years
“Pretends” to read and write.
Prints own name and other words.
5–6 years
Recognizes familiar written words.
Decodes simple, one-syllable words.
Retells story main events in sequence.
6–7 years
Decodes regularly spelled one-syllable words.
Recognizes some irregularly spelled words.
7­–8 years
Reads grade-level stories more fluently, while also comprehending.
Decodes multisyllable words and more irregularly spelled words.
9–15 years
Reads to acquire new knowledge.
Understands different types of texts: biographies, fiction, poetry.
15–18 years
Reads more widely, exploring diverse viewpoints.

19. Applying Information Processing to Academic Learning: Mathematics
Math teaching in elementary school builds on informal knowledge of number concepts and counting.
Mix of drill in computing and “number sense” is most effective approach.
Understanding effective strategies is essential for solid mastery of basic mathematics.

20. Defining and Measuring Intelligence
Around age 6, IQ becomes more stable and predicts
school performance.
educational attainment.
Current IQ tests
provide an overall score representing general intelligence and separate scores measuring specific mental abilities.
do not measure all aspects of intelligence.
Factor analysis is used to identify abilities measured by intelligence tests.

21. IQ Tests Group-administered tests allow testing of large groups.
require little training to administer.
are useful for instructional planning.
identify students who need further evaluation.

22. IQ Tests (continued) Individually administered tests
demand considerable training and experience to give well.
provide insight into whether test score accurately reflects child’s abilities.
are often used to identify highly intelligent children and those with learning problems.

23. Types of Tests Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, Fifth Edition
Age 2 to adulthood
Measures five intellectual factors: general knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, working memory, basic information processing.
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV
Ages 6 to 16
Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence–Revised (for younger children)
Measures four broad intellectual factors: verbal reasoning, perceptual (or visual-spatial) reasoning, working memory, processing speed.

24. Recent Efforts to Define Intelligence
Componential analyses look for relationships between aspects of information processing and test scores.
Processing speed is moderately correlated with IQ.
Other equally important factors are
flexible attention.
memory.
reasoning strategies.

25. Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence
Figure 12.5: Steinberg’s triarchic theory of successful intelligence
Figure 12.5

26. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Howard Gardner proposed eight independent intelligences:
linguistic
logico-mathematical
musical
spatial
bodily-kinesthetic
naturalist
interpersonal
intrapersonal

27. Explaining Group and Individual Differences in IQ
Heredity:
Heredity accounts for about half of individual differences in IQ.
It does not explain the complex processes through which genes and experience influence intelligence.
Environment:
Adoption research confirms that heredity and environment jointly contribute to IQ.
Evidence suggests that poverty severely depresses intelligence of ethnic minority children.
Generational gains in IQ (Flynn effect) challenge assumption that ethnic group variations are genetic.

28. Cultural Influences on IQ
Language and communication styles:
use of African-American dialect
collaborative vs. hierarchical style of communication between many ethnic minority parents and children
Knowledge:
specific information acquired through majority-culture upbringing
effects of knowledge on reasoning ability
amount of time spent in school
Stereotypes:
effect of stereotype threat—fear of being judged on basis of negative stereotype

29. Reducing Cultural Bias in Testing
“Static” assessments underestimate how well children can do after adult assistance.
Dynamic assessment
is a form of testing in which adult introduces purposeful teaching into testing situation.
is consistent with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.
reveals what a child can attain with social support.

30. Language Development in Middle Childhood
Metalinguistic awareness develops.
Vocabulary increases fourfold:
Reading contributes enormously to vocabulary growth.
Children grasp double meanings, appreciate riddles and puns.
Mastery of grammar increases:
Children use passive voice more frequently.
Understanding of infinitive phrases advances.
Dramatic gains occur in pragmatics:
Children can adapt to needs of listeners in challenging communicative situations.
Ability to evaluate clarity of others’ messages improves.
Narratives advance in organization, detail, and expressiveness.

31. Learning Two Languages
Children can become bilingual by
learning two languages at once.
learning a first language, then a second.
Bilingual children (like adults) engage in code switching—producing an utterance in one language containing “guest” words from the other.
A sensitive period for second-language development exists.
Children who become fluent in two languages develop more efficient executive-function skills.
Advantages of bilingualism provide strong justification for bilingual education.
In the United States, bilingual education is controversial.

32. Academic Achievement and Class Size
Small class size from kindergarten through third grade
predicts greater likelihood of graduating from high school.
is associated with better academic progress.
Teachers in small classes
spend less time disciplining.
spend more time teaching and giving individual attention.
Children who learn in smaller groups show
better concentration.
higher-quality class participation.
more favorable attitudes toward school.

33. Educational Philosophies
Traditional vs. constructivist classrooms
Social-constructivist classrooms:
reciprocal teaching
communities of learners
Teacher–student interaction:
strong impact on academic self-esteem, achievement, and social behavior of at-risk children
educational self-fulfilling prophecies
Grouping practices:
homogeneous vs. heterogeneous learning contexts
cooperative learning

34. Magnet Schools
Racial divide in U.S. schools has improved only modestly since 2000.
Inner-city schools are vastly disadvantaged in funding and educational opportunities.
Magnet schools offer usual curriculum plus specific area of interest, such as performing arts.
Research suggests higher achievement in reading and math achievement for low-SES, ethnic minority students attending magnet schools.

35. Educational Media
Computers and Internet access are integrated into schools in industrialized nations.
Computer use is associated with academic progress: word processing, problem solving, metacognition.
Nonviolent video game play has cognitive benefits: gains in eye-and- hand coordination, visual processing speed, attention, strategic thinking, spatial reasoning.
Digital divide:
Low-SES homes are less likely to have computers/Internet, especially tablets and educational apps.
Boys spend more time with screen media than girls.
Girls and low-SES students need opportunities to benefit from positive aspects of screen-media technology.

36. Teaching Children with Special Needs
Inclusive classrooms:
Children with learning difficulties learn alongside typical students for part or all of school day.
Students with mild intellectual disability may be included.
Some students experience full inclusion.
If steps are taken to promote positive peer relationships, inclusion can foster prosocial behavior.
Students with learning disabilities:
These students have great difficulty with one or more aspects of learning, usually reading.
Some benefit academically from inclusion, but many do not.
Achievement gains depend on severity of disability and support services available.

37. Gifted and Talented Children
Giftedness:
Exceptional intellectual strength
Usually measured by high IQ
Creativity: measured by divergent thinking
Talent:
Outstanding performance in a specific field
Must be nurtured

38. Figural Measure of Divergent Thinking
Figure 12.7: Responses of an 8-year-old who scored high on a figural measure of divergent thinking
Figure 12.7
(Reprinted by permission of Laura E. Berk.)

39. How Well-Educated Are U.S. Children?
Factors that affect educational quality:
societal values
school resources
quality of teaching
parental support
Performance of U.S. students in international comparisons:
typically at or below international averages
less challenging, more fact-focused instruction; less opportunity for high- level reasoning, critical thinking.
large socioeconomic inequalities associated with lower achievement
U.S. families, schools, society must work together to upgrade education.

40. Average Mathematics Scores of 15-Year-Olds by Country
Figure 12.8: Average mathematics scores of 15-year-olds by country
Figure 12.8
(Adapted from Programme for International Student Assessment, 2012.)

41. Strategies for Improving U.S. Education
Support parents in
attaining economic security.
creating stimulating home learning environments.
monitoring children’s academic progress.
communicating often with teachers.
Invest in high-quality preschool education.
Strengthen teacher education.
Provide intellectually challenging, relevant instruction with real-world applications.
Vigorously pursue school improvements that reduce large inequities in quality between SES and ethnic groups.

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