Module 4

Middle and Late Childhood

PHYSICAL CHANGES

Growth and Motor Development from 6 to 12

▪ General growth
▪ Large muscle coordination
▪ Fine motor control
▪ Eye-hand coordination improvement

Gender Differences

Girls:
▪ Faster in overall growth rate
▪ Slightly more fat and less muscle
▪ Better coordination

Boys:
▪ Boys faster and stronger

Motor Development

● Smoother and more coordinated

● Fine motor skills improve because of increase in myelination of CNS
● Boys usually outperform girls in gross motor skills
○ More muscle cells, testosterone (biological)
○ Type of play -- competitive, number of group members
○ Gender socialization
● GIrls usually outperform boys in fine motor skills

The Brain and Nervous System

Major Middle Childhood Growth Spurts

● From 6 to 8 years: Increases in the sensory and motor cortex
● From 10 to 12 years: Frontal lobes and cerebral cortex add synapses
● Myelination continuation
○ → Frontal Lobe and reticular formation links → Associational
Area neurons

COGNITIVE CHANGES

The Brain and Nervous System

Spatial perception lateralization
- Improves learning math concepts and problem-solving

Spatial cognition
- Ability to infer rules from and make predictions about movements of objects in
space

Health and Wellness

● Obesity as a risk factor for medical and psychological problems

○ Diabetes, hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels
○ Low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, teasing by peers
● Obesity as caused by heredity and environment
○ More food available
○ More energy-saving devices
○ Declining physical activities
○ Advent of mobile technology
○ Parents’ eating habits and monitoring of children’s eating habits

Rate and Type of Injury Changes with Age

➢ Head Injuries - Motor vehicles and bicycles

➢ Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) - Reduced by helmet usage

Asthma: Chronic disease that causes airways to become sore and swollen

• Causes: Allergens, irritants, weather, exercise, infections

• Consequences: Most frequent cause of school absence

Obesity

➢ Excess body fat that has adverse effect on health

➢ Most serious long-term health risk of middle childhood
➢ Affecting nearly 1 to 5 children
➢ Associated with adult obesity
➢ Let’s look at the prevalence of overweight children over time: See in your
textbook Figure 9.1 Prevalence of Overweight among U.S. 6-11 Years Old

Language

During the school-aged years, children:

▪ Demonstrate improved grammar skills and pronunciation
▪ Engage in conversation with many ages
▪ Increase in vocabulary, especially derived words

Cognitive Development
 Early Childhood Middle and Late Childhood
(Preoperational Thinking) (Concrete Operations)

● Believe that others see the world ● Mental operations

as they do ○ Cognitive actions that can
● Confuse appearances with reality be performed on objects or
● Unable to reverse their thinking ideas

Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage

➢ Concrete Operational Stage: Thinking logically about concrete concepts but

have difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts

➢ School-aged children:
▪ Understand rules that govern physical reality
▪ Distinguish between appearance and reality
▪ Utilize a set of powerful schemas

Do you know what powerful schema school-aged children use?

1. Decentration
i. the ability to attend to or consider multiple aspects or
features of a situation or problem simultaneously
2. Reversibility
i. ability to think through a series of steps; then mentally reverse the
steps and return to the starting point
3. Seriation
i. arranging objects in sequential order according to one aspect, such
as size, weight or volume
4. Inductive logic
i. using examples and observations to derive with a conclusion
5. Deductive logic
i. reasoning flows from general to specific

➢ Direct Tests of Piaget’s View

1. Horizontal decalage: Applying new thinking to all kinds of problems

2. Conservation: Ability to logically determine certain quantity remains same

despite adjustment of container, shape or apparent size
 3. Siegler
→ Concrete Operations as Rules for Problem Solving

● Cognitive development consists of acquiring a set of basic rules

applied to broader ranges of problems.
● Movement from one rule to next requires experience
● This approach is a cross between Piaget’s and information
processing theories
● See in your textbook Figure 9.5 Piaget’s Balance Task

➢ Advances in Information Processing Skills

1. Processing Efficiency: Ability to make efficient use of short-term memory

capacity.
▪ Major component of cognitive growth
▪ Increases speed of cognitive processing
▪ Change validated with cross-cultural research

2. Automaticity: Ability to recall information from long term memory without

using short term memory capacity.
▪ Frees up short-term memory space for more complex processing ▪
Achieved primarily through practice

3. Executive and Strategic Processes

Executive processes: Information processing skills allowing a person to

devise and carry out alternative strategies for remembering and problem
 solving.
▪ Metacognition: thinking about thinking
▪ Memory strategies

4. Expertise: Amount of information possessed improves information

processing
▪ Categorize information in complex and hierarchical ways
▪ Stirs capacity for creativity
▪ Chi research

Cognitive Self-Regulation: skill at identifying goals, selecting effective

strategies, and monitoring accurately

SCHOOLING
OVERVIEW
▪ Every society seeks ways of teaching children skills needed in adulthood ▪ In
U.S., formal education is one of the most important influence on cognitive
development in middle childhood

Intelligence: problem solving skills and ability to learn

- IQ = (MA divided by CA) x 100
- MA - Mental age
- Chronological age

Theories of Intelligence
● Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory
○ Analytical intelligence: ability to analyze, judge, evaluate,
compare and contrast
○ Creative intelligence: ability to create, design, invent,
imagine
○ Practical intelligence: ability to use, apply, put ideas
● Cattell-Horn Theory
○ Crystallized intelligence
● Accumulated information and verbal skills
● Episodic (life experiences, autobiographical), semantic
(facts) memory
● Based on facts and experiences
○ Fluid intelligence
● Capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel
situations
● Independent of learning, experience and education
● Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence
 ● Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence
○ Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to
access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to
understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to
reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and
intellectual growth

Literacy: Ability to read and write

▪ Phonological awareness
▪ Balanced approach utilizes systematic and explicit phonics instruction
▪ Sound-symbol connections and explicit language mechanics instruction ▪
Curriculum flexibility

Second-Language Learners

▪ Limited English Proficient (LEP): Limited ability to read, write, speak, or

understand English
▪ English Language Learners (ELL): Limited English proficiency prevents full
 participation in regular education classes
▪ By 2008, one-half of all U.S. classrooms had one or more ELL or LEP students
▪ Programs and services provided
✓ Bilingual education
✓ ESL
✓ Home-school programs
▪ No single approach is most successful
▪ Any structured program better than submersion
▪ Transition to English-only programs is necessary

Achievement and Intelligence Tests

▪ Standardized tests: Individual performance determined by comparing score

to average score obtained from large sample of similar individuals
▪ Kinds of Tests
✓ Achievement tests
✓ Paper and pencil intelligence tests
▪ Multiple Intelligence: Howard Gardner
▪ Triarchic Theory: Robert Sternberg
▪ Emotional Intelligence: Daniel Goleman

Group Differences in Achievement

▪ Sex differences
✓ No consistent differences between boys and girls on total IQ or
achievement test scores
✓ Differences shaped by interaction between biology and environmental
factors

▪ Ethic differences
✓ Problems associated with economic status; access to prenatal care; family
stability

▪ Style differences
✓ Analytic
✓ Relational

Cross Cultural Differences in Achievement

▪ U.S. children significantly behind industrialized nation peers in math and

science
▪ North American parents emphasize innate ability; Asians emphasize hard
work
▪ Teaching methods vary
▪ Studies may be measuring surface rather than subtle variations
CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

OVERVIEW
▪ 13% of all U.S. children receive some kind of special education
▪ In your book, see table 9.4 for list of disabilities for which U.S. children receive
special education services
▪ One of the growing categories of disabilities include learning disabilities

Learning Disabilities

Gifted Children
- Above average intelligence (IQ: 130 and above)
- Creative and has superior intelligence/talent in a certain field/area
- Criteria for giftedness
- Learns quickly and easily
- Needs minimal help
- Intensely driven and focused

Children with Intellectual Disability

- Children with substantially below average intelligence and problems adapting to
an environment that occur before the age of 19

Children with Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities: Disorder in which a child has difficulty in mastering
specific academic skill, even though she or he possesses normal intelligence
and no physical or sensory handicap.

Disability:
1. Dyslexia – skill deficit specific to reading and may include difficulty
understanding sound and structure of language.

✓ Teaching Approaches:
o Reciprocal teaching – working in pairs or groups
o Inclusion: at least part of school day in regular classroom

2. Dysgraphia
a. Difficulty in handwriting
b. Spatial and visual difficulties; problems in information processing

3. Dyscalculia
a. Arithmetic disorder

4. Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

▪ ADHD: Neurobiological disorder characterized by developmentally
inappropriate impulsivity, inattention, and in some cases, hyperactivity.
▪ Causes
▪ Cultural factors
▪ Treatment
 Criteria
- Inattention (e.g., easily distracted)
- Hyperactivity (e.g., extreme kind of energy level)
- Impulsivity (e.g., doing things without thinking of the consequences)

Academic Skills
1. Reading
a. Word recognition: process of identifying a unique pattern of letters
b. Comprehension: process of extracting meaning from a sequence of words
c. Phonological awareness: ability to hear the distinctive sounds of letters

2. Writing
a. Knowledge-telling strategy: writing down information as it is retrieved form
memory
b. Knowledge-transforming strategy: deciding what information to include and
how best to organize it to convey a point

3. Math/Arithmetic
a. Math skills:
i. Arithmetic
ii. Additio, subtraction, multiplication, division

Theories of Social and Personality Development

Psychoanalytic Theories
o Freud: challenge is to form emotional bonds with peers and move beyond
sole earlier formed bonds (psychosexual stage of development: latency
stage)
o Erikson: challenge is to develop a sense of competence and willingness
to work toward goal
▪ Industry versus Inferiority Stage

What trait or traits describe you best?

o The Big Five Personality Traits
➢ Openness
➢ Conscientiousness
➢ Extraversion
➢ Agreeableness
➢ Neuroticism

Social-Cognitive Perspectives
o Bandura and reciprocal determinism
➢ Three components:
1. Person component (traits)
2. Behavior
3. Environment
 ➢ These three mutually influence one another

Self
- Define oneself through internal characteristics
- Preferences
- Personality traits
- Social memberships (sections, clubs)
- Social comparison

Self-Concept
o The Psychological Self
➢ Person’s understanding of his or her enduring psychological
characteristics
▪ More complex
▪ Comparisons in self-descriptions
▪ Less tied to external features

o Self-Efficacy
➢ Individual’s belief in their capacity to cause intended events
▪ Social comparisons
▪ Encouragement from valued sources
▪ Actual experiences

Self Esteem Self Concept

- Global evaluation of the self
- Self-worth or self-image
- How one values oneself
- Socio-emotional development
domain
- Domain-specific evaluations of the
self
- Ex: self-efficacy (belief that one
can do something successfully)
- Cognitive domain of development

o The Valued Self

➢ Nature of self-esteem
▪ Global evaluative component of self-worth
▪ Begins to develop by age 7

o Self-Esteem
➢ Key components:
▪ Discrepancy between what desires and perceived achievement ▪
Perceived support from important people

o Origins of Self-Esteem
➢ Direct experience with success or failure
➢ Labels and judgments from others
➢ Value attached to some skill or quality affected by peers’ and parents’
attitudes
➢ Figure 10.2 Harter’s Research on Social Support, Domain Values and
Self Esteem

Advances in Social Cognition

o Self-Concept
➢ The Child as Psychologist
▪ Focuses on internal traits and motivations of others
▪ Better understanding that same person plays different roles
in life
▪ Less emphasis on external appearance
▪ Figure 10.3 Changes in Children’s Descriptions of Others

o Moral Reasoning: Piaget

➢ Moral reasoning: Judgments about rightness and wrongness of
specific actions.
▪ Moral realism
▪ Moral relativism

The Social World of the School-Aged Child

o Family Relationships

➢ Parental Expectations
• Parents recognize children’s increasing abilities to self-regulate
• Culture may play a role in the age of expected behaviors
• Boys given more autonomy
 • Girls held more accountable
• Parental authoritative style more often produces socially
competent children

➢ Only Children and Siblings

• Only children - As well adjusted as children with siblings
• Siblings - Positively contribute to children’s social and emotional
understanding

o Family Relationships
● Authoritarian parenting: high level of parental control, low level of
parental warmth
● Authoritative parenting: moderate parental control, warm and
responsive
● Permissive parenting: warm and caring but little control over their
children
● Uninvolved parenting: parents provide neither warmth nor control

The Social World of the School-Aged Child

o Friendships
✓ Peer importance increases in middle childhood
✓ “Best Friend” emerges
✓ Friendships depend on reciprocal trust by age 10
✓ Friends help with problem solving and conflict management
✓ Figure 10.4 A 10-Year-Old’s Explanation of Friendship

Six functions of friendships:

1. Companionship
2. Stimulation (e.g. studying together)
3. Physical support
4. Ego support
5. Social comparison
6. Intimacy and affection

o Gender Segregation
✓ Cultural influence
✓ Age of appearance
✓ Playmate preference
 ✓ Playmate style by gender
✓ Boundary violations
✓ Play group composition by gender
✓ Play focus
✓ Cooperative play

o Patterns of Aggression
✓ Physical aggression declines
✓ Verbal aggression continues to increase
✓ Anger increasingly disguised
✓ Aggression increasingly controlled
✓ Gender differences over time
➢ Girls display more relational aggression
➢ Both boys and girls increase retaliatory aggression

➢ Can you think of examples to illustrate each kind of aggression?

o Social Status Social status: Degree to which children are accepted by

peers
❖ Popular Children
- Attractive and physically larger
- Take turns in conversation
- Explain things
- Regulate strong emotions
- Perceptive and empathetic

❖ Two Types of Rejected Children

- How are these types of rejected children alike? How do they
differ?

o Withdrawn/rejected children
o Aggressive/rejected children

- The invisible child

o Neglected or rejected
o Very different from peers, shy, highly creative
 Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Level 1 (4-10 years): Preconventional Level

Stage 1: Punishment Orientation (avoids punishment)
Stage 2: Reward Orientation (conforms to get rewards; purses own
interests; let others do the same)

Level 2 (10-13 years): Conventional Level

Stage 3: Good boy/Good Girl Orientation
→ Conforms to gain social approval; interpersonal accord and
conformity.
Stage 4: Authority Orientation
 → Moral judgments based on understanding of social order, law,
justice and duty

Level 3 (13 years & above): Postconventional Level

Stage 5: Social Contract
→ Obeys for public welfare; upholds majority decision and
compromise
Stage 6: Ethical Principles
→ One’s moral judgments based on
universal human rights

Criticism:
- Culturally biased
- Underestimates contributions of
family relationships to moral
development

Heinz’ Dilemma

“Heinz’s wife was dying from a

particular type of cancer. Doctors said a
new drug might save her. The drug had
been discovered by a local chemist, and
Heinz tried desperately to buy some, but
the chemist was charging ten times the
money it cost to make the drug, and this was much more than Heinz
could afford. Heinz could only raise half the money, even after help from
family and friends. He explained to the chemist that his wife was dying
and asked if he could have the drug cheaper or pay the rest of the
money later. The chemist refused, saying that he had discovered the
drug and was going to make money from it. The husband was desperate
to save his wife, so later that night he broke into the chemist’s and stole
the drug.”

Internalization

→ Shift for a behavior that is externally controlled to one that is controlled by

internal standards

Carol Gilligan’s Theory of Moral Development

- Gender as an important factor in moral development
- Boys view morality primarily in terms of justice and fairness
- Girls see morality in terms of responsibility and compassion
toward individuals and a willingness to sacrifice for relationships

Gender Differences

- Physical: females have longer life expectancy than males

- Cognitive: boys did slightly better in Math and Science but girls
 were far better overall and better in reading
- Socioemotional: Boys use problem-focused coping while girls use
emotion-focused coping

Stereotypes
- Broad categories that reflect our impressions and beliefs about
females and males
- Perpetuated by biological/physical and gender socialization

Socialization
- The process by which individuals are taught how to socially
behave in accordance with their assigned gender

Influences Beyond Family and Peers

o After-School Care Pros and Cons: PROS/ADVANTAGES -

CONS/DISADVANTAGES
o Poverty
▪ Childhood poverty rate
▪ Rate is higher for younger children
▪ Characteristics of parents in poverty
▪ See Figure 10.5 Poverty, Age and Time
▪ Children in poverty
✓ More often ill
✓ Lower average IQ scores
✓ Perform poorly in school
✓ Exhibit more behavior problems
▪ Inner-City Poverty
o Protective Factors for Resiliency
✓ High IQ of child
✓ Competent adult parenting
✓ Effective schools
✓ Secure initial attachments
✓ Strong community helping network
✓ Stable parental employment
✓ Strong sense of ethnic identity

● Children of inner-city poverty may grow up:

✓ Exposed to street gangs and street violence
✓ In over-crowded homes
✓ Subject to more abuse and drug use
✓Witnessing or becoming victims of more violent
crimes
✓ Subject to PTSD

● True or False? There is a causal link between viewing

violent television and aggressive behavior in children
▪ Television
❖ Prosocial behavior - Enhanced by quality
 programs that teach children moral and social values
• Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
• Sesame Street
❖ Computers and the Internet
• Economic differences
• Uses
• Gender differences
❖ Video Games
• Influences on child behavior
• Violent content and game preferences

Influences Beyond Family and Peers Policy Question

o Test-Based Reform National Assessment of Educational Progress
NAEP: “The Nation’s Report Card”
▪ Assessment of educational improvement
▪ “Teaching to the test”
▪ Student efforts
▪ See Figure 10.6 NAEP Average Scores Over Time