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PSY 121 LU06 CHAPTERS 7 & 8

BODY GROWTH AND CHANGE

• Slow, consistent growth is seen in middle and late childhood.

• Growth averages 2 to 3 inches per year.

• Weight gain averages 5 to 7 pounds per year.

• Head circumference and waist circumference decrease in relation to body

height.

• Bones continue to ossify during middle and late childhood but yield to

pressure and pull more than mature bones.

• Muscle mass and strength gradually increase as “baby fat” decreases.

THE BRAIN

• Total brain volume stabilizes.

• Significant changes in structures and regions occur, especially in the

prefrontal cortex.

• Activation of some brain areas increases, while in others it decreases.

• Brain pathways and circuitry involving the prefrontal cortex, the

highest level in the brain, continue to increase.

MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

• Motor skills become smoother and more coordinated in middle and late

childhood.

• Girls usually outperform boys in their use of fine motor skills.

• Improvement of fine motor skills during middle and late childhood results

from increased myelination of the central nervous system.

EXERCISE • American children and adolescents do not get enough exercise.

• Associated with children’s engagement:

• Parent’s encouragement and support of physical activity.

• Time spent outdoors.

• Sports participation.

• Physical activity facilities near the home.

• Parents and schools play important roles.

• Regular physical activity combined with a high level of calcium intake increases bone health.

• Other benefits include:

• Lower incidence of obesity.

• Improvements to attention, memory, and effortful and goal-directed thinking and behavior.

• Creativity.

• Academic success.

• Improved executive function—in particular, inhibitory control.

• More time in front of a television or computer screen increases risk of reduced activity and being overweight.

• Excessive sleep time has also been linked to worse sleep patterns and lower brain and cognitive functioning.

HEALTH, ILLNESS, AND DISEASE

• Overweight children:

• The percentage of U.S. children at risk has increased dramatically.

• Both heredity and environmental contexts are related.

• Environmental factors include:

• Availability of foods high in fat content;

• Energy-saving devices;

• Declining physical activity;

• Parent’s eating habits and monitoring of children’s eating habits;

• The context in which a child eats; and

• Heavy screen time.

• Potential consequences of overweight include diabetes, hypertension, elevated blood cholesterol levels, and

sleep problems.

• Further, children who are obese may be more likely to have depression and anxiety; and obesity is linked

with low self-esteem.

• Intervention programs encourage:

• Parents to engage in healthier lifestyles themselves.

• Healthier food and more exercise.

THE SCOPE OF DISABILITIES • In the United States, 12.9% of 3- to 21-year-olds received special education or

related services in 20 17–2018, an increase of 3% since 1980–1981.

• Note the U.S. Department of Education includes both students with a learning

disability and students with ADHD in the category of “learning disability.”

• Learning disabilities:

• A child with a learning disability has difficulty in learning involving

understanding or using spoken or written language.

• The difficulty can appear in listening, thinking, reading, writing, or

spelling.

• Dyslexia: a severe impairment in the ability to read and spell.

• Dysgraphia: a difficulty in handwriting.

• Dyscalculia: a developmental arithmetic disorder.

• Intensive instruction by a competent teacher can help many children with

learning disabilities.

THE SCOPE OF DISABILITIES

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a disability characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

• Boys are twice as likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis.

• Possible causes of ADHD:

• Genetics.

• Brain damage during prenatal or postnatal development.

• Cigarette and alcohol exposure during prenatal development.

• High maternal stress during prenatal development.

• Low birthweight and/or preterm birth.

• Low socioeconomic status.

• Children diagnosed with ADHD have an increased risk for:

• Lower academic achievement.

• Problematic peer relations.

• School dropout.

• Disordered eating.

• Adolescent pregnancy.

• Substance use problems.

• Antisocial behavior.

• Criminal activity.

• Unemployment.

THE SCOPE OF DISABILITIES

• Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) range from autistic disorder to Asperger syndrome and may

have a genetic basis.

• Autistic disorder is a severe developmental ASD.

• Has its onset in the first 3 years of life.

• Deficiencies in social relationships, abnormalities in communication, and restricted, repetitive,

and stereotyped patterns of behavior.

• Asperger syndrome is relatively mild.

• Relatively good verbal language skills and milder nonverbal language problems.

• Restricted range of interests and relationships; with obsessive, repetitive routines and

preoccupations with a particular subject.

• The current consensus is that autism is a brain dysfunction involving abnormalities in brain structure and

neurotransmitters.

• The children have deficits in cognitive processing but benefit from a well-structured classroom,

individualized teaching, and small-group instruction.

• Behavior modification techniques are sometimes effective.

EDUCATIONAL ISSUES

• Individualized education plan (IEP): a written statement specifically

tailored for the disabled student.

• Least restrictive environment (LRE): a setting as similar as possible to the

one in which nondisabled children are educated.

• Inclusion: educating a child with special education needs full-time in the

regular classroom.

PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY

• The concrete operational stage:

• Piaget proposed that this stage encompasses the ages of 7 to 11.

• Children can perform concrete operations and reason logically, and are able to classify

things into different sets.

• Seriation: the concrete operation the involves ordering stimuli along a quantitative

dimension (for example, length).

• Transitivity: the ability to logically combine relations to understand certain

conclusions.

INFORMATION PROCESSING • During middle and late childhood, most children dramatically improve their ability to sustain and control

attention.

• They pay more attention to task-relevant stimuli than to salient stimuli.

• Other changes in information processing involve memory, thinking, and metacognition.

• Memory:

• Working memory: a mental “workbench” where individuals manipulate and assemble information

when making decisions, solving problems, and comprehending language.

• Develops slowly.

• Long-term memory: a relatively permanent type of memory that holds huge amounts of information

for a long period of time.

• Increases with age during middle and late childhood.

• In part, improvements in memory reflect children’s increased knowledge and use of strategies.

• Knowledge and expertise:

• Experts have acquired extensive knowledge about a particular content area.

• Older children usually have more expertise about a subject than younger children do.

• This can contribute to better memory for the subject.

INFORMATION PROCESSING • Strategies:

• Strategies are deliberate mental activities that improve the processing of information.

• Guide children to elaborate on what is to be remembered.

• Elaboration: engaging in more extensive processing of information.

• Encourage them to engage in mental imagery.

• Motivate them to understand rather than memorize.

• Repeat with variation, and link early and often.

• Embed memory-relevant language.

• Fuzzy trace theory:

• Fuzzy trace theory states that memory is best understood by considering two types of

memory representations:

• Verbatim memory trace: the precise details of the information.

• Gist: the central idea of the information.

• According to this theory, older children’s better memory can be attributed to the fuzzy traces

created by extracting the gist of information.

INFORMATION PROCESSING

• Thinking:

• Thinking involves manipulating and transforming information in memory.

• Critical thinking involves thinking reflectively and productively, and evaluating evidence.

• One important aspect of critical thinking is mindfulness: being alert, mentally present, and cognitively

flexible.

• Mindfulness training has been found to improve children’s attention self-regulation.

• Creative thinking is the ability to think in novel and unusual ways.

• Come up with unique solutions to problems.

• Convergent thinking produces one correct answer and is characteristic of the kind of thinking

tested by standardized intelligence tests.

• Divergent thinking produces many answers to the same question and is characteristic of

creativity.

• A special concern today is that the creative thinking of children in the United States appears to be

declining.

INFORMATION PROCESSING

• Metacognition:

• Metacognition is cognition about cognition, or knowing about knowing.

• Consists of several dimensions of executive function, such as planning and self-regulation.

• Helps people perform cognitive tasks more effectively.

• Metamemory is knowledge about memory.

• Executive function:

• Working memory, critical thinking, creative thinking, and metacognition can all be considered

under the umbrella of executive function.

• Important dimensions for 4- to 11-year-old children’s cognitive development and school success:

• Self-control/inhibition.

• Working memory.

• Flexibility.

INTELLIGENCE

• Intelligence is the ability to solve problems and to adapt and learn from experiences.

• Interest in intelligence has often focused on individual differences and assessment.

• Individual differences: the stable, consistent ways in which people differ from each other.

• The Binet tests:

• Alfred Binet was initially asked to develop an intelligence test to identify students who did not benefit from the regular classroom.

• Binet developed the concept of mental age (MA): the individual’s level of mental development relative to others.

• William Stern developed the intelligence quotient (IQ): a person’s mental age divided by chronological age (CA), multiplied by 100.

• That is, IQ = MA/CA × 100.

• If mental age is the same as chronological age, the person’s IQ is 100.

• Today, the Stanford-Binet tests obtain individual scores and a composite score in five content areas:

• Fluid reasoning.

• Knowledge.

• Quantitative reasoning.

• Visual-spatial reasoning.

• Working memory.

• Scores on the Stanford-Binet approximate a normal distribution—that is, a symmetrical distribution, with most scores falling in the middle of the possible range and a

few scores at the extremes.

INTELLIGENCE

• The Wechsler scales:

• David Wechsler developed the Wechsler scales.

• Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition

(WPPSI-IV) for ages 2.5 to 7.25.

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition (WISC-V) for

ages 6 to 16.

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV).

• The WISC-V provides an overall IQ score and also five composite scores,

determining areas of strength or weakness.

• Verbal Comprehension, Working Memory, Processing Speed, Fluid

Reasoning, and Visual Spatial.

INTELLIGENCE • Types of intelligence:

• Robert Sternberg and Howard Gardner have proposed influential theories.

• Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence states intelligence comes in three forms:

• Analytical intelligence: the ability to evaluate, compare, and contrast.

• Creative intelligence: the ability to invent, originate, and imagine.

• Practical intelligence: the ability to ability to implement and put ideas into practice.

• Gardner’s eight frames of mind:

• Verbal.

• Mathematical.

• Spatial.

• Bodily-kinesthetic.

• Musical.

• Interpersonal.

• Intrapersonal.

• Naturalist.

• Everyone has each of these intelligences to varying degrees.

VOCABULARY, GRAMMAR, AND METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS

• As they enter school, children gain new skills that make it possible

for them to learn to read and write.

• Alphabetic principle: the letters of the alphabet represent sounds

of the language.

• In middle and late childhood, changes occur in the way children’s

mental vocabulary is organized.

• Categorizing becomes easier, and they make similar advances in

grammar.

• These developments are accompanied by the development of

metalinguistic awareness: knowledge about language.

READING

• How should children be taught to read?

• Whole-language approach: stresses that reading instruction should

parallel children’s natural language learning.

• Beginning readers are taught whole words or sentences; and

reading materials are whole and meaningful.

• Phonics approach: reading instruction should teach the basic rules

for translating written symbols into sounds.

• Research suggests children can benefit from both approaches, but

instruction in phonics should be emphasized.

• Becoming a good reader includes learning to read fluently.

THE SELF • The development of self-understanding:

• Children aged 8 to 11 increasingly describe themselves in terms of psychological characteristics and traits.

• Recognize social characteristics of the self.

• Self-descriptions increasingly involve social comparison.

• Understanding others:

• Perspective taking: assuming the perspective of others and understanding their thoughts and feelings.

• Children become skeptical of others’ claims.

• Without good perspective taking skills, they are more likely to be oppositional and have difficulty with relationships.

• Self-esteem and self-concept:

• Self-esteem, also called self-worth or self-image: global evaluations of the self.

• Self-concept: domain-specific evaluations of the self.

• The foundations emerge from the quality of parent-child interaction.

• Low self-esteem has been implicated in overweight and obesity, anxiety, depression, suicide, drug use, and delinquency.

• A current concern is praise for mediocre performance, resulting in inflated self-esteem.

• Self-efficacy and self-regulation:

• Self-efficacy: the belief that one can master a situation and produce favorable outcomes.

• Self-efficacy can affect a student’s choice of activities.

• High self-efficacy increases the likelihood a child will expend effort and persist longer at learning tasks.

• Self-regulation: characterized by deliberate efforts to manage one’s behavior, emotions, and thoughts.

• Leads to increased social competence and achievement.

THE SELF

• Industry versus inferiority:

• This is Erikson’s fourth stage, appearing in middle and late

childhood.

• Industry: children become interested in how things are made and

how they work.

• When they are encouraged, their sense of industry increases.

• Parents who see children’s efforts as mischief or making a mess

can instead cause a sense of inferiority.

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT • Developmental changes:

• Improved emotional understanding.

• Increased understanding that more than one emotion can be experienced in a particular situation.

• Increased tendency to be aware of the events leading to emotional reactions.

• Ability to suppress or conceal negative emotional reactions.

• Use of self-initiated strategies for redirecting feelings.

• A capacity for genuine empathy.

• Coping with stress:

• Older children generate more coping alternatives for stressful situations.

• In turmoil or trauma, children may be too overwhelmed.

• Outcomes for children who experience disasters include acute stress reactions, depression, panic

disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

• Dose-response effect: the more severe the disaster/trauma (dose), the worse the adaptation and

adjustment (response).

• Another significant factor is the type of support available.

MORAL DEVELOPMENT• Two perspectives:

• Piaget proposed that children move from heteronomous morality to autonomous morality

by 10 years of age.

• Children come to consider intentions, believe rules are subject to change, and know

that punishment may not follow.

• Lawrence Kohlberg suggested three universal levels of moral development.

• Development from one level to another is fostered by opportunities to take others’

perspectives and experience conflict between one’s level of moral thinking and the

reasoning of someone else at a higher level.

• The Kohlberg levels:

• Level 1, preconventional reasoning: the individual’s moral reasoning is controlled primarily

by external rewards and punishment.

• Level 2, conventional reasoning: the individual abides by certain standards, but these are

standards set by others such as parents or society.

• Level 3, postconventional reasoning: the individual recognizes alternative moral courses,

explores the options, and then decides on a personal moral code.

• Kohlberg believed the levels occur in sequence and are age-related.

MORAL DEVELOPMENT

• Carol Gilligan argues Kohlberg’s theory reflects a gender bias.

• It is based on a male norm that puts abstract principles above relationships

and concern for others.

• Justice perspective: a focus on the rights of the individual, where the

individual independently makes moral decisions.

• Care perspective, proposed by Gilligan: views people in terms of their

connectedness and emphasizes interpersonal communication,

relationships, and concern for others.

MORAL DEVELOPMENT • Domain theory of moral development: identifies different domains of social knowledge and reasoning.

• Moral, social conventional, and personal.

• Arise from children’s and adolescents’ attempts to understand and deal with different forms of social

experience.

• Some theorists and researchers argue Kohlberg did not adequately distinguish between moral reasoning

and social conventional reasoning.

• Social conventional reasoning focuses on conventional rules established by social consensus.

• Moral reasoning instead focuses on ethical issues and rules of morality.

• Prosocial behavior:

• The study of prosocial moral behavior places more emphasis on the behavioral aspects of moral

development.

• Children’s sharing comes to reflect a more complex sense of what is just and right during middle and late

childhood.

• By the start of the elementary school years, children begin to express objective ideas about fairness.

• By the middle to late elementary school years, they come to believe that equity can also mean that

people with special merit or special needs deserve special treatment.

GENDER • Gender stereotypes: broad categories that reflect general impressions and beliefs about males and females.

• Physical development:

• Females have about twice the body fat, have a longer life expectancy, and are less like to develop disorders.

• On average, males tend to grow taller.

• Human brains are much alike, but there are some differences:

• Female brains are about 10% smaller but have more folds.

• An area of the parietal lobe that functions in visuospatial skills is larger in males.

• Areas of the brain involved in emotional expression show more metabolic activity in females.

• Cognitive development and achievement:

• No gender differences in general intelligence have been found.

• Girls and women tend to have slightly better verbal skills.

• Females outperform males in reading and writing skills.

• There are no significant gender differences in math scores.

• Boys may have better visuospatial skills, though some experts argue the difference is small.

• Girls do better overall in academic achievement, but this may reflect many factors besides cognitive ability.

• Socioemotional development:

• Similarities and differences have been studied in terms of aggression, emotion, and prosocial behavior.

• Boys are more physically aggressive; girls are more verbally aggressive; and relational aggression comprises a greater

percentage of girls’ overall aggression.

• Girls express more emotion and are better at decoding it; and with age, girls more strongly express positive emotions.

• Boys usually show less self-regulation.

• Girls view themselves as more prosocial and empathetic, and they engage in more prosocial behavior.

DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES IN PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS

• Parents spend considerably less time with children during middle and late childhood.

• Nevertheless, parents play an important role in supporting and stimulating children’s academic

achievement.

• Parents use less-physical forms of punishment as children age.

• During middle and late childhood, some control is transferred from parent to child, producing

coregulation.

• Children engage in moment-to-moment self-regulation.

• The major shift to autonomy does not occur until about the age of 12 or later.

• Parents manage children’s opportunities, monitor behavior, and initiate social contact.

• Mothers more than fathers engage in this managerial role.

• Among the most important practices is maintaining a structured and organized family environment.

• Positively related to students’ grades and self-responsibility, and negatively to school-related

problems.

STEPFAMILIES

• Remarriages involving children have increased in recent years.

• Remarried parents must:

• Define and strengthen their marriage.

• Renegotiate the biological parent-child relationships.

• Establish stepparent-stepchild and stepsibling relationships.

• Stepfamily types:

• Stepfather.

• Stepmother.

• Blended or complex.

DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES

• Reciprocity becomes important in peer interchanges.

• The sizes of peer groups increase.

• Peer interaction is less closely supervised by adults.

• Children’s preference for same-sex peer groups increases.

• Sociometric statuses of peers:

• Popular children: frequently nominated as a best friend, and rarely disliked by peers.

• Average children: receive an average number of both positive and negative peer nominations.

• Neglected children: infrequently nominated as a best friend, but not disliked by peers.

• Rejected children: infrequently nominated as a best friend, and actively disliked by peers.

• Controversial children: frequently nominated both as someone’s best friend and as being

disliked.

BULLYING • Bullying is defined as verbal or physical behavior intended to disturb someone less powerful.

• One of the most frequent types is belittling about looks or speech.

• Boys and younger middle school students are the most likely to be bullied—often anxious, socially

withdrawn, and aggressive children.

• Bullied children report loneliness and difficulty making friends.

• Social contexts can influence bullying.

• Poverty, family, school, and peer groups.

• An increasing concern is peer bullying and harassment on the Internet.

• Engaging in cyber harassment has been related to loneliness, lower self-esteem, fewer mutual

friendships, and lower peer popularity.

• Being the victim of cyberbullying is linked to stress and suicidal ideation—possibly more so than

traditional bullying.

• School-based interventions vary greatly.

• A recent review concluded that a focus on the whole school is more effective than using classroom

curricula or social skills training.

FRIENDS • Throughout childhood, friends are more similar than dissimilar.

• Six functions of friendships:

• Companionship.

• Stimulation.

• Physical support.

• Ego support.

• Social comparison.

• Affection and intimacy.

• Developmental advantages of friendship occur when children have friends who are

socially skilled and supportive.

• It is not advantageous to have coercive and conflict-ridden friendships.

• Friendship also plays an important role in emotional well-being and academic success.

CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO STUDENT LEARNING • Constructivist approach: a learner-centered approach emphasizes the importance of individuals actively constructing their own

knowledge and understanding with guidance.

• May include an emphasis on collaboration.

• Direct instruction approach: a structured, teacher-centered approach characterized by:

• Teacher direction and control.

• Mastery of academic skills, high expectations for students’ progress, and maximum time spent on learning tasks.

• Efforts to keep negative affect to a minimum.

• Many effective teachers use both a constructivist and a direct instruction approach.

• Accountability:

• Since the 1990s, the U.S. public and governments at every level have demanded increased accountability from schools.

• No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.

• Common Core State Standards Initiative.

• Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

• Statewide standardized testing laws are changing, as are measurements for tracking success.

• States and districts are required to implement challenging standards, although they can opt out of the Common Core.

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, ETHNICITY, AND CULTURE • Students from low-income, ethnic minority backgrounds have more difficulties in school and face significant

barriers.

• Schools in low-income areas tend to have:

• More students with low achievement test scores.

• Low graduation rates.

• Smaller percentages of students going to college.

• Young teachers with less experience.

• Fewer resources, including decent buildings.

• Ethnicity in schools:

• The school experiences of different ethnic groups vary considerably; but note, diversity characterizes

every ethnic group.

• Strategies for improving relationships among ethnically diverse students:

• Turn the class into a jigsaw classroom.

• Encourage students to have positive personal contact with diverse other students.

• Reduce bias.

• Be a competent cultural mediator.

• View the school and community as a team.

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, ETHNICITY, AND CULTURE

• Carol Dweck points to the importance of children’s mindset—that is, the cognitive view that

individuals develop for themselves.

• Individuals with a fixed mindset believe their qualities cannot change.

• Individuals with a growth mindset believe their qualities can change and improve through

their own effort.

• Parents, teachers, and coaches themselves have either a fixed mindset or growth mindset,

but they may or may not instill their mindset in children and adolescents.