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SantrockEssentials5e_PPT_Ch07.ppt

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ESSENTIALS OF LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT, 5e
JOHN W. SANTROCK

Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle and Late Childhood

Chapter Outline

Physical changes and health
Children with disabilities
Cognitive changes
Language development

Physical Changes and Health

Body growth and change
Middle and late childhood as a period of slow, consistent growth
Grow an average of 2–3 inches per year
Gain an average of 5–7 pounds a year
Body proportion changes
Muscle mass and strength increase as “baby fat” decreases

Physical Changes and Health

The Brain
Total brain volume stabilizes
Significant changes in structures and regions occur
Especially in the prefrontal cortex
Activation of some brain areas increase while others decrease

Physical Changes and Health

Motor Development
Motor skills become smoother and more coordinated
Improvement of fine motor skills due to increased myelination of the central nervous system
Boys outperform girls in gross motor skills
Girls outperform boys in fine motor skills

Physical Changes and Health

Exercise
American children do not get enough exercise
Increasing exercise levels has positive outcomes
Aerobic exercise benefits:
Attention, memory, effortful and goal-directed thinking and behavior, creativity
Parents and schools play important roles in children’s exercise levels
Screen time linked to low activity levels and obesity

Physical Changes and Health

Health, illness, and disease
Middle and late childhood is a time of excellent health
Disease and death are less prevalent
Overweight children
Heredity and environmental contexts
Linked to diabetes, hypertension, and elevated blood cholesterol levels
Cancer
Second leading cause of death in children 5–14 years old
Most common child cancer is leukemia
Children with cancer are surviving longer, advancements in treatment

Figure 7.1 - Types of Cancer in Children

Children with Disabilities

Learning disability – Difficulty in learning that involves:
Understanding or using spoken or written language
Listening, thinking, reading, writing, and spelling
Approximately 80% of children with a learning disability have problems with reading
Types of learning disabilities:
Dyslexia - Severe impairment in the ability to read and spell
Dysgraphia - Difficulty in handwriting
Dyscalculia - Developmental arithmetic disorder

Figure 7.2 - U.S. Children with a Disability Who Receive Special Education Services

Children with Disabilities

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity
Number of children diagnosed has increased
Possible causes:
Genetics
Brain damage during prenatal or postnatal development
Cigarette and alcohol exposure during prenatal development
Low birth weight
High physical activity level in adolescence was linked to lower level of ADHD in emerging adulthood

Figure 7.4 - Regions of the Brain in Which Children with ADHD had a Delayed Peak in the Thickness of the Cerebral Cortex

Children with Disabilities

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD): range from autistic disorder to Asperger syndrome
Autistic disorder – More severe disorder
Deficiencies in social relationships; abnormalities in communication; and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior
Asperger syndrome – Milder disorder
Good verbal language skills
Restricted range of interests and relationships
Autism spectrum disorders can often be detected as young as 1-3 years

Children with Disabilities

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004)
Mandates for providing educational services to children with disabilities, including:
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

Cognitive Changes

Piaget’s Concrete Operational stage (Ages 7 to 11)
Can perform concrete operations and reason logically as applied to specific or concrete examples
Classification
Seriation: Ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension
Transitivity: Ability to logically combine relations to understand conclusions

Cognitive Changes

Evaluating Piaget’s theory
Concrete operational abilities do not appear in synchrony
Education and culture exert strong influences on children’s development
Neo-Piagetians: Argue that Piaget got some things right, but that his theory needs considerable revision
Elaborated on Piaget’s theory
Gave more emphasis to how children use attention, memory, and strategies to process information

Cognitive Changes

Long-term memory: A relatively permanent and unlimited type of memory
Increases with age during middle and late childhood
Knowledge and expertise
Experts have acquired extensive knowledge about a particular content area

Cognitive Changes

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

Cognitive Changes

Fuzzy trace theory: Two types of memory representations:
Verbatim memory trace – precise details of information
Gist – central ideal of information
During early elementary years, children begin to use gist more
Thinking:
Involves manipulating and transforming information in memory
Thinking critically and creatively

Cognitive Changes

Critical thinking: Involves thinking reflectively and productively, evaluating evidence
Creative thinking: Ability to think in novel and unusual ways and come up with unique solutions to problems
Convergent thinking: Produces one correct answer
Tested by standardized intelligence tests
Divergent thinking: Produces many answers to the same question
Creativity

Cognitive Changes

Metacognition: Cognition about cognition
Consists of several dimensions of executive function
Including planning and self-regulation, memory strategies
Metamemory - Knowledge about memory
Executive function
Most important areas for children’s cognitive development and school success:
Self-control/inhibition
Working memory
Flexibility

Cognitive Changes

Intelligence - ability to solve problems and to adapt and learn from experiences
Individual differences - stable, consistent ways in which people differ from each other
Binet Tests
Mental age (MA): Individual’s level of mental development relative to others
Intelligence quotient (IQ): 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

Figure 7.6 - The Normal Curve and Stanford-Binet IQ Scores

Figure 7.7 - Sample Subscales of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)

Cognitive Changes

Types of intelligence
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence
Analytical intelligence – ability to analyze, judge, evaluate, compare, contrast
Creative intelligence – ability to create, design, invent, originate, imagine
Practical intelligence – ability to use, apply, implement, put ideas into practice
Children with different triarchic patterns “look different” in school

Cognitive Changes

Gardner’s eight frames of mind:
Verbal
Mathematical
Spatial
Bodily-kinesthetic
Musical
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalist
Evaluating multiple-intelligence approaches
Stimulated educators to think about children’s competencies
Persisting doubts that multiple intelligences exist

Cognitive Changes

Culture and intelligence
What is viewed as intelligent varies by culture
Interpreting differences in IQ scores
Influences of genetics
Environmental influences
Group differences
Culture-fair tests: Designed to be free of cultural bias

Figure 7.8 - Correlation Between Intelligence Test Scores and Twin Status

Cognitive Changes

Intellectual disability: Limited mental ability reflective of low IQ and difficulty adapting to everyday life
Range of mild to severe levels of intellectual disability
Organic retardation: Caused by a genetic disorder or brain damage
Cultural-familial retardation: No evidence of organic brain damage
IQ is generally between 50 and 70

Cognitive Changes

Gifted: Above-average intelligence and/or superior talent for something
Three criteria:
Precocity
March to their own drum
Passion to master
Nature-nurture link of giftedness
Domain-specific giftedness
Education of children who are gifted

Language Development

Vocabulary, grammar, and metalinguistic awareness
Changes occur in the way children’s mental vocabulary is organized
Categorization becomes easier as children increase vocabulary
Similar advances made in grammar skills
Metalinguistic awareness: Knowledge about language
Improves considerably during middle and late childhood
Understandings of how to use language in culturally appropriate ways

Language Development

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
Children benefit from both approaches, but instruction in phonics needs to be emphasized
Fluency is a key element in learning how to read

Language Development

Second-language learning
Bilingualism has a positive effect on children’s cognitive development
Subtractive bilingualism – going from monolingual in home language to bilingual among monolingual speakers
Common among immigrant children, negative effects in becoming ashamed of home language
Dual-language education
Teaching English language learners:
English-only
Dual-language – instruction in home language and English