Week 8 - Physical & Cognitive Dev Middle Childhood PDF

Physical & Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood PSY 323 – Professor Agbayani Physical Development Weight is redistributed, begin to look more muscular Children’s strength doubles Bones become harder—ossification Permanent teeth began to replace primary teeth at a...

Physical & Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood PSY 323 – Professor Agbayani Physical Development Weight is redistributed, begin to look more muscular Children’s strength doubles Bones become harder—ossification Permanent teeth began to replace primary teeth at a rate of 4 per year (starting at 6) Nutrition: Links to Overall Functioning Nutrition significantly affects many aspects of behavior ○ Related to several dimensions of social & emotional functioning More involved with peers Show more positive emotion Have less anxiety Have more moderate activity levels Nutrition: Links to Overall Functioning Nutrition significantly affects many aspects of behavior ○ Also linked to cognitive performance Perform better on tests of verbal abilities and other cognitive measures Malnutrition may dampen curiosity, responsiveness, and motivation to learn Nutrition guidelines Previous: food pyramid Less intuitive Nutrition guidelines USDA MyPlate recommendations ○ Proportions vs exact values ○ Started in 2011 Health During Middle Childhood For most children, middle childhood is a time of good health Some illnesses do arise ○ > 90% of children have at least one serious medical condition in elementary school ○ About 1 in 9 has a chronic, persistent condition, such as repeated migraine headaches Health During Middle Childhood Asthma is a chronic inflammatory condition Significant increase in prevalence in recent decades ○ More than 7 million U.S. children suffer from asthma ○ More than 150 million children suffer worldwide Attacks are triggered by a variety of factors ○ Respiratory infections (most common) ○ Allergic reactions to airborne irritants ○ Stress ○ Exercise ○ Change in air temperature or humidity Gross Motor Skills examples for children ages 6 - 12 Motor Skills: Continuing Improvement Fine Motor Skills ○ Typing at a computer keyboard ○ Writing in cursive ○ Drawing detailed pictures ○ Tie their shoes and fasten buttons (6 - 7 years old) ○ Use each hand independently (age 8) ○ Manipulate objects with almost as much dexterity as adults (ages 11 - 12) Advancements are partially due to the amount of myelin increasing Motor Skills: Continuing Improvement Sensory Difficulties become more apparent in school For example, visual impairment ○ Legal criterion for blindness & partial sightedness pertains to distance vision, but most educational work is close-up ○ About 1 student in 1000 requires education services relating to visual impairment Piagetian Stages: Cognitive Development Piaget said that preschoolers (“early childhood”) think preoperationally ○ Are largely egocentric ○ Lack the ability to use operations (more complex thinking like conservation) Piaget: Concrete Operational Thought Concrete Operational Stage ~7-12 years of age ○ Active and appropriate use of logic when problems arise ○ Children are able to: Conserve due to decentering—ability to take multiple aspects of a situation into account Understand reversibility (some things can/can’t be undone) Understand concepts such as relationship between time, speed, and distance The Rise of Concrete Operational Thought ○ Critical limitation at this stage according to Piaget: children are STILL unable to understand truly abstract or hypothetical questions ○ Example: asking kids about the future Piaget in Perspective: modern applications The good: ○ “Stage” theory has powerful educational implications – what questions should we be asking children? What kinds of assignments in school? The bad: ○ Underestimated children’s capabilities ○ Misjudged the age at which children’s abilities emerge Information Processing in Middle Childhood Children in middle childhood can process more data due to: ○ Increasing size of memory ○ Increasingly sophisticated methods for processing information Memory Process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved 3-steps to Memory ○ Encoding: Sensory learning/memory ○ Storage: Short-term memory capacity improves significantly during middle childhood; Long-term memory ○ Retrieval: Practice/recall/rehearsal Metamemory Understanding the processes that underlie memory ○ By 1st grade, children generally know what memory is ○ Increasingly engage in control strategies — conscious, intentionally used tactics to improve cognitive processing E.g.: Rehearsal, organizing material for easier recall ○ Increasing use of mnemonics — formal techniques for organizing information E.g.: My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Mastering the Mechanics of Language Vocabulary continues to increase fairly rapidly ○ Average 6-year-old has a vocabulary of 8,000 to 14,000 words ○ Between 9 and 11, vocabulary grows by another 5,000 words Grammar improves ○ Use of both passive voice and conditional sentences increases (e.g., passive “My homework is done.” vs active “I did my homework”) Pronunciation becomes more accurate ○ Some phonemes take longer to perfect, like v and th How Language Promotes Self-Control ○ Children may use “self-talk” to help regulate their own behavior, and can think through consequences ○ Effectiveness of self-control may grow as linguistic capabilities increase ○ Example: Marshmallow experiment (shows how older children may be more self-regulated) Intelligence ○ The capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use resources effectively when faced with challenges ○ Challenging concept for researchers ○ Assessed through intelligence tests, which show a strong relationship to success in school Intelligence Benchmarks Our first versions of intelligence testing came from France ○ At the turn of the 20th century, some children were not benefiting from regular instruction ○ Not identified early enough to put them in more supportive classes ○ Alfred Binet was recruited to devise a technique for early identification Binet: IQ Test Assessing mental age and comparing that to their chronological age to produce an intelligence quotient (IQ) Intelligence quotient ○ IQ score = MA/CA x 100 ○ Scoring at your chronological age results in a score of 100 Present-Day Approaches to Intelligence What do IQ scores mean? ○ Reasonably good predictors of school performance…but that’s about it ○ Not related to income and later success in life after controlling for years of schooling Frequently inaccurate when predicting individual’s future success Alternative Conceptions of Intelligence IQ tests frequently used in school settings are based on the idea that intelligence is a single factor Many theorists suggest two kinds of intelligence exist ○ Fluid Intelligence — reflects information-processing capabilities, reasoning, and memory Ex: Remembering a set of numbers ○ Crystallized Intelligence — The accumulation of information, skills, and strategies learned through experience; applied in problem-solving situations Ex: Deduce the solution to a mystery by drawing on past experience