Physical and cognetive language development in middle childhood

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD
In what ways do children grow during the school years, and what factors influence their growth?
What are the main health concerns at this age?
What special needs may become apparent during these years, and how can they be met?
Slow but steady…
Height changes / Weight changes
Only time in lifespan when girls are, on average, taller than boys
Benefits of Adequate Nutrition - Relationship to social and emotional functioning
More peer involvement
More positive emotions /Less anxiety
More eagerness to explore new environments
More persistent in frustrating situations
Generally higher energy levels

Childhood Obesity: Most common causes:
Genetic factors
Lack of physical activity
Unhealthy eating patterns
Combination of these factors
Only in rare cases is being overweight caused by a medical condition such as a hormonal problem
Obese children
More likely to be overweight as adults
Greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases
The other side of “fat”
Even very young children are aware of
society's fixation on thinness
Lowered self-esteem has been associated with
being overweight in girls as young as 5
Attitude was closely correlated with parents'
perceptions

Gross Motor Development
Improved muscle coordination

Do boys and girls differ in motor skills?
Gender differences in gross motor skills
became increasingly pronounced during
middle childhood,
– Boys outperform girls
– Little or no difference when equal
participation in exercise/activities
– Influenced by societal expectations

Fine Motor Development
? Necessary for wide range of school-related tasks
? Influenced by increase in amount of Myelin
?speeds up electrical impulses
between neurons

Health and School-agers
Middle childhood is period of robust health
Routine immunizations have produced considerably lower incidence of life threatening illnesses
More than 90 percent of children in middle childhood have at least one serious medical condition but most are short term illnesses
Other Health Risks
Accidents
Motor vehicles
Bikes
Fires and burns
Drowning
Gun-related deaths
Reduced by use of seatbelts and helmets
The Serious Risks of Cyberspace
Child Safety on the Information Highway Risks Online
Safety Net for the Internet: A Parent's Guide

Children with Special Needs
Visual impairments
Difficulties in seeing Blindness / Partial sightedness Auditory impairments
Loss of hearing or some aspect of hearing /Affects 2 percent of school-age children
Speech impairments
Impairment of speech articulation, voice, fluency, or the impairment or deviant development of language comprehension and/or expression
Learning disabilities
Discrepancies Between Achievement and Capacity to Learn
Difficulties in acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities
– Dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia
– ADHD

“Learning disability”
IN GENERAL:
disorder is found in one or more of basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written
disorder may manifest itself in imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations
Developmental Reading Disability
Dyslexia affects 2 to 8 percent of elementary school children Reading difficulties
Inability to separate sounds in words
Problems sounding out words Inability to separate sounds in words
Problems sounding out words
Developmental Writing Disabilities
Writing involves several brain areas and functions (dysgraphia)
Brain networks for vocabulary, grammar, hand movement, and memory must all be in good working order

Developmental Arithmetic Disability
Arithmetic involves recognizing numbers and symbols, memorizing facts, aligning numbers, and understanding abstract concepts like place value and fractions
Any of these may be difficult for children with developmental arithmetic disorders, also called dyscalculia
What are the most common signs of ADHD?
Persistent difficulty in finishing tasks, following instructions, and organizing work
Inability to watch an entire television program
Frequent interruption of others or excessive talking
Tendency to jump into a task before hearing all
the instructions.
Difficulty in waiting or remaining seated /Fidgeting
Treatments for ADHD?
Behavioral therapy
Diet

Mastering the Mechanics of Language in
Middle Childhood
1. Vocabulary continues to increase
2. Mastery of grammar improves
3. Understanding of syntax grows
4. Certain phonemes remain troublesome
5. Decoding difficulties when dependent on intonation
6. More competence in pragmatics
7. Increase in meta-linguistic awareness
Metalinguistic Awareness
One of most significant developments in middle childhood is children’s increasing understanding of their own use of language
By age 5 or 6,
Understand that language is governed by set of rules
By age 7 or 8,
Realize that miscommunication can be due to factors attributable not only to themselves, but to the person communicating with them

Is extra homework worth the cost?
From Research to Practice : No Child Left Behind Act
Outcomes:
– Frequent testing commonplace
– Student scores related to federal funding
– Reading instruction sometimes replaces recess and other activities
– Increase in amount of homework
– Some children burn out
Time spent on homework is associated with greater academic achievement in secondary school
Relationship gets less strong for the lower grades; below grade 5, the relationship disappears
For older children more homework is not necessarily better
Some research indicates that benefits of homework may reach plateau beyond which additional time spent on homework produces no further benefits

INTELLECTUAL AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN
MIDDLE CHILDHOOD
Intellectual Development: Piaget
Concrete operational stage
Between 7 and 12 years
Characterized by active and appropriate use of logic
• Logical operations applied to concrete problems
• Conservation problems; reversibility; time and speed, decentering
How does preoperational thought emerge?
Shift from preoperational thought to concrete operational thought does not happen overnight
– Children shift back and forth between preoperational and concrete operational thinking
– Once concrete operational thinking is fully engaged, children show several cognitive advances

Concrete operations period (7-11)
The main goal is to learn.
Conservation – the ability to recognize that properties of objects do not change even though their appearance does.
Ability to decenter or realize that their way of looking at the world is only 1 perspective.
Reversal – the ability to work a problem back wards.

Intelligence
Intelligence -- problem-solving skills and the ability to learn from and adapt to life’s everyday experiences
Interest in intelligence has often focused on individual differences and assessment
Individual differences -- the stable, consistent ways in which people are different from each other
Children are considered intelligent if they understand the course material and are able to earn above-average.

Designed by A. Binet (1905).
It is simply the ratio of person’s mental age to chronological age. It describes the performance of an individual relative to that of others of the same age.
IQ = MA/CA x 100
First IQ test was

Intelligence tests are designed to measure

Multiple Intelligence (Gardner )
Verbal/linguistic
Logical/mathematical
Musical
Visual/Spatial
Bodily kinesthetic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalistic
Spearman’s Factor theory.
He proposed a theory of intelligence which included a general factor (g) that gives a person the ability to achieve success in a wide variety of intellectual tasks. But most people are best in 1 or 2 areas, so he included specific factors – (s) ? to excel in particular tasks.

Coming up with new or unusual responses to familiar circumstances (closely related to the ability to solve problems)
Guilford (1967) :
Convergent thinking (coming up with single correct answer)
Divergent thinking (with new unusual responses)
Intelligent test measure convergent thinking, creativity tests ? divergent thinking
People with higher intelligence tend to be
more creative than people with lower intelligence.
Increasing creativity in children:
provide stimulating environment
give freedom
encourage independence
Creativity