The Developing Person, Berger Chapter 11 Chapter 11 MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: BIOSOCIAL DVELOPMENT

I. A Healthy time

 Period between early childhood and early adolescence, approximately from ages 6 to 11  ages 6 – 11 are the healthiest years. Least likely to die or become seriously ill

A. Slower growth, greater strength 1. Muscles become stronger, including hearts and lungs. 2. Children run faster and exercise longer. 3. Children master any motor skills that do not require adult-sized bodies. Growth proceeds slower than it has in previous years and slower than it will in adolescence 4. Generally become slimmer B. Oral health is important to society. • Most U.S. school-age children brush their teeth; about 70 percent saw dentist for preventive care and have good teeth overall • Many cities add fluoride to drinking water. C. Good childhood habits protect later adult health. • Habits are strongly affected by peers and parents. • Routines need to be set in childhood. • Poor health for economic or social reasons are vulnerable throughout life.

D. Physical activity Healthy, well-functioning body affects human thought (embedded cognition). Active play contributes to health in many ways. • Better overall health • Less obesity • Appreciation of cooperation and fair play • Improved problem-solving abilities • Respect for teammates and opponents of many ethnicities and nationalities Neighborhood play is important and flexible. • Rules and boundaries are contextually adapted. • Play is more likely to be active, interactive, and inclusive. • Modern life, including fear of stranger danger, contribute to the reduction of neighborhood play. Exercise in school • Physical education sometimes replaced with reading and math time • Inadequate recess times in many schools Athletic clubs and leagues • Additional opportunities for activity • Many children left out • Less accessible to children from low-SES families or with disabilities dchiabotti edited 1/03 FS s06/s16 1 The Developing Person, Berger Chapter 11

Sports risks during middle childhood • Loss of self-esteem (teammates and coaches are sometimes cruel) • Injuries (sometimes serious, including concussions) • Reinforcement of prejudice (especially against the other sex) • Increased stress (evidenced by altered hormone levels, insomnia)

II. Health problems in Middle childhood  Chronic conditions can interfere with school, play, and friendship.  Beginning of lifetime health habits are formed.  Physical and psychological problems affect and are affected by social context.

A. Childhood obesity 1. In 2012, 18 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds in the United States were obese. 2. Childhood obesity is increasing worldwide, having more than doubled since 1980 in Mexico, the United States, and Canada). 3. Childhood overweight correlates with asthma, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol, orthopedic, type II diabetes and respiratory problems, psychological issues 4. As excessive weight builds, average school achievement decreases, self-esteem falls, and loneliness rises. 5. Overweight is the most common real problem for children in this age group 6. Overweight adults who were overweight children are more likely to be distressed and have psychophysiological problems 7. Individuals from nations where there was threat of starvation continue cultural eating patterns even when food is abundant 8. United nations considers obesity to be at epidemic proportions in North America

What causes childhood obesity: Terms to learn 9. Body mass index (BMI)  Ratio of weight to height, calculated by dividing a person's body weight in pounds by the square of his or her height in inches. 10.Childhood overweight  In a child, having a BMI above the 85th percentile, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's 1980 standards for children of a given age. 11.Childhood obesity  In a child, having a BMI above the 95th percentile, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's 1980 standards for children of a given age. 12.Causes of childhood obesity primarily nurture in origin  Lack of exercise  Poor-quality food – high calorie low nutrition  Television  Cultural values 13.The best way to help children slim down is to increase their activity level. 14.Families should exercise together 15.Proper health habits can counter genetic propensity to obesity

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B. Asthma  Chronic disease of the respiratory system in which inflammation narrows the airways from the nose and mouth to the lungs, causing difficulty in breathing. Signs and symptoms include wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing. Hygiene hypothesis  (1) first-born children are more likely to develop asthma than are later-born ones and (2) farm children have much lower rates of asthma and allergies than do other children.

 Of all U.S. children younger than 18, 14 percent have been diagnosed at least once with asthma.  Most common medical problem for absence in school 5-20 percent  3x as common as was 20 years ago Causes of Asthma  Genes  Infections that once protected against asthma now rarely occur (Children who don’t experience viral infections are more likely to develop asthma

Asthma triggers  Allergens (pet hair, dust mites, cockroaches, and air pollution, tobacco smoke  Carpeted floors  More bedding  Dogs and cats inside  Airtight windows  Less outdoor play

Prevention of Asthma  Breast feeding newborns cuts asthma rate in half  Proper ventilations  Decreased pollution  Eradication of cockroaches

III. Brain Development

 Hubs formed in the brain during middle childhood provide crucial connections for healthy brain functioning.  Links between hypothalamus and amygdala help coordinate emotions  Stress impairs these connections  Complex tasks are slowly mastered with brain maturation (prefrontal cortex).  Brain reaches adult size by age 7  ability to attend to information in many areas of the brain at once develops (such as listening and writing)

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A. Coordinating connections

 Speed of thought • Reaction time: Time it takes to respond to a stimulus, either physically (with a reflexive movement such as an eye blink) or cognitively (with a thought) • Attention • Selective attention: Ability to concentrate on some stimuli while ignoring others: focus on most important elements in environment • Automaticity Automatization: Process in which repetition of a sequence of thoughts and actions makes the sequence routine, so that it no longer requires conscious thought. Automatization becomes easier and quicker as the brain develops

B. Motor skills

1. Coordination and Reaction time – time it takes to respond to a stimuli – is a component of athletic skill, requires brain maturation 2. Hand-eye coordination, balance, judging movement, are all still developing during these years 3. Overall Boys and girls are equal in their physical abilities 4. Expertise depends on many things including cultural influences 5. Practice and motivation a factor 6. About 6 % of children are determined to have a motor coordination disability sufficiently serious to interfere with school achievement 7. Rough and tumble play increases for boys during this age, this aids motor skill development, and emotional regulation and interpretation

B. Measuring the mind

Aptitude • Potential to master a specific skill or to learn a certain body of knowledge IQ test • Test designed to measure intellectual aptitude, or ability to learn in school. Originally, intelligence was defined as mental age divided by chronological age, times 100--hence the term intelligence quotient, or IQ Achievement test • Measure of mastery or proficiency in reading, mathematics, writing, science, or some other subject Flynn effect • Rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations

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Criticisms

Two leading developmentalists are among those who believe that humans have multiple intelligences, not just one. Sternberg • Three distinct types of intelligence: academic, creative, and practical • Instruction matched to analytic, creative, or athletic abilities • Applications may not be supported by scientific research Gardner • Seven intelligences: linguistic, logical mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily- kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential • Each associated with a region of the brain • Used in education

Brain scans

One way to indicate aptitude is to measure the brain directly. • Brain scans do not correlate with scores on IQ tests in childhood, but they do in adolescence. • Localized brain hubs and lobes suggests multiple intelligence, but overall speed of reaction seems to be a characteristic of the entire brain and may underlie g. • Vast variations in children’s brains makes experts hesitant to argue for any one interpretation of IQ tests and brain scans.

Conclusions from neuroscientists

• Brain development depends on specific experience. • Brain development continues throughout life. • Children with disorders often have unusual brain patterns.

IV. Children with Special Needs – children who require accommodations (extra help) in order to learn

Developmental psychopathology • Uses insights into typical development to understand and remediate developmental disorders • General principles • Abnormality is normal • Disability changes year by year • Life may be better or worse in adulthood • Diagnosis and treatment reflect the social context Developmental psychopathology is relevant in middle childhood. • Age-grouping and scheduled learning reveal peer differences. • Some disorders can be mitigated with early and targeted treatment. • Principles of multifinality and equifinality should lead to caution in diagnosis and treatment.

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• Multifinality: One cause can have many (multiple) final manifestations. • Equifinality: One symptom can have many causes.

Disorders are often comorbid and confused with each other.

• Comorbidity • Presence of two or more unrelated disease conditions at the same time in the same person • Many children diagnosed with either ADHD or bipolar disorder may be more accurately diagnosed with the other are less able than the average child to distinguish emotions when looking at faces.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) • Condition in which a person not only has great difficulty concentrating for more than a few moments but also is inattentive, impulsive, and overactive. • Neurological brain deficit – the result of genetic vulnerability, prenatal teratogens, or postnatal damage such as lead poisoning • Aggression is likely to develop if the teacher or parent set unrealistic expectations for quietly sitting

Problems with diagnosis • No biological marker for ADHD, but origin is neurological.. • ADHD is comorbid with other conditions. • Rates of ADHD are higher in U.S. than in most other nations; rates are increasing. • Increases in worldwide diagnosis for ADHD are worrisome for at least three reasons. • Misdiagnosis  Drug abuse- Drugs at best control behavior; they can not remedy learning problems  Medication -- not all are helped, must still change the environment • Psychotherapy • Normal behavior considered pathological Treatment for ADHD • Training for family and child • Special education for teachers • Medication Remember: As equifinality suggests, disorders vary in causes, so no single treatment works for every child. Drug Treatment for ADHD and other disorders • In the U.S., more than 2 million people younger than 18 take prescription drugs to regulate their emotions and behavior. • Ritalin (most common) and 20 other drugs • Experts believe contextual intervention should be tried first. • Finding the right drug and strength is difficult.

6 The Developing Person, Berger Chapter 11 Specific learning disorders

The DSM-5 diagnosis of specific learning disorder  Includes disabilities in both perception and processing of information, with lower achievement than expected in reading, math, or writing, including spelling Disabilities in these areas • Undercut academic achievement, destroy self-esteem, and qualify a child for special education • The DSM-5 diagnosis of specific learning disorder now combines diagnoses of deficits in the perception or processing of information; such difficulty is commonly referred to as a learning disability.

Dyslexia • Unusual difficulty with reading; thought to be the result of some neurological underdevelopment Dyscalculia • Unusual difficulty with math, probably originating from a distinct part of the brain Often comorbid with dyslexia Dysgraphia • Unusual difficulties with spelling and writing

Autism –

Children who once were said to have Asperger syndrome are now said to have “autism spectrum disorder without language or intellectual impairment

• Autistic spectrum disorder is characterized by extreme attention to details and deficient social understanding • More common in boys • Deficiencies in play and communication remain pronounced from the preschool year on • Lack emotional regulation

Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) • Developmental disorder marked by difficulty with social communication and interaction – including difficulty seeing things from another person’s point of view – and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities • The DSM-5 autism diagnosis, formerly reserved for children who were mute or violent, now includes mild, moderate, or severe categories. Three signs of an autism spectrum disorder • Delayed language • Impaired social responses • Unusual, repetitive play • Underlying all three • Wide variety of treatments

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Treatment is difficult. • Behavioral methods (social and language engagement early in life) • Special diets • Medication • Genetics play a role • Probably result of genetic vulnerability and damage prior to or shortly after birth • Use therapy and intervention

Educating children with Special Needs Deciding to designated a child as needing special education is not straightforward, nor is it closely related to specific special needs. Labels, laws, and learning • Least restrictive environment (LRE) • Response to intervention (RTI) • Individual education plan (IEP) Cohort and culture • Some categories are missing in U.S. special education system. • Teachers, therapists, and parents may work at cross-purposes to educate child

Each U.S. state selects and educates gifted and talented children in a particular way. This leads to controversy. Varying kinds of definitions • High IQ • Talented • Divergent thinker

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