Development Through the Lifespan Chapter 9

Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

Body Growth in Middle Childhood  Slow, regular pattern  Girls shorter and lighter until about age 9  Lower portion of body growing fastest  Bones lengthen  Muscles very flexible  All permanent teeth arrive Common Health Problems in Middle Childhood  Vision - Myopia  Hearing - Otitis media (middle ear infection)  Malnutrition  Obesity  Illnesses  Injuries Causes of Obesity in Middle Childhood  Overweight parents  Low SES  Parents’ feeding practices  Low physical activity  Television  Cultural food environment Deaths from Injuries, North American Children, Ages 5–19 Motor Development in Early Childhood  Gross Motor Skills Improvements:  Flexibility  Balance  Agility  Force  Fine Motor Skills Gains:  Writing  Drawing Physical Play Development in Middle Childhood  Games with Rules  Sports  Invented Games  Video Games  Adult-organized sports  Physical Education Piaget’s Theory: Achievements of the Concrete Operational Stage  Conservation  Decentration  Reversibility  Classification  Seriation  Transitive inference  Spatial Reasoning  Directions  Maps Key Information Processing Improvements  Increase in information-processing capacity  Gains in cognitive inhibition

Both may be related to brain development Attention in Middle Childhood Attention becomes more:  Selective  Adaptable  Planful Development of Memory Strategies  Rehearsal – early grade school  Organization – early grade school  Knowledge base helps organization  Elaboration – end of middle childhood  Meaningful chunks of information Information Processing and Academic Learning  Reading  Whole-language approach  Basic-skills approach  Mathematics  Drill  “Number sense” Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences  Linguistic  Logico-mathematical  Musical  Spatial  Bodily-kinesthetic  Naturalist  Interpersonal  Intrapersonal Explaining Differences in IQ  Genetics  Accounts for about half of differences  Environment  SES  Culture  Communication styles  Cultural bias in test content Language Development in Middle Childhood  Vocabulary  Increases fourfold during school years  20 new words a day  Grammar  Passive voice  Infinitive phrases  Pragmatics  Adjust to people and situations  Phrase requests to get what they want Learning Two Languages  Bilingual Development  Learn both languages at the same time  Learn first language, then second  Sensitive period - childhood  Bilingual Education  Language immersion  Bilingual education Academic Achievement and Class Size Educational Philosophies and Practices  Traditional v. Open Classrooms  New Directions  Theory  Reciprocal teaching  Teacher-student Interaction  Self-fulfilling prophesies  Grouping for learning Teaching Children with Special Needs  Learning Difficulties  Mainstreaming  Gifted  Talented  Divergent thinking and creativity