Section V Middle and Late Childhood. Chapter 10 Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle and Late Childhood

Comprehension and Application Essay Questions

 

We recommend that you follow either our guidelines for "Answering Essay and Critical Thinking Questions," or those provided by your instructor, when preparing your response to these questions. Your answers to these kinds of questions demonstrate an ability to comprehend and apply ideas discussed in this chapter.

 

1. Explain the four types of parenting styles, and describe the personalities of children who experience each type of parenting.

2. Compare and contrast child-child and parent-child interactions.

3. Discuss the pros and cons of a mother's working outside of the home on a child's social development.

4. What are peer relations? Explain whether they are necessary for adequate social development?

5. Explain how play fulfills both developmental and educational goals and functions.

6. Evaluate two claims: (a) violence on television causes aggression in children, and (b) prosocial behavior on television causes children to engage in prosociai behavior.

7. Explain what Erikson means by saying that early childhood is dominated by feelings of initiative versus guilt.

8. Compare and contrast any two theories of gender development.

9. Explain the relationship between moral reasoning and moral behavior.

10. Compare and contrast any two theories of moral development.

 

Section V Middle and Late Childhood

Chapter 10 Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle and Late Childhood

Summary

 

1.0 Images of Life-Span Development: Training Children for the Olympics in China

 

The national policy of China is to select youngsters who show athletic promise and enroll them in sports schools, the only route to Olympic stardom in China. Students who no longer show potential are asked to leave them. One question is when children are developmentally ready for competitive sports.

 

2.0 Physical Development in Middle and Late Childhood

Body Changes. During middle and late childhood, ages 6 through 11 years, growth is 2 to 3 inches per year and weight gain is 3 to 5 pounds per year. Slow and consistent growth increases both muscle mass and strength, lengthens legs, and slims trunks.

Motor behavior becomes smoother and more coordinated during the elementary school years. Although children gain greater control over their bodies and can sit for longer periods of time, their lives should be focused on active rather than passive activities. Improved fine motor skills result from increased myelinization of the central nervous system. Boys are usually superior at gross motor skills whereas girls are usually superior at fine motor skills.

 

Exercise. Many children are in poor physical shape by the time that they enter the first grade. They frequently do not get enough exercise, and schools do not provide enough opportunities for exercise. Parents are often poor rather than positive role models with regard to exercise.

 

Sports. In middle and late childhood, many children engage in activities such as baseball, soccer, football, swimming, and gymnastics. Participation in organized sports can have both positive and negative consequences for children. There is a special concern for children in high pressure sports.

 

Stress. Stress refers to an individual's response to circumstances and events (deemed stressors) that threaten individuals and tax their coping abilities. Richard Lazarus argues that one's interpretation or cognitive appraisal of a situation determines how stressful the events or circumstances are to an individual. Primary appraisal determines to what extern events are perceived as harmful, threatening, or challenging. Secondary appraisal determines what resources one has to cope effectively with stressors.

Environmental stressors include life events (e.g., divorce, incest, or death of a parent) and daily hassles (living in poverty). Acculturation refers to cultural change that results from continuous, direct contact between two distinct cultural groups. Acculturative stress entails the negative consequences of conflict between two different cultures. For example, ethnic minority group members have long encountered hostility, prejudice, and lack of support during personal crises, all of which contribute to alienation, isolation, and stress. Chronic poverty is also stressful. Protective buffers from stress for children include the long-term presence of a basic, trusting relationship with at least one adult. Another buffer is a support network.

 

Handicapped Children. Some 10 to 15 percent of the children in the United States are handicapped in some way. Public Law 94-142 requires that all handicapped children receive free and appropriate education in a least restrictive environment. This is often accomplished through mainstreaming, the controversial practice of placing handicapped students in regular classrooms and providing them with supportive services. Labeling children as handicapped or disabled may have negative consequences for the child.

 

Learning Disabilities. Children with learning disabilities have normal intelligence but have difficulties in one or more academic subjects. Learning disabilities are complex and multifaceted and require precise analysis.

 

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is characterized by distractibility, impulsivity, and extreme activity. Possible causes include heredity, prenatal damage, diet, family dynamics, and physical environment. Amphetamines have been used with some success in treatment, but do not work with all hyperactive children.

 

3.0 Cognitive Development in Middle and Late Childhood

 

Piaget's Theory and Concrete Operational Thought. Piaget's concrete operational period extends from about 7 years of age to the beginning of adolescence. Thought is characterized as reversible and decentered, but is limited to reasoning about the concrete world. Conservation tasks can be solved: The child realizes that the amount of a substance does not change by changing any of its superficial characteristics. Thought is made up of operations that are mental actions or representations that are reversible. Children can correctly solve classification tasks for the first time. Three applications of Piaget's ideas to education include communication, the belief that children have many ideas about the world, and that children are motivated to learn.

 

Piagetian Contributions and Criticisms. Piaget's major contributions were that he made brilliant observations of children, and contributed noteworthy developmental concepts such as object permanence, conservation, assimilation, and accommodation. Aspects of Piaget's theory have been criticized. First, some cognitive abilities seem to emerge earlier than Piaget believed, and their subsequent development may take longer than they thought. Second, cognitive development is more specific in many respects than allowed by Piaget's grand theory of stages. Third, training studies have demonstrated that a child apparently at one Piagetian stage can be taught to respond at the level of a higher stage, something not allowed within Piaget's framework. Fourth, culture and education play stronger roles on children's development than Piaget realized.

 

Information Processing. Long-term memory improved during middle and late childhood is related to control processes and learner characteristics. Memory can be enhanced by the use of control processes such as rehearsal, organization, and imagery. The keyword method uses imagery to enhance memory. Learner characteristics such as age, attitude, motivation, and health also influence memory.

Knowledge about aspects of the world allows us to make inferences and is thought by some to be organized in cognitive structures called schema. Schema for events, such as visiting a restaurant or a doctor's office, are called scripts. Scripts emerge early in life, perhaps by 1 year of age.

Metacognitive knowledge entails an understanding of one's own ability to think and reason tasks, and strategies. It benefits learning in school settings. Cognitive monitoring is a process of knowing what you are doing, what to do next, and assessing one's overall understanding of a problem or situation. The source of much cognitive monitoring for children is other people. Various programs have been designed to promote this skill in children. An illustrative example is reciprocal teaching.

Critical thinking entails a rather deeper surface understanding of problems, open-mindedness about approaches and perspectives, and reflective thinking rather dogmatic acceptance of ideas. To improve this skill, children need to develop problem-solving strategies, improve their mental representations, expand their base of knowledge, and desire to use such new developed thinking skills.

 

Intelligence. Intelligence is an abstract ability that is indirectly measured in terms of children's verbal ability, problem-solving skills, and ability to learn from and adapt to everyday life.

One question is whether intelligence is composed of general or a specific ability. Binet's original intelligence test in 1905 was designed to identify children in French schools who should be placed in special classes, Binet developed the idea of mental age. The ratio of mental age to chronological age defined the intelligence quotient (IQ), Standardization of the Binet showed that scores on this test produced a normal distribution of scores for the population. The contemporary Stanford-Binet provides separate scores for verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract/visual reasoning, and short-term memory. Although Wechsler viewed intelligence as general in nature, the Wechsler scales entail verbal and nonverbal categories. These are further subdivided to reflect specific aspects of intelligence. Wechsler devised the WAIS (for adults), WISC (for children) and the WPPIS (for children 4 to 6.5).

Sternberg proposed a triarchic theory of intelligence in which the component is the basic unit and distinctions are made among componential, experiential, and contextual intelligence. Gardner has developed a theory that assumes there are seven different kinds of intelligence. Gardner indicates specific kinds of brain damage can selectively impair only one type of intelligence.

There are cultural ethnic differences in intelligence test scores, Ethnic research needs to increase sis emphasis on diversity within ethnic groups and on the processes that explain ethnic differences rather than focus on the differences between ethnic groups.

Early intelligence tests favored White, middle-class, and urban individuals. Current tests try to reduce this bias. For example, alternatives to traditional intelligence tests include culture-fair tests; however, attempts to produce such tests have not usually been successful

To prevent the misuse of intelligence tests, test results should be combined with other information about a person. The belief that IQ scores indicate a fixed, and unchanging index of a person's intelligence can produce unfortunate stereotypes and expectations because a high IQ is not the ultimate human value.

 

The Extremes of Intelligence. Mental retardation is indicated by below average general intellectual functioning and defects in adaptive behavior. Some forms of mental retardation, such as Down's syndrome, are organic or biologically based. Other forms, such as cultural-familial retardation, may be environmental in origin. Gifted children are often identified by well-above-average performance on IQ tests. A longitudinal study of gifted children by Terman has found that these people have more intellectual accomplishments, more satisfying personal lives, and better health than a control group.

 

Creativity. Creativity is the ability to think in a novel or unusual way, and is not identical with intelligence. One view is that creativity may involve divergent rather than convergent thinking.

 

Language Development in Middle and Late Childhood. Children in middle and late childhood begin to think more analytically about words. They also increase the size of their vocabulary and make advances in grammar.

There are three traditional methods for teaching children to read: the ABC method, the whole-word method, and the phonics method. A combination of the whole-word method arid the phonics method is usually taught in American Schools; however, reading is much more than the sum of these approaches. Understanding how reading works requires consideration of information processing.

Bilingualism is an issue in language development with implications for education and public policy. Debate exists regarding the best way to conduct bilingual education. Bilingual education is a complex issue because bilingual education is often associated with positive outcomes; however, it is difficult to determine causal relations.

 

Achievement. David McClelland argued that need for achievement reflects a desire to accomplish something or to reach a standard of excellence. To increase the achievement motivation of their children, parents need to set standards, model achievement-oriented behaviors, and reward children for their achievements.

Intrinsic motivation is behavior that is motivated by an underlying need for competence and self-determination. Extrinsic motivation is behavior that is influenced by external rewards. Incentives are external cues that stimulate motivation. Care must be exercised in the use of incentives because extrinsic rewards can weaken performance on intrinsically motivated tasks. Recognizing that effort is important is a key to good performance in school.

A helpless orientation is one in which children appear trapped by the experience of difficulty, and attribute their difficulty to inability. A mastery orientation is one that describes children who are task oriented and focus on learning strategies. They report being challenged and excited by difficult tasks rather than by being threatened by them.

Research on the achievement of minorities generally has failed to consider social class, a factor more important than race, and that there is considerable diversity within ethnic groups. Although American children generally are more achievement oriented than children in other countries, they have not compared favorably with children from other achievement oriented cultures in recent years.

 

4.0  Contemporary Concerns

 

Sociocultural Worlds of Development 10.01: Achievement Learning in Asian and American Children. American children have not compared favorably with Japanese children in recent years in tests of math and science achievement. Harold Stevenson has studied children's learning and achievement cross-nationally for 15 years. Asian schools embrace many of the ideals Americans have for their own schools; however, the Asian schools have more successfully implemented them in interesting and productive ways that make learning enjoyable for children. In addition to achieving at a higher level, Japanese students express less distress and have fewer problems than American students.

 

Perspectives on Parenting and Education 10.1: Parenting and Gifted Children. Parents are proud, but concerned about their "gifted" children. Less gifted children suffer negative social comparison, especially when the first born is the "gifted" child. Parents of "gifted" children also have concerns about education and the social-emotional growth.

 

Life-Span Health and Well-Being: Madeline Cartwright, Making a Difference in North Philadelphia. Madeline Cartwright, an inner-city school principal, built a model school by buffering the effects of stress on students. First, she provided a way for children to have clean clothes, and, second, she involved parents in their children's schooling. She has also argued for establishing "mentor houses" that provide positive role models for children throughout the state of Pennsylvania.

 

Life-Span Practical Knowledge 10.1:To Listen to a Child. T. Berry Brazelton wrote this volume for parents who want to cope effectively with children's problems. The book addresses children's fears, feeding, sleeping problems, illness, and hospitalization.

 

Life-Span Practical Knowledge 10.2: The New York Times Parents' Guide to the Best Books for Children. This book is an extensive guide to selecting children's books that evaluates over 1,700 titles according to reading level.

 

Life-Span Reading 10.3: The Hurried Child. David Elkind's book describes the pervasive and harmful situation in which American children grow up too fast and too soon. Rather than push children to be superkids, Elkind recommends that parents respect children's needs and developmental timetables.

 

Key Terms

 

1.0 Images of Lifespan Development: Training Children for the Olympics in China

 

2 .0 Physical Development in Middle and Late Childhood

  middle and late childhood

  active versus passive activities

     myelination

exercise

sports

stress

stressors

cognitive appraisal

primary appraisal

harm

threat

challenge

secondary appraisal

frustration

life events

daily hassles

acculturation

acculturative stress

buffer

handicapped children

Public Law 94-142

mainstreaming

learning disabilities

attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

amphetamine

 

3.0 Cognitive Development in Middle and Late Childhood

concrete operational thought

operations

reversible mental action

logical reasoning

classification skills

Neo-Piagetians

long-term memory

control processes or strategies

rehearsal

organization

imagery

keyword method

schema

script

metacognitive knowledge

cognitive monitoring

reciprocal teaching

critical thinking

intelligence

individual differences in intelligence

general versus specific ability

mental age (MA)

intelligence quotient (IQ)

normal distribution

Stanford-Binet test

Wechsler Scales (WAIS, WISC, WPPSI)

triarchic theory of intelligence

componential intelligence

experiential intelligence

contextual intelligence

component

Gardner’s seven types of intelligence

culturally biased test

culture-fair test

mental retardation

organic retardation

cultural familial retardation

gifted child

convergent thinking

divergent thinking

creativity

vocabulary

grammar

ABC method

whole-word method

phonics method

bilingual education

achievement motivation (need for achievement)

intrinsic motivation

extrinsic motivation

helpless orientation

mastery orientation

 

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