L7 - Middle Childhood: Growth and Development

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from a Middle Childhood Development lecture.

Early Childhood Growth

The period where children grow more slowly than in infancy, but still grow an average of 2.5 inches and 4 to 7 pounds a year.

Rapid Brain Growth in Early Childhood

Occurs in the prefrontal cortex, enabling advancements in executive functions and sustained attention.

Information-Processing Skills in Early Childhood

Improved executive and sustained attention, better short-term memory, and increased understanding of the human mind.

Characteristics of Children in Middle Childhood

Children are eager to learn, are curious, and enjoy living in the present moment. Their parents still influence them, but their peers and friends also shape their growth.

Industry vs. Inferiority

A stage of development according to Erikson's Psychosocial Theory when children face the challenge of mastering new skills, which gives them confidence or makes them feel inferior.

Concrete Operational Stage

A stage in Piaget’s Cognitive Theory, that occurs in middle childhood, when children use logical thought or operations, but can only apply logic to physical objects.

Kindergarten Readiness Skills

Gross-motor skills, fine-motor skills, self-help skills, cognitive skills, and social-emotional skills.

Characteristics of Children Ages 5 to 7

Children at this age are talkative, imaginative, love to explore, crave adult approval, can be sensitive, and can be cooperative yet competitive.

Physical Growth in Middle Childhood

Growth in height and weight slows during this period, with an average of 2-3 inches per year and 4-5 pounds per year; bodies look longer and leaner.

Motor Development in Middle Childhood

Physical activities help build stamina and confidence; hand-eye coordination continues to improve.

Gross-Motor Skills in Middle Childhood

Activities improve balance and coordination; fearlessness may result in accidents; visual-motor coordination improves.

Fine-Motor Skills in Middle Childhood

Hand-eye coordination and dexterity improves, which can be develoepd through Cutting, coloring, building, and playing electronic games.

Cognitive Demands in Middle Childhood

Children must adapt to multiple teachers and more independent learning, requiring them to listen and take notes.

Complex Thinking Skills Developed in Middle Childhood

Includes seriation, classification, conservation, and transitivity.

Language and Reading Development in Middle Childhood

Children identify letters as symbols and begin to recognize the sounds they make, developing skills for reading competence.

Inductive Logic

The ability to go from a specific experience to a general principle.

Understanding Reversibility

Awareness that actions can be reversed. An example of this is being able to reverse the order of relationships between mental categories.

Conservation

Understanding that when something changes in shape or appearance it is still the same.

Decreased Egocentrism

The ability to think about things from another's view point.

Decentration

The ability to focus on many parts of a problem, as opposed to just one aspect.

Socio-Emotional Development in Middle Childhood

Children develop feelings of competence by learning new skills, self-confidence grows, and they can feel inferior to other children.

Peer Relationships in Middle Childhood

Wanting to be part of a group, having a best friend, looking for acceptance and loyalty, beginning to show empathy and caring.

Self-Concept in Middle Childhood

Preteens feel self-sufficient, may not see their own limitations, often confide in friends rather than family, and have a strong fear of rejection.

Kohlberg: Moral Development

Expanded on the earlier work of cognitive theorist Jean Piaget to explain the moral development of children.

Conventional Stage of Moral Development

Children make decisions based on the desire to be perceived as “good” or “bad”