[DEVPSY] Chapter 9 Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle-Late Childhood

the scope of disabilities

• Students w/ a learning disability: largest group of students with a disability who were enrolled in special education 

• Higher for males than females 

learning disabilities

• Has difficulty in learning that involves understanding or using spoken or written language, and the difficulty can appear in listening, thinking, reading, writing, and spelling 

• Causes have not yet been determined -> unlikely that it resides in a single, specific brain location

3 types of learning disabilities

1. dyslexia

2. dysgraphia

3. dyscalculia

dyslexia

Severe impairment in their ability to read and spell

dysgraphia

• Involves difficulty in handwriting 

• May write very slowly

• Numerous spelling errors

dyscalculia

• Developmental arithmetic disorder 

• Learning disability that involves difficulty in math computation

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

• Disability in which children consistently show one or more of the following characteristics over a period of time 

  • Inattention: difficulty focusing on any one thing that they may get bored 

  • Hyperactivity: show high level of physical activity

  • Impulsivity: difficulty curbing their reactions

• Increase ADHD -> attribute the increase mainly to heightened awareness of the disorder while others are concerned that many children are being incorrectly diagnosed

[ADHD] diagnoses

• ADHD with predominantly inattention 

• ADHD with predominantly hyperactivity/inclusivity 

• ADHD with both inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity

effects of ADHD

• Increased risk of lower academic achievement 

• Problematic peer relations 

• School dropout 

• Disordered eating 

• Adolescent pregnancy 

• Substance use problems 

• Antisocial behavior

contributors to ADHD

• cigarette and alcohol exposure, high maternal stress

possible treatments for adhd

1. NTM: serotonin and dopamine

2. Found deficits in theory of mind in children with ADHD 

3. Persisted into adulthood

4. Stimulant medication: Ritalin, Addrall 

   • Doesn’t improve attention that much 

5. Neurofeedback might improve the attention of children with adhd  

   • Trains individuals to become more aware of their physiological responses so they can attain better control over their brain’s prefrontal cortex 

   • Mindfulness training 

6. Exercise is being investigated as a possible treatment for children with adhd 

emotional and behavioral disorders

• Emotional and behavioral disorders; serious, persistent problems that involve relationships, aggression, depression, and fears associated with personal/school matters, inappropriate socioemotional characteristics

• Problems: internalized disorders, such as depression OR externalized disorders, such as aggression 

autism spectrum disorders

• Characterized by difficulties with social interaction, problems in verbal and non verbal communication, and repetitive behaviors caused by abnormalities in brain structure

• Show atypical responses to sensory experiences

• Increase: greater awareness of the disorder and more services available to treat it 

• Identified three times more often in boys than in girls 

• Early warning signs for ASD: lack of social gestures at 12 months, using no meaningful words at 18 months, and having no interest in other children and no spontaneous two-word phrases at 23 months 

• Distinctions: severity of problems based on amount of support needed due to challenges involving social communication, restricted interests, and repetitive behaviors 

[autism] determinants

1. Brain dysfunction characterized by abnormalities in brain structure and neurotransmitters 

• Lack connectivity between brain regions 

2. Genetics

• But no evidence that family socialization cause autism

educational issues: individuals with disabilities education improvement act

• Broad mandates for services to children with disabilities of all kinds 

• Evaluation and eligibility determination

• Appropriate education 

• Individualized education plan 

• Education in the least restrictive environment 

individualized education plan

• written statement that spells out a program that is specifically tailored for the student with a disability 

least restrictive environment

• a setting that is as similar as possible to the one in which children who don’t have disability are education 

Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage

• 7-11 years old 

• Can perform concrete operations

• Can reason logically as long as reasoning can be applied to specific/concrete examples 

• Operations; mental actions that are reversible

• Concrete operations; applied to real, concrete objects

• Conservation tasks = capable of concrete operation 

  • Involves a reversible mental action applied to a real, concrete object

Seriation

• : ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension 

Transitivity

• ability to logically combine relations to understand certain conclusions 

classification

Divide or classify things into sets or subsets and consider interrelationships

decentration

They can now coordinate two or more dimensions of an object

Evaluating Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage

• Various aspects of a stage should emerge at the same time 

• Some don’t appear in synchrony

• Education and culture exert stronger influences on children’s development than Piaget anticipated 

• Can be trained to reason at COS 

• Neo-piagetians criticisms 

  • Piaget got some things right but his theory needs considerable revision 

  • Give more emphasis to how children use attention, memory, and strategies to process information 

  • Thinking requires attention to children’s strategies, the speed at which children information, the particular task involved, and the division of problem solving into smaller, more precise steps

Information Processing

• Improve ability to sustain and control attention 

• Task-relevant stimuli > salient 

working memory

• Described as being more active and powerful in modifying information than STM 

• Bringing information to mind and mentally working with you or updating it 

short-term memory

• passive storehouse with shelves to store information until it is moved to LTM 

Baddeley Working Memory

• kind of mental workbench where individuals manipulate and assemble information when they make decisions, solve problems, and comprehend written and spoken language 

[WM] effects

• More advanced language comprehension, math skills, problem solving, reasoning 

• Predicted growth in emergent bilingual children 

• Increased learning of new words

knowledge and expertise

• Knowledge influences what they notice, and how they organize, represent, and interpret information 

• Older children have more expertise than younger 

strategies

• Consist of deliberate mental activities that improve the processing of information 

• Advise children to elaborate on what it is remembered 

• Encourage children to engage in mental imagery 

• Motivate children to remember material by understanding it rather than by memorizing it

[strategy] elaboration

• involves engaging in more extensive processing of information 

• Memory benefits because relating it to self are good ways to elaborate information

• Forming personal associations with information makes it more meaningful

• E.g., win= relate to last time he won a bicycle race 

[strategy] Mental imagery

remember picture

• Works better for older children than younger children when remembering verbal info

[strategy] Motivate children to remember material by understanding it rather than memorizing it

Understanding> rehearsing

• Rehearsal work for encoding information to STM but when retrieving from LTM, less efficient

• Better to understand, give meaning,elaborate, personalize 

executive function factors

• scaffolding of self-regulation

• aerobic exercise 

• Mindfulness training 

• Types of school curricula 

EF: self-control inhibition

•  develop self-control that will allow them to concentrate and persist on learning tasks 

EF: working memory

• effective WM to mentally work with masses of information 

EF: flexibility

• flexible in their thinking to consider different strategies and perspectives

critical thinking

• Involves thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating evidence 

critical thinking: deep thinking

• Stimulated to rethink previously held ideas

CT: Langer’s mindfulness

• being alert, mentally present, and cognitively flexible while going through  life’s everyday activities and tasks 

  • Active awareness of the circumstances 

  • Create new ideas

  • Open to new information 

creative thinking

• Ability to think in novel and unusual ways and to come up with unique solutions to problems 

• Concern: appears to be declining 

  • Causes: screentime

creative thinking: Guilford’s convergent thinking

•  produces one correct answer and characterizes the kind of thinking that is required on conventional tests of intelligence 

creative thinking: divergent thinking

• produces many different answers to the same question and characterizes creativity 

metacognition

• Cognition about cognition OR knowing about knowing 

• Can take on many forms, including thinking about and knowing when and where to use particular strategies for learning or solving problems

• Helps people to perform many cognitive tasks more effectively

• Goal: help students learn a rich repertoire of strategies that produce solutions to problems

metamemory

• knowledge about memory 

  • Includes general knowledge about memory

  • Encompasses knowledge about one’s own memory 

  • Includes knowledge about strategies 

intelligence

• Ability to solve problems and to adapt and learn from experiences 

• Individual differences; stable, consistent ways in which people differ from each other

The Binet Tests

• Binet devised a method of identifying children who were unable to learn in school 

• Simon and Binet: developed an intelligence test to meet this request 

  • 1905 scale 

  • Consisted of 30 questions ranging from ability to touch  one’s ear to the ability to draw designs from memory and define abstract concepts 

Binet: mental age

• an individual's level of mental development relative to others

Binet: intelligence quotient

• person’s mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100

Stanford-Binet Tests

Fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial reasoning, and working memory

normal distribution

• symmetrical, with a majority of the scores falling in the middle of possible range of scores and much fewer scores appearing toward the extremities

The Wechsler Scales

1. Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence 4th edition: children from 2.5-7.25 years

2. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children 5th edition: 6 to 16 years 

• Verbal comprehension 

• Working memory

• Processing speed 

• Fluid reasoning 

• Visual spatial

3. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale 4th edition

• Incldes 16 verbal and nonverbal subscales

Types of Intelligence

1. Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory

2. Gardner’s Eight Frames of Mind

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory

• Intelligence comes in 3 forms 

  • Analytical intelligence

  • Creative intelligence

  • Practical intelligence

• Triarchic patterns look different in school

• High analytical ability: Do well under instruction 

• Stresses that too often a teacher’s desire to increase student’s knowledge suppresses creative thinking

[Sternberg] analytical intelligence

• ability to analyze, judge, evaluate, compare, and contrast 

[Sternberg] creative intelligence

• ability to create, design, invent, originate, and imagine 

[Sternberg] practical intelligence

• ability to use, apply, implement, and put ideas into practice

Gardner’s Eight Frames of Mind

• Suggests there are eight types of intelligence 

  • Verbal 

  • Mathematical 

  • Spatial 

  • Bodily-kinesthetic 

  • Musical

  • Interpersonal 

  • Intrapersonal 

  • Naturalist 

• Everyone has all of these intelligences to varying degrees

Evaluating the Multiple-Intelligence

• Stimulated teachers to think more broadly about what makes up children’s competencies 

• Multiple-intelligence views have taken the concept of specific intelligences too far 

• Acknowledges the existence of a general intelligence for the kids of analytical tasks that traditional IQ tests assess but thinks that the range of tasks those tests measure is far too narrow

Interpreting Differences in IQ score

1. The Influence of Genetics

2. Environmental Influences 

3. Culture and Culture-Fair Tests

4. Ethnic Variations

the influence of genetics

• Compare iQ of identical and fraternal twins 

• Genetic influences may be more influential in some aspects of life than others

• Genetics and environment interact to influence intelligence 

environmental influences

• Reflected in the 12-18 point increase in IQ that occurs when children are adopted from lower-SES to middle-SES 

• Effect: rapidly increasing IQ test scores around the world 

• Due to increasing levels of education attained by a much greater percentage of the world’s population 

• Flynn effect; worldwide increase in intelligence scores that occurred over a short time frame

• Increasingly concerned about finding ways to improve the early environment of children who are at risk for impoverished intelligence and poor developmental outcomes

culture and culture-fair tests

• Different views of intelligence vary from culture 

• Culture-fair tests: tests of intelligence that are intended to be free of cultural bias 

• First type: includes items that are familiar to children from all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds or items that at least are familiar to the children taking the tast 

• Second type; no verbal questions 

• Hard to create: tend to reflect what dominant culture thinks is important 

• Sternberg: no culture-fair tests, only culture-reduced tests

ethnic variations

• Stereotype threat; the anxiety that one’s behavior might confirm a negative stereotype about one’s group 

• Explains testing gap is exaggerated

using intelligence tests

• Avoid stereotyping and expectation

• Know that IQ is not a sole indicator of competence 

• Use caution in interpreting on overall IQ score

intellectual disability

• condition of limited mental ability in which the individual 

  • Has low IQ, below 70 on a traditional intelligence 

  • Has difficulty adapting to the demands of everyday life 

  • First exhibits these characteristics by age 18 

organic intellectual disability

• describes a genetic disorder or a lower level of intellectual functioning caused by brain damage 

down syndrome

• one form of organic intellectual disability and it occurs when an extra chromosome

cultural-familial intellectual disability

• when no evidence of organic brain damage can be found 

  • IQs between 55 and 70 

giftedness

• People who are gifted have above-average intelligence and superior talent for something 

• Demonstrate skill in athletics or who have other special aptitudes tend to be overlooked

[giftedness] characteristics and factors

characteristics

1. Precocity 

2. Marching to their own drummer 

3. A passion to master 

factors

1. nature-nurture

2. domain-specific giftedness and development

3. education of children who are gifted 

nature-nurture

• Who are gifted recall that they had signs of high ability in a  particular area at a very young age, prior to or at the beginning of formal training

• Deliberate practice: characteristics of individuals who become experts

domain-specific giftedness and development

• you are good at something you have to resist the urge to think you’ll be good at everything

education of gifted children

• Who are gifted are socially isolated and underchallenged in the classroom 

• Final concern: Black American, Latino, and Native American children are underrepresented in gifted programs

alphabetic principal

•  letters of the alphabet represent sounds of the language 

vocabulary, grammar, metalinguistic awareness

• Children start to categorize their vocabulary by parts of speech

• Process of categorizing becomes easier as children increase their vocabulary 

• Appropriate use of comparatives and subjunctives 

• Learn to use language in a more connected way, producing connected discourse 

• Relate to sentences to one another to produce descriptions, definitions, narratives that make sense

metalinguistic awareness

• knowledge about language

  • Allows children to think about their language, understand what words are, and even define them

pragmatics

• Children also make progress in understanding how to use language in culturally appropriate ways

reading

• Leading experts now agree that direct instruction in phonics is the best way for children learn to read 

• Reading fluently 

• Demands word recognition 

reading: phonics approach

• emphasizes that reading instruction should teach basic rules for translation written symbols into sounds 

writing

• Corrections of spelling and printing should be selective and made in positive ways that don’t discourage the child’s writing and spontaneity 

• Metacognitive strategies involved being competent writer are linked with those required to be a competent reader 

writing progress

• being receptive to feedback and applying what one learns in writing one paper to making the next paper better

second-language learning

• Sensitive periods likely vary across different language systems 

• New vocab is easier to learn than new sounds or new grammar 

• Children who are fluent in 2 languages perform better than their single-language counterparts on tests of 

  • Control of attention 

  • Concept formation 

  • Analytical reasoning 

  • Inhibition 

  • Cognitive flexibility 

  • Cognitive complexity 

  • Cognitive monitoring 

bilingual education

• English language learners (ELL) 

• Instruction in English 

• Dual-language approach that combines instruction in their home language and English

• Hakuta: Support combined home language and English approach because 

  • Children have difficulty learning a subject when it’s taught in a language they don’t understand 

  • When both languages are integrated in the classroom, children learn the second language more readily and participate more actively