Infant & Child Development (Middle Childhood Exam)

Concrete Operations Stages

- From age 7 to 11.

- Kids develop logical mental operations, decentration, reversibility, taxonomic classification, seriation, transitive inference, and inductive reasoning.

- Limitations in deductive reasoning.

Logical Mental Operations

Ability to manipulate information in the mind and follow rules of logic.

Decentration

Ability to focus on multiple facets of a problem.

Reversibility

Ability to think through a series of logical steps that lead from point A to B AND reverse those steps mentally to arrive back at point A. (Knowing that a stretched out piece of clay has the same mass as it's original shape and can return back to it).

Seriation

Systematic ordering of items along dimensions.

Transitive Inference

Ability to mentally solve verbal problems.

Inductive Reasoning

Using specific observations to generate a broader conclusion.

Deductive Reasoning

Using general premises to reach a specific conclusion. (Children in middle childhood can't focus on the logical premises. As their world knowledge increases, they get better at this).

Cognitive Self-Regulation

Ability to manage thoughts and behaviors to accomplish goals.

Selective Atttention

Attending to relevant information while ignoring distractors.

Digit Cancellation Task

Crossing out specified digits as fast as possible. (Selective Attention Task).

Trail Marking Test

Drawing a line to connect sequences of letters or numbers. (Selective Attention Task).

Cognitive Flexibility

Ability to switch attention with changing environmental demands.

Working Memory Spann

The amount of information a person can handle at a time.

- Improves due to increased processing of information and ability to maintain info for recall.

-Working memory deficits lead to academic problems because it's difficult to keep track of all school material gone over in one day.

Processing Speed

How fast a person can respond to straightforward problems.

-Increases due to myelination and synaptic pruning in the cerebral cortex.

Metacogniton

Awareness of what one knows and how thinking works.

-Allows one to monitor their performance and implement learning strategies.

Metamemory

Understanding of the memory process.

Rehearsal

Deliberate repetition of information to aid memory.

Chunking

Grouping material into meaningful categories.

Elaboration

Creating stories or images to remember information.

How does knowledge facilitate memory?

Someone who knows a lot about a specific field will remember more field-related words than a non-expert.

Autobiographical Memory

Memory that we retain since birth that follow us to construct identity and a personal sense of continuity.

-Includes semantic and episodic memory.

-Episodic memory improves with age, and personal narratives become more detailed.

How does vocabulary change?

- Longer and more complex vocab words.

- Use synonyms

- Refer to abstract ideas

- Understand small but meaningful variations of words.

- Use connectives to combine ideas.

Conceptual Understanding (Reading)

Semantics and interpretation of broader narratives. (Outside-in)

Decoding Sounds (Reading)

Understanding of phonics and how letters represent the sounds of words. (Inside-out)

-Children lose interest in a solely phonic approach to reading, also need a whole-language approach.

When do students achieve skills in expository writing?

Adolescence.

Informal Language

- Repetition of words

- Start with "and" or "but"

- Use of slang

Academic Language

- Variety of words

- Transition words

- No slang

What are math learning strategies?

- Using fingers to count

- Counting on from larger number

- Using previous facts to solve problems

- Repeated addition to solve multiplication

Behavior and knowledge divergence

Children don't have an understanding of mathematical equality.

Increased math performance

Children develop an increased understanding of relative magnitude, the relative distances between numbers, and increase their performance of number line questions.

Motivation

Desire to accomplish goal and maintenance of interest and effort.

Self-Determination Theory

Motivation is a task enhanced when a person makes choices without external influence

Intrinsic Motivation

Engaging in activity due to self-interest and a willingness to spend a lot of energy without reward.

-Decreases with the introduction of rewards or bribes.

Extrinsic Motivation

Engaging in an activity because of external pressures such as rewards or punishments.

-Children will lose interest in the activity.

Mindset

Children's explanation for personal failures and successes.

Entity theory of intelligence

Intelligence is innate and a great source of performance.

-Children who believe this and have poor performance will give up because they think they'll always be inferior.

Incremental theory of intelligence

Intelligence is malleable and improves with effort.

-Parents must be sensitive AND convey the importance of effort.

Process praise

Praising effort

-Leads to increased performance

Person praise

Focus on fixed abilities or traits.

-Undermines child's achievements

Describe high quality teaching

- Being knowledgeable in content

- Choosing material that challenges students

- Making content and assignments engaging

- Helping kids develop learning strategies

- Adapting instruction to meet needs of students

Pygmalion Effect

People live up or live down to expectations of them

-When teachers have good expectations of their students their students performance increases

Classroom Climate

Intellectual, social, emotional, and physical environment where students learn.

-Support climate and smaller class size leads to better learning.

Negative Self-Conscious Emotions

Result from a violation of a behavioral standard. Can be healthy when learning morals.

- No guilt leads to antisocial behavior.

- Too much shame leads to depression.

Pride

Positive feelings about socially-valued accomplishment and the child's happiness at knowing another important person recognized the accomplishment.

Hubristic Pride

Child attributes accomplishment to overall greatness. Can lead to antisocial and selfish actions.

Authentic Pride

Child's positive evaluation of accomplishment.

Moral Development of Self-Conscious Emtions

7 to 9: Children focus on how others react to them

10 to 12: Children focus on self evaluations and personal standards.

Situation-centered coping

Change environment to prevent situation.

Emotion-centered coping

Changing view of situation to prevent negative interpretation.

Negative development of display rules

Children who have difficulty with display rules will suppress emotions so much that it can become unhealthy.

- Externalizing behavior - Aggression

- Internalizing behavior - Depression & Anxiety

Social Comparison

Judgment of one's traits, abilities, and behaviors relative to other people. This increases with age.

- Early childhood: Only compare self to a single person.

- Middle childhood: Compares self across several areas to many people.

Warmth (Parenting)

Level of affection, support, and responsiveness.

Control (Parenting)

Extent to which parent sets boundaries, expectations, and consequences.

Permissive Parents

High warmth and low control. Children demonstrate inappropriate and immature behaviors and have difficulty controlling impulses.

Authoritarian Parents

Low warmth and high control. Children experience low autonomy and are obedient. They suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and low social competence

Authoritative Parents

High warmth and high control. Children are more likely to do well academically and socially.

Uninvolved Parents

Low warmth and low control. Children are at risk of adjustment problems; they may become emotionally withdrawn and unfulfilled in their emotional needs

How do parenting styles impact later development?

While children become less reliant on parents as they age, their perception of parents receptiveness doesn't change. Insecure attachments will lead to internalizing behaviors.

Describe friendship in middle childhood

- Formed through similarities. (Race, gender, ethnicity, hobbies, personality, academic motivation).

- The more similarities, the longer the friendship.

- Friendships move past tangible benefits and to trust and loyalty.

- Girls report more intimate exchanges and conflict resolution in friendships.

Describe cyberbulling

- Victim can't escape as internet harassment can follow them everywhere.

- Bully can avoid punishment by assuming a false identity.

- Cyberbullying reaches a large audience. May lead to others bullying victim.

- Bullying is not confined to discrete events, as people can widely distribute content created by a bully.

Developmental Cascade of Poor Emotional Regulation

Poor emotional regulation and 5 and 7 leads to low friendship quality and peer acceptance in middle childhood.