PSYC 255: CH. 7 - PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE AND LATE CHILDHOOD

The period of middle and late childhood, also known as the?

elementary school years

The elementary school years involve what?

growth that is slow and consistent

By the end of late childhood, what?

total brain volume is stabilized

An important shift in brain activation is from?

diffuse, larger areas to more focal, smaller areas

This shift in brain activation is characterized by?

synaptic pruning in which areas of the brain that are not being used lose synaptic connections and areas that are being used show increased connections

The prefrontal cortex orchestrates what?

the functions of many other brain regions during development, coordinating which connections are the most effective for solving a problem

What between brain regions increases as children develop?

Connectivity

Motor skills become much?

smoother and more coordinated

An increase in fine motor skills is due to increased myelination of the?

central nervous system

What benefits attention, memory, effortful and goal directed thinking and behavior, creativity, and academic success?

Aerobic exercise

A child with a what has difficulty in learning that involves understanding or using spoken or written language, and the difficulty can appear in listening, thinking, reading, writing, spelling, or doing math?

learning disability

What are the three types of learning disabilities?

• Dyslexia

• Dysgraphia

• Dyscalculia

Dyslexia

a severe impairment in their ability to read and spell

Dysgraphia

difficulty in handwriting. 

Dyscalculia

also known as developmental arithmetic disorder; difficulty in math computation.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

is a disability in which children consistently show one or more of these characteristics over a period of time:

• Inattention.

• Hyperactivity.

• Impulsivity. 

Children who are what have difficulty focusing on any one thing and may get bored with a task after only a few minutes or even seconds?

inattentive

Children who are what show high levels of physical activity, seeming to be almost constantly in motion?

hyperactive

Children who are what have difficulty curbing their reactions and do not do a good job at thinking before they act?

impulsive

Children with ADHD can be diagnosed as?

• ADHD with predominantly inattention. 

• ADHD with predominantly hyperactivity/impulsivity. 

• ADHD with hyperactivity/impulsivity. 

Ritalin or Adderall are what?

stimulant medications

In addition to stimulant medications such as Ritalin or Adderall, what training exercises might reduce ADHD symptoms?

• Neurofeedback

• Mindfulness training

• Physical exercise

Neurofeedback

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

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)

also called pervasive developmental disorders, range from the more severe disorder called autistic disorder to the milder disorder called Asperger syndrome.

ASD is characterized by?

• Problems in social interaction. 

• Problems in verbal and nonverbal communication. 

• Repetitive behaviors. 

• Atypical responses to sensory experiences.

ASD is usually identified during?

early or middle childhood, rather than during infancy.

Research that seeks to identify earlier determinants of autism have found the early warning signs, which are?

• Lack of social gestures at 12 months. 

• Using no meaningful words at 18 months. 

• Having no interest in other children. 

• Having no spontaneous two-word phrases at 24 months.

Autistic disorder

is a severe developmental autism spectrum disorder that has its onset during the first three years of life.

Signs of autistic disorder include what?

• Deficiencies in social relationships. 

• Abnormalities in communication. 

• Restrictive, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. 

Asperger syndrome

is a relatively mild autism spectrum disorder.

Signs of asperger syndrome include what?

• Has relatively good verbal language skills. 

• Has milder nonverbal language problems. 

• Has a restricted range of interests and relationships.

• Might engage in obsessive, repetitive routines and preoccupations with a particular subject.

Children with autism benefit from what?

• Well-structured classrooms. 

• Individualized teaching. 

• Small-group instruction. 

• Behavior modification techniques.

In 1975, the Public Law 94-142 or the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, required what?

that all students with disabilities be given a free, appropriate public education.

In 1990, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was recast as the?

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was amended in 1997 and then reauthorized in 2003 and renamed what?

the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.

Mandates of IDEA include what?

• Individualized education plan (IEP)

• Least restrictive environment (LRE)

• Inclusion

Individualized education plan (IEP)

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

Least restrictive environment (LRE)

a setting that is as similar as possible to the one in which children who do not have a disability are educated.

Inclusion

educating a child with special education needs full-time in the regular classroom.

Piaget’s concrete operational stage

lasts from 7 to 11 years of age, is when children can perform concrete operations and can reason logically, so long as reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples. 

Operations

are mental actions that are reversible.

Concrete operations

are operations that are applied to real, concrete objects.

In the concrete operational stage children can what?

• Consider several characteristics rather than focus on a single property of an object. 

• Classify or divide things into different sets or subsets and consider their interrelationships. 

• Order stimuli along a quantitative dimension (an ability known as seriation). 

• Logically combine relations to understand certain conclusions (an ability known as transitivity). 

During the elementary school years, children dramatically improve their ability to what?

sustain and control attention. 

Short-term memory does not show much of an increase after the age of what?

7.

Working memory

is a kind of “mental workbench” where individuals manipulate and assemble information when they make decisions, solve problems, and comprehend written and spoken language.

Working memory develops slowly; by age what, children can only remember half of the items that adults can remember.

8.

Long-term memory

is relatively permanent and unlimited and increases with age during middle and late childhood.

Improvements in memory are not about how long children are able to remember information but rather about how children what?

actively construct their memory.

How do children actively construct their memory?

Through:

• Acquisition of knowledge

• Use of strategies

  • Elaboration

  • Mental imagery

  • Understanding

  • Repeat and vary

Acquisition of knowledge

knowledge influences what we notice and how we organize, represent, and interpret information, in turn affecting our ability to remember, reason, and solve problems.

When individuals have what about a particular subject, their memory tends to be good regarding material related to that subject?

expertise

Use of strategies

strategies consist of deliberate mental activities to improve the processing of information.

What are some examples of use of strategies?

• Elaboration

• Mental imagery

• Understanding

• Repeat and vary

Elaboration

involves more extensive processing of information, such as thinking of examples or relating the information to one’s own life, which makes the information more meaningful. 

Understand information, rather than what?

memorize it.

Repeat and vary instructional information and?

link it to other information.  

Charles Brainerd/Valeria Reyna’s fuzzy trace theory states?

that memory is best understood by considering two types of memory representations:

• Verbatim memory trace

• Gist

Verbatim memory trace

precise details of the information; used by young children, more likely to be forgotten. 

Gist (builds up fuzzy traces)

central idea of the information; used by elementary school aged children; more enduring and less likely to be forgotten.

What, according to Brainerd and Reyna, account for much of the improvement in memory and reasoning during the elementary school years?

Fuzzy traces

Thinking

involves manipulating and transforming information in memory.

Two important aspects include being able to think what?

• Critically. 

• Creatively.

Critical thinking

involves thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating evidence.

Mindfulness

involves paying careful attention to your thoughts, feelings, and environments.

Creative thinking

is the ability to think in novel and unusual ways and to come up with unique solutions to problems. 

J.P. Guildford, recognizing the difference between creative thinking and intelligence, distinguished between what?

• convergent thinking

• divergent thinking

Convergent thinking

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

Divergent thinking

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

Metacognition

is cognition about cognition, or know about knowing.

Metacognition consists of many dimensions of what?

executive function such as planning and self-regulation, and includes knowledge about memory strategies.

According to Michael Pressley, good thinkers what?

• Routinely use strategies and effective planning to solve problems. 

• Know when and where to use strategies. 

• Are able to monitor the learning situation.

Metamemory

is knowledge about memory and about one’s own memory.

Young children do have some what?

general knowledge about memory, but have limited knowledge about their own memory.

Executive function

includes working memory, critical thinking, creative thinking, and metacognition, which are all linked to the development of the prefrontal cortex. 

Adele Diamond and Kathleen Lee highlighted dimensions of executive function that are most important for the cognitive development of children 4 to 11 years old, which are?

• Self-control/inhibition. 

• Working memory. 

• Flexibility.

Intelligence

is the ability to solve problems and to adapt and learn from experiences.

Individual differences of intelligence are?

the stable, consistent ways in which people differ from each other.

1905 scale

was an intelligence test developed by Binet and Simon to identify children who were unable to learn in school, or who did not benefit from regular classroom teaching. 

Binet developed the concept of?

mental age (MA), which is an individual’s level of mental development relative to others. 

William Stern created the?

intelligence quotient (IQ), which is a person’s mental age divided by chronological age (CA) and multiplied by 100. 

Revisions to the 1905 scale led to the what?

Stanford-Binet tests.

The most recent test is called the Stanford-Binet 5 which analyzes five content areas, which are?

• Fluid reasoning. 

• Knowledge. 

• Quantitative reasoning. 

• Visual-spatial reasoning. 

• Working memory.

The Stanford-Binet 5 demonstrates a what?

normal distribution, in which the majority of the scores fall in the middle of the possible range of scores and few scores appear toward the extremes of the range.  

The Wechsler Scales include what?

• Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition (WPPSI-IV)

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV)

Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition (WPPSI-IV)

2.5 to 7.5 years of age. 

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition

6 to 16 years of age.

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition provides five composite scores which are?

• Verbal Comprehension. 

• Working Memory. 

• Processing Speed. 

• Fluid Reasoning. 

• Visual Spatial. 

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition has 16 verbal and nonverbal subscales which are?

• Similarities. 

• Comprehension. 

• Block design. 

Is it more appropriate to think of a child’s intelligence as a what?

general ability (G) or as a number of specific abilities (s)

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

states that intelligence comes in three forms

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence states that intelligence comes in three forms, which are?

• analytical intelligence

• creative intelligence

• practical intelligence

Analytical intelligence

the ability to analyze, judge, evaluate, compare, and contrast. 

Creative intelligence

the ability to create, design, invent, originate, and imagine. 

Practical intelligence

the ability to use, apply, implement, and put ideas into practice.

Howard Gardner suggests that there are eight types of intelligence or frames of mind, which are?

• verbal

• mathematical

• spatial

• bodily-kinesthetic

• musical

• interpersonal

• intrapersonal

• naturalist

Verbal

the ability to think in words and use language to express meaning. 

Mathematical

the ability to carry out mathematical operations. 

Spatial

the ability to think three-dimensionally. 

Bodily-kinesthetic

the ability to manipulate objects and be physically adept.