chapter 9: middle Childhood: Physical and Cognitive Development

Middle Childhood

The school years, ages 6 to 11, when children expand activities, relationships, and acquire knowledge and skills for a complex social world.

Body Growth in Middle Childhood

Slow, regular growth; girls shorter/lighter until ~age 9; lower body grows fastest; bones lengthen and broaden; muscles very flexible; all permanent teeth appear.

Obesity

A greater-than-20-percent increase over healthy weight, determined by BMI; overweight above 85th percentile, obese above 95th percentile.

Causes of Obesity

Heredity, low SES, diets high in sugar/fat, frequent eating out, parental feeding practices, family stress, insufficient sleep, screen media, low physical activity.

Health Risks for Obese Children

Higher likelihood of adult obesity, high blood pressure/cholesterol, respiratory problems, insulin resistance, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, early death.

Psychological Consequences of Obesity

Stereotyping, social isolation, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, reduced academic and life outcomes.

Treating Obesity

Monitoring/tracking devices, school interventions (screenings, improved nutrition, extra recess/PE, obesity awareness programs).

Illness in Middle Childhood

Higher rates in first 2 school years due to exposure and developing immune system; 20–25% have chronic illnesses like asthma, sickle cell anemia, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, AIDS.

Motor Development

Gains in coordination due to size/strength and faster processing; gross-motor skills improve in flexibility, balance, agility, force; fine-motor skills improve in writing and drawing.

Sex Differences in Motor Skills

Girls excel in fine-motor skills, balance, agility; boys excel in gross-motor skills and sports; influenced by parental expectations, self-perception, coaching, and media.

Play in Middle Childhood

Includes games with rules, adult-organized sports, rough-and-tumble play, and PE; supports perspective-taking, emotional, and social development.

Concrete Operational Stage

Piaget’s stage (ages 7–11) characterized by logical thinking about concrete information, including conservation, classification, seriation, and spatial reasoning.

Conservation

Understanding that certain properties of objects remain the same despite changes in appearance; involves decentration and reversibility.

Decentration

Focusing on multiple aspects of a problem and relating them.

Reversibility

Ability to mentally reverse a sequence of steps in problem-solving.

Classification

Ability to focus on multiple category relations at once; includes passing class inclusion problems.

Seriation

Ability to order items along a quantitative dimension; includes transitive inference (mentally integrating three relations).

Spatial Reasoning

Cognitive maps that represent spaces; progress from single-room maps with landmarks to large-scale maps with organized routes and scale understanding.

Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought

Operations are concrete and applied to perceptible information; abstract ideas are difficult; mastery occurs gradually.

Follow-Up Research on Concrete Operational Thought

Culture and schooling influence task performance; nonschool experiences can foster operational thought.

Information Processing Gains

Improvements in working memory, inhibition, attention shifting, planning, strategic thinking, self-monitoring, and self-correction.

Executive Function

Enhanced selective, flexible, adaptable attention and more efficient working memory; critical for complex task performance.

Training Executive Function

Direct: interactive computer games; Indirect: exercise and mindfulness training; improves working memory, IQ, academic and social competence.

ADHD Characteristics

Inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, emotion regulation difficulties; associated with executive function deficits, prenatal teratogens, parental psychological disorders, high-stress families.

ADHD Treatments

Stimulant medication, executive function skills training, modeling behaviors, family intervention; adults may require ongoing assistance.

Planning Gains

Improved ability to plan multistep tasks; supported by collaboration with experts, school demands, and guidance from adults.

Memory Strategies

Rehearsal (early grades), organization (early grades), elaboration (end of middle childhood); chunking and using taxonomies improve memory.

Knowledge Base and Memory

Better-organized, elaborate knowledge that supports reasoning; motivated learners expand knowledge actively.

Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood

Children view the mind as active, understanding memory strategies, mental relationships, and inferences; includes second-order false belief and recursive thought.

Cognitive Self-Regulation

Monitoring progress toward goals, redirecting unsuccessful efforts; predicts academic success and promotes effective learning strategies.

Reading Development

Phonological awareness, processing speed, and visual discrimination contribute to reading; uses blend of whole-language and phonics approaches.

Mathematics Development

Learn facts, procedures, and strategies through practice, reasoning, experimentation; blend of drill and "number sense" approaches; influenced by culture.

Intelligence Testing

Group-administered tests for many students; individually administered tests for identifying highly intelligent children and learning problems (Stanford-Binet, WISC-V).

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

Sternberg's theory: analytical, creative, and practical intelligence.

Multiple Intelligences Theory

Gardner’s theory emphasizes processing operations for culturally valued activities and non-IQ abilities like emotional intelligence.

Nature, Nurture, and IQ

Both heredity and environment influence IQ; ethnic differences mostly environmental; generational IQ rise supports environmental effects.

Flynn Effect

Massive generational gains in IQ across nations, greatest in spatial reasoning; influenced by education, health, technology, and cognitively demanding jobs.

Cultural Bias in Testing

Influenced by language, communication styles, majority-culture knowledge, and stereotype threat.

Reducing Cultural Bias

Combine test scores with adaptive behavior assessment; use dynamic, culturally relevant assessment procedures.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Fourfold increase in vocabulary; mastery of complex grammar, passive voice, infinitive phrases; reading greatly contributes.

Pragmatics

Understanding subtle, indirect expressions, irony, sarcasm, double meanings; narratives more organized and expressive; cultural variations exist.

Bilingual Development

Enhanced executive processing, cognition, language awareness, reading achievement; early bilingual education leads to better proficiency.

Educational Philosophies

Traditional (teacher-centered), constructivist (student constructs knowledge), social-constructivist (teacher-student partners, zone of proximal development, symbolic communication, cooperative learning).

Teacher–Student Interaction

Positive: caring, helpful, stimulates high-level thinking; Negative: repetitive drill, unsupportive; impacts low-achieving students through self-fulfilling prophecies.

Grouping Practices

Homogeneous classes may negatively affect low-SES/minority students via self-fulfilling prophecies.

Magnet Schools

Voluntarily desegregated, emphasize areas of interest, located in low-income/minority neighborhoods, improve math/reading achievement, promote higher education pursuit.

Teaching Children with Learning Disabilities

Inclusive classrooms preferred; support includes resource rooms, teacher preparation, and peer tutoring.

Giftedness

IQ above 130, includes creativity (convergent/divergent thinking), talent (outstanding performance), and multiple cognitive contributions.

Educating Gifted Children

Enrichment in regular classrooms, pull-out instruction, grade acceleration, multiple intelligences model.

Cultural Variations in Education

U.S. students below international averages; Finland and Asia have nationally mandated curricula, high-quality teaching, teacher training, and cultural valuing of effort.