Chapter 12

Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

Concrete operations

Here, children can think logically and flexibility

Logical Mental operations

Ability to manipulate info in the mind and follow rules of logic to figure out a problem

Decentration

Ability to focus on multiple parts of a problem- beaker width and height in liquid problem

Reversibility

Recognise that numbers or objects can return to their original state

Taxonomic categories

Categories based on superordinate and subordinate relations

Seriation

Refers to systematic ordering of items along dimensions such as length or width

Transitive inference

Refers to children’s ability to solve verbal problems in their heads

Inductive reasoning

Drawing on specific observations or facts to generate broader conclusions

Deductive reasoning

Ability to systematically test ideas that are guided by an overarching hypothesis

Cognitive self-regulation

Ability to manage thoughts and behaviours to accomplish goals

Digit Cancellation Test

Children asked to cross out specific digits from a list of numbers on a page as quickly as possible, while ignoring distractors

Cognitive Flexibility

Ability to switch attention and strategies with changing environmental demands

Planning

Requires children to efficiently allocate time across tasks

Working memory span

Number of bits of info a person can handle at a time

Processing speed

How quickly a person can respond to relatively straightforward problems

Metacognition

Awareness of what one knows and how thinking works

Metamemory

Refers to children’s understanding of memory process

Chunking

When people group material into meaningful categories

Elaboration

Involves creating a story or detailed image to remember information

Autobiographical memory

Information and memories we accumulate since birth that allow us to construct a unique identity and personal sense of continuity

Episodic part involves personal events, where we can remember circumstances surrounding the event and not only that it just occurred

Semantic part has general knowledge about past

Fluid intelligence

Refers to person’s ability to think abstractly, reason, identify patterns, solve problems

Crystallised intelligence

Refers to facts, vocabulary and knowledge a person accumulates through education and cultural experiences

Theory of multiple intelligences

Gardner claims the existence of 7 distinct intelligences

Triarchic theory of intelligence

contextual influences affect intelligence, it is comprised of analytical, creative and practical intelligence

Intelligent quotient (IQ)

Indicates how well a person performs relative to individuals of the same age

Content-validity bias

Occurs when test is comparatively more difficult for one group than another

Predictive-validity bias

Occurs when test does not accurately predict how well individual children or adolescents will do in the future based on their test perfomance

Psychometricians

Scientists who specialise in measurement of intelligence and other psychological characteristics

Dynamic assessment approach

Goal is to examine a person’s learning potential- how much new material a child can learn with assistance

Eugenics

Appalling idea that heritable human characteristics should be controlled through breeding to improve human race

Genome-wide complex trait analysis

Allow scientists to estimate genetic influences on intelligence through the analysis of DNA

Flynn effect

IQ test performance has steadily increased over historical time

Vocabulary and Grammar

With age, children construct increasingly complex and lengthy sentences by combining multiple ideas into a single sentence

Children become more flexible in sentence constructions as they grasp rules of grammar and generate different sentence forms

Phonics approach

Claim that instruction in decoding is most important

Three phonemic awareness skills

Ability to categorise words by their initial or ending sounds

Ability to identify words that rhyme

Ability to figure out the sound that is produced when the first or last letter or a word is dropped

Whole language approach

Argue that children’s reading should be kept whole and meaningful

For example, teaching children to identify word ball and full sentence of catch the ball without sounding out each letter

Phonemics awareness

Ability to understand that discrete sounds comprise words

Self-determination theory

Posits that motivation and engagement in a task is enhanced when a person makes a choice without external influence and interference

Intrinsic motivation

When people choose an activity because they find it to be enjoyable

They spend a lot of energy and persist on tasks even if not rewarded

Extrinsic motivation

Occurs when someone engages in activity because of external pressures

Often lose interest in the activity

Entity theory of intelligence

When intelligence is viewed as innate

Incremental theory of intelligence

Belief that intelligence is malleable

Process praise

Parents that praise children’s efforts

Person praise

Focusing on fixed abilities or traits

Pygmalion effect

Student’s live up or live down to their teachers’ initial expectancies

Classroom climate

Intellectual, social, emotional and physical environments in which students learn