Middle Childhood

middle childhood key life tasks (6- 12 years)

• Independence in daily life

• Develop formal occupational roles

• Gain self-management skills: skills individuals can effecitively direct their own activities towards achievement

• Learn interpersonal interactions

• Develop self-concept: image of ourselves (beliefs, identity, and abilities)

hemispheric lateralization

The left and right sides of the brain are specialized to attend to different information, to process sensory inputs in different ways and to control different types of motor behavior

Left:

Right: visuospatial

• Improves multitasking, coordination, problem-solving

myelination of corpus callosum

Allows for faster, more effective communication between the two hemispheres of the brain

• Improves reaction time and sensory-motor integration

growth in frontal lobe functions

Self-regulation, working memory, flexible thinking

sensory development

Key improvements:

• Visual tracking and processing → improves eye-hand coordination

• Auditory processing improves → boosts language development

Impact on Participation:

• Deficits in these systems can limit school engagement and learning

• Children may require accommodations to support participation

• Overall sensory processing improves, allowing children to filter out irrelevant

classroom stimuli

gross motor development

• Growth is slow and steady

• Bone density improves

• Increased growth in limbs and COG lowers

• Muscle strength improves

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• Improves balance

• Refines complex skills and dual tasking

• Functional task performance

• Leads to participation in organized sports

fine motor development

• Develop deep attractor wells for fine motor skills (variability reduces)

• Speed and dexterity improves

• Bimanual hand use improves

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• Hand dominance (by age of 5)

• Coincidence-anticipation timing

• Handwriting skills

memory and attention

Working memory capacity increases, and children develop more efficient strategies for storing and retrieving informatio

higher-order cognitive skills improve

• Metamemory- helps with memorization, organization, using mnemonics

• Perceptual skills – stereognosis, figure-ground discrimination, depth perception

• Spatial and temporal awareness

• Cognitive flexibility

cogntive development

• Logical thinking emerges

• Develop concept of conservation

• Become less egocentric

asychronous development

Occurs when physical and cognitive developments are markedly uneven

Ex: children with severe motor impairments (ex. cerebral palsy) with intact cognitive abilities, age‑appropriate academic skills but delayed social skills (autism)

• Leads to frustration, anger, risk for social and emotional problems, can lead to “learned helplessness”

How Interventions Should Respond:

• Consider the child as a whole, goals should reflect participation not just skill acquisition

• Use assistive & adaptive technology thoughtfully

• Screens for underlying medical, developmental, or behavioral conditions contributing to asynchronous development

Erikson’s industry vs inferiority stage

• Industry (Positive Outcome): who are encouraged, allowed to explore, and supported through failures develop a sense of industry i.e. the belief that they are capable of mastering tasks and achieving goals.

• Inferiority (Negative Outcome): When children face excessive criticism, unrealistic standards, or constant failure without adequate support, they may develop a sense of inadequacy and worthlessness

how to support postive development

• Allow children to take on tasks and make choices to build a sense of responsibility

• Compliment well-thought-out decisions

• Engage in discussions on variety of topics

• Create a safe space to share emotions

• Encourage them to come to you with problems

stress

• Demand of situation > ability to cope and resolve it

• Ability to deal with stress in middle childhood shapes how they cope with situations in adolescence and adulthood

Types of stressors:

a) School: grades and extracurricular activities

b) Family: fear of disappointing, high expectations, divorce, sibling

c) Interpersonal: being liked by peers, bullying

d) Others: media, future, health or well-being

positive stress

Pressure from challenging experiences that is short-lived

• Results in learning and growth

Ex: Your IPE presentations, mild conflict with a friend

tolerable stress

More intense but relatively short-lived

• Requires support from caring adult to overcome

Ex: death of grandparent, natural disaster, temporary hospitalization

toxic stress

Intense, long-term adverse experiences

• Leads to permanent brain changes

Ex: child abuse, chronic neglect, severe bullying with no adult support

integration in clinical practice

• Assess adverse experiences during history taking

• Assess coping skills

• Parent education and anticipatory guidance

• Encourage positive parent-child relationships

• Achieve goodness of fit

• Sleep and nutrition

• Physical activity

focus areas for middle childhood schooling

• Master reading, writing, language development and math

• Develop positive relationships

• Learn how to deal with emotions

• Explore arts and sciences

• Physical fitness and health

• Value moral and civic community needs

vygotsky’s theory of learning and development (scaffolding)

Crucial for designing supportive activities

• Collaboration with a skilled partner – teacher, peer, parent

affective awareness

• Child is aware of being different

• Begins to recognize how their disability affects their daily life and social interactions

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Challenges:

• Frustration, anxiety, grief, depression, low self-esteem

• Erickson’s inferiority

cognitve rebellion

• Tendency to question authority, rules, and established NORMS

• Linked to developing critical thinking and reasoning skills

• Wants to fit in

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Challenges:

• Responds with anger, fantasizes normalcy

• Refuses to cooperate with interventions

bullying

• 60% of bullies in school are male

• By age 7, 12% of special needs children report being bullied, double the rate of those without special needs

• Roughly 15%of all U.S. public school students have some form of disability

• Types:

  • Physical violence

  • Verbal threats or emotional abuse

  • Cyber bullying

signs of bullying in kids with special needs

• Changes in sleeping or eating habits

• Coming home with lost or damaged personal items, such as clothes or electronics

• Decline in school performance or loss of interest in school activities and events

• Frequently being sick or faking sickness to avoid school

• Not wanting to go to school or seeming to be afraid to go

• Talking about harming themselves or having suicidal thoughts

• Unexplainable injuries, such as bruises or cuts

ADLs

• already independent in Activities of Daily Living

• Emergence of IADLs

  • abstract thinking, cognitive flexibility

• Disability/Illness can lead to regression of ADLs and inability to learn IADLs

• Therapy should encourage independence through modifications

communication functions

• Parallels cognitive development

• Learn “Icebreakers”

• Communication influenced by culture, adults

• Develop meta-linguistic awareness

• Audience-specific tailoring

• Written communication — problem area

rapport talk

• Conversation skills, connecting and negotiating relationships

• Intimate conversations, turn-taking, reciprocity

• In the interest of being liked

• Greater with girls

report talk

• Gives information and directives

• Boasting, argumentative, focus on status and hierarchy

• In the interest of competition

• Greater with boys

social referencing

Read emotional reactions of others and use to guide their behavior

social knowledge

Understand & interpret peer relations, friendships, aggression

social competence

Social, emotional, cognitive behaviors needed for successful social adaptation

social capital

Tangible resource that is valued within a social network

inclusive environment

• Children with disabilities have increased difficulty forming friendships

• Model social and interpersonal behavior from peer groups

• Children with impairments placed in regular classrooms have fewer social interactions and have low friendship status in peer groups

• Included in the classroom, marginalized in play

play and leisure

“Builds cognitive platform for future skills”

• Gender-segregated play

• Improved tool use and creativity

physical activity

Guidelines: 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous activities each day

• Only 29% of children meet this goal

• They spend more time engaging in sedentary

• Greater risk for serious health conditions like obesity, cardiovascular conditions

• Inclusive physical education

• Parental and community support

• Policy advocacy

managing screen time

• Limiting exposure to certain technology

• Setting screen time limitations

• Creating a technology plan as a family

• Considering the impact of digital advertising on children

• Privacy considerations

• Inappropriate content

• Cyberbullying

• Sexting or online solicitation

• Mental health concerns

sleep

• Sleep problems range from 34-86%

• More common in children with Autism

• Can lead to aggression, hyperactivity, irritability

• 9-10 hours of sleep each night

• Consistent bedtime routine

• Pharmacological Rx: Melatonin

middle childhood key takeaways

• Characterized by independence and understanding of one’s self and culture beyond home

• Steady growth in body structures and functions support participation in school and community

• Peer interactions and social life influence development of industry

• Children with developmental differences are at risk for inferiority

• Long-term toxic stress can cause permanent brain changes