Final Exam

Secular Growth Trend

Changes in body over generations

• Nutrition, healthcare, and lifestyle has an influence

Flexibility of children in middle childhood

• Increased flexibility in motor skills

• New ways of cooperating, competing, winning, losing in games with rules

Gender differences in growth patterns

• Occur due to combo of synaptic connections/pruning and myleniation

• Results in greater lateralization of the cerebral hemispheres and more complex abilities

• Brain weight increases by 10% with growth in white matter and gray matter which contribute to improved cognitive development

White matter

myelinated nerve fibers

Gray matter

Neurons and supportive materials

Healthy Diet and Better Cognitive Performance

• Healthy Diet = better cognitive performance

• Good diet is necessary for energy and brain function

Influences on Overweight and Obesity

• Heredity

• Environment (Low SES and cultural food environment)

• Low physical activity

• Television Viewing

• Responsiveness to food cues

• Parents feeding children

  • Overfeeding or over controlling food

• Overeating

All lead to type 2 diabetes and obesity

Effective Interventions for Childhood Obesity

• Promotion of healthy behavior

  • improving diet and encouraging physical activity

• Educating parents of proper nutrition and encouraging family support

  • child more likely to adopt healthier habits

Ear Infections in Middle Childhood

Decrease in ear infections after the development of Eustachian tube

• Eustachian Tube matures and helps reduce occurrence of Otitis Media

Otitis Media

Middle ear infection common during childhood

Mytopia

“Nearsightedness”

• Influenced by heredity, early biological trauma, low birth weight, eye strain and SES

• Prevalent during developmental stage

Effective Treatments for Enuresis

Medication and Urine alarms

• Meds can help with management

• Urine alarms prevent bedwetting by waking up children before they urinate

Enuresis

Bedwetting

Asthma

• High sensitivity to bronchial tubes, genetic predisposition, and environmental factors like exposure to irritants

• Most common disease in childhood

  • 2% of children in the US

• Inflammation in the airways that lead to symptoms like wheezing, coughing, and difficulty breathing

Advances in Writing in Middle Childhood

• Age 6: alphabet and numbers 1-10

• Ability to copy 2-D shapes and beginnings of depth cues

• Difficulty with 3-D shapes

Advances in Motor Skills and Influences

• Improvements in flexibility, agility, and force

• Influenced by more efficient information processing, leading to enhanced motor skills

• Differences viewed with childs play

  • ability to engage in games

  • reflecting on advances in perspective taking

  • Provide opportunities for trying various methods of cooperation, competition, and dealing with wins and losses

Gender Differences in Motor Skills

• Observed though children’s play

  • rough and tumble play more common in boys

    • dominance hierarchy and group ordering

  • influenced by biological factors

Role-Oriented Games and Perspective Taking

• Children learn how to follow rules in games to help understand perspective of others

  • competition, competition, wins/loss

  • Crucial for interactions and relationships

Rough-and-tumble Play

• Play-fighting and chasing

• Preschool but peaks in middle childhood

• Dominance, hierarchy, conflict prediction

• Common with various animals and cultures

Changes from Pre-operational to the Operational stage

More logical, flexible, organized thinking

• Conservation, classification, seriation, spatial reasoning, hierarchies

• Egocentrism —> broader perspective

Operational stage

Perform mental operations to concrete objects but struggle with

Limits in the Concrete Operational Thought

• Struggle with abstract thought/problems

• Work out logic separately rather than applying is to general logical principles

  • Ages 7-11

• More logical and organized thinking

Second-order Beliefs

Understanding that someone can have beliefs about other peoples beliefs

• Middle childhood

• Grasp that other people can think differently and have different opinions

• key aspect of cognitive development in this stage

Academic Self-efficacy

Ones own belief in their ability to succeed academically

• schooling promotes the development, memory, executive functioning, and theory of mind in middle childhood

  • Indirectly effects academic self-efficacy by enhancing the child’s ability to learn, problem solving skills, and others’/own mental processes

Cognitive self-regulation and self-efficacy

Development of self-regulation and self-efficacy develops in middle childhood

• Conscious of how mental strategies work, appreciate the impact of interactions on cognitive development

  • Improvement of mental strategies such as rehearsal, organization, and elaboration, all which help with memory

• Schooling plays. a significant role in promoting the development of memory strategies, cognitive development, and cognitive self-regulation

Phonics vs Whole Language Development

Combining both is more effective for children learning reading skills

Phonics

Relationship between sounds and letters

Whole Language

Meaning and context

Number sense vs. drill in computing

Number sense is better than drill in computing because drill in computing only promotes memorization rather than learning the topic

Number sense

Allows children to grasp the mathematical concepts and apply them to various topics

IQ testing and Predicting Academic Performance

• Improvements in memory strategies, attention, and executive functioning during middle childhood and potentially impact IQ and academic performance positively

• Better problem solving skills, ability to retain information better, and enhanced academic performance get reflected in IQ results

Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence

Three aspects

• Analytical

• Creative

• Practical intelligence

  • Focus on problem solving skills and practical application of knowledge

In middle childhood, cognitive development and mental processes contribute to the development of the intelligence as they enhance problem solving skills and practical application

Gardner’s intelligences and unique development and bias

Piagets theory of cognitive development during middle childhood (Concrete operational stage)

• Development of logical thinking, organization, and understanding of mental processes

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences

• focuses on intelligences:

  • Linguistic, logical-mathematical, spacial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic

  • Can develop during Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage

Stereotype threat and ethnic differences in IQ

People feel at risk of confirming negative stereotypes of their group can impact performance, including IQ score, especially in marginalized groups

• Ethnic differences causes

  • Socio-economic status, access to resources, cultural bias in testing, and educational opportunities

Cognitive advantages of bilingual speakers

• Enhanced executive functioning, attention control, and memory skills

• Increased cognitive flexibility and better at multitasking (due to ability to switch languages)

• Control of 2 different languages = cognitive advantage of the brains executive functioning

• better problem solving skills and focus

Code-switching

Alternating between 2+ languages or a variety of language in conversation

• Requires cognitive flexibility and understanding of different language systems

• Better understanding of how interactions among multiple variables affect cognitive performance

Industry vs Inferiority in middle childhood

Develop a sense of competence and mastery in their abilities

• may feel efforts if they fall short

  • impacts self esteem and motivation negatively

Self-conscious emotions in middle childhood

Pride, guilt, and shame

• influenced by personal responsibility, motivation to take challenges, make amends, and contribute to adjustment problems when adults arent around

Better emotional understanding in middle childhood

Children improve their emotional understanding based on internal states rather than external events

• more aware of circumstances that evoke mixed emotions and appreciating contradictory emotional cues in others

• supported by cognitive developments in social experiences

  • rise in empathy

Influences on self esteem

• Parents

• Teachers

  • Teachers’ messages

• Cultural value

• Gender

• Ethnicity

• Media Exposure

• Child-rearing practices

• Achievement related attributions

• Importance of encouraging children to strive for realistic goals

Social Comparisons

Older children compare themselves to multiple people at once and then show a shift toward evaluating themselves based on consequences rather than behavior

More realistic self-esteem in middle childhood

Differentiate their self-esteem into categories like academic, social, physical, athletic competence

• high self esteem —> positive traits

• low self esteem —> negative behaviors like depression, anxiety, and antisocial behavior

Different types of coping

Problem-centered coping, emotional-centered coping, emotional self efficacy

More nuanced understanding of self-concept

Self concepts become more defined

• general dispositions

Ages 8-11: evaluate themselves based on competence rather than behavior, then comparing themselves to multiple individuals

Mastery oriented and learned helplessness children and influences

• Mastery oriented credit success to ability, believe ability can improve with effort and focus on learning goals

• Helpless children attribute failure to ability and success to uncontrollable factors, leading to giving up on tasks before trying

• Influences:

  • Family

  • Teachers

  • Cultural beliefs

  • Gender stereotypes

Influence of emotional understanding and empathy on social relationships

Gains in emotional understanding and empathy supported by cognitive development /social experience contribute to more complex and psychologically based friendships

Children more aware of emotions and can interpret contradictory cues in others more likely to have high quality friendships based on trust

Parental sensitivity and emotional self-regulation

Problem centered coping

Emotion centered coping

Emotional self efficacy

Problem centered coping

dealing with a stressful situation by identifying the problem, then taking action to address it

• builds confidence in choices

Emotional centered coping

manage emotions related to stress, focusing on regulating emotions rather than the problem by seeking emotional support, positive thinking, and relaxation tactics

• develops coping skills for challenges

Emotional self efficacy

plays into overall self esteem. Ones own belief to regulate their emotions effectively

• influences self esteem and perceive/respond to emotional challenges, which in turn effects self worth and confidence

Emotional self-regulation and peer relationships

shift between emotion centered coping, leading to self efficacy

• peer relationships become more complex and childrens development depend on the nature of their friends

Internal states and emotions

School aged children more likely to explain emotions referring to internal states rather than external events

• Increased awareness

• Supported by cognitive development which leads to gains in empathy

Moral understanding in middle childhood and adaptiveness of guilt

Children develop more flexible application of moral rules through actions, intentions, and contexts

• guilt prompts the desire to self improve

Girls’ and boys’ identification of “masculine” and feminine personality traits

Identification with masculine and feminine influenced by socialization

• gender stereotyping by age 5 but peaks to adult-like at age 11

• Adults treating children differently based on sex influences development

Gender differences in social subjects and occupations

Gender stereotyped beliefs influence children’s preferences and performance

Peer culture

Formed based on proximity and similarity

• unique values, standards, dress codes, specialized vocab, and places to socialize

• leads to exclusion of peers who deviate and may involve relational aggression