Chapter 11

• Secular growth trend 

• Changes in body over generations

• Observable changes in physical development of children over time

  • Nutrition, healthcare, and lifestyle influence this physical development

• Flexibility of children in middle childhood 

• Middle childhood: increased flexibility in motor skills

  • Allows to engage in various activities and games

• As development continues, they can try new ways of cooperating, competing, winning, and losing in games with rules

• Gender differences in growth patterns 

• Girls shorter and lighter than boys until age 9

• Girls have earlier growth spurts

  • Contributes to variation in height/weight

• Gains pruning and organization of brain *

• Occur due to a combination of synaptic connections, myelination, and synaptic pruning

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

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

  • White matter: myelinated nerve fibers

  • Gray matter: neurons and supportive materials

• Healthy diet and better cognitive performance 

• Healthy diet = better cognitive performance

• Focus better after healthier foods

• Proper nutrition supports brain development, with neurotransmitters and hormones influencing cognition and behavior

• Good diet 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 practices

  • Overfeeding or overly controlling food

• Overeating

• All lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes

• Effective interventions for childhood obesity (family interventions) 

• Promotion of healthy behavior

  • Improving diet and encouraging physical activity

• Educating parents of proper nutrition and encouraging family support, children are more likely to get healthier habits

• Family intervention successful at lowering obesity rates

• Ear infections in middle childhood (growth of the Eustachian tube) 

• Decrease ear infections after development of Eustachian tube 

  • Eustachian tube matures and helps reduce the occurrence of otitis media (common middle ear infection during childhood)

• Myopia 

• AKA nearsightedness

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

• Prevalent during developmental stage

• Effective treatments for enuresis (bedwetting)

• Medication and urine alarms

  • Meds can help manage bedwetting, urine alarms can wake up children before they begin to urinate, a method of conditioning that make them wake up before wetting the bed

• Risk factors for asthma *

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

• Most common chronic disease in childhood (2% of children in the US)

• Its an inflammation in the airways, leading to symptoms like wheezing, coughing, and difficulty breathing

• Advances in writing in middle childhood 

• By age 6: alphabet, numbers 1-10

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

• Difficulties with 3-D shapes

• Advances in motor skills and influences *

• Improvements in flexibility, balance, agility, and force

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

• Individual differences observed by child's ability to engage in games with rules, reflecting advancements in perspective taking and providing opportunities for trying various methods of cooperation, competition, and dealing with wins/losses

• Gender differences in motor skills

• Observed through children’s play

  • Rough and tumble play (friendly chasing and play fighting) more common in boys

    • Dominance and hierarchy, group ordering and who could win conflicts

  • Influenced by biological factors and social expectations

• Rule-oriented games and perspective taking 

• Reflects through perspective taking

• Children learn how to understand and follow rules in games which require considering other people's views

• Helps try different ways of cooperation, competition, and wins/loss

• Crucial for social interactions and relationships

• Rough-and-tumble play 

• Play fighting and chasing

• Preschool years and peaks in middle childhood

• Dominance, hierarchy, conflict predictions

• Common among various mammals and cultures

Chapter 12 

• Changes from pre-operational to the operational stage 

• More logical, flexible, organized thinking 

  • Conservation, classification, seriation, spatial reasoning, hierarchies

  • Transition from egocentrism to a broader perspective

  • Operational Stage: perform mental operations on concrete objects but struggle with abstract concepts

• Limits in the concrete operational thought 

• Struggle with abstract thought/problems 

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

  • Ages 7-11

• More logical, flexible and organized thinking stage

• Second-order beliefs 

• Definition: understanding that someone can have beliefs about other people's beliefs

• Develop in middle childhood

• Grasp that other people can have different opinions, even if they’re not accurate

• Key aspect of cognitive development in this stable

• Academic self-efficacy 

• Definition: one's belief in their ability to succeed academically

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

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

• Cognitive self-regulation and self-efficacy 

• Middle childhood: development of self-regulation and self-efficacy

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

  • Improvement in memory strategies such as rehearsal, organization, and elaboration

    • All 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 approach 

• Phonics: relationship between sounds and letters

• Whole language: meaning and context 

• Combining both is more effective for children learning reading skills

• Number sense vs. drill in computing (and which is most beneficial) 

• Number sense: allows children to grasp mathematical concepts more deeply and apply them to various contexts

  • Stronger foundation for mathematical understanding

• Number sense better than drill in computing because drill computing really only promotes memorization

• IQ testing and predicting academic performance 

• Improvements in memory strategies, attention, and executive functioning during middle childhood 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 abilities and practical application of knowledge

• Middle childhood: cognitive development and mental processes contribute to the development of the intelligences as they enhance problem solving skills and practical application

• Gardner’s intelligences and unique development and basis 

• Piaget's 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 the intelligences 

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

  • Can develop during Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage

• Stereotype threat & ethnic differences in IQ 

• Stereotype threat: people feel at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their group can impact performance, including IQ score, especially in marginalized groups

• Ethnic difference 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 and exercise of the brain's executive functioning

• Better problem solving skills and focus

• Code-switching 

• Code switching: alternating between 2+ languages or varieties of language in conversation

  • “Customer service voice”

• Requires cognitive flexibility and understanding of different language systems 

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

Chapter 13 

• Industry vs. inferiority in middle childhood 

• Develop a sense of competence and mastery in their abilities

• May feel inadequate if efforts fall short 

  • Impacts self esteem and motivation negatively

• Self-conscious emotions in middle childhood 

• Pride, guilt, and shame 

  • Influenced by personal responsibility, motivating to take challenges, make amends, and contribute to adjustment problems when adults aren't 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 and 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 competences 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 concept becomes more refined

  • General dispositions

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

• Mastery-orientation and learned helpless children and influences 

• Mastery oriented children 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 even trying 

• Influences include: 

  • 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 are more likely to have high quality friendships based on trust 

• Parental sensitivity and emotional self-regulation 

• Problem centered coping: dealing with a stressful situation by identifying the problem, then taking action to address it

  • Helps build confidence in choices

• Emotion centered coping: manage emotions related to stress, focusing on regulating emotions rather than the problem itself by seeking emotional support, positive thinking, and relaxation tactics

  • Develops coping skills to deal with challenges

• Emotional self-efficacy: plays into overall self esteem. One's own belief to regulate their emotions effectively.

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

• Friendships in middle childhood – defining feature 

• Trust is defining feature

• Friendships become more complex, selective, and psychologically based

  • High quality friendships are more stable

• Emotional self-regulation and peer relationships 

• Shift between problem-centered and emotion-centered coping strategies, leading to emotional self-efficacy

• Peer relationships become more complex and children's development depend on the nature of their friends

• Internal states and emotions 

• School-ages children more likely to explain emotions by referring to internal states rather than external events

  • Increased awareness

  • Supported by cognitive development and social experiences which lead to gains in empathy

• Moral understanding in middle childhood and the adaptiveness of guilt 

• Middle childhood: children develop flexible application of moral rules through actions, intentions and context

  • Guilt prompts a desire to make amends and self improve

• Girls’ and boys’ identification with “masculine” and “feminine” personality traits 

• Identification with “masculine” and “feminine” influenced by socialization

• Gender stereotyping by age 5, then adult-like by age 11

• Adults treating children differently based on sex influences this development

• Gender differences in school subjects and occupations 

• Gender stereotyped beliefs influence children’s preferences and performance 

  • EX: Girls more likely to draw female scientists in the US, showing a shift in recent years

• Peer culture 

• Formed based on proximity and similarity

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

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