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Treatment of Childhood Cancer

• Cancer treatment advancements

  • Treatments have improved and become more sophisticated.

  • Children can survive cancer; it is not the death sentence it once was.

• Impact of childhood cancer on individuals and families

  • Despite survival rates improving, significant emotional and physical toll remains.

  • Families face immense stress, medical bills, and caregiving needs.

Understanding Cancer Diagnosis

• Diagnosis as a result of multiple influences

  • Consideration of age-graded, history-graded, or non-organismic influences.

  • Genetic factors play a significant role in a child’s cancer diagnosis.

  • Cancer is classified as a nonnormative event, affecting individual and family systems.

• History-graded influences may apply in community contexts of exposure to harmful substances.

Nonnormative Events and Chronic Illness

• Examination of how a nonnormative event, like chronic illness, affects children and their families

  • Continued impact of illness on child's psychological growth and family's emotional health.

  • Essential to communicate with children about their health conditions.

  • Discussions on terminal illness should be carried out with age and cognitive understanding in mind.

Cognitive Development Stages in Children

• Transition from preoperational (early childhood) to concrete operational stage (6-12 years)

  • Preoperational children cannot manipulate things mentally.

  • Concrete operational children can understand abstract concepts, including reversibility.

Concrete Operational Thinking

• Skills acquired in this stage

  • Ability to perform transitive inference: understanding relational properties between objects.

  • Development of seriation: arranging items in a logical sequence (e.g., height).

  • Improved categorization abilities: understanding hierarchical categories (e.g., types of vehicles).

Example of Cognitive Tasks

• Exploration of conservation tasks using children of varying ages

  • Demonstration of the conservation of liquids task shows differences in understanding between 4-year-olds and 8-year-olds.

  • Younger children (like the 4-year-old) may focus on height (centration), while older children can recognize equal volume despite differences in appearance.

Handling Information Processing

• Improvement in children’s information processing abilities

  • Children develop better attention span and long-term memory storage.

  • They learn to discern key ideas rather than memorizing verbatim.

• Continued development of the myelin sheath enhances processing speed in children.

Memory Strategies

• Introduction of mnemonic devices and rehearsal techniques for memory retention

  • Importance of engagement with material: elaboration and active involvement promote better encoding of information.

  • Example of using melodies or rhymes to memorize information (like the alphabet or planets).

Variability Across Cultural Contexts

• Recognition of the influence of cultural context on learning and intelligence

  • Different cultural values dictate the importance of various skill sets (e.g., navigation in island cultures vs. scientific inquiry in Western contexts).

Understanding Intelligence

• Evolution of the concept and measurement of intelligence

  • Original purpose of IQ tests focused on sorting children for educational assistance.

  • Current perspectives prioritize problem-solving and adaptability over just IQ scores.

• Genetic influences observed in IQ correlation studies (e.g., twins).

• The Flynn Effect: increasing IQ scores over time correlating with greater access to education.

Bias and Contextual Influences

• Awareness of biases in traditional IQ tests and their implications for marginalized groups

  • Recognition of limitations and unfairness of standardized tests based on cultural contexts.

• Socioeconomic status' effect on children's performance and overall cognitive development.

Three Types of Intelligence (Sternberg) and Multiple Intelligences (Gardner)

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

• Gardner's model of eight intelligences:

  • Acknowledgement of unique learner profiles across various intelligence types (e.g., linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical).

Language Development in Elementary School

• Vocabulary expansion and improvement in grammar and pragmatics from kindergarten to grade 5

  • Children learn to adapt speech based on audience (e.g., using simpler language for younger children).

• Role of environmental exposure (books, parental interaction) on vocabulary growth.

Reading Instruction Approaches

• Debate between phonics-based and whole language approaches in literacy education

  • Phonics aids in decoding words effectively, while whole language promotes memorization of word forms.

• Long-term implications of early reading success on overall academic achievement and attitudes toward education.