Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

Piaget's Theory: The Concrete Operational Stage

12.1.1 Attainments of the Concrete Operational Stage

• Conservation: Children (7-11 years) demonstrate observable behavior indicating they are conducting mental actions that obey logical rules.
• Decentration: Focusing on multiple aspects of a problem and understanding their interconnections.
• Reversibility: Thinking through a series of steps to solve a problem and then mentally backtracking to the starting point.
• Classification: Comparing two categories, including a comparison of a general category.
• Seriation: The ability to order items along a quantitative dimension (e.g., length or weight).
• Transitive Inference: If A>B and B>C, then A>C.
• Spatial Reasoning: Cognitive maps development.
  • Preschoolers rely on landmarks but represent inaccurate details.
  • Elementary-age children show greater accuracy with experience.
  • Grade three children can represent larger outdoor spaces, including landmarks.
  • Grade four (and up) can manipulate maps and are less dependent on landmarks.
  • Middle-school students can compare and evaluate maps and routes.
  • Fifth & sixth-grade students (ages 10-12) begin to understand map scale (e.g., 1 inch = 1 mile).
  • Individual differences are associated with culture and experiences.
  • Concern: children are becoming geographically limited, and travel is controlled by adults.

12.1.2 Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought

• Children think logically only when dealing with concrete information they directly perceive.
• Mental operations struggle with abstract ideas not apparent in their direct experience.
• Children master concrete operations step-by-step.
• The continuum of acquisition (gradual mastery) of logical concepts is an individual limitation of concrete operations.

12.1.3 Research on Concrete Operational Thought

• Impact of culture, community, school, and context.
• School experiences tend to promote the development of concrete operations.
• Life experiences with materials are key to attainment.
• Vygotsky’s ideas about guided practice and training in "real world" tasks are relevant.
• Neo-Piagetians (Robbie Case) suggest that once schemes are established for concrete operations, working memory is free to apply skills in broader situations.

12.1.4 Evaluation of the Concrete Operational Stage

• Elementary-age children approach problems more organized than preschool-age children.
• Are children’s minds discontinuously restructuring or continuously expanding capacity?
• There seems to be a qualitative change in how children think during elementary school years.
• Fifth-grade students' thinking is more "fluid and flexible" than second-grade students who focus on the immediate task.

12.2 Information Processing

• Components:
  • Sensory Register: Represents sights and sounds directly and stores them briefly.
  • Working (Short-Term) Memory: Holds a limited amount of information which is worked on to facilitate memory and problem-solving.
  • Long-Term Memory: Stores information permanently.
  • Central Executive: Coordinates incoming information with information in the system, controls attention, and selects, applies, and monitors the effectiveness of strategies.
  • Response Generator

12.2.1 Executive Function

• Significant influences from genetic inheritance, environment, culture, community, and context.
• Key aspects:
  • Inhibition and flexible shifting of attention.
  • Working memory.
  • Planning.

12.2.2 Memory Strategies

• Rehearsal: Repeating information to oneself.
• Organization: Grouping related items to aid recall.
• Elaboration: Creating a relationship between pieces of information that are not in the same category.

12.2.3 Knowledge and Memory

• Semantic memory becomes larger and organized into elaborate, hierarchically structured networks.
• Cyclical relationship: knowledge enables children to use memory strategies; knowing more about a topic makes new information more meaningful and easier to store and retrieve.

12.2.4 Culture, Schooling, and Memory Strategies

• Memories are a byproduct of participation in meaningful, relevant activities.
• Isolated recall dominates schooling in developed/industrialized countries.
• Societal modernization includes the presence of materials and activities in economically advantaged homes (e.g., books, tablets, computers).

12.2.5 The School-Age Child’s Theory of Mind

• Knowledge of Cognitive Capacities:
  • Active minds.
  • Effective memory and strategies that work.
  • Sources of knowledge expand with age.
  • Observing events, engaging others, and making mental inferences.
  • Recursive thought: empathetic view considering multiple perspectives.
• Knowledge of Strategies:
  • School-age children are more conscious of mental strategies (metacognition) than preschool-age children.
  • They understand that organizing is more effective than rehearsing.
  • They understand and appreciate effective reasoning.

12.2.6 Cognitive Self-Regulation

• Cognitive self-regulation is the process of monitoring progress toward a goal, checking outcomes, and redirecting unsuccessful efforts.
• Components:
  • Attending to details.
  • Organizing materials.
  • Comprehending information.
  • Connecting various sources of information.

12.2.7 Applications of Information Processing to Academic Learning

• Understanding information processing allows teachers to organize classroom behaviors into a theoretical framework to differentiate learning experiences.

12.2.7 Reading

• Whole Language Reading Approach: Emphasizes functional, real purposes for writing and reading; believes children learn language when it is whole, sensible, interesting, and relevant; incorporates reading, writing, listening, and speaking in a blended curriculum format.
• Phonics Reading Approach: Studies the relationship between sounds and letters; knowledge leads to word knowledge; along with experience, students read fluently.
• The Science of Reading (SoR): Identifies five essential components of reading, incorporated in Structured Literacy:
  • Phonemic Awareness
  • Phonics
  • Fluency
  • Vocabulary
  • Comprehension

12.2.7 Mathematics

• Number Concepts and Counting
• Math Facts or Basic Computation
• Practice, Experimentation, Reasoning
• Teaching Effective Strategies
• Mental Number Line: Understanding value, ordinal counting, cardinal counting
• Mathematical Memory is a single skill
• Knowledge of Relationships between Operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division)
• Evaluate cross-cultural research carefully.