Psychology

February 29, 2024/in Uncategorized /by developer

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11/3/2016

Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

11/3/2016

Body Growth

• Growth is slower in middle childhood as compared with infancy and early childhood.

• Children grow 2 to 3 inches and gain 5 to 8 pounds per year.

– The average 10-year-old child weighs about 70 pounds and is about 4.5 feet tall.

Factors that Influence Growth

• Genes and nutrition

– African American children grow faster and are taller and heavier than white children of the same age.

– Children who are malnourished gain less weight and are at risk for stunted growth.

11/3/2016

Motor Development

• Rough-and-tumble play

– Peaks in middle childhood

– An important way that children test their bodies, learn new motor skills, play with friends, and develop social skills

• Motor skills from birth to age 4 predict school- age children’s motor abilities

Gross Motor Skills

• Become more complex

• Increases in body size and strength contribute to advances in motor skills.

– Includes advances in:

• Flexibility

• Balance

• Agility

• Strength

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Fine Motor Skills

• Allows for the development of new interests such as building models, braiding friendship bracelets, and playing musical instruments.

• School performance

– Penmanship

• Girls tend to outperform boys in fine motor skills.

Motor Skills and Brain Development

• The pruning of unused synapses contributes to increases in motor speed and reaction time.

• Growth of the cerebellum and myelination of its connections to the cortex contribute to advances in gross and fine motor skills and speed.

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Motor Skills and Contextual Influences

• Nutrition

• Opportunities to practice motor skills

• Health

Common Health Issues in Middle Childhood

• Asthma – The most commonly experienced chronic illness in

childhood

• Obesity – The most pressing and preventable health problem

facing children today – Children today weigh more than ever before – Associated with short- and long-term health problems

(heart disease, high blood pressure, orthopedic problems, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes)

11/3/2016

Asthma

• A chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways that causes wheezing and coughing

• Asthma affects about 15% of children and becomes more common with age

• Influenced by:

– Genetics

– Contextual factors

Obesity

• Associated with short- and long-term health problems (heart disease, high blood pressure, orthopedic problems, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes).

• Obese children are at risk for peer rejection, depression, low-self-esteem, and body dissatisfaction.

• More than 17% of American youth are classified as obese.

• Influenced by: – Genetics

– Contextual factors

11/3/2016

Figure 9.4: Prevalence Rates of Obesity in Children and Adolescents

Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Perspective: Concrete Operations

• Concrete operational stage of reasoning (age 6 or 7) involves children gaining the capacity to use logic to solve problems but still are unable to apply logic to abstract and hypothetical situations

11/3/2016

VIDEO CASE Piaget’s Conservation Tasks

How do children understand physical properties, such as volume and mass? Observe children as they are presented with two of Piaget’s classic conservation tasks.

Concrete Operational Reasoning: Classification

• The ability to understand classification hierarchies; to simultaneously consider relations between a general category and more specific subcategories.

• Classification skills permit school-age children to categorize or organize objects based on physical dimensions.

– Seriation

– Transitive influence (emerges the earliest)

– Class inclusion

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11/3/2016

Concrete Operational Reasoning: Conservation

• Conservation of substance (age 7 or 8)

• Conservation of weight (age 9 or 10)

• Conservation of volume (about age 12)

• Object identity – The understanding that certain characteristics of an

object do not change despite superficial changes to the object’s appearance

• Reversibility – An object can be returned to its original state

Culture and Concrete Operation Reasoning

• Non-Western cultures achieve conservation and other concrete operational tasks later but is mediated by language.

– Cultural differences in children’s performance on tasks that measure concrete operational reasoning may be a result of methodology and how questions are asked.

11/3/2016

Information Processing Perspective

• School-age children can take in more information, process it more accurately and quickly, and retain it more effectively than younger children.

• Sensory memory does not appear to change much with development.

• Working memory shows steady increases in middle childhood, especially in executive function.

Central Executive Function

• A control processor that regulates cognitive activities such as attention, action, and problem solving.

• Responsible for:

– Coordinating performance on two separate tasks or operations

– Quickly switching between tasks

– Selectively attending to specific information and ignoring irrelevant information

– Retrieving information from long-term memory

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Selective Attention

• Focusing on the relevant information and ignoring other information

• Improves between the ages of 6 and 10

Metamemory

• The understanding of one’s memory and ability to use strategies to enhance it

• Improves steadily throughout the elementary school years

• Mnemonic strategies – Tricks to aid memory

• Rehearsal

• Organization

• Elaboration

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Intelligence Tests (IQ Tests) Versus Achievement Tests

• IQ tests measure intellectual aptitude, an individual’s capacity to learn

• Achievement tests measure what one has already learned about a given topic

• Many developmental researchers argue that intelligence tests overlap with achievement tests and may not accurately reflect aptitude or potential

Table 9.1: Sample Items Measuring the Four Wechsler Intelligence Scales

11/3/2016

Individual and Group Differences in IQ

• Consistent ethnic and socioeconomic group differences exist in IQ scores, leading some to argue that IQ tests are culturally biased.

• Schooling and cultural styles of communication impact IQ scores.

• Sociohistorical context influences intelligence.

– The Flynn effect is the generational increase in IQ.

Alternative Views of Intelligence

• Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory

• Robert Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence

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Table 9.2: Howard Gardiner’s Multiple Intelligences

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

• Three forms of intelligence:

– Analytical

• Information processing capacities

• Included in traditional IQ tests

– Creative

• Insight and the ability to deal with novelty

– Applied

• How people deal with their surroundings

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Figure 9.6: Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

Moral Reasoning: Piaget’s Perspective

• Morality of contstraint (up to age 7)

– Rigid view of rules

• Morality of cooperation (age 7+)

– Autonomous morality

– A more flexible view of rules as self chosen rather than simply imposed on children

11/3/2016

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Reasoning

• Each level of moral reasoning is composed of two stages.

• Preconventional (early childhood – age 9)

• Conventional (age 9 or 10)

• Postconventional (after middle childhood)

Table 9.3: Moral Development in

Middle Childhood: Comparison of Piaget

and Kohlberg’s Theories

11/3/2016

Distributive Justice Reasoning

• How to divide goods fairly

• Develops over early and middle childhood

• Children progress from self-serving reasons for sharing (early childhood) to more sophisticated and mature conceptions of distributive justice in middle childhood

Moral Versus Conventional Rules

• Moral rules are seen as more absolute than conventional rules.

• Moral rules: – Less violable

– Contingent on authority or rules

– Less alterable

• Conventional rules: – Seen as more legitimate when created by adults

11/3/2016

Language Development: Vocabulary and Grammar

• Vocabulary expands by 4 times from 6 years of age to the end of the elementary school years (about 40,000 words).

• Schoolchildren learn that there are many words that can describe a given action.

• Schoolchildren become better able to understand complex grammatical structures – They begin to use the passive voice, complex

constructions, and conditional sentences.

Language Development: Pragmatics

• The practical application of language to communicate.

• Advances with age and perspective-taking skill allow children to change their speech in response to the needs of listeners.

– Children speak to adults differently than to other children.

11/3/2016

Reading and Mathematics

• Fundamental to advancement in science and technology.

• Math achievement and reading comprehension are supported by executive functioning skills and working memory.

Learning to Read

• Phonics – Based on memorizing rules and the sounds of

each letter to sound out words.

• Whole-language approach – Literacy is viewed as an extension of language and

children learn to read and write through trial and error discovery.

– Consistent with cognitive-developmental theory.

– Used more often in schools today.

11/3/2016

Mathematics Curriculum

• Improvements over the past two decades

– Between 1990 and 2013, the proportion of fourth- grade students performing at or above the proficient level increased from 13% to 42%.

– In 1990, 50% could not do math at their grade level, dropping to 17% in 2013.

English Language Learners

• About 22% of school-age children in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home.

11/3/2016

Children With Special Needs

• The most frequent causes for special education assistance are:

– Intellectual disability

– Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

– Learning disabilities

Intellectual Disability

• Occurs when children show cognitive and social functioning that is considerably below that of other children their age. – IQ of 70 or below.

– Deficits in age-appropriate adaptive behavior, such as social, communication, and self-care skills, that begins before age 18.

– Behavioral component – the inability to appropriately adapt or modify one’s behavior in light of situation demands.

11/3/2016

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

• The most commonly diagnosed disorder in children (10% of schoolchildren in the U.S.).

• A neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent difficulties with attention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity that interferes with performance and behavior in school and daily life.

Three Patterns of ADHD

• Predominantly Inattentive Presentation – Difficulties with attention and distractibility

• Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation – Difficulties with impulsivity

• Combined Presentation – Symptoms of both inattention and

hyperactivity/impulsivity

11/3/2016

Learning Disabilities

• A measurable discrepancy between aptitude and achievement in a particular academic area given their age, intelligence, and amount of schooling.

• Dyslexia

– The most commonly diagnosed learning disability.

– A neurologically based difficulty in processing speech sounds.

Educating Children With Disabilities

• Legislation mandates that children with learning disabilities are to be placed in the least restrictive environment, or classrooms that are as similar as possible to classrooms for children without learning disabilities.

11/3/2016

Mainstreaming Versus Inclusion

• Mainstreaming involves only one teacher in the classroom.

• Inclusion entails additional educational support within the regular classroom that is tailored to learning disabled students’ special needs.

11/3/2016

Socioemotional Development in Middle Childhood

Self-Concept

• Children’s perceptions of themselves

• The characteristics they use to describe themselves (“what am I like?”)

– Example: “I’m pretty popular…That’s because I’m nice to people and helpful and can keep secrets. Mostly I am nice to my friends, although if I get in a bad mod I sometimes say something that can be a little mean…”

11/3/2016

Self-Esteem

• Considering oneself worthy or valuable

• Based on evaluation (“how well do I like myself?”)

– Example: “Even though I’m not doing well in those subjects, I still like myself as a person, because Math and Science just aren’t that important to me. How I look and how popular I am are more important”).

Influences on Self-Concept and Self-Esteem

• Advances in cognitive development lead children to make more complex descriptions and evaluations of themselves as they grow older.

– Perspective taking

– Social comparison

• Ethnic and cultural factors

– Adverse contextual conditions equate to lower scores on measures of self-esteem, especially for African American children.

11/3/2016

Friendship

• School-age children’s friendships are based in similarities

– Interests

– Play preferences

– Demographics

– Ethnicity

Cross-Race Friendships

• More likely to occur in racially integrated schools.

• School-age girls are more likely to have cross-race friendships.

• Benefits:

– Lower tolerance for excluding others

– Less prone to peer victimization

– Feel socially and emotionally safer and less vulnerable at school

11/3/2016

Qualities of School-Age Friendships

• More likely to name only a small number of friends as compared to preschoolers.

• Able to differentiate among best friends, good friends, and casual friends.

• Older girls tend to have fewer, but closer friends.

• By age 10, more children report having a best friend.

• Maintain friendships over time.

Peer Acceptance

• The degree to which a child is viewed as a worthy social partner by his or her peers.

• Becomes increasingly important in middle childhood.

– Important sources of self-validation, self-esteem, and confidence.

11/3/2016

Popularity

• Children who are socially skilled and valued by their peers.

• Characteristics: – Helpfulness

– Trustworthiness

– Assertiveness

– Skilled at social information processing

– Skilled at emotion regulation and capacity to provide emotional support to peers

Aggressive Popular Children

• A minority of popular children who are socially skilled yet show antisocial and aggressive behavior.

• Not empathetic to others.

• Labeled by peers and teachers as tough.

• Show similar social competencies similar to popular children and characteristics of children who are rejected.

11/3/2016

Peer Rejection

• Children who are often disliked and shunned by their peers.

• Rejected peers are judged as being unattractive, deviant, incompetent, and socially isolated.

• Characteristics: – Poor communication skills

– Poor language skills

– Poor emotional control

– Poor social information processing skills

Two Types of Rejected Children • Aggressive-rejected

– Confrontational, hostile toward other children, impulsive, and hyperactive

– Difficulty taking the perspective of others

– Assume hostile intentions and react aggressively

• Withdrawn-rejected

– Socially withdrawn, passive, timid, anxious, and socially awkward

– Isolate themselves from peers, rarely initiate contact with peers, and speak less frequently than their peers

11/3/2016

Similarities Among Rejected- Aggressive and Withdrawn Children

• They both:

– Misinterpret other children’s behaviors and motives.

– Have trouble understanding and regulating their emotions.

– Are poor listeners.

– Are less socially competent.

Table 10.1: Characteristics of Popular and Rejected Children

11/3/2016

Bullying

• Also known as peer victimization. • Defined as an ongoing interaction in which a child

repeatedly attempts to inflict physical (most common), verbal, or social harm on another child.

• Examples include: – Hitting – Kicking – Name-calling – Teasing – Shunning – Humiliating

Rates of Bullying

• Estimated rates of bullying and victimization range from 15% to 25% of children in Australia, Austria, England, Finland, Germany, Norway, and the United States.

11/3/2016

Characteristics of Children Who Bully By Gender

• Boys: – Above average in size

– Use physical aggression

– Target both boys and girls

• Girls: – Verbally assertive

– Target other girls

– Use verbal or psychological methods of bullying (relational aggression)

Non-Gender Specific Characteristics of Bullies

• Impulsive

• Domineering

• Show little anxiety or insecurity in peer contexts

– Relationally aggressive children:

• Perceived by peers as cool, powerful, and popular

– Physically aggressive children:

• Hyperactive behavior, poor school achievement, perceive less support from teachers, and higher rates of depression

11/3/2016

Characteristics of Victims

• Inhibited

• Frail in appearance

• Younger than their peers

• Perceived by peers as different (more quiet and cautious)

Response to Bullying

• Victims of bullies engage in avoidance behaviors (not going to school).

• Respond by becoming defensive, crying, and giving into bullies’ demands (all reinforce the bully).

• Reactive aggression – An aggressive response that is preceded by an

insult, confrontation, or frustration

11/3/2016

Consequences of Bullying

• Negative emotional and academic consequences

• Can appear as early as in kindergarten and persist over the childhood and adolescent years

Table 10.2: Bullying Risks and Interventions

11/3/2016

Table 10.2: Bullying Risks and Interventions

Parent-Child Relationships

• School-age children become more independent, spend less time with parents, and the parent-child relationship becomes less close.

• Time is spent in task-oriented activities (i.e., doing homework and cleaning).

• Often show less respect for parental authority (however, not as much in African American and Latino children).

11/3/2016

Parenting Issues in Middle Childhood

• Parents need to adapt their parenting strategies to children’s increased ability to reason and desire for independence.

• Parents tend to use less direct management and begin to share power.

– Guiding and monitoring children’s behavior from a distance.

– Communicating expectations.

– Allowing children to have more control of decision-making.

Siblings

• Nearly 80% of children in the U.S. have at least one sibling.

• By middle childhood, children spend more time with siblings than with parents.

• Children display emotions and behaviors to siblings that they would not show peers.

• Sibling relationships are characterized by patterns of ambivalence and conflict.

11/3/2016

Figure 10.1: Relationship of Children to Parent in Same-Sex Households in the United States, 2011

• An estimated 37% of LGBT-identified adults have a child at some time in their lives.

Developmental Outcomes for Children with Same-Sex Parents

• Children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers do not differ from other children on measures of emotional development (i.e., empathy and emotional regulation).

• Children raised by lesbian parents tend to score higher in social and academic competence, show fewer social and behavior problems, and lower levels of aggression.

• Children are not more likely to display a gay orientation in adulthood.

11/3/2016

Figure 10.2: Family Structure: Children’s Living Arrangements, 1960–2013

• In 2013, about 35% of U.S. children under 18 lived with a single parent (typically the mother)

Outcomes for Children Raised in Single-Parent Families

• More physical and mental health problems

• Poorer academic achievement

• Less social competence

• More behavior problems

• The effects tend to be small and the majority of children raised in one-parent homes are well adjusted.

11/3/2016

Risk Factors Influencing Development in Single-Parent Families

• About one third of children raised in single-mother homes live in poverty.

– Children who grow up in low SES homes experience: • Heightened risk for academic, social, and behavioral problems

• Children in single-mother families:

– Receive less supervision

– Have more household responsibilities

– Experience more conflict with siblings

– Have less family cohesion

Protective Factors Influencing Development in Single-Parent Families

• The single-parent household can offer stability, continuity, and opportunities for child development.

• The level of social support afforded single mothers influences their ability to provide emotional support.

11/3/2016

Cohabiting Families

• In 2013, about 8% of children lived in homes with two parents who are unmarried.

• Forty percent of children will spend some time in a cohabiting-parent family before they reach age 18.

• Children of unmarried cohabiting parents who have close, caring relationships with them and whose union is stable develop as well as those who are married and stable.

Developmental Challenges of Cohabiting Families

• If cohabiting couples are less stable, children are more likely to:

– Experience their parents’ separation

– Experience more conflict in the home

– Experience more transitions in family life

– Show more behavior and academic problems

11/3/2016

Divorce and Children

• Divorce has some negative effects on children’s adjustment, such as internalizing and externalizing problems, but the effects are small, vary by particular outcome, and do not apply to all boys and girls uniformly.

Divorce and Boys

• Increases in behavior problems and delinquent activity

• Timing matters

– Elementary school = More behavior problems that persisted for years after the divorce

– Middle school = Behavior problems that dropped over the first year after the divorce

11/3/2016

Divorce and Girls

• Higher rates of anxiety and depression (response increases with age)

Long-Term Influence of Divorce

• Challenges in adolescence and early adulthood include:

– Difficulty with sexuality and intimacy

– Difficulties with anxiety, depression, and problem behaviors

– Higher risk of pregnancy

– As adults, are more likely to experience divorce in their own marriages

11/3/2016

Conflict and Child Adjustment

– Increase in parental conflict (common in parental divorce) negatively impact the emotional and psychological well-being of children and increase behavioral problems

• In over 33% of cases, high parental conflict continues for several years after the divorce

• Unresolved hostile and aggressive interactions damage children’s sense of emotional security

Divorce and Parents

• More emotionally detached from their role as parents

• Less effective in monitoring and disciplining their children

• May experience more conflict and less cohesion in their relationships with their children

11/3/2016

Custody

• Sole legal child custody

– One parent makes all the decisions regarding the child and need not consult the other parent

• Joint legal child custody

– Both parents make major decisions about their children

• Joint physical child custody

– Parents share daily living arrangements with the child

• Typically parents share joint legal custody, but one parent has physical custody (the mother)

Custody and Child Adjustment

• Overall, children in joint physical custody homes typically adjust well* – Better adjusted with regard to parent-child and

family relationships

– Higher self-esteem

– Lower rates of anxiety and depression

– Better academic achievement

– Fewer behavior problems *As compared to children raised in sole custody homes

11/3/2016

Stepfamilies

• About 15% to 20% of U.S. children live in a stepfamily composed of a biological parent and a nonrelated adult (most commonly a mother and stepfather).

• Also known as blended or reconstituted families.

Factors Related to Child Outcomes in Stepfamilies

• Age – School-age children and adolescents tend to display

more difficulties in adjusting to remarriage than do younger children

• Gender – Boys

• Greater physical aggression, destructive behaviors, and other behavior problems

– Girls • Aggression is turned inward resulting in problems with

anxiety, depression, and passive aggression

11/3/2016

Common Fears and Anxiety

• The frequency and intensity of children’s fears declines.

• Anxieties become more complex – Parent’s health, wars, and natural disasters

• Children who express many worries and anxieties tend to have a lower sense of self-confidence and perceived control

• School refusal (fears centering around school) – Refusing to attend school and finding it difficult to

attend or to stay in school

Child Sexual Abuse

• Engaging in any sexual activity, coerced or persuaded, with a child.

• About 27% of children under the age of 17 have experienced sexual abuse.

• Girls are more often victimized.

• Sexual abuse is most often reported in middle childhood (about ½ of cases occurring between ages 4 and 12).

11/3/2016

Table 10.3: Risks and Outcomes Associated With Child Sexual Abuse

Table 10.4: Characteristics of

Effective Child Sexual Abuse Prevention

Programs

11/3/2016

Resilience

• The ability to respond or perform positively in the face of adversity; to achieve despite the presence of disadvantages; or to significantly exceed expectations given poor home, school, and community circumstances.

Factors That Influence Resilience

• Adaptation to adversity is a dynamic process involving: – Interactions among the child’s developmental capacities

and his or her changing context (including relationships with other people)

– Prior development

– Competence

– Risk factors

– The nature of the current challenges faced

– The child’s adaptive capacity and strengths (protective factors)

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Table 10.5: Characteristics Associated With Resilience

Figure 10.3: Characteristics

of Resilient Children, as Reported by Their Parents

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