Unit 4

• Middle childhood: period between early and adolescence; from ages 6 to 11

  • slower and steady growth
  • 5 pounds and 2 inches each year
  • steady growth until end of middle childhood
  • Rapid growth at start of puberty; ages 10 (girls) and 12 (boys)
• Adrenarche: between ages 5 to 9

  • hormones trigger adrenal glands
  • leads to development of secondary sex characteristics towards the end of middle childhood
  • earlier in girls than boys
• At ages 5 to 9, death rates are the lowest for any group

  • fatal diseases in MC are rare bc of immunization
  • fatal accidents and homicides dip
  • genetic diseases are more threatening to those in infancy or old age
  • body is stronger
• Habits:

  • Good childhood habits protect later adult health
  • parent and peers strongly influence
  • Physical activity: especially games with rules -> health and learning
  • exercise: free play and organized sports
  • team sport with guidance
  • Parental influence: involvement and encouragement of physical activity has increased.
  • more engagement of both parents
• Improved executive function allows for more complicated fine and gross motor activities that require attention and planning
• Gross motor skills:

  • increases during middle childhood
  • Gender differences : boys ahead of girls
  • benefits of dev physical skills and engaging in sports: sense of competence, academic success, brain dev, social skills and self-regulation, improved mental health
  • benefits exists even if they're not good at sport
  • less physical activity is linked to low reading scores
  • However, it's being replaced by increased reading and math in some schools
• Fine motor skills:

  • Increase during middle childhood
  • gender differences: girls ahead of boys
  • Required for many school requirement
  • teachers demand for mastery of school-related fine motor skills may frustrate children
• Health problems in middle school:

  • Chronic health conditions affect 1 in 5 US children
  • Tourette syndrome, stuttering diabetes
  • allergies may worsen during school years
  • Asthma: chronic disease of respiratory system that causes difficulty in breathing
  • caused by... genes and environment, hygiene hypothesis
  • Other health problems: vision and dental
• Obesity in children:

  • 18.4% in MC are obese (5% in 1978)
  • Cause more deaths worldwide than nutrition
  • Obesity increases as income decreases
• Brain development and physical activity:

  • Motor activity affects brain
  • cerebral blood flow, which fuels brain tissues and NT
  • improves mood -> affect cognition
  • increase hippocampus-> memory
  • Attention improves markedly by age 7
  • brain maturation
  • selective attention
  • inhibition of reactions
  • Reaction time improves every year from ages 6 to 10
  • improves with brain maturation (myelination) and experience
• WHO recommends at least 1 hour of exercise per day for 6-11 year olds
• Cultural norms:

  • types of foos
  • food= love
  • car culture
  • intensive parenting or concentrated cultivation
  • beliefs that academic and athletics don't mix
  • diff emphasis
• Sleep:

  • 9 to 12 hours recommend for 6 to 12 year old
  • Many children don't get enough sleep
  • bio factors "second wind" in evening
  • tech
  • Sufficient sleep: greater activity during the day
  • Insufficient sleep: increased risked for depression, different patterns of brain maturation
• Aptitude vs achievement:

  • Aptitude: potential, may have aptitude to achieve many skills, but motivation and opportunity are needed
  • Achievement: mastery or proficiency; compares expected accomplishment at each grade
• "g" or general intelligence: assumes intelligence is one basic trait underlying all cognitive abilities, people have varying levels of general ability
• IQ Test: measure intellectual aptitiude

  • (Mental age/chronical age)x100
  • Critiques of IQ test:
  • aptitude is not fixed
  • test bias
  • ignores individual differences
  • Flynn effect: IQ rises over time
• Theories of intelligence:

  • Sternberg's Theory of Successful Intelligence: 3 types
  • Analytic: abstract thinking and problem solving
  • Creative: generating new idea
  • Practical: common sense
  • Gardner's Multiple Intelligence: 9 types ..
  • linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal,
  • New one: naturalistic and spiritual/existential
  • Each associated with a region of the brain
  • all children have components of each; not expected to be high on all
  • each valued differently by some cultures, groups, families
• Developmental psychopathology: origin, course, outcomes of dev disorders

  • Most are comorbid
  • Premorbid conditions may become diagnosable disorders later on
  • even subthreshold symptoms can play a role in dev
  • Plasticity and compensation can occurs
• Multiple pathways of psychopathology:

  • Equifinality: one symptom can have many cause
  • bullying, child abuse, temperament -> aggressive behavior
  • Multifinality: one cause can have many manifestations
  • Attention problems-> academic failure, substance abuse, poor social relationship
• ADHD: persistent pattern of inattention and/or by hyperactive or impulsive behaviors; interferes with a person's functioning or development

  • Symptoms must start before age 12
  • must negatively impact daily life
  • may be different for boys vs girls
  • Ages 4 to 11: 8%
  • Ages 12 ro 17: 14%
  • male/female ratio ... 1:2
  • Higher in Us than most nations
• ADHD and diagnosis:

  • no bio marker
  • cormorbid with other conditions
  • Over diagnosis: black children
  • Under diagnosis: low-income, hispanic and Asian
  • 1 in 10 outgrow symptoms
  • Treatment for ADHD
  • Ritalin
  • more effective with CBT
• Specific learning disorder:

  • Dyslexia: reading
  • Dyscalculia: math
  • Dysgraphia: spelling and writing
  • ASD: difficulties with social comms
  • use to be just for mute children
  • age 3-17, rates reported to be 1 in 36
  • Possible hypothesis: environment, prenatal
• Special education:

  • Least restrictive environment (LRE): legal req to be assigned to the most general educational context
  • Response to intervention (RTI): early intervention for children with below average achievement
  • Individual education plan (IEP): educational goals and plans
  • Cohort and culture
• Thinking in Middle childhood:

  • 5 to 7 shift: dramatic changes in children's ability to manage their own thinking and behaviors as they start school
• Thinking like a child:

  • Burst of reasoning due to brain maturation triggered by experience
  • Formal schooling shapes children's function
• Piaget's 3rd stage: Concrete operations

  • ages 6 to 12
  • more logical, no longer fail conservation tasks
• Hierarchy of categories:

  • Classification: organization of things into groups; families, animals , foods
  • understanding that it's hierarchical
  • Subcategorization: types of food or transportation
  • By age 8 ... understanding that they can fit into more than one categories
  • Seriation: things can be arranged in logical series according to an abstract rule
  • more accurate when concrete object, connected to sequencing