PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER 9

Learning Objectives

Explain: These are the questions we will consider as we explore physical and cognitive development during middle childhood.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

The Growing Body

Slow but steady…

Height changes
Weight changes
Only time in lifespan when on average girls taller than boys
Variation in heights up to 6 inches not unusual

Height
While they are in elementary school, children in the United States grow, on average, 2 to 3 inches a year. By the age of 11, the average height for girls is 4 feet, 10 inches and the average height for boys is slightly shorter at 4 feet, 9 1/2 inches. This is the only time during the life span when girls are, on average, taller than boys. This height difference reflects the slightly more rapid physical development of girls, who start their adolescent growth spurt around the age of 10.
Weight
Weight gain follows a similar pattern. During middle childhood, both boys and girls gain around 5 to 7 pounds a year. Weight is also redistributed. As the rounded look of “baby fat” disappears, children's bodies become more muscular and their strength increases.

Cultural Patterns of Growth

Influences

Sufficient or insufficient nutrition
Disease
Genetic inheritance
Familial stress

Should hormones be used to make short children grow?

Growth hormones given to abnormally short children; Idiopathic short stature (5th percentile for height)

Ask: What do you think? What contributed to your answer? In all instances? Under what conditions? Whose decision is it?

Ask: Is being short a social disadvantage?

Artificial Hormones: Points to Consider

Currently taken by thousands of children with insufficient natural growth hormones
Costly
Some side effects
Long-term studies of usage not available

Growth producing hormones relatively new
Protropin

Growth hormones are released from the anterior pituitary gland. Pituitary adenomas can produce excess growth hormones. This can cause abnormal growth patterns called acromegaly in adults and gigantism in children. Excess growth hormones can increase blood pressure and blood sugar.

Individuals with resistance to growth hormones or known pituitary disease may not produce enough growth hormones. In children this can cause short stature. In adults, insufficient can lead to changes in muscle mass, cholesterol levels, and bone strength.

Nutritional Benefits

Children who received higher levels of nutrients had more energy and felt more self-confident than those whose nutritional intake was lower.
What policy implications does this finding suggest?
(Source: Based on Barrett & Radke-Yarrow, 1985.)

Benefits of Adequate Nutrition

Relationship to social and emotional functioning

More peer involvement
More positive emotions
Less anxiety
More eagerness to explore new environments
More persistent in frustrating situations
Generally higher energy levels
(See Guatemalan study, Barrett & Frank, 1987)

Test of the speed and accuracy of response on problem-solving tasks given to children who did or did not eat breakfast  skipping breakfast had an adverse influence on their performance on the tests (Pollitt et al. 1991)

Consequences of Inadequate Nutrition

Undernutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide

Undernourished children

Lowered resistance to infection
More likely to die from common childhood ailments and respiratory infections
Frequent illness that impacts growth

Check series of UNICEF films related to global malnutrition, education, and children.
See UNICEF website for fact sheet: http://childinfo.org/areas/malnutrition/

What would Ugly Betty's life be like in a real elementary school?

Before beginning these questions, be especially sensitive to students in class who may be directly affected by this discussion. Be prepared to help students who may inadvertently disclose painful recollections of their early school years as obese children.
Encourage students to answer the question. Ask: what do you think are the underlying causes of eating disorders in middle childhood?

Obesity

Most common causes:
Genetic factors
Lack of physical activity
Unhealthy eating patterns
Combination of these factors
Only in rare cases is being overweight caused by a medical condition such as a hormonal problem

In fact, concern about weight can border on an obsession, particularly among girls. For instance, many 6-year-old girls worry about becoming “fat,” and
Some 40 percent of 9- and 10-year-olds are trying to lose weight. Why? Their concern is most often the result of the U.S. preoccupation with being slim, which permeates every sector of society
Children become overweight for a variety of reasons: genetic and social

In the United States over the past 20 years, obesity has increased by 54 percent in 6 to 11 year old children and by 39 percent among 12 to 17 year olds.

Costs of Childhood Obesity

Obese children
More likely to be overweight as adults
Greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases

In fact, some scientists believe that an epidemic of obesity may be leading to a decline in life span in the U.S.

Figure 9-2 Obesity in Children

Obesity in children from ages 6 to 12 has risen dramatically

over the past three decades.

The other side of “fat”

Even very young children are aware of society's fixation on thinness
Lowered self-esteem has been associated with being overweight in girls as young as 5
Attitude was closely correlated with parents' perceptions

Balanced Diet?

Recent studies have found that the diet of children is almost the opposite of that recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture,

a situation that can lead to an increase in obesity.

The typical 10-year-old is 10 pounds heavier

than a decade ago.

(Source: USDA, 1999; NPD Group, 2004.)

MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

Gross Motor Skills

Gross motor skills developed by children between the ages of 6 and 12 years.

Do boys and girls differ in motor skills?

Gender differences in gross motor skills became increasingly pronounced during middle childhood

Boys outperform girls
Little or no difference when equal participation in exercise/activities
Influenced by societal expectations

American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that boys and girls should engage in the same sports and games, and that they can do so together in mixed-gender groups. There is no reason to separate the sexes in physical exercise and sports until puberty, when the smaller size of females begins to make them more susceptible to injury in contact sports.

Fine Motor Development

Necessary for wide range of school-related tasks
Influenced by increase in amount of myelin speeds up electrical impulses between neurons

Six- and 7-year-olds are able to tie their shoes and fasten buttons; by age 8, they can use each hand independently; and by 11 and 12, they can manipulate objects with almost as much capability as they will show in adulthood.
Myelin, which insulates nerve fibers, contains only 18% protein and 76% lipid.

Health and School-agers

Middle childhood is period of robust health

Routine immunizations have produced considerably lower incidence of life-threatening illnesses
More than 90 percent of children in middle childhood have at least one serious medical condition but most are short term illnesses

For most children, this is a period of robust health, and most of the ailments they do contract tend to be mild and brief. Routine immunizations during childhood have produced a considerably lower incidence of the life-threatening illnesses that 50 years ago claimed the lives of a significant number of children.

Asthma

About asthma

15 million US children
Periodic attacks of wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath
Theories about increased incidence
Increased air pollution
More accurate diagnosis
Exposure to “asthma triggers”
Poverty

Up to 80 percent of kids with asthma develop the condition before they turn 5 years old.
One of the most puzzling questions about asthma is why more and more children have been suffering from it over the last two decades. Some researchers suggest that increasing air pollution has led to the rise; others believe that cases of asthma that might have been missed in the past are simply being identified more accurately. Still others have suggested that exposure to “asthma triggers,” such as dust, may be increasing, because new buildings are more weatherproof—and therefore less drafty—than old ones, and consequently the flow of air within them is more restricted.
Poverty may play an indirect role. Children living in poverty have a higher incidence of asthma than other children, probably due to poorer medical care and less sanitary living conditions.

Asthma brings different challenges for school-age kids. A child might feel embarrassed using an inhaler at school, for example, or worry about having an asthma attack in front of friends.

There are two main types of medications available to treat asthma. Inhaled anti-inflammatories or "controller" medicines are used to prevent asthma flare-ups.

During an asthma attack, the muscles around the airways tighten, or "spasm" (like when you make a fist) and the lining inside the airways swell or thicken, and get clogged with lots of thick mucous. This makes the airways much skinnier than usual so it is harder to move air in and out of the air sacs. This makes it hard to breathe!

Other Health Risks

Accidents
Motor vehicles
Bikes
Fires and burns
Drowning
Gun-related deaths
Reduced by use of seatbelts and helmets

Auto crashes annually kill 4 out of every 100,000 children between the ages 5 and 9. Fires and burns, drowning, and gun-related deaths follow in frequency.

Figure 9-5 Injury Death Rates by Age

During middle childhood, the most frequent causes of accidental death are transportation-

related. Why do you think transportation-related deaths soar just after middle childhood? (Source: Borse et al., 2008.)

PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS

Identifying the Problem

Psychological disorders in children overlooked for years
Incidence
Symptoms inconsistent from those of adults
Antidepressant drugs used for treatment have never been approved by governmental regulators for use with children

One in five children and adolescents has psychological disorder that produces at least some impairment.
About 5 percent of preteens suffer from childhood depression
Thirteen percent of children between 9 and 17 experience anxiety disorder

Drugs As Treatment

FOR

Depression and other psychological disorders treated successfully using drug
More traditional nondrug therapies that largely employ verbal methods simply are ineffective

AGAINST

Long-term effectiveness of antidepressants with children not known
Use of antidepressants on developing brains and long-term consequences more generally not known
Correct dosages for children of given ages or sizes not known

Some observers suggest that the use of special children's versions of the drugs, in orange- or mint-flavored syrups, might lead to overdoses or perhaps eventually encourage the use of illegal drugs.
Some evidence linking the use of antidepressant medication with an increased risk of suicide.

Depression

Key defining features of major depressive disorder in children and adolescents are same as they are for adults
Way symptoms are expressed varies with developmental stage of child

Children with Special Needs
Sensory Difficulties: Visual, Auditory, and Speech Problems

: Over twenty years ago, President Ford and Congress passed a law that made provisions for exceptional children and adults to be educated in public schools. The law covered ages three to twenty-one and required an extensive evaluation.
IDEA has been considered the "Bill of Rights for Handicapped Children." This act expanded the age range of PL 94-142 to include infants and twenty-two year olds. This act also emphasized family involvement.
: Inclusion states that there is a commitment to educate all children to the maximum extent possible for the institution and the educator. Inclusion states that disabled children benefit from being with non-disabled children, even if they are not on their academic level.
: The Federal Government should pick up forty percent of the cost of special education programs, according to the 1975 special education law. In previous years, the Federal Government has paid for less than ten percent of the programs. Most of the cost of these programs are picked up by state and local governments through taxes.
: The parents of disabled children should play a vital role in their child's education. PL 101-476 is the law that guarantees parents' participation in the decision making process of their child's education. It is the parents' responsibility to make sure the child's rights are being protected.

Do you see what I see?

Difficulties in seeing

Blindness (20/200 after correction)
Partial sightedness (20/70 after correction)

Visual impairment happens when there is a problem with one or more parts of the eyes or the parts of the brain needed to process the images sent from the eyes.

Although many people think blindness means a person can't see at all, this isn't always true. Some children who are considered blind can still see a little light or shadows, but they can't see things clearly.

Diabetes
Macular degeneration (scarring in middle area of retina)
Glaucoma (Your eyes are filled with a thin fluid called aqueous humor. The fluid is made in the back of the eye, where it then passes through to the front and drains through tiny holes called outflow channels. When something stops the flow of this fluid, pressure builds up inside the eye, causing problems with vision)
are cloudy spots in the eye's lens that block light and change vision. Babies can be born with cataracts, but they usually affect older people and not kids. No one knows what causes them, although too much sunlight exposure over the years may cause cataracts to form at a younger age in adults.
Even if a person is not so impaired as to be legally blind, their visual problems may still seriously affect their schoolwork. For one thing, the legal criterion pertains solely to distance vision, while most educational tasks require close-up vision. In addition, the legal definition does not consider abilities in the perception of color, depth, and light—all of which might influence a student's educational success. About one student in a thousand requires special education services relating to a visual impairment.

The behaviors of children with CVI reflect their adaptive response to the characteristics of their condition

Children with CVI may experience a "crowding phenomenon" when looking at a picture: difficulty differentiating between background and foreground visual information.
Close viewing is common, to magnify the object or to reduce crowding.
Rapid horizontal head shaking or eye pressing is not common among children with CVI.
Overstimulation can result in fading behavior by the child, or in short visual attention span.
The ability of children with CVI to navigate through cluttered environments without bumping into anything could be attributed to "blind sight", a brain stem visual system.
Children are often able to see better when told what to look for ahead of time.
Children with CVI may use their peripheral vision when presented with a visual stimulus, appearing as if they are looking away from the target.
Some children look at an object momentarily and turn away as they reach for it.

Say what?

Loss of hearing or some aspect of hearing
Affects 2 percent of school-age children
Varies across number of dimensions

Hearing losses affect a significant number of people, and range from a slight to a very severe loss. Very few people with hearing impairments are totally deaf; most have some degree of residual hearing.
Some people with hearing impairments benefit from the use of amplification. However, in the majority of cases, even when a sound is amplified loud enough to be heard, the sound quality is affected; the sound may still be unintelligible.

People with hearing impairments communicate in a variety of ways, depending on several factors: amount of residual hearing, type of hearing impairment, language skills, age when the impairment began, speech abilities, speech-reading skills, personality, intelligence, family environment, and educational background.

Children Who Do Not Hear

Children with speech-language impairment have an impairment of their speech and/or language structures and functions
Parts of the body used in speaking and understanding – the brain, nerves, mouth and throat – may be damaged or not developing or working properly
Level of speech-language impairment can range from mild to severe
Impairment may be obvious before school or not show itself until the child has difficulty learning at school

A severe speech-language impairment may result in one or more of the following:

The child not being able to speak

Having speech that is very hard to understand
The child having great difficulty making sense of speech sounds
The child not always being able to understand others
The child not being able to say what he or she wants.

I Am Talking to YOU!

Definition

Impairment of speech articulation, voice, fluency, or the impairment or deviant development of language comprehension and/or expression
Impairment of use of spoken or other symbol system that adversely affects educational performance

The language impairment may be manifested by one or more of the following components of language: morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology, and pragmatics;

Severe and early loss of hearing is also associated with difficulties in abstract thinking. Because hearing-impaired children may have limited exposure to language, they may have trouble mastering abstract concepts that can be understood fully only through the use of language than concrete concepts that can be illustrated visually.

Stuttering

Substantial disruption in rhythm and fluency of speech
Most common speech impairment; 20 percent of all children go through stage
No clear-cut answers to the causes of stuttering

No clear-cut answers to the causes of stuttering

Genetics

Neurophysiology

Child development

Family dynamics

Learning Disabilities
Discrepancies Between Achievement and Capacity to Learn

Difficulties in acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities
2.8 million children in US
Dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia
ADD/ADHD

LD is a disorder that affects people's ability to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain. These limitations can show up in many ways: as specific difficulties with spoken and written language, coordination, self control, or attention. Such difficulties extend to schoolwork and can impede learning to read, write, or do math.

The Brains of Children With ADHD

The brains of children with ADHD (in the top row) show less thickening of the cortex compared to the brains of typical children at the same age.

(Source: Shaw et al., 2007.)

The Basic Definition in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

“Learning disability” = umbrella term

DISORDERS INCLUDED- Such term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.

DISORDERS NOT INCLUDED- Such term does not include a learning problem that is primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Developmental Reading Disability

Dylexia affects 2 to 8 percent of elementary school children

Reading difficulties
Inability to separate sounds in words
Problems sounding out words

When you think of what is involved in the "three R's" -reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic- it's astounding that most of us do learn them. Consider that to read, you must simultaneously:

Focus attention on the printed marks and control eye movements across the page

Recognize the sounds associated with letters

Understand words and grammar

Build ideas and images

Compare new ideas to what you already know

Store ideas in memory

Developmental Writing Disabilities

Writing involves several brain areas and functions (dysgraphia)

Brain networks for vocabulary, grammar, hand movement, and memory must all be in good working order
Developmental writing disorder may result from problems in any of these areas

For example, a child with a writing disability, particularly an expressive language disorder, might be unable to compose complete, grammatical sentences

Developmental Arithmetic Disability

Arithmetic involves recognizing numbers and symbols, memorizing facts, aligning numbers, and understanding abstract concepts like place value and fractions
Any of these may be difficult for children with developmental arithmetic disorders, also called dyscalculia

Problems with number or basic concepts are likely to show up early

Disabilities that appear in the later grades are more often tied to problems in reasoning.

What are the most common signs of ADHD?

Persistent difficulty in finishing tasks, following instructions, and organizing work
Inability to watch an entire television program
Frequent interruption of others or excessive talking
Tendency to jump into a task before hearing all the instructions
Difficulty in waiting or remaining seated
Fidgeting, squirming

Because there is no simple test to identify whether a child has ADHD, it is hard to know for sure how many children have the disorder. Most estimates put the number between 3 to 7 percent of those under the age of 18.
Only a trained clinician can make an accurate diagnosis following an extensive evaluation of the child and interviews with parents and teachers

Diagnostic Criteria

Behaviors must:

Be excessive, long-term, and pervasive
Appear before age 7, and continue for at least 6 months
Create a real handicap in at least two areas of a person's life, such as school, home, work, or social settings
Be different than "normal" distractibility or overstressed lifestyle prevalent in our society

ADHD Treatment Controversy

Ritalin or Dexadrine reduce activity levels in hyperactive children and are routinely prescribe

Effective in increasing attention span and compliance BUT side effects considerable and long-term health consequences unclear
Help scholastic performance in short run BUT long-term evidence for continuing improvement is mixed

Overprescribing Ritalin?

The number of children being given drugs for psychological disorders has increased significantly over the last decade.

(Source: U.S. Surgeon General, 2000.)

34.bin

Are there other treatments for ADD/ADHD?

Treatments

Behavioral therapy
Diet
Other?

With behavior therapy, parents and teachers are trained in techniques for improving behavior, primarily involving the use of rewards (such as verbal praise) for desired behavior. In addition, teachers can increase the structure of classroom activities and use other class management techniques to help children with ADHD, who have great difficulty with unstructured tasks.
Because some research has shown links between ADHD and children's diet, particularly in terms of fatty acids or food additives, dietary treatments have sometimes been prescribed. However, dietary treatments are usually insufficient by themselves.

Keeping Children Fit

Make exercise fun. Gear activities to the child's physical level and motor skills.
Encourage the child to find a partner. Start slowly.
Urge participation in organized sports activities, but do not push too hard.
Don't make physical activity, such as jumping jacks or push-ups, a punishment for unwanted behavior.
Provide a healthy diet.

Make exercise fun. In order for children to build the habit of exercising, they need to find it enjoyable. Activities that keep children on the sidelines or that are overly competitive may give children with inferior skills a lifelong distaste for exercise.

Be an exercise role model. Children who see that exercise is a regular part of the lives of their parents, teachers, or adult friends may come to think of fitness as a regular part of their lives, too.

Gear activities to the child's physical level and motor skills. For instance, use child-size equipment that can make participants feel successful.

Encourage the child to find a partner. It could be a friend, a sibling, or a parent. Exercising can involve a variety of activities, such as roller skating or hiking, but almost all activities are carried out more readily if someone else is doing them too.

Start slowly. Sedentary children—those who aren't used to regular physical activity—should start off gradually. For instance, they could start with 5 minutes of exercise a day, 7 days a week. Over ten weeks, they could move toward a goal of 30 minutes of exercise 3 to 5 days a week.

Urge participation in organized sports activities, but do not push too hard. Not every child is athletically inclined, and pushing too hard for involvement in organized sports may backfire. Make participation and enjoyment the goals of such activities, not winning.

Don't make physical activity, such as jumping jacks or push-ups, a punishment for unwanted behavior. Instead, schools and parents should encourage children to participate in organized programs that seek to involve children in ways that are enjoyable.

Provide a healthy diet. Children who eat nutritiously are going to have more energy to engage in physical activity than those who have a diet heavy in soda and snack foods.

Review and Reply

slow but steady
Adequate nutrition; over-nutrition
gross; fine; near adult

Review and Reply

asthma; childhood depression
vision; hearing; speech
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; 3; 5; drugs

Review and Apply

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

What are advances and limitations, in thinking during childhood?

Approaches

Piaget
Information-processing
Vygotsky

Intellectual Development: Piaget

Concrete operational stage

7 and 12 years
Characterized by active and appropriate use of logic
Logical operations applied to concrete problems
Conservation problems; reversibility; time and speed, decentering

Routes to Conservation

After being told that the two cars traveling on Routes 1 and 2 start and end their journeys in the same amount of time, children who are just entering the concrete operational period still reason that the cars are traveling at the same speed.

Later, however, they reach the correct conclusion: that the car traveling the longer route must be moving at a higher speed if it starts and ends its journey at the same time as the car traveling the shorter route.

Children still experience one critical limitation in their thinking. They remain tied to concrete, physical reality. Furthermore, they are unable to understand truly abstract or hypothetical questions, or ones that involve formal logic, such as concepts like free will or determinism.

How does preoperational thought emerge?

Shift from preoperational thought to concrete operational thought does not happen overnight

Children shift back and forth between preoperational and concrete operational thinking
Once concrete operational thinking is fully engaged, children show several cognitive advances

They attain the concept of reversibility, which is the notion that processes transforming a stimulus can be reversed, returning it to its original form.
Because they are less egocentric, they can take multiple aspects of a situation into account, an ability known as decentering.

Conservation Training

Rural Australian Aborigine children trail their urban counterparts in the development of their understanding of conservation; with training, they later catch up. Without training,

around half of 14-year-old Aborigines do not have an understanding of conservation.

What can be concluded from the fact that training influences the understanding of

conservation?

(Source: Based on Dasen, Ngini, & Lavallee, 1979.)

Piaget Was Right…Piaget Was Wrong

Many schools employ principles derived from his views to guide the nature and presentation of instructional materials.

Information Processing

Increasing ability to handle information

Memory improvement
Short term memory capacity improvement

Memory in the information-processing model is the ability to encode, store, and retrieve information.
Memory capacity may shed light on another issue in cognitive development. Some developmental psychologists suggest that the difficulty children experience in solving conservation problems during the preschool period may stem from memory limitations.

Thinking about Memory: Metamemory

Understanding about processes that underlie memory
Improves during school age years
Helps children use control strategies (conscious, intentional tactics to improve functioning)

Can children be trained to be more effective in use of control strategies?

School-age children can be taught to use particular strategies
Keyword strategies
See Center for Development and Learning (10 Strategies to Enhance Memory) for additional strategies

Keyword strategy, one word is paired with another that sounds like it.
http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/memory_strategies_May06.php?type=recent&id=Yes

Vygotsky's Approach

Cognitive advances occur through exposure to information within zone of proximal development (ZPD)

Influential in development of classroom practices
Cooperative learning
Reciprocal teaching

The ZPD is the level at which a child can almost, but not quite, understand or perform a task.
WHAT IS IT? Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. WHY USE IT? Documented results include improved academic achievement, improved behavior and attendance, increased self-confidence and motivation, and increased liking of school and classmates. Cooperative learning is also relatively easy to implement and is inexpensive.

WHAT IS IT? Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity that takes place in the form of a dialogue between teachers and students regarding segments of text. The dialogue is structured by the use of four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher and students take turns assuming the role of teacher in leading this dialogue.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Mastering the Mechanics of Language in Middle Childhood

VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT: happens quite naturally through exposure to vocabulary-rich literature selections, always teaching "the language of instruction" (what every word used by the teacher in her daily teaching tasks means), by listening to the teacher "model" good speech and interesting sentences with the spelling dictation, AND by the specific teaching of the meanings of prefixes, roots and suffixes.
GRAMMAR: Children and Grammar. Linguists’ view of language and grammar; grammar is special; grammar is separate; grammar must be innate.

Assertions about early grammar acquisition: Grammatical elements are innate; Syntactic rules are used in early “sentences;” Grammar learning is implicit.

Semantics, Grammar, Lexicon, Rules

Semantics = meaning of morphemes and words. Syntax = grammar conveyed through word order. Grammar = syntax + inflectional morphology. Two ways linguistic information stored:

Lexicon = individual “words” & information;

Rules = generalized procedures.

Linguists view of grammar

Two types of grammatical information: categories in lexicon; terminal elements (e.g. N, V), non-terminal elements (e.g. NP, VP); “rewrite” rules

Grammar = arranging elements using rules; Semantics is irrelevant.

Separate modules & grammar first conflict between psychologists and linguists

Chomsky (1959) demolished behaviourism:

language is unpredictable;

language is creative.

Use a special kind of rule:

requires competence-performance distinction;

Gold's theorem – language unlearnable.

Psychologists – initially sort evidence support linguists’ claims, but increasing conflict.

Grammar acquisition

Examine two proposals which arose from the linguistic perspective: Grammatical elements are innate.

Syntactic rules are used in early “sentences”.

Origin of grammatical elements:
mantic bootstrapping theory

Pinker (1984):

grammatical elements are innate;

grammar acquisition involves mapping words onto these elements .

Mapping achieved via semantics:

learn very general semantic categories = thematic roles (e.g. theme, goal);

innate linking rules maps roles to elements.

Origin of grammatical elements: Semantic bootstrapping theory

Bowerman (1990):

theory predicts some verbs hard to learn;

if theme maps to subject easy (e.g. fall), if elsewhere (e.g. lose) hard;

but, acquired at same time.

Braine (1988):

if learn thematic roles why not grammatical units? – Semantic Assimilation Theory.

Origin of grammatical elements:
Does semantics come first?

Construct grammatical units from semantics.

Early language is agrammatical.

Nouns = things, adjectives = attributes, verbs = actions – but McShane (1991):

abstract nouns (e.g. sleep, truth, love);

verbs “states” not actions (e.g. want, think, like).

Can not be semantic analysis alone (e.g. states are verbs expect “I hungries”).

Where do grammatical units come from?
Innate principles are not necessary or even useful.

Semantics may also be of little help.

Probably learn through patterns in language – syntactic + morphological:

turns Gold's theorem on its head;

false assumptions – e.g. learning is not rule based induction.

Early Grammar

Up to three years:

language use inflexible (Tomasello, 2000);

lexically based around individual verbs (Pine & Lieven, 1997);

no grammatical rules – acquisition statistically.

No grammar module at birth:

context & social factors crucial (Messer, 2000);

develops during childhood (e.g. Kim et al., 1997)

Metalinguistic Awareness

One of most significant developments in middle childhood is children's increasing understanding of their own use of language

By age 5 or 6
Understand language is governed by set of rules
By age 7 or 8
Realize that miscommunication be due to factors attributable not only to themselves, but to person communicating with them

Metalinguistic awareness is increasing understanding of their own use of language.

In early years learn and comprehend these rules implicitly, during middle childhood come to understand them more explicitly

Help achieve comprehension when information is fuzzy or incomplete

How does language promote self-control?

Helps school-age children control and regulate behavior
“Self-talk” used to help regulate behavior
Effectiveness of self-control grows as linguistic capabilities increased

The Diversity of Language Other Than English Spoken in the United States

These figures show the number of U.S. residents over the age of five who speak a language other than English at home. With increases in the number and variety of languages spoken in the United States, what types of approaches might an educator use to meet the needs of bilingual students? (Source: Modern Language Association, census_map, 2005; U.S. Census Bureau, 2000.)

Long-term Bilingualism

According to survey data, even Spanish, a language thought to be particularly enduring in the United States, seldom lasts beyond the second or third generation (Pease-Alveraz, 1993)

Why do you think this occurs?

Ask: Why do you think this occurs?

Cognitive Advantages of Bilingualism

Greater cognitive flexibility
Higher self-esteem
Greater meta-linguistic awareness
Potential improved IQ scores

Access to a range of resources that are largely unavailable to monolingual English speakers
If maintained, could lead to social and economic rewards
Balanced bilingualism (i.e., equal or nearly equal levels of proficiency in both languages) could lead to cognitive growth (Diaz, 1985; Duncan & DeAvila, 1979; Hakuta & Diaz, 1985; Kessler & Quinn, 1980).
Rich learning milieu (e.g., Moll & Greenberg, 1990; Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez, &Shannon, in press).
Children who acquire two languages through their contacts and interactions in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods have access to a range of resources that are largely unavailable to monolingual English speakers.

Review and Apply

concrete operational; logical processes
quantitative; memory
actively; educational

Review and Apply

encoding; storage; retrieval; metamemory
vocabulary; syntax; pragmatics
Bilingualism; metalinguistic; IQ

Review and Apply

encoding; storage; retrieval; metamemory
vocabulary; syntax; pragmatics
Bilingualism; metalinguistic; IQ

SCHOOLING: THE THREE Rs (AND MORE) OF MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

Schooling Around the World and Across Genders:
Who Gets Educated?

Primary school education universal right and legal requirement?
Children in developing countries may have less access
Females in these countries receive less formal education than males

In the United States, as in most developed countries, a primary school education is both a universal right and a legal requirement. Virtually all children are provided with a free education through the twelfth grade.
More than 160 million of the world's children do not have access to even a primary school education. An additional 100 million children do not progress beyond a level comparable to our elementary-school education, and overall close to a billion individuals (two-thirds of them women) are illiterate throughout their lives.

The Plague of Illiteracy

Illiteracy remains a significant worldwide problem, particularly for women. Across the world, close to a billion people are illiterate throughout their lives. (Source: UNESCO, 2006.)

What was the first book you remember reading?

Ask: What was the first book you remember reading?
See “What Book Got You Hooked” website: http://www2.firstbook.org/whatbook/yourfavorites.php

Reading: Learning to Decode Meaning Behind Words

No other task that is more fundamental to schooling than learning to read
Reading involves significant number of skills

Low-level cognitive skills (the identification of single letters and associating letters with sounds) to higher level skills (matching written words with meanings located in long-term memory and using context and background knowledge to determine the meaning of a sentence).

Development of Reading Skills

Stage 1 brings the first real type of reading, but it largely involves phonological recoding skill. At this stage, which usually encompasses the first and second grade, children can sound out words by blending the letters together. Children also complete the job of learning the names of letters and the sounds that go with them.
In Stage 2, typically around second and third grades, children learn to read aloud with fluency. However, they do not attach much meaning to the words, because the effort involved in simply sounding out words is usually so great that relatively few cognitive resources are left over to process the meaning of the words. La-Toya's flawless reading of The Witches shows that she has reached at least this stage of reading development.
The next period, Stage 3, extends from fourth to eighth grades. Reading becomes a means to an end—in particular, a way to learn. Whereas earlier reading was an accomplishment in and of itself, by this point children use reading to learn about the world. However, even at this age, understanding gained from reading is not complete. For instance, one limitation children have at this stage is that they are able to comprehend information only when it is presented from a single perspective.
In the final period, Stage 4, children are able to read and process information that reflects multiple points of view. This ability, which begins during the transition into high school, permits children to develop a far more sophisticated understanding of material. This explains why great works of literature are not read at an earlier stage of education. It is not so much that younger children do not have the vocabulary to understand such works (although this is partially true); it is that they lack the ability to understand the multiple points of view that sophisticated literature invariably presents.

How Should We Teach Reading?

Disagreement about nature of mechanisms by which information is processed during reading
Code-based approaches
Whole-language approaches
National Reading Panel and National Research Council support reading instruction using code-based approaches

Code-based approaches emphasize the components of reading, such as the sounds of letters and their combinations—phonics—and how letters and sounds are combined to make words.
They suggest that reading consists of processing the individual components of words, combining them into words, and then using the words to derive the meaning of written sentences and passages.
In whole-language approaches to reading, reading is viewed as a natural process, similar to the acquisition of oral language. According to this view, children should learn to read through exposure to complete writing—sentences, stories, poems, lists, charts, and other examples of actual uses of writing. Instead of being taught to sound out words, children are encouraged to make guesses about the meaning of words based on the context in which they appear. Through such a trial-and-error approach, children come to learn whole words and phrases at a time, gradually becoming proficient readers.

Brain Changes and Reading

Whatever approach is used to teach reading, reading produces significant changes in the wiring of the brain
It boosts the organization of the visual cortex of the brain and it improves the processing of spoken language

Figure 9-12

The act of reading involves activation of significant

areas of the brain, as these scans

illustrate. In the top scan, an individual

is reading aloud; in the bottom scan, the

person is reading silently.

Educational Trends in the Next Millennium

U.S. schools are experiencing return to educational fundamentals embodied in traditional three Rs
Elementary school classrooms today stress individual accountability, both for teachers and students
Elementary schools have also paid increased attention to issues involving student diversity and multiculturalism

See Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement website: http://www.centerforcsri.org/research/improvement.cgi. The database contains over 4,600 abstracts, reports, and other information related to school reform and improvement.

Cultural Assimilation or Pluralistic Society?

Multicultural education developed in part as a reaction to a cultural assimilation model in which the goal of education was to assimilate individual cultural identities into a unique, unified American culture

Figure 9-13 The Changing Face of America

Current projections of the population

makeup of the United States show that

by the year 2050, the proportion of non-

Hispanic whites will decline as the proportion

of minority group members increases.

What will be some of the impacts of changing

demographics on social workers?

(Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000

As the U. S. population has become more diverse, elementary schools have also paid increased attention to issues involving student diversity and multiculturalism. And with good reason:

Cultural, as well as language, differences affect students socially and educationally.
The demographic makeup of students in the United States is undergoing an extraordinary shift.
For instance, the proportion of Hispanics will in all likelihood more than double in the next 50 years.
Moreover, by the year 2050, non-Hispanic Caucasians will likely become a minority of the total population of the United States.

Do you agree?

The social and emotional development of children are taking a back seat to literacy education?

Ask: Do you agree or disagree? Why?
What steps might be taken to support or change this situation? How is this directly and indirectly related to middle childhood development?

Cultural Assimilation or Pluralistic Society?

Cultural assimilation model
Pluralistic society model
Form a small group and take five minutes to record all the group definitions, characteristics, and thoughts about each model.
Which model makes the most sense to you?

Cultural assimilation model in which the goal of education was to assimilate individual cultural identities into a unique, unified American culture.
Pluralistic society model suggests that American society is made up of diverse, coequal cultural groups that should preserve their individual cultural features.
Over the past decade or so, educators began to argue that the presence of students from diverse cultures enriched and broadened the educational experience of all students. Pupils and teachers exposed to people from different backgrounds could better understand the world and gain greater sensitivity to the values and practices of others.

Fostering a Bicultural Identity

Today, most educators agree that minority children should be encouraged to develop a bicultural identity
School systems encourage children to maintain their original cultural identities while they integrate themselves into dominant culture
More contemporary approaches emphasize a bicultural strategy in which children are encouraged to maintain simultaneous membership in more than one culture

Most educators agree that minority children should be encouraged to develop bicultural identity.
This view suggests that an individual can live as a member of two cultures, with two cultural identities, without having to choose one over the other.

Intelligence: Determining Individual Strengths

How do you define intelligence?

Intelligence is the capacity to understand the world, think with rationality, and use resources effectively when faced with challenges (Wechsler, 1975).
What experiences contributed to your definition? Has this changed over the years? How? Why?
Part of the difficulty in defining intelligence stems from the many—and sometimes unsatisfactory—paths that have been followed over the years in the quest to distinguish more intelligent people from less intelligent ones.

Intelligence Benchmarks: Differentiating the Intelligent from the Unintelligent

Measuring IQ: Present-day approaches to intelligence

Binet's Test
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, Fifth Edition (SB5)
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)
Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, 2nd Edition (KABC-II)

Binet's pioneering efforts in intelligence testing left three important legacies. The first was his pragmatic approach to the construction of intelligence tests. Binet's legacy extends to his linking intelligence and school success. Binet's procedure for constructing an intelligence test ensured that intelligence—defined as performance on the test—and school success would be virtually one and the same. Binet developed a procedure of linking each intelligence test score with a mental age, the age of the children taking the test who, on average, achieved that score.
Intelligence quotient, or IQ, a score that takes into account a student's mental and chronological age.

Measuring Intelligence

The Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC-IV) includes items such as these.

What do such items cover?

What do they miss?

What IQ Tests Don't Tell: Alternative Conceptions of Intelligence

Spearman's g
Catell: fluid and crystallize intelligence
Gardner: 8 intelligences
Vygotsky: dynamic assessment
Sternberg: triarchic theory of intelligence

Wow! So many tests…so little time.

Why do you think there are so many tests?

Group Differences in IQ

Previous experiences of test-takers may have a substantial effect on their ability to answer questions

Cultural background and experience have the potential to affect intelligence test scores

Traditional measures of intelligence are subtly biased in favor of white, upper- and middle-class students and against groups with different cultural experiences.

Racial Differences in IQ

The question of how to interpret differences between intelligence scores of different cultural groups lies at the heart of one of the major controversies in child development
Mean score of African Americans tends to be about 15 IQ points lower than the mean score of whites—although the measured difference varies a great deal depending on the particular IQ test employed

Nature or Nurture?

To what degree is an individual's intelligence determined by heredity, and to what degree by environment? The issue is important because of its social implications.
If intelligence is primarily determined by heredity and is therefore largely fixed at birth, attempts to alter cognitive abilities later in life, such as schooling, will meet with limited success.
If intelligence is largely environmentally determined, modifying social and educational conditions is a more promising strategy for bringing about increases in cognitive functioning.

For Whom the Bell Told!!

The Bell Curve Controversy

Herrnstein and Murray: Average 15-point IQ difference between whites and African Americans is due primarily to heredity
Most developmentalists and psychologists responded by arguing that the racial differences in measured IQ can be explained by environmental differences between the races
Little evidence to suggest that IQ is a cause of poverty and other social ills

IQ difference accounts for higher rates of poverty, lower employment, and higher use of welfare among minority groups as compared with majority groups.
Most experts in the area of IQ were not convinced by The Bell Curve contention that differences in group IQ scores are largely determined by genetic factors. Still, we cannot put the issue to rest, largely because it is impossible to design a definitive experiment that can determine the cause of differences in IQ scores between members of different groups. (Thinking about how such an experiment might be designed shows the futility of the enterprise: One cannot ethically assign children to different living conditions to find the effects of environment, nor would one wish to genetically control or alter intelligence levels in unborn children.)

Below Intelligence Norms

Mental Retardation

Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act
Least restrictive environment
Mainstreaming
Full inclusion

The intent of the law—an intent that has been largely realized—was to ensure that children with special needs received a full education in the least restrictive environment, the setting most similar to that of children without special needs.
This educational approach to special education, designed to end the segregation of exceptional students as much as possible, has come to be called mainstreaming. In mainstreaming, exceptional children are integrated as much as possible into the traditional educational system and are provided with a broad range of educational alternatives.

Benefits of Mainstreaming

Ensure that all persons, regardless of ability or disability, have access to full range of educational opportunities, and fair share of life's rewards

Research that examined such factors as academic achievement, self-concept, social adjustment, and personality development generally failed to discern any advantages for special needs children placed in special, as opposed to regular, education classes.

How is intellectual disability identified?

American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Definition
Familial intellectual disability
FAS
Down's Syndrome
Levels
Mild
Moderate
Severe
Profound

Mental retardation is a disability characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior involving conceptual.
Limitations in some areas difficult to determine; lack of precision in definition

Above Intelligence Norms

Gifted
Federal government guideline (P.L. 97-35 Sec 582)
Research suggests that highly intelligent people tend to be outgoing, well adjusted, and popular

Little agreement exists among researchers on a single definition of this rather broad category of students.
Federal government considers the term gifted to include “children who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership capacity, or specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities.”
Research suggests that highly intelligent people tend to be outgoing, well adjusted, and popular.
Some gifted children not well received by teachers and peers because of unique ways in which preciosity is manifested.

Above Intelligence Norms:
Educating the Gifted and Talented

Acceleration
Enrichment

How do the needs of children with higher abilities compare with children with lower abilities?
What consequences might your decision have if funding for education is very limited?

Acceleration allows gifted students to move ahead at their own pace, even if this means skipping to higher grade levels.
Enrichment, through which students are kept at grade level but are enrolled in special programs and given individual activities to allow greater depth of study on a given topic.

Review and Apply

several
code based; whole language
cultural assimilation; pluralistic

Review and Apply

intelligence; academic
components; processing
lower; higher

Review and Apply

EPILOGUE

Look back to the prologue, about about La-Toya Pankey's development of reading skills, and answer the following questions:

Judging from the cues provided in the prologue, how would you have estimated La-Toya's chances for academic success before you learned about her ability to read? Why?
If you wished to isolate the factors in La-Toya's genetic or environmental background that contributed to her interest and ability in reading, how would you proceed? Which factors would you examine? What questions would you ask?

EPILOGUE

Given her circumstances, what threats to academic accomplishment does La-Toya still face? What advantages does she seem to have?
Discuss La-Toya's situation in light of the premises of the authors of The Bell Curve. If La-Toya succeeds academically, outperforming students of higher socioeconomic status, how would the authors explain this phenomenon? How do you explain it?

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