1. 1
Chapter 7
Physical and Cognitive
Development in Middle
Childhood

2. 2
Physical Development
 Physical growth
 The only stage when
girls are taller than boys
 Nutrition can affect
growth

3. 3
Proper nutrition is linked to positive
personality traits

4. 4
More nutritious diets = more
energy & self confidence.

5. 5
Physical Activity > increased overall
attention AND greater cog dev’t
Meanwhile, hours of physical activity have been
decreasing and obesity rates have been rising.

6. 6
Safety in Cyberspace
• How do you
monitor children’s
internet access?

7. 7
Health, Illness, Disease,
Accidents, and Injuries
 Disease, injury, death
less prevalent than
other periods in
childhood and
adolescenceMost common?
What else?

8. 8

9. 9
Obesity in Children

10. 10
Balanced Diet?
Recent studies have found that children’s diets are almost
opposite the diet recommended by the USDA.
How obsessed
should we be?

11. Most common chronic disease in children?

12. 12
Children With Special Needs
13.2% of age 3-21 in U.S. receive
special ed services;
61% LD or speech and lang
1.3% movement

13. 13
Historical Educational Issues
 1975 -- Public Law 94-142 (the Education for all
Handicapped Children Act): — all students with
disabilities must be given a free, appropriate public
education. Now: IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (1990;
 Revised again in 2004 — Individuals with Disabilities
Education Improvement Act
 IEP
 Least restrictive environment (LRE)
• Inclusion

14. 14
Children with Special Needs
–Auditory Impairment
 Loss in infancy is more
severe than after age 3.
[Why?]
 Abstract thinking may
be affected.
 Noise Induced Hearing
Loss

15. 15
Children with Special Needs
–Speech
 50% of what most 2-year-olds say should be
understood by an unfamiliar listener;
 75% of what most 3-year-olds say;
 100% of what most 4-year-olds say.
Stuttering
 NOT an emotional Dx
 Not related to low IQ
 Not caused by anxiety
 Often a family history

16. 16
Children with Special Needs
–Learning Disabilities
 What is it?
 LD diagnosis
 Dyslexia

17. 17
Approaches to Teaching Reading
 Whole-language approach parallels natural
language learning
 Phonics approach basic rules for translating
written symbols into sounds

18. Children with Special Needs
–LD and ADHD–
 ADHD: A learning disability?
 ~5 to 12 percent of school-age children?
 Ritalin, Dexedrine (Adderall), Pemoline (Cylert)
 ADHD and learning disabilities should be
evaluated by a specialist
 A real problem, but probably overdiagnosed in
some classrooms/schools/neiborhoods

19. 19
Mental Retardation
 Mental retardation is typically measured
by IQ tests.
 Four levels of retardation
 Mild
 Moderate
 Severe
 Profound

20. Distribution of IQ Scores

21. 21
Distribution of IQ Scores [and next]

22. 22
Intellectually Gifted
3 to 5 % of school-age children are Gifted and
talented
Two options:
• Acceleration
• Enrichment

23. 23
Intellectual Development: Piaget
 Concrete Operations.
• active, appropriate use of logic.
 Conservation problems easily solved—logic
used over appearance.
 Decentering
 Reversability
 Classification
 Mental seriation using logic
(transitivity)

24. –Decentering–
Piaget’s Matchstick Problem
Make 6 equilateral triangles out of six matchsticks.

25. 25
Vygotsky in the Classroom
Focus on [?]:

26. 26
Language Development
During Middle Childhood
 Metalinguistic Awareness
 Over 10% of US student population are ELLs.
 Of that number, ~80% are Spanish speaking.
 Being bilingual may have cognitive
advantages:
 greater cognitive flexibility
 greater metalinguistic awareness
 improvement on IQ tests is equivocal

27. 27
Multicultural Education
―In recent years a considerable amount of
thought has gone into establishing
multicultural education, a form of
education in which the goal is to help
minority students develop competence in
the culture of the majority group while
maintaining positive group identities that
build on their original culture.‖

28. 28
Intelligence
 Alfred Binet
1) Intelligence – that which his test
measured
2) IQ tests should be reasonable
indicators of school success.
3) X = 100
?

29. 29
Alternative Conceptions of
Intelligence
 Fluid Intelligence
 Crystallized Intelligence

30. 30
Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic
Theory of Intelligence

31. 31
Howard Gardner’s Multiple
Intelligences (Frames of Mind)
Each are relatively independent