Rashed Daniel D.

Reyes
BS Psychology III
Chapter 15: Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood
Mrs. Milagros Gabriel
Report Overview
1. Physical and Motor Development
Patterns of Growth
Motor Development
Brain Development

2. Concrete-Operational Development
Conservation
Classification
Planning
Metacognition
Limitations of Concrete Operations

3. Information-Processing Approaches
The Role of Memory
Thinking about Memory
Increased Control of Attention
Executive Function

4. The Role of Social and Cultural Contexts

Is the Acquisition of Conservation Universal?
Cultural Variations in the Use of Memory Strategies
Cultural Variations in Planning

5. Individual Differences in Cognitive Development

Measuring Intelligence
Persistent Questions about Intelligence

6. Reconsidering the Cognitive Changes in Middle Childhood

The beginning of middle childhood is recognized in cultures around the world, particularly in
adults’ new expectations of their 6- and 7-year-olds. These expectations relate to children’s
increased physical capacities and cognitive abilities.

PHYSICAL AND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

• Size and strength increase significantly during middle childhood, although more slowly than in
earlier years. Muscle mass and fat tissue both increase.
Patterns of Growth
• Although height and weight are both influenced by genetic factors, environmental factors,
such as nutrition and health, also play an important role. For example, in the United States
changes in diet in recent decades have contributed to an increase in childhood obesity, in the
Philippines on the other hand, it is the other way around.

Motor Development
• Strength, agility, and balance all improve in middle childhood. Boys tend to be slightly
advanced in motor abilities requiring power and force; girls often excel in fine motor skills and
gross motor skills combining balance and foot movement.
Brain Development
• Brain development in the early years of middle childhood includes:
• continued myelination, especially in the frontal cortex.
• continued synaptic pruning in late-maturing brain areas, with more stable connections among
remaining neurons.
• a shift to more alpha activity (characteristic of engaged attention) than theta activity
(characteristic of sleep states).
• a significant increase in the synchronization of electrical activity between different brain
areas, among them the frontal lobes, with the areas functioning more effectively as
coordinated systems.
CONCRETE-OPERATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
• According to Piaget, as a result of increasing decentration, at about age 7 or 8, children
become capable of mental operations—of logically combining, separating, and transforming
information. With the advent of this stage of concrete operations, children can think in a more
organized, flexible way and the world becomes more predictable to them.
• Concrete-operational thinking is reflected in new abilities related to:
• conservation, Piaget’s term for the understanding that some properties of an object or
substance remain the same even when its appearance is altered in some way.
• classification, with children now able to understand the relation between a superordinate
class and its subclasses and to categorize objects according to multiple criteria.
• planning, which requires forming mental representations of actions needed to achieve a goal.
• metacognition, with children better able to think about and regulate their thoughts.
• The limitations of concrete operations are apparent in the difficulty children encounter when
reasoning about abstract, unfamiliar situations.
INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACHES
• According to information-processing theorists, the cognitive changes in middle childhood are
made possible by changes such as:
• improvements in memory, as a result of increased processing speed and capacity of working
memory, increases in knowledge, and greater use of more effective strategies for remembering,
such as rehearsal, organizational strategies, and elaboration.
• improvements in metamemory, or knowledge about memory, including about memory
limitations and strategies.
• increases in children’s ability to regulate their attention, which enable them to stay focused
and ignore distractions.
• Developmentalists have suggested that the mechanisms for cognitive change suggested in
Piaget’s stage theory and those suggested by information-processing theorists may in fact work
together.
THE ROLE OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
• Cross-cultural studies suggest the universality of concrete operations in middle childhood as
well as significant cultural variations that influence performance.
• Across cultures, memory strategies used differ significantly depending on whether children
have had schooling. Cross-cultural differences in planning relate to cultural differences in
values.
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• Definitions of intelligence differ among cultures and may focus on social, rather than
cognitive, competence.
Measuring Intelligence
• Intelligence tests, as they have been developed since their introduction by Binet and Simon,
attempt to measure cognitive competence by producing an IQ score, based on a child’s
performance compared to children of the same age.
Persistent Questions about Intelligence
• Research on intelligence has been dominated by three questions.
• Is intelligence a general characteristic, or are there specific kinds of intelligence? Two
approaches taking the second position are Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences and
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence.
• Are differences among individuals and among groups in performance on IQ tests the result of
genetic or environmental factors? Evidence for an environmental role comes from the Flynn
effect (The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and
crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the
20th century), the increase across generations in performance on IQ tests.
• To what extent might IQ tests be culturally biased? All tests draw on learning that is culture
specific, limiting the conclusions that can be drawn.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of
education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on
I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to
account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:
Linguistic intelligence (“word smart”)
Logical-mathematical intelligence (“number/reasoning smart”)
Spatial intelligence (“picture smart”)
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (“body smart”)
Musical intelligence (“music smart”)
Interpersonal intelligence (“people smart”)
Intrapersonal intelligence (“self smart”)
Naturalist intelligence (“nature smart”)
How to Teach or Learn Anything 8 Different Ways
One of the most remarkable features of the theory of multiple intelligences is how it provides
eight different potential pathways to learning.
words (linguistic intelligence)
numbers or logic (logical-mathematical intelligence)
pictures (spatial intelligence)
music (musical intelligence)
self-reflection (intrapersonal intelligence)
a physical experience (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence)
a social experience (interpersonal intelligence), and/or
an experience in the natural world. (naturalist intelligence)

The triarchic theory of intelligence consists of three subtheories: (i) the componential
subtheory which outlines the structures and mechanisms that underlie intelligent behavior
categorized as metacognitive, performance, or knowledge acquisition components , (ii) the
experiential subtheory that proposes intelligent behavior be interpreted along a continuum of
experience from novel to highly familiar tasks/situations, (iii) the contextual subtheory which
specifies that intelligent behavior is defined by the sociocultural context in which it takes place
and involves adaptation to the environment, selection of better environments, and shaping of
the present environment.
RECONSIDERING THE COGNITIIVE CHANGES IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD
• The cognitive changes of middle childhood are associated with children’s increasing control
over their thoughts and actions. This is consistent with the greater independence that children
of this age are granted by adults.
CREATIVITY AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

GIFTEDNESS
- Involves more than excellence on the tasks provided by standard intelligence tests
- Educators’ criteria for intelligence
Outstanding abilities
Capable of high performance in a specific academic area, such as language or mathematics
Show creativity, leadership, distinction in the visual or performing arts, or bodily talents, as
in gymnastics and dancing

Bilingualism: Linguistic Perspectives on the World

- Approximately less than a quarter of Filipinos speak a different language than English at
home.
- Bilingual children not cognitively delayed
- Unfortunately, quarter of Filipino-speaking children at home are proficient in both
languages
- Bilingualism contributes to the complexity of the child’s cognitive processes.
- Bilingual children understand symbols used in language are arbitrary
Vocabulary and Grammar
- By age 6, vocabulary at 10,000 words
- Semantic sophistication by 7 to 9 years old
- Subtle advances made in articulation during middle childhood
- Children use connectives (conjunctions) and can form indirect object-direct object
constructions
 Methods of Teaching Reading
- Word-recognition method
- Associates visual stimuli with the sound combinations that produce spoken words
- Phonetic method
- Children first learn to associate written letters and letter combinations with the sounds
they indicate
- Helps with decoding
- Sight vocabulary
- Recognizing useful words such as one’s name, and such signs as danger, stop, and poison

THE TESTING CONTROVERSY

Cultural bias
Scoring well on intelligence test requires a certain type of cultural experience
Culture-free
Evaluates reasoning ability through the child’s comprehension of the rules that govern a
progression of geometric designs
Middle-class children still outperform lower-class children
Tests do not predict academic success as well as other tests