The document discusses key aspects of physical, cognitive, and social development in middle childhood, highlighting the importance of proper nutrition and the health risks of malnutrition and obesity. It details cognitive advancements such as improved logical reasoning and the development of moral thinking, alongside factors influencing school achievement and additional challenges faced by non-English-speaking children and those with learning disabilities. The document also addresses the assessment and nurturing of giftedness, noting that IQ tests may not fully encompass a child's potential.

1. MIDDLE CHILDHOOD
Cil Flores
Geneva Galdo
Regina Munoz

2. Physical Development
Aspects of Physical Development
What gains in growth and motor development occur
during middle childhood, and what nutritional hazards do
children face?
• Growth slows in middle childhood, and wide differences
in height and weight.
• Children with retarded growth due to growth hormone
deficiency may be given synthetic growth hormone.
• Proper nutrition is essential for normal growth and health.
• Malnutrition can affect all aspects of development.
• Obesity entails health risks. It is influenced by genetic
and environmental factors and can be treated.

3. • Concern with body image, especially among girls, may
lead to eating disorders.
– Body image Descriptive and evaluative beliefs about one’s
appearance.
• Because of improved motor development, boys and girls in
this stage can engage in a wide range of motor activities.
• About 10% of schoolchildren’s play, especially boys, is
rough-and-tumble play.
– Rough-and-tumble play Vigorous play involving wrestling, hitting,
and chasing, often accompanied by laughing and screaming.
• Many children, mostly boys, go into organized, competitive
sports. A sound physical education program should aim at
skill development and fitness for all children.
• Many children, especially girls do not meet fitness
standards.

4. Health and Safety
What are the principal health and safety concerns
about school-aged children?
• Middle childhood is a relatively healthy period; most
children are immunized against major illnesses, and
the death rate is the lowest in the life span.
• Respiratory infections and other acute medical
conditions are common.
– Acute medical conditions illnesses that last a short time.
Chronic conditions such as Asthma are most prevalent
among poor and minority children.

5. – Chronic medical conditions illnesses or impairments that persist for
at least three months.
– Asthma a chronic respiratory disease characterized by sudden
attacks of coughing, wheezing, and difficulty breathing.
• Children’s understanding of health and illness is related to
their cognitive level.
• Vision becomes keener during middle childhood, but some
children have defective vision or hearing.
• Most children who are HIV-positive function normally in
school and should not be excluded from any activities of
which they are capable.
• Accidents are the leading cause of death in middle
childhood. Use of helmets and other protective devices and
avoidance of trampolines, snowmobiling and other
dangerous sports can greatly reduce injuries.

6. Cognitive Development
Piagetian Approach: The Concrete Operational
Child
How do school-aged children’s thinking and moral
reasoning differ from those of younger children?
• A child at about age 7 enters the stage of concrete
operations. Children are less egocentric than before and
are more proficient at tasks requiring logical reasoning,
such as spatial thinking, understanding of causality,
categorization, inductive and deductive reasoning, and
conservation. However, their reasoning is largely limited
to the here and now.

7. – Concrete operations third stage of Piagetian cognitive
development( approximately from ages 7 to 12),
during which children develop logical but not abstract
thinking.

8. Cognitive Advances
• Space and Causality
– They have clearer idea of how far it is from one
place to another and how long it will take to get
there, and they can more easily remember the
route and the landmarks along the way.
• Categorization
– Seration-Ability to order items along a dimension.
– Transitive inference-Understanding of the
relationship between two objects by knowing the
relationship of each to a third object.
– Class Inclusion-Understanding of the relationship
between a whole and its parts.

9. • Inductive reasoning
– Type of reasoning that moves from a particular
observations about members of a class to a
general conclusion about the class.
“my dog barks. So does terry’s dog and melissa’s
dog. So it look as if all dogs bark.”
• Deductive Reasoning
– Type of logical reasoning that moves from a
general premise about a particular class to a
conclusion about a particular member or
members of the class.

10. – Children can work out answers in
Conservation their heads; they do not have to
measure or weigh the objects.
Principle of identity
knowing that both are of the same
amount of water.
Principle of reversibility
Decenter
Horizontal decalage
o Piaget’s term for inability to transfer
learning about one type of
conservation to other types, which
causes a child to master different
types of conservation tasks @
different ages.

11. • Cultural experience, as well as
neurological development, seems to
contribute to the rate of development of
conservation and other Piagetian skills.
• According to Piaget, moral development is
linked with cognitive maturation and
occurs in three stages, as children move
from rigid to more flexible thinking.

12. • First stage ( approximately ages 2-7,
corresponding preoperational stage)
– Based on obedience to authority. Believes that rules
comes from adult authorities and cannot be bent or
changed, that behavior is either right or wrong, and
that any offense deserves punishment regardless of
intent.
• Second stage ( ages 7-11, corresponding with the
stage of concrete operations)
– Increasing flexibility and some degree of autonomy
based on mutual respect and cooperation.
• Third stage (ages 11-12)
– Moral development. “equality” takes on a different
meaning for the child.

13. Information Processing and
Intelligence
What are the advances in memory and other information-
processing skills occur during middle childhood?
• Although sensory memory shows little change with age,
the capacity of working memory increases greatly during
middle childhood.
• The central executive, which controls the flow of
information to and from long-term memory, seems to
mature between ages 8 and 10.
• Metamemory, selective attention, and use of mnemonic
strategies improve during these years. Gains in
information-processing abilities may help the advances
Piaget described.

14. • Metamemory
– Understanding of processes of memory.
– Kindergartners and first-graders know that people
remember better if they study longer, that people
forget in time, and that its better to relearn
something than learn it for the first time.
• Mnemonic strategies
– Techniques to aid memory

15. • External memory aids
– Prompting by something outside the person
– Dana makes a list of the things she has to do today
• Rehearsals
– Conscious repetition
– Tim says the letters in his spelling words over and over
until he knows them
• Organization
– Grouping by categories
– Luis recalls the animals he saw in the zoo by thinking
first of the mammals, then reptiles, and so on.
• Elaboration
– Associating items to be remembered with something
else.

16. How accurately can school children’s intelligence be
measured?
• The intelligence of school-aged children is
assessed by group or individual tests.
• IQ test are fairly good predictors of school success
but maybe unfair to some children.
• Differences in IQ among ethnic groups appear to
result to a considerable degree from
socioeconomic and other environmental
differences.
• Schooling seems to increase measured
intelligence.

17. • Attempts to devise culture-free or culture-fair tests
have been unsuccessful.
• IQ tests tap only three of the “intelligences” in
Howard Gardner’s Theory of multiple intelligences.
• According to Robert Sternberg’s triarchic theory,
IQ tests measure mainly the componential
element of intelligence, not the experiential and
contextual elements.
• New directions in intelligence testing include the
Sternberg triarchic abilities tests (STAT), Kaufman
Assessment Battery for children (KABC), and tests
based on Vygotsky’s concept of Dynamic testing.

18. Language and Literacy
How do communicative abilities and literacy expand during
middle childhood?
• Use of vocabulary, grammar, syntax become
increasingly sophisticated, but the major area of
linguistic growth is in pragmatics.
– Pragmatics- set of linguistic rules that govern the use of
language for communication.
• Despite the popularity of whole-language programs,
early phonics training is a key to reading proficiency.
• Metacognition contributes to reading comprehension.
• Acquisition of writing skills accompanies development of
reading.

19. The Child in School
What influences school achievement?
• Because schooling is cumulative, the foundation
laid in first grade is very important.
• Parents influence children’s learning by
becoming involved in their schooling, motivating
them to achieve, and transmitting attitudes about
learning. Socioeconomic status can influence
parental beliefs and practices that, in turn,
influence achievement.

20. • Although the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy
may not be as great as was once thought,
teacher’s perceptions and expectations can
have a strong influence.
• Historical philosophical shifts affect such issues
as amount of homework assigned, social
promotion, and computer literacy.
• The superior achievement of children of East
Asian extraction seems to stem from cultural
factors.

21. How do schools meet the needs of non-English-
speaking children and those with learning problems?
• Methods of second-language education are
controversial. Issues include speed and facility with
English, long-term achievement in academic subjects,
and pride in cultural identity.
• Three frequent sources of learning problems are
mental retardation, learning disabilities (LDs), and
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Dyslexia is the most common learning disability.
• In the United States, all children with disabilities are
entitled to a free, appropriate education. Children must
be educated in the least restrictive environment
possible, often in the regular classroom.

22. How is giftedness assessed and nurtured?
• An IQ of 130 higher is a common standard for
identifying gifted children. Broader definition
include creativity, artistic talent, and other
attributes and rely in multiple criteria for
identification.
• In Terman’s classic longitudinal study of gifted
children, most turned out to be well adjusted and
successful, but not outstandingly so.
• Creativity and IQ are not closely linked. Test of
creativity seek to measure divergent thinking, but
their validity has been questioned.
• Special educational programs for gifted children
stress enrichment or acceleration.

23. Thank you!