Chapter 9- part 2: Middle Childhood

Discovering the Lifespan - Robert S. Feldman

Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.

Chapter 9- part 2: Middle Childhood

Module 4

Intellectual Development inMiddle Childhood



INTELLECTUAL AND LANGUAGE

DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD



What are advances and limitations, in thinking during childhood?

Approaches:

• Piaget

• Information-processing

• Vygotsky

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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

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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

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Piaget Was Right…Piaget Was Wrong

• Right– Virtuoso observer of children – Powerful theoretical, educational implications

• Wrong– Underestimate of children’s capabilities, in part

because of the limited nature of mini-experiments conducted

– Misjudged age at which children’s cognitive abilities emerge

– Neglected cross-cultural differences

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Memory

How well do you recall and recognize?



How did you do?

• Explicit memory– Recognition– Recall



Information Processing

• Increasing ability to handle information– Memory improvement– Short term memory capacity improvement

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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)

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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

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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

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ZPD in Action!

• Can you identify two ways in which the teacher helped children learn in their ZPD?



LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT



Mastering the Mechanics of Language in Middle Childhood

1. Vocabulary continues to increase2. Mastery of grammar improves3. Understanding of syntax grows4. Certain phonemes remain troublesome5. Decoding difficulties when dependent on

intonation 6. More competence in pragmatics 7. Increase in meta-linguistic awareness

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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

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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

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Bilingualism

• English is second language for 32 million Americans

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Immigrants in the United States

• Are monolingual speakers of their native language

• Develop bilingualism as they acquire English

• Establish English-speaking households

• Raise their children as English-speaking monolinguals (Pease-Alveraz, 1993)

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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?



Cognitive Advantages of Bilingualism

• Greater cognitive flexibility

• Higher self-esteem

• Greater meta-linguistic awareness

• Potential improved IQ scores

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Review and ApplyREVIEW• Piaget believed school-age children are in the

concrete operational stage, while information processing approaches focus on quantitative improvements in memory and in the sophistication of the mental programs children use.

• Vygotsky suggests schoolchildren should have the opportunity to experiment and participate actively with their peers in their learning.

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Review and ApplyREVIEW• Children gain increasing control over the

memory processes—encoding, storage, and retrieval, and the development of metamemory improves cognitive processing and memorization.

• As language develops, vocabulary, syntax, and pragmatics improve; metalinguistic awareness grows; and language is used as a self-control device.

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Review and Apply

• Do adults use language (and self-talk) as a self-control device? How?

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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

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What was the first book you remember reading?



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

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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

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Educational Trends: Beyond the Three Rs

• 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

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Are We Pushing Too Hard?

From Research to Practice• No Child Left Behind Act• Outcomes:

– Frequent testing becoming commonplace– Student scores related to federal funding– Reading instruction sometimes replaces recess and

other activities– Increase in amount of homework– Some children burn out

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But is extra homework worth the cost?

• Time spent on homework is associated with greater academic achievement in secondary school

• Relationship gets less strong for the lower grades; below grade 5, the relationship disappears

• For older children more homework is not necessarily better

• Some research indicates that benefits of homework may reach plateau beyond which additional time spent on homework produces no further benefits

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Do you agree?

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

literacy education?



Cultural Assimilation or Pluralistic Society?

• Cultural assimilation model

• Pluralistic society model

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Fostering 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

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Review and Apply

REVIEW• Schooling is considered a legal right in the United States

and many other countries, but millions of the world’s children do not receive even a primary education.

• Reading skills generally develop in several stages.

• U.S. schools have returned in recent decades to a focus on the traditional academic skills, which de-emphasize the arts and other subjects that expand children’s perspectives and social understanding.

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Review and Apply

APPLY• Do you think that the emphasis on the traditional

“three Rs” in middle school is appropriate? Do less “academic” subjects have a place in the regular curriculum, or should they be dealt with as “add-ons” and after’school activities? Why?

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Intelligence: Determining Individual Strengths



How do you define intelligence?



Intelligence Benchmarks

• 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)

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Alternative Conceptions of Intelligence

• Spearman’s g

• Catell: fluid and crystallize intelligence

• Gardner: 8 intelligences

• Vygotsky: dynamic assessment

• Sternberg: triarchic theory of intelligence

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Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory

• Three main types of intelligence– Analytic– Creative– Practical

• Assessing Sternberg Triarchic Ability Theory (STAT)– Effective in predicting college GPA– More research needed

The Concept of Intelligence



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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

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Racial Differences in IQ

Nature or Nurture?• 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

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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

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Do you agree or disagree?



Below Intelligence Norms

Mental Retardation

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

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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

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How is mental retardation identified?

• American Association on Mental Retardation definition– Familial retardation– FAS– Down Syndrome

• Levels– Mild– Moderate– Severe– Profound

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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

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Educating Gifted and Talented Children

• Acceleration

• Enrichment

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Review and Apply

REVIEW• Measuring intelligence has traditionally been a matter of

testing skills that promote academic success.

• Recent theories of intelligence suggest that there may be several distinct intelligences or several components of intelligence that reflect different ways of processing information.

• U.S. educators are attempting to deal with substantial numbers of exceptional persons whose intellectual and other skills are significantly lower or higher than normal.

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Review and Apply

APPLY• How do fluid and crystallized intelligence

interact? Which of the two is likely to be more influenced by genetics and which by environment? Why?

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Documents

Chapter 9- part 2: Middle Childhood