Human Growth and

Development

Chapter Eleven The School Years:

Biosocial Development

PowerPoints prepared by Cathie Robertson, Grossmont CollegeRevised by Jenni Fauchier, Metropolitan Community College

A Healthy Time

• Middle childhood, ages 7 to 11, is generally a happy, easy time– children usually healthy and self-

reliant

Typical Size and Shape

• Contributing Factors to Variations in physique– nutrition, genetic factors,

gender– undernutrition, which does not

disappear with age or a nation’s wealth, correlated with less growth and more illness

• Overweight—20% above ideal weight for height

• Obesity—30% over ideal weight for height- about one-third of American

children obese- psychological, physical, and

medical problem

Childhood Obesity

• Genetic Differences

– genes do not act in isolation

• Environmental Factors

- cultural values

- lack of exercise

- poor quality food

- watching TV/video

Causes of Childhood Obesity

• Middle childhood is the period of life when chronic illness is least common

• Asthma is the most common medical problem that causes absences from school

Chronic Illness: The Case of Asthma

• Asthma—chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways; affects between 10% and 20% of school-age children in North America– three times as common as 20 years ago– figures expected to double again by 2020

• Possible Causes – genes on chromosomes 2, 11, 12, 13,

and 21– exposure to allergens

Causes of Asthma

• Primary prevention: proper ventilation; decreased pollution; eradication of cockroaches; safe outdoor play spaces

• Secondary prevention: ridding house of allergens; breast-feeding, if genetic history is known

• Tertiary prevention: care after ailment is recognized; in doctor’s office, hospital

Prevention of Asthma

Brain Development

• Brain reaches adult size at age 7• Hemispheric specialization makes

brain more efficient overall

• Changes become apparent in both motor and cognitive development

• Rapid growth rate of school-age children leads them to be better able to control their bodies and emotions

Advances in Middle Childhood

• Selective attention—ability to attend to information from many areas of brain at one time and pay special attention to most important elements– the result of extensive

myelination and increased production of neurotransmitters

Attention and Automatization

• Automatization—process by which thoughts and actions are repeated in sequence until they become routed or automatic and need little conscious thought– becomes easier and faster with

myelination– reading an example of

automatization

Attention and Automatization, cont.

• Brain maturation is a key factor in decrease of reaction time—length of time it takes to react to a stimulus

– older child has faster reaction time than younger child

Motor Skills

• Child’s motor habits benefit from connections formed in brain– corpus callosum continues to mature

– motor abilities advanced through play

– rough-and-tumble play may help to regulate and coordinate frontal lobes of brain

•may also help in interpretation and in providing emotional regulation

Motor Skills, cont.

Brain and Intelligence

• Cognition is improved– this advance reflected on

tests

Tests of Ability

• Intellectual skills

- Aptitude—potential to learn or achieve

- IQ test—test to measure intellectual aptitude

- Achievement—what a person has learned

• Achievement tests measure reading ability, math knowledge, scientific knowledge, and writing skills

• Two highly regarded IQ tests

– Stanford-Binet

– Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

•designed for school-age children

Tests of Ability, cont.

• Quite reliable in predicting school achievement, and somewhat reliable in predicting adult career attainment– difficult to measure potential without

achievement

– does not consider rate of development, culture, family, school, genes

•in comparing IQ to achievement, learning disabilities may be noted

Criticisms of IQ Testing

• Standard IQ tests measure only linguistic and logical-mathematical ability– no measure for other types of intelligence

• Sternberg (1996) suggests 3 types of intelligence– academic (IQ and achievement)

– creative (evidenced by imaginative endeavors)

– practical (seen in everyday interactions)

• Gardner describes 8 distinct intelligences– linguistic

– logical-mathematical

– musical

– spatial

– bodily-kinesthetic

– interpersonal (social understanding)

– intrapersonal (self-understanding)

– naturalistic

• Some children, because of a physical or mental disability, require special help in order to learn—children with special needs

– 13% of all U.S. schoolchildren in 2000

– individual education plan (IEP)

•legally required document specifying a series of educational goals for each child with special needs

Children with Special Needs

• Field in which knowledge of normal development is applied to the study and treatment of psychological disorders

• Offers 4 lessons applicable to all children– abnormality is normal

– disability changes over time

– adulthood may be better or worse than present

– diagnosis depends on social context

Developmental Psychopathology

• Severe problems that affect many aspects of psychological growth

Pervasive Developmental Disorders

• Autism—inability to relate in ordinary ways to others

– extreme self-absorption, inability to learn normal speech

– quite rare; occurs in about 1 of every 2,000 children

Incidence

Possible Causes

• Particular genes may make some embryos more vulnerable than others

– teratogens may increase genetic weakness

• Theory that childhood immunization may cause genetic weakness has been disproved

• Other theories are under investigation

• Asperger syndrome—less severe autism– good communication, poor social

perceptions

• Early Pervasive Developmental Disorder– Child has deficiencies in three areas

•ability to communicate

•social skills

•imaginative play

Changes over Time

• In later childhood and beyond

– child may lack

•awareness of thoughts of other people

•theory of mind

•emotional regulation

Changes over Time, cont.

• ADD—Attention-Deficit Disorder• AD/HD—Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity

Disorder– most common type– lack of concentration accompanied by

excitability, impulsivity, need to be active•easily frustrated and quick-tempered

Attention-Deficit Disorders

Attention-Deficit Disorders, cont.

• Possible Causes– neurological – genetic vulnerability

•teratogens– postnatal damage

•e.g., lead poisoning

Learning Disabilities

• Half of all ADD children also have learning disability

• Learning-disabled—having a marked delay in a particular area of learning not associated with any physical handicap, overall mental retardation, or unusually stressful home environment

• Dyslexia—unusual difficulty with reading– Most common learning disability

• Indications of learning disabilities– may be advanced in comprehension

through use of contextual clues, but behind in ability to match letters to sounds

– discrepancy between aptitude and achievement scores on intelligence tests

Learning Disabilities, cont.

Treatment of Attention-Deficit Disorders

• Help for children with ADHD– drugs with reverse effect

• 11 million prescriptions for Ritalin in 1999

– ongoing changes at home and school

– psychological therapy for child and family

– structure of classroom• too rigid or too loose harmful

• flexible structure helpful

• Mainstreaming—federal policy under which children with special needs must be taught in the least restrictive environment —which usually means placing them with other children in the general classroom

Educating Children with Special Needs

• Least restrictive environment (LRE)— legally required school setting that offers children with special needs as much freedom as possible to benefit from the instruction available to other children; often, in the general classroom

Educating Children with Special Needs, cont.

• Some schools set aside a resource room where children with special needs spend part of the day with a specially trained teacher equipped to work with the disability

Educating Children with Special Needs, cont.

• Inclusion—a policy under which learning-disabled children are included in the regular class, but are supervised by a specially trained teacher or para-professional for all or part of the day

– leading toward integration: each child within a regular classroom is a vital part of that social and educational group

Educating Children with Special Needs, cont.

Conclusion

• Parents should be taught specific ways to encourage their children to show appropriate behavior

• If problem undiagnosed, intervention may not begin when it should and may also be less effective

• Both home and school context make a difference