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Physical Development

• Aspects of Physical Development
• Physical development is less rapid in middle childhood than in earlier years. Wide differences in height and weight exist.
• Proper dental care, nutrition, and sleep are essential for normal growth and health.
• Changes in brain structure and functioning support cognitive advances.
• Because of improved motor development, boys and girls in middle childhood can engage in a wide range of motor activities.
• Informal recess-time activities help develop physical and social skills. Boys’ games tend to be more physical and girls’ games more verbal.
• About 10 percent of schoolchildren’s play, especially among boys, is rough-and-tumble play.
• Many children, mostly boys, engage in organized, competitive sports. A sound physical education program should aim at skill development and fitness for all children.

Health, Fitness, and Safety

- 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.

- Overweight, which is increasingly common among U.S. children, entails multiple risks. It is influenced by genetic and environmental factors and is more easily prevented than treated. Many children do not get enough physical activity.

- Hypertension is becoming more common along with the rise in overweight.

- The rate of asthma is high, and it seems to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors. Respiratory infections and other acute medical conditions are common at this age. Chronic conditions such as asthma are most prevalent among poor and minority children. Diabetes is one of the most common childhood chronic conditions.

- 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

• Piagetian Approach:
• The Concrete Operational Child
• A child from about age 7 to age 12 is in 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.
• Neurological development, culture, and schooling seem to contribute to the rate of development of Piagetian skills

Cognitive Development

Psychometric Approach: Assessment of Intelligence

• IQ tests are fairly good predictors of school success but may be unfair to some children.
• Differences in IQ among ethnic groups appear to result to a considerable degree from socioeconomic and other environmental differences.
• Schooling increases measured intelligence.
• Attempts to devise culture-free or culture-fair tests have been unsuccessful. Indeed, intelligence testing seems inextricably linked with culture.
• 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

Languange and Literacy

• Use of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax become increasingly sophisticated, but the major area of linguistic growth is in pragmatics.

• 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.

• Despite the popularity of whole-language programs, early phonetics training is a key to reading proficiency.

The Child in the School

• Children’s self-efficacy beliefs affect school achievement.

• Girls tend to do better in school than boys.

• 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.

• Peer acceptance and class size affect learning.

• Current educational issues and innovations include social promotion, charter schools, homeschooling, and computer literacy.

Educating Children with Special Needs

• Three frequent sources of learning problems are intellectual disability, learning disabilities (LDs), and attentiondeficit/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.

• An IQ of 130 or higher is a common standard for identifying gifted children.

• Creativity and IQ are not closely linked. Tests of creativity seek to measure divergent thinking, but their validity has been questioned.

• Special educational programs for gifted children stress enrichment or acceleration

Gifted

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• - The traditional criterion of giftedness is high general intelligence as shown by an IQ score of 130 or higher. This definition tends to exclude highly creative children (whose unusual answers often lower their test scores), children from minority groups (whose abilities may not be well developed, though the potential is there), and children with specific aptitudes (who may be only average or even show learning problems in other areas).
• - Generally, multiple criteria are used for admission to programs for the gifted, including achievement test scores, grades, classroom performance, creative production, parent and teacher nominations, and student interviews. An estimated 6 percent of the student population is considered gifted
• - Programs for gifted children generally stress either enrichment or acceleration. Enrichment programs may deepen students’ knowledge and skills through extra classroom activities, research projects, field trips, or expert coaching. Acceleration programs speed up their education through early school entrance, grade skipping, placement in fast-paced classes, or advanced courses. Other options include ability grouping within the classroom, which has been found to help children academically and not harm them socially (Winner, 2000), dual enrollment (for example, an eighth grader taking algebra at a nearby high school), magnet schools, and specialized schools for the gifted.

The Child in the Family

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• Many children today grow up in nontraditional family structures. Other things being equal, children tend to do better in traditional two-parent families than in cohabiting, divorced, single-parent, or stepfamilies. The structure of the family, however, is less important than its effects on family atmosphere.
• Children’s adjustment to divorce depends on factors concerning the child, the parents’ handling of the situation, custody and visitation arrangements, financial circumstances, contact with the noncustodial parent (usually the father), and a parent’s remarriage.
• The amount of conflict in a marriage and the likelihood of its continuing after divorce may influence whether children are better off if the parents stay together.
• In most divorces the mother gets custody, though paternal custody is a growing trend. Quality of contact with a noncustodial father is more important than frequency of contact.
• Joint custody can be beneficial to children when the parents can cooperate. Joint legal custody is more common than joint physical custody.
• Although parental divorce increases the risk of long-term problems for children, most adjust reasonably well.
• Children living with only one parent are at heightened risk of behavioral and academic problems, largely related to socioeconomic status.
• Studies have found positive developmental outcomes in children living with gay or lesbian parents.
• Adopted children are generally well adjusted, though they face special challenges.
• The roles and responsibilities of siblings in nonindustrialized societies are more structured than in industrialized societies.
• Siblings learn about conflict resolution from their relationships with each other. Relationships with parents affect

The Child in the Peer Group

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• The peer group becomes more important in middle childhood. Peer groups generally consist of children who are similar in age, sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status and who live near one another or go to school together.
• The peer group helps children develop social skills, allows them to test and adopt values independent of parents, gives them a sense of belonging, and helps develop their self-concept and gender identity. It also may encourage conformity and prejudice.
• Popularity in middle childhood tends to influence future adjustment. It can be measured sociometrically or by perceived social status, and the results may differ. Popular children tend to have good cognitive abilities and social skills. Behaviors that affect popularity may be derived from family relationships and cultural values.
• Intimacy and stability of friendships increase during middle childhood. Boys tend to have more friends, whereas girls tend to have closer friends.
• During middle childhood, aggression typically declines. Instrumental aggression generally gives way to hostile aggression, often with a hostile bias. Highly aggressive children tend to be unpopular but may gain in status as children move into adolescence.
• Aggressiveness is promoted by exposure to media violence and can extend into adult life.
• Middle childhood is a prime time for bullying, but patterns of bullying and victimization may be established much earlier. Victims tend to be weak and submissive or argumentative and provocative and to have low self-esteem

Mental Health

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• Common emotional and behavioral disorders among school-age children include disruptive behavioral disorders, anxiety disorders, and childhood depression.
• Treatment techniques include individual psychotherapy, family therapy, behavior therapy, art therapy, play therapy, and drug therapy. Often therapies are used in combination.
• Children may be traumatized by exposure to terrorism or war.
• Resilient children are better able than others to withstand stress. Protective factors involve family relationships, cognitive ability, personality, degree of risk, and compensating experiences.