The School Years: Biosocial Development

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Part IV
Chapter Eleven

• The School Years Biosocial Development

A Healthy Time Brain Development Children with
Special Needs
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The School Years Biosocial Development

• no longer do children depend entirely on their
  families to dress, feed and wash them
• by age 6 or 7, self-care is routine and
  attendance at school is mandated

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The School Years Biosocial Development

• there are similarities among all school-age
  children but also differences that suddenly
  become significant (size, health, learning
  ability, in almost everything)

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A Healthy Time

• Middle childhood
• the period between early childhood and early
  adolescences, approximately from age7 to 11
• genetic and environmental factors safeguard
  children most fatal diseases and accidents occur
  before age 7

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A Healthy Time

• Size and Shape
• the rate of growth slows down, allowing
  school-age children to undertake their basic
  self-care
• muscles become stronger school-age children can
  master almost any motor skill
• lung capacity expandschildren run faster and
  exercise longer without breathing more heavily

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A Healthy Time

• Size and Shape
• overweight
• in an adult, having a BMI (body mass index) of 25
  to 29
• in a child, being above the 85th percentile
• obesity
• in an adult, having a BMI of 30 or more
• in a child, being above the 95th percentile
• based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Controls
  1980 standards for his or her age and sex

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A Healthy Time

• Physical Activity
• active play benefits children in every way
• benefits of sports can last a lifetime
• better overall health
• less obesity
• appreciation of cooperation and fair play
• improved problem-solving abilities
• respect for teammates and opponents from many
  ethnicities and nationalities

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A Healthy Time

• Physical Activity
• there are also hazards
• loss of self-esteem as a result of criticism from
  teammates or coaches
• injuries (the famous Little League elbow is one
  example)
• reinforcement of prejudices (especially against
  the other sex)
• increases in stress (evidenced by altered hormone
  levels, insomnia)
• time and effort taken away from learning academic
  skills

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A Healthy Time

• Neighborhood Games
• neighbor play is flexible
• children improvise to meet their needs
• play areas, rules, boundaries, time are adapted
  to the children's availability

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A Healthy Time

• Exercise in School
• good gym teachers know developmentally
  appropriate, cooperative games and exercises for
  children
• school have been pressured to increase academics,
  while physical education and recess have declined

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A Healthy Time

• Athletic Clubs and Leagues
• private and nonprofit clubs and organizations
  offer opportunities for children to play
• culture and family influence this type of play
• most children enjoy organized sports

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A Healthy Time

• Chronic Illness
• about 13 of all children have special health
  needs, some get worse during the school years
• any chronic condition can limit active play and
  impede regular school attendance

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A Healthy Time

• Asthma
• a chronic disease of the respiratory system in
  which inflammation narrows the airway from the
  lungs to the nose and mouth, causing difficulty
  in breathing. Signs and symptoms include
  wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness,
  and coughing

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A Healthy Time

• Prevention of Asthma
• three levels of prevention
• primary
• better ventilation of schools and homes
• decreased pollution
• eradication of cockroaches
• construction of many more play areas
• secondary
• breast-feeding
• ridding the house of dust, pets, smoke and other
  allergens
• regular checkups
• tertiary
• use of injections and inhalers
• hypoallergenic materials

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Brain Development

• Advances in Brain Functioning
• Increasing myelination results by 7 or 8 years
  of age, in a massively interconnected brain.
• reaction time
• the time it takes to respond to a stimulus,
  either physically (with a reflexive movement such
  as an eye blink) or cognitively (with a thought)
• selective attention
• the ability to concentrate on some stimuli while
  ignoring others
• automatization
• a process in which repetition of a sequence of
  thoughts and actions makes the sequence routine,
  so that it no longer requires conscious thought

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Brain Development

• Measuring the Mind
• done via repeated brain scans, such as the fMRI
• the cortex (the top layers of the brain) is
  relatively thin at the beginning of childhood and
  then grows thicker during the school years,
  reaching a peak at about age 8

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Brain Development

• Aptitude and Achievement
• aptitude
• the potential to master a particular skill or to
  learn a particular body of knowledge
• IQ tests
• tests designed to measure intellectual aptitude,
  or ability to lean in school.
• intelligence was defined as mental age divided by
  chronological age, times 100hence the term
  intelligence quotient, or IQ

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Brain Development

• Aptitude and Achievement

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Brain Development

• Aptitude and Achievement
• achievement test
• measures of mastery or proficiency in reading,
  math, writing, science, or any other subject
• Flynn Effect
• the rise in average IQ scores that has occurred
  over the decades in many nations
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)
• an IQ test designed for school-age children. The
  test assesses potential in many areas, including
  vocabulary, general knowledge, memory, and
  spatial comprehension

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Brain Development

• Gifted or Retarded
• mental retardation
• Literally, slow, or late, thinking. In practice,
  people are considered mentally retarded if they
  score below 70 on an IQ test and if they are
  markedly behind their peers in adaptation to
  daily life.

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Brain Development

• Criticisms of IQ Testing
• many developmentalists criticize IQ tests
• no test can measure potential without also
  measuring achievement
• every test score reflects the culture of the
  people who wrote, administer and take it
• intellectual potential changes over the life span

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Brain Development

• Criticisms of IQ Testing
• a more fundamental criticism concerns the very
  concept that there is one general thing called
  intelligence
• humans may have multiple intelligences if so,
  the use one IQ score is based on a false premise

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Brain Development

• Criticisms of IQ Testing
• Sternberg (1996) describes three distinct types
  of intelligence
• academic measured by IQ and achievement tests
• creative evidenced by imaginative endeavors
• practical seen in everyday problem solving
• other intelligences
• emotional intelligence the ability to regulate
  ones emotions and perceptive understanding of
  other peoples feelings

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Brain Development

• If North American intelligence tests truly
  reflected all aspects of the mind, children would
  be considered mentally slow if they could not
  replicate the proper hand, arm, torso and facial
  positions of a traditional dance, as this young
  Indonesian girl does brilliantly.

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Brain Development

• Criticisms of IQ Testing
• The most influential of all theories is Gardners
  8 theories
• linguistic
• logical-mathematical
• musical
• spatial
• bodily-kinesthetic (movement)
• interpersonal (social understanding)
• intrapersonal (self-understanding)
• naturalistic (understanding of nature, as in
  biology, zoology, or farming)

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Children with Special Needs

• children who, because of a physical or mental
  disability, require extra help in order to learn
• often slowness, impulsiveness, or clumsiness is
  the first problem to be noticed other problems
  become apparent once formal education begins

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Developmental Psychopathology

• the field that uses insights into typical
  development to study and treat developmental
  disorders and vice versa

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Developmental Psychopathology

• four lessons from developmental psychopathology
  apply to everyone
• abnormality is normal
• disability changes year by year
• adulthood may be better or worse
• diagnosis depends on the social context
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
  Disorders (DSM-IV-R)
• The American Psychiatric Associations official
  guide to the diagnosis (not treatment) of mental
  disorders. (IV means fourth edition, revised.)

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Attention-Deficit Disorder

• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADAH)
• a condition in which a person not only has great
  difficulty concentrating for more than a few
  moments but also is inattentive, impulsive, and
  overactive.
• comorbidity
• the presence of two or more unrelated disease
  conditions at the same time in the same person

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Attention-Deficit Disorder

• Learning Disabilities
• a marked delay in a particular area of leaning
  that is not caused by an apparent physical
  disability, by mental retardation, or by an
  unusually stressful home environment
• dyslexia
• unusual difficulty with reading thought to be
  the result of some neurological underdevelopment

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Attention-Deficit Disorder

• Autistic Spectrum Disorders
• autism
• a developmental disorder marked by an inability
  to relate to other people normally, extreme
  self-absorption, and an inability to acquire
  normal speech
• autistics spectrum disorder
• any of several disorders characterized by
  inadequate social skills, usually communication,
  and abnormal play
• asperger syndrome
• a specific type of autistic spectrum disorder
  characterized by extreme attention to details and
  deficient social understanding

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Educating Children with Special Needs

• Individual education plan (IEP)
• a document that specifies educational goals and
  plans for a child with special needs
• Least restrictive environment (LRE)
• a legal requirement that children with special
  needs be assigned to the most general educational
  context in which they can be expected to learn

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Educating Children with Special Needs

• Resource room
• a room in which trained teachers help children
  with special needs, using specialized curricula
  and equipment
• Inclusion
• An approach to educating children with special
  needs in which they are included in regular
  classrooms, with appropriate aids and services,
  as required by law