Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development

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Chapter 12Middle ChildhoodCognitive Development
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Middle Childhood Cognitive Development Truth or
Fiction?

• Dont try the Yes, but defense with a 5-year
  old. If you did it, youre guilty, even if it
  was an accident.
• Memorizing the alphabet requires that children
  keep 26 chunks of information in mind at once.

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Middle Childhood Cognitive Development Truth or
Fiction?

• An IQ is a score on a test.
• Two children can answer exactly the same items on
  an intelligence test correctly, yet one can be
  above average in intelligence and the other below
  average.

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Middle Childhood Cognitive Development Truth or
Fiction?

• Highly intelligent children are creative.
• Adopted children are more similar in intelligence
  to their adopted parents than to their biological
  parents.

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Middle Childhood Cognitive Development Truth or
Fiction?

• Bilingual children encounter more academic
  problems than children who speak only one
  language.

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Piagets Concrete-Operational Stage
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What Is Meant by the Stage of Concrete Operations?

• Beginnings of adult logic, involves tangible not
  abstract ideas
• Characterized by
• Reversibility and flexibility
• Less egocentric
• Decentration

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What Is Meant by the Stage of Concrete Operations?

• Demonstrate understanding of conservation
• Object can have several properties or dimensions
• Child can decenter and focus on more than one
  dimension
• Conservation of mass develops first

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What Is Meant by the Stage of Concrete Operations?

• Demonstrate understanding of transitivity
• If A exceeds B in some property
• B exceeds C,
• then A must also exceed C
• Assess transitivity through seriation tasks
• Requires decentration to focus on more than one
  dimension
• Demonstrate an understanding of class inclusion

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Figure 12.2 A Grid for Demonstrating the
Development of Seriation
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Lessons in Observation Piagets
Concrete-Operational Stage

• What is conservation?
• Why is the ability to conserve an important
  milestone in cognitive development, according to
  Piaget?
• Describe the conservation tasks and discuss the
  performance of the children depicted in the
  video.
• Are their responses typical of children in the
  concrete operational stage? Why or why not?
• Cite specific reasons given by children in the
  video when they are asked to explain why they
  thought the amount of liquid or play dough had
  changed or not changed.
• insert video Piagets Concrete Operational
  Stage (ConcreteOperationalStage.mov)

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Lessons in Observation Piagets
Concrete-Operational Stage

• Do these responses illustrate changes in the
  reasoning abilities of concrete operational
  children as described by Piaget?
• Include the following Piagetian concepts in your
  discussion conservation, decentration, and
  reversibility
• Do the children in the video use logical or
  intuitive approaches to solving problems?

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Lessons in Observation Piagets
Concrete-Operational Stage

• Are children in Piagets concrete operational
  stage likely to be able to use their reasoning
  skills on problems and ideas that they have not
  experienced directly? Why or why not?

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Can We Apply Piagets Theory of Cognitive
Development to Educational Practices?

• Learning involves active discovery
• Find stimulating materials instead of imposing
  knowledge
• Instruction geared to students level
• Consider the level of cognitive development
• Encourage development of perspective taking

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Evaluation of Piagets Theory

• Piaget tended to underestimate childrens
  abilities
• Horizontal decalage
• Ability to master different tasks within same
  stage
• Cognitive development may be more continuous

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Moral Development

• The Child as Juror

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How Does Piaget View the Development of Moral
Reasoning?

• Two stages of moral development
• Moral Realism objective morality
• Emerges at about age 5
• Behavior is correct when to conforms to authority
  or rules
• Rules are absolutes
• Punishment is inevitable
• Immanent justice or automatic retribution
• Do not excuse accidental behavior

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How Does Piaget View the Development of Moral
Reasoning?

• Two stages of moral development
• Autonomous Morality
• Emerges between ages of 9 and 11
• Social rules are arbitrary agreements that can be
  changed
• Circumstances can require breaking rules
• Consider the intentions of the wrongdoer
• Develops as a result of cooperative peer
  relationships

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What Is Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Development?

• Preconventional level
• Obedience and punishment
• Instrumental orientation
• Conventional level
• Good-boy/good-girl orientation
• Law-and-order orientation
• Postconventional level
• Contractual, legalistic orientation
• Universal ethical principles orientation

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Information-Processing

• Learning, Remembering,
• Problem Solving

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What Is the Difference Between Piagets View of
Cognitive Development and the Information
Processing Approach?

• Information Processing
• Compares children to functions of a computer
• Key elements
• Selective attention
• Ability to focus attention and screen out
  distractions
• Capacity for storage and retrieval of information
• Strategies for processing information

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Figure 12.3 Development of the Ability to Ignore
Distractions
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What Is Meant by the Term Memory?

• Storage and retrieval of information
• Sensory Memory
• Short-term or working memory
• Auditory encoding
• Capacity 7 chunks of information achieved by
  adolescence
• Typical 5- or 6-year old works on two chunks of
  information at a time
• Cognitive strategies used to promote memory
• Rote learning

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Figure 12.4 The Structure of Memory
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How Much Information Can be Stored in Long-Term
Memory?

• No known limit of information
• Moving information to long-term memory
• Rehearsal
• Elaborative strategy
• Semantic encoding
• Organization in long-term memory
• Recall memory is improved by categorization

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What Do Children Understand About the Functioning
of Their Cognitive Processes and Their Memory?

• Metacognition
• Knowledge and control of cognitive abilities
• Metamemory
• Childrens awareness of the functioning of their
  memory
• As children develop they utilize more strategies
  for memory

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A Closer Look

• Childrens Eyewitness Testimony

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Intellectual Development, Creativity, and
Achievement
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What Is Intelligence?

• Achievement
• What a child has learned
• Specific content area
• Intelligence
• Childs underlying learning ability
• Cognitive basis for academic achievement
• Cognitive basis for academic achievement

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Theories of Intelligence
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What Are Factor Theories of Intelligence?

• Behaviors we consider intelligent have a common
  factor
• Spearman g or general intelligence
• Broad reasoning and problem solving
• s or specific capacities
• Individual abilities
• Thurstone 9 specific factors or primary mental
  abilities

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Figure 12.5 Sternbergs Triarchic Theory of
Intelligence
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Figure 12.6 Gardners Theory of Multiple
Intelligences
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A Closer Look

• Emotional Intelligence

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Measurement of Intellectual Development

• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (SBIS)
• Assumes intelligence increases with age
• Older child must answer more items to obtain
  comparable score to younger child (mental age)
• IQ mental age divided by chronological age x
  100
• 2-year-olds to adults

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Measurement of Intellectual Development

• Wechsler Scales
• Groups questions into subtests that measure
  different intellectual tasks
• Compares performance on one type of task with
  another
• Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of
  Intelligence (WPPSI)
• Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC)
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS)

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Figure 12.7 Performance Items on a Intelligence
Test
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The Testing Controversy

• IQ test scores
• Should not be sole criteria for placement
• Accurately measure skills necessary in todays
  high tech work
• Culture-bias versus culture-free
• Bias for African American and lower social class
• Cattells Culture-Fair Intelligence Test
• Culture-free tests have not been successful
• Disadvantaged children consistently score lower
• Do not predict academic success

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Figure 12.9 Sample Items from Catells
Culture-Fair Intelligence Test
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How Does Intelligence Develop?

• Advances in middle childhood
• Symbolize experiences and manipulate symbols
• Vocabulary development
• Increase logical and complex thought
• Two major spurts
• Entry to school
• Approaching puberty

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Figure 12.10 Five Patterns of Change in IQ Scores
for Children in the Fels Longitudinal Study
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What Are the Socioeconomic and Ethnic
Differences in Intelligence?

• Increased predictive power but consistent
  individual differences
• Lower class US children score lower than more
  affluent
• Most ethnic minority groups score lower than
  European American
• Asian Americans outscore European Americans

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Developing in a World of Diversity

• Socioeconomic and Ethnic Differences in IQ

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Differences in Intelligence

• Mental Retardation
• Significant limitations
• Intellectual functioning (IQ scores of 70 to 75),
  and
• Adaptive behavior
• Causes of mental retardation
• Biological
• Cultural-familial retardation
• Giftedness
• Outstanding abilities and high performance
• In specific academic area
• Leadership, arts, or bodily talents

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What Is Creativity?

• Ability to do things novel and useful (Sternberg)
• Solve problems without expected solutions
• Creative children
• Take chances,
• Refuse to accept limitations,
• Appreciate art and music

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What Is the Relationship Between Creativity and
Intelligence?

• Moderate relationship between intelligence scores
  and creativity
• Sternbergs Triarchic Theory includes creative
  intelligence
• Gardners Multiple Intelligences include creative
  areas
• Explanation for lack of relationship
• Intelligence testing requires convergent thinking
• Creative thinking requires divergent thinking

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What Are the Roles of Nature and Nurture on the
Development of Intelligence?

• Genetic Influences
• Measured through kinship and adoption studies
• More closely related more similar IQ scores
• Heritability about 45 to 60
• Environmental Influences
• Same studies consider
• Situational factors that effect IQ testing
• Exploring ability to rebound from early
  deprivation
• Effects of positive early environments

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Figure 12.11 Findings of Studies of the
Relationship Between IQ Scores and Heredity
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Language Development and Literacy
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How Does Language Develop in Middle Childhood?

• Vocabulary and Grammar
• Vocabulary expands
• Recognize words with multiple meanings
• Articulation and complex grammar improves
• Tag questions
• Correct use and comprehension of passive
  sentences
• Use connectives
• Direct object indirect object constructions

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What Cognitive Skills Are Used in Reading?

• Reading demands perceptual, cognitive and
  linguistic processes
• Integrate visual and auditory information
• Able to make basic visual discriminations
• Reading to preschool children prepares them for
  reading

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Methods of Teaching Reading

• Word-recognition method
• Associate visual stimuli with sound of spoken
  word
• Acquired by rote learning
• Phonetic method
• Associate letters with sounds they indicate
  sound out words
• Most children utilize both methods
• Word-recognition for basic sight vocabulary
• Phonetic method for decoding new words

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The Diversity of Childrens Linguistic Experience
in the United States

• Ebonics and Bilingualism

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What is Ebonics?

• Black English
• Spoken by segments of African-American community
• Consistent grammatical rules allow for complex
  thought
• Differs primarily in use of verbs
• Accepts use of double negatives

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What Does the Research Reveal About the
Advantages and Disadvantages of Bilingualism?

• Bilingual children have more cognitive
  flexibility
• Aware of different cultures broadens
  perspectives
• Learning a second language increases expertise in
  first language