Physical & Cognitive Development In Middle & Late Childhood Chapter 9 Manisha Sawhney, Ph.D. 1

Body Growth & Change  Slow, consistent growth  Average growth is 2-3inches a year  Average weight gain is 5- 7pounds a year

Brain & Motor Development  Brain development  Prefrontal cortex-increase in pathways and circuitry  Cerebral cortex-thickening of temporal & frontal lobes  Synaptic pruning  Motor Development  Gross Motor skills  Fine motor skills

3 year old’s drawing

5 year old’s drawing

9 year old’s drawing

Health, Illness & Disease  Injuries are the leading cause of death  Obesity The percentage of children aged 6– 11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in (CDC, 2013)  Causes of Overweight/Obesity  Heredity (Stunkard et al., 1990)  Environmental  Socioeconomic status

Consequences of overweight  Medical problems  Diabetes  Hypertension  Elevated blood cholesterol  Psychological  Low self esteem  Depression  Eating disorders

Obesity Stigma  How does social stigma of obesity effect children?

 Cardiovascular disease (CVD)  Risk factors for CVD include, hypertension and obesity  Cancer  Second leading cause of death in 5-14yr old  Leukemia most common childhood cancer Health, Illness & Disease

Children with Disabilities  What disabilities do children have and how does it impact their education  14 percent children received special education in (Aud et al., 2011) 11

Learning Disorders  Difficulty in understanding or using spoken or written language or in doing mathematics. DSM-5 describes several domains of specific learning disorder:  Reading (dyslexia)  Written expression (dysgraphia)  Mathematics (dyscalculia)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder  Predominantly:  Inattention  Hyperactivity  Impulsivity Incidence:  6.4 million children between the ages of 4 and 17 (11 percent) have received an ADHD diagnosis (CDC, 2011)  In North Dakota, the rate has increased from 7.5 percent in 2007 to 8.9 percent in 2011  What do these figures tell us?  Is ADHD overdiagnosed 13

Causes for ADHD  Genetic factors  Maternal health during pregnancy  Executive areas of the brain are under- active  Treatment:  Combination of medication and behavior management improves the behavior of children with ADHD

Autism Spectrum Disorder (DSM-V)  Characterized by significant impairments in :  Social and communication deficits  Repetitive behaviors and fixated interests  Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period  Autism and Asperger disorder 

Repetitive Behavior and Fixated Interests  Prevalence  Current official U.S. estimates: 1 in 68 (CDC, 2014)  More in boys than girls  Causes  Brain dysfunction  Genes & Heredity  Polygenic model/theory of multi-factorial inheritance

Cognitive Development: Piaget’s Theory  Concrete Operational Stage:  Seriation  Transitivity  Reversibility  ch?v=gA04ew6Oi9M 17

Information Processing: Baddeley's model of working memory 18  Long Term Memory increases  Strategies for Improving Memory  Fuzzy Trace Theory  Verbatim memory trace  Gist

Intelligence  The ability to solve problems and to adapt and learn from experiences.  Intelligence Scales  Binet Test  IQ=Mental Age/Chronological Age *100  The Wechsler Scales 19

Types of Intelligence  Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence 20

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence 21

Differences in IQ scores  Influence of genetics  Environmental Influences  Flynn Effect 22 Flynn Effect IQ scores have risen across developed countries in recent decades. Source: Flynn (1999)

Culture free tests 23

Language Development 24  Increase in Vocabulary due to formal schooling  Start understanding comparatives and subjectives  Bilingualism and Second Language Learning  Increase globalization has lead to increase in children who are bilingual  Bilingualism does not interfere with primary language