1. Chapter 11- Middle Childhood: Biosocial Development
The Developing Person Through the Life Span 8e by Kathleen Stassen Berger
Chapter 11- Middle Childhood:
Biosocial Development
PowerPoint Slides developed by
Martin Wolfger and Michael James
Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington
Reviewed by Raquel Henry
Lone Star College, Kingwood

2. A Healthy Time Middle childhood: about age 6 to 11
The healthiest period of the entire life span

3. Slower Growth, Greater Strength
Growth is slow and steady; self-care is easy
Children depend less on their families
Muscles become stronger, can run faster
Are able to eat enough, or too much
Earlier malnutrition is evident in height
Improved medical and oral care in the U.S.

4. A Healthy Time Physical Activity Benefits:
Better overall health, including less asthma
Less obesity
Appreciation of cooperation and fair play
Improved problem-solving ability
Respect for teammates and opponents of many ethnicities and nationalities

5. Health Problems in Middle Childhood
Childhood Obesity
Body mass index (BMI)- A person’s body weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters.
Overweight- In a child, having a BMI above the 85th percentile.
Obesity- In a child, having a BMI above the 95th percentile.

6. Why Childhood Obesity? Heredity: can be genetically predisposed
Parenting: infants not breast fed, too much T.V., drink soda, no exercise, poor family eating habits
Social influences: school lunches, snack machines, subsidies for corn oil but not fresh veggies, food advertising, etc.

7. Health Problems in Middle Childhood
Asthma
A chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways that makes it difficult to breathe.
Signs and symptoms include wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing.
Some experts suggest a hygiene hypothesis for the current increase in all allergies.
Contemporary children are overprotected from viruses and bacteria

8. Prevention of Asthma
Primary: changes in society such as better ventilation, less pollution, etc.
Secondary: decrease among high-risk children by breast feeding, family exercise, less dust, smoke and cockroaches
Tertiary: prompt use of injections, inhalers and hypoallergenic materials

9. Brain Development
Maturing corpus callosum helps balance and two-handed coordination
Myelination speeds up thought & behavior
Prefrontal cortex begins to plan, monitor and evaluate

10. Brain Development
Reaction time: time it takes to respond to a stimulus physically or cognitively
Selective attention: ability to concentrate on some stimuli while ignoring others
Automatization: process in which repetition of a sequence of thoughts & actions makes the sequence routine

11. Measuring the Mind
Aptitude:The potential to master a specific skill or to learn a certain body of knowledge.
IQ test: A test designed to measure intellectual aptitude.
Originally, intelligence was defined as mental age divided by chronological age, times 100--hence the term intelligence quotient, or IQ.
Achievement test: A measure of mastery or proficiency in reading, mathematics, writing, science, or some other subject.

12. Measuring the Mind
The most important aptitude for school-age children is intellectual aptitude, or the ability to learn in school, which is usually measured by an IQ test.
Flynn effect - The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations.

13. Criticisms of Testing
No test can measure the complexities of the human brain
Studies show that people inherit a set of abilities and not a general intellectual ability
Scores on tests change

14. Multiple Intelligences
Robert Sternberg (1996):
− Academic: IQ and achievement tests
− Creative: imaginative endeavors
− Practical: everyday problem solving
These are significant in adulthood when practical intelligence is more relevant than academic intelligence.

15. Multiple Intelligences
Howard Gardner (1983, 1999, 2006)
− 9 intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential
− people excel in some more than others
− influential in education, especially with children

16. Brain Scans One way to measure the mind is to measure the brain
Interpretations of brain scans are controversial
Brain fitness correlates with physical fitness

17. Children with Special Needs
Developmental Psychopathology
Links the study of typical development with the study of disorders.
Comorbid-presence of 2 or more unrelated disease conditions at the same time in the same person

18. Children with Special Needs
Several lessons from developmental psychopathology apply to everyone:
1. Abnormality is normal. Most people sometimes act oddly, and those with serious disabilities are, in many respects, like everyone else.
2. Disability changes year by year: Someone who is severely disabled at one stage may become quite capable later on, or vice versa.

19. Children with Special Needs
3. Life may be better or worse in adulthood. Many infants and children with serious disabilities (e.g., blindness) become happy and productive adults. Conversely, some conditions (e.g., bipolar disorder) become more disabling at maturity.
4. Diagnosis and treatment reflect the social context. According to the DSM-IV-TR, "nuances of an individual’s cultural frame of reference" must be considered before a diagnosis is rendered(American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. xxxiv).

20. Children with Special Needs
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): A condition in which a person is inattentive, impulsive, and overactive and thus has great difficulty concentrating for more than a few moments.
Bipolar disorder: A condition where the person has extreme mood swings that are not caused by outside experiences.

21. Children with Special Needs
Learning disability: A marked delay in a particular area of learning 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.

22. Children with Special Needs
Autism: developmental disorder marked by an inability to relate to other people normally, extreme self-absorption, and an inability to acquire normal speech.
Autistic spectrum disorder: Any of several disorders characterized by impaired communication, inadequate social skills, and unusual patterns of play.
Asperger syndrome- disorder characterized by extreme attention to details and deficient social understanding.

23. Special Education
Whether a child is designated as needing special education is not straightforward
Changing laws and practices:
−least restrictive environment (LRE)
−response to intervention
−individual education plan (IEP)

24. Cohort and Culture

25. Cohort and Culture