Chapter 12

Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

Caprice PaduanoChild Development

CHAPTER 12 KEY QUESTIONS

In what ways do children develop cognitively during the years of middle childhood?

How does language develop during the middle-childhood period, and what special circumstances pertain to children for whom English is not the first language?

What trends are affecting schooling worldwide and in the United States?

CHAPTER 12 KEY QUESTIONS

What kinds of subjective factors contribute to academic outcomes?

How can intelligence be measured, what are some issues in intelligence testing, and how are children who fall outside the normal range of intelligence educated?

COGNITIVE AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENTDuring this period, children’s cognitive abilities broaden, and they become

increasingly able to understand and master complex skills.

At the same time, though, their thinking is still not fully adultlike.

PIAGETIAN APPROACHES TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTFrom Piaget’s perspective, the preschooler thinks preoperationally.

This type of thinking is largely egocentric, and preoperational children lack the ability to use operations—organized, formal, logical mental processes.

THE RISE OF CONCRETE OPERATIONAL THOUGHTConcrete operational stage The period of cognitive development between 7 and

12 years of age, characterized by the active and appropriate use of logic

Decentering The ability to take multiple aspects of a situation into account

THE RISE OF CONCRETE OPERATIONAL THOUGHTHowever, once concrete operational thinking is fully engaged, children show

several cognitive advances representative of their logical thinking.

Still, they remain tied to concrete, physical reality and have difficulty with abstraction.

PIAGET IN PERSPECTIVE: PIAGET WAS RIGHT; PIAGET WAS WRONGPiaget’s approach was quite successful in describing cognitive development.

At the same time, though, critics have raised justifiable objections to his approach.

Piaget underestimated children’s capabilities, as well as the age at which cognitive abilities emerge.

INFORMATION PROCESSINGIN MIDDLE CHILDHOODAccording to information-processing approaches, children become increasingly

sophisticated in their handling of information.

Like computers, they can process more data as the size of their memories increases and the “programs” they use to process information become increasingly sophisticated.

MEMORY

Memory The process by which information is initially recorded, stored, and retrieved

Through encoding, the child initially records the information in a form usable to memory.

Proper functioning of memory requires that material that is stored in memory must be retrieved.

During middle childhood, short-term memory capacity improves significantly.

MEMORY

Metamemory An understanding about the processes that underlie memory that emerges and improves during middle childhood

School-age children’s understanding of memory becomes more sophisticated as they grow older and increasingly engage in control strategies.

Similarly, children in middle childhood increasingly use mnemonics.

VYGOTSKY’S APPROACH TO COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT AND CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONVygotsky’s approach supports the practice of children actively participating in

their educational experiences.

Several current and noteworthy educational innovations have borrowed heavily from Vygotsky’s work.

Reciprocal teaching is a technique to teach reading comprehension strategies.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT:WHAT WORDS MEANThe linguistic sophistication of children, particularly at the start of the school-age

period—still requires refinement to reach adult levels of expertise.

MASTERING THE MECHANICSOF LANGUAGEVocabulary and mastery of grammar continues to increase during the school

years at a fairly rapid clip.

By the time they reach first grade, most children pronounce words quite accurately.

School-age children may have difficulty decoding sentences when the meaning depends on intonation, or tone of voice.

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS

Metalinguistic awareness An understanding of one’s own use of language

Metalinguistic awareness helps children achieve comprehension when information is fuzzy or incomplete.

HOW LANGUAGE PROMOTESSELF-CONTROLThe growing sophistication of their language helps school-age children control

their behavior.

Children may use “self-talk” to help regulate their own behavior.

The effectiveness of their self-control may grow as their linguistic capabilities increase.

BILINGUALISM: SPEAKINGIN MANY TONGUESBilingualism The ability to speak two languagesWith bilingual instruction, students are able to develop

a strong foundation in basic subject areas using their native language.

An alternative approach is to immerse students in English as quickly as possible.

Bilingual students often have greater metalinguistic awareness, understanding the rules of language more explicitly, and show great cognitive sophistication.

SCHOOLING AROUND THE WORLD: WHO GETS EDUCATED?In the U.S., as in most developed countries, a primary school education is both a

universal right and a legal requirement.

Children in other parts of the world are not so fortunate.

In almost all developing countries, fewer females than males receive formal education, a discrepancy found at every level of schooling.

WHAT MAKES CHILDRENREADY FOR SCHOOL?Delaying children’s entry into school does not necessarily provide an advantage

and in some cases may actually be harmful.

Ultimately, age per se is not a critical indicator of when children should begin school.

Instead, the start of formal schooling is more reasonably tied to overall developmental readiness, the product of a complex combination of several factors.

READING: LEARNING TO DECODE THE MEANING BEHIND WORDSReading involves a significant number of skills, from low-level cognitive skills (the

identification of single letters and associating letters with sounds) to higher level skills (matching written words with meanings located in long-term memory and using context and background knowledge to determine the meaning of a sentence).

READING STAGES

Development of reading skill generally occurs in several broad and frequently overlapping stages (Table 12-1).

Stages 0 to 4 span birth through beyond eighth grade

DEVELOPMENT OF READING SKILLS

HOW SHOULD WE TEACH READING?According to proponents of code-based approaches to reading, reading should

be taught by presenting the basic skills that underlie reading.

In contrast, some educators argue that reading is taught most successfully by using a whole-language approach.

A growing body of data suggests that code-based approaches are superior.

EDUCATIONAL TRENDS:BEYOND THE THREE RSElementary school classrooms today stress individual accountability, both for

teachers and for students.

As the U.S. population has become more diverse, elementary schools have also paid increased attention to issues involving student diversity and multiculturalism.

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Multicultural education Education in which the goal is to help students from minority cultures develop competence in the culture of the majority group while maintaining positive group identities that build on their original cultures

Cultural assimilation model The view of American society as a “melting pot” in which all cultures are amalgamated

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Pluralistic society model The concept that American society is made up of diverse, coequal cultures that should preserve their individual features

Bicultural identity The maintenance of one’s original cultural identity while becoming integrated into the majority culture

SHOULD SCHOOLS TEACH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?Emotional intelligence The set of skills that underlie the accurate assessment,

evaluation, expression, and regulation of emotions

Goleman argues that emotional literacy should be a standard part of the school curriculum.

SHOULD SCHOOLS TEACH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?Programs meant to increase emotional intelligence have not been met with

universal acceptance.

Still, most people consider emotional intelligence worthy of nurturance.

EXPECTATION EFFECTS: HOW TEACHERS’ EXPECTANCIES INFLUENCE THEIR STUDENTSTeachers treat children for whom they have expectations of improvement

differently from those for whom they have no such expectations.

Teacher expectancy effect The phenomenon whereby an educator’s expectations for a given child actually bring about the expected behavior

EXPECTATION EFFECTS: HOW TEACHERS’ EXPECTANCIES INFLUENCE THEIR STUDENTSThese communicated expectations in turn indicate to the child what behavior is

appropriate, and the child behaves accordingly.

HOMESCHOOLING: LIVINGROOMS AS CLASSROOMSHomeschooling is a major educational phenomenon in which students are taught,

by their parents, in their own homes.

Homeschooling clearly works, in the sense that children who have been homeschooled generally do as well or better on standardized tests as students who have been educated traditionally.

HOMESCHOOLING: LIVINGROOMS AS CLASSROOMSIn addition, their acceptance rate into college appears to be no different from that

of traditionally schooled children.

Critics of homeschooling argue that it has drawbacks.

INTELLIGENCE: DETERMINING INDIVIDUAL STRENGTHSIntelligence The capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use

resources effectively when faced with challenges

The difficulty in defining intelligence stems from the many paths followed over the years in the quest to distinguish more intelligent people from less intelligent ones.

Intelligence tests

BINET’S TEST

Binet’s pioneering efforts in intelligence testing left several important legacies.

Mental age The typical intelligence level found for people of a given chronological age

Chronological (physical) age A person’s age according to the calendar

Intelligence quotient (IQ) A score that expresses the ratio between a person’s mental and chronological ages

MEASURING IQ: PRESENT-DAY APPROACHES TO INTELLIGENCEStanford–Binet Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition (SB5) A test that consists of a

series of items that vary according to the age of the person being tested

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) A test for children that provides separate measures of verbal and performance (nonverbal) skills, as well as a total score

MEASURING IQ: PRESENT-DAY APPROACHES TO INTELLIGENCEKaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (KABC-II) An

intelligence test that measures children’s ability to integrate different stimuli simultaneously and step-by-step thinking

WHAT IQ TESTS DON’T TELL: ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS OF INTELLIGENCEFluid intelligence Intelligence that reflects information processing capabilities,

reasoning, and memory

Crystallized intelligence The accumulation of information, skills, and strategies that people have learned through experience and that they can apply in problem-solving situations

WHAT IQ TESTS DON’T TELL: ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS OF INTELLIGENCETriarchic theory of intelligence The belief that intelligence consists of three

aspects of information processing: the componential element, the experiential element, and the contextual element

GROUP DIFFERENCES IN IQ

Although the questions on traditional IQ tests are not so obviously dependent on test takers’ prior experiences, our examples, cultural background, and experiences do have the potential to affect intelligence-test scores.

Many educators suggest that traditional measures of intelligence are subtly biased.

EXPLAINING RACIALDIFFERENCES IN IQ

The issue of how cultural background and experience influence IQ-test performance has led to considerable debate among researchers.

The debate has been fueled by the finding that IQ scores of certain racial groups are consistently lower, on average, than the IQ scores of other groups.

The issue is important because of its social implications.

THE BELL CURVE CONTROVERSY

Herrnstein and Murray argue that the average 15-point IQ difference between Whites and African Americans is due primarily to heredity rather than to environment.

In short, most experts in the area of IQ were not convinced by The Bell Curve contention that differences in group IQ scores are largely determined by genetic factors.

THE BELL CURVE CONTROVERSY

Today, IQ is seen as the product of both nature and nurture interacting with one another in a complex manner.

BELOW THE NORM: MENTAL RETARDATION (INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY)

Mental retardation (intellectual disability) A significantly subaverage level of intellectual functioning that occurs with related limitations in two or more skill areas

Although limitations in intellectual functioning can be measured in a relatively straightforward manner using standard IQ tests, it is more difficult to determine how to gauge limitations in adaptive behavior.

DEGREES OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

Mild retardation Intellectual disability with IQ scores in the range of 50 or 55 to 70

Moderate retardation Intellectual disability with IQ scores from around 35 or 40 to 50 or 55

Severe retardation Intellectual disability with IQ scores that range from around 20 or 25 to 35 or 40

Profound retardation Intellectual disability with IQ scores below 20 or 25

ABOVE THE NORM: THEGIFTED AND TALENTEDGifted and talented Showing evidence of high performance capability in

intellectual, creative, or artistic areas, in leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields

Acceleration The provision of special programs that allow gifted students to move ahead at their own pace, even if this means skipping to higher grade levels

ABOVE THE NORM: THEGIFTED AND TALENTEDEnrichment Approach through which students are kept at grade level but are

enrolled in special programs and given individual activities to allow greater depth of study on a given topic