Infants Children and Adolescents Eighth Edition Chapter 12

Infants, Children, and Adolescents Eighth Edition Chapter 12 Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Learning Objectives (1 of 3) Middle School • • 1. What are the major characteristics of concrete operational thought? 2. Cite basic changes in information processing, and describe the development of attention and memory in middle childhood. 3. Describe the school age child’s theory of mind and capacity to engage in self-regulation. 4. Discuss current perspectives on teaching reading and mathematics to elementary school children. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Learning Objectives (2 of 3) • • 5. Describe evidence indicating that both heredity and environment contribute to intelligence. 6. Describe changes in metalinguistic awareness, vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics during middle childhood. 7. Describe bilingual development, along with advantages of bilingualism in childhood. 8. Describe the impact of class size and educational philosophies on children’s motivation and academic achievement. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Learning Objectives (3 of 3) • • • 9. Discuss the role of teacher–student interaction and grouping practices, and concerns about educational media. 10. Under what conditions is placement of children with mild intellectual disability or learning disabilities in regular classrooms successful? 12. 14 Describe the characteristics of gifted children and efforts to meet their educational needs. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Piaget’s Theory: The Concrete Operational Stage • Conservation – Decentration – Reversibility • Classification • Seriation • Transitive inference: ability to seriate mentally • Spatial reasoning – Cognitive maps: mental representations of spaces Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Maps Drawn by Older School Age Children from India and the United States Figure 12. 1 (From G. Parameswaran, 2003, “Experimenter Instructions as a Mediator in the Effects of Culture on Mapping One’s Neighborhood, ” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23, pp. 415– 416. Copyright © 2003, reprinted with permission from Elsevier, Ltd. , conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. ) Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought • Children’s mental operations – are most effective when dealing with concrete information. – work poorly with abstract ideas. • Continuum of acquisition: – Children master concrete operational tasks step by step, not all at once. – Gradual mastery of logical concepts indicates limitations of concrete operational thinking. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Follow Up Research on Concrete Operational Thought • Impact of culture and schooling: – Experience of attending school promotes mastery of Piagetian tasks. – Certain informal, nonschool experiences can also foster operational thought. • Neo Piagetian theories: – Operational thinking represents expansion of information processing capacity. – Central conceptual structures enable children to think effectively in wide range of situations. – Neo Piagetian approaches account for unevenness in cognitive development. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Information Processing Perspective • Executive function – improves, supporting gains in planning, strategic thinking, and self monitoring. – is influenced by combination of heredity and environmental factors. • Working-memory capacity – benefits from increased efficiency of thinking. – is often deficient in children with persistent learning difficulties in reading and math. – can be increased through direct training. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Attention in Middle Childhood Attention becomes more • selective (increased ability to attend only to relevant aspects of a task). • flexible (ability to flexibly adapt attention to situational requirements). • planful (increased ability to evaluate a sequence of steps in advance). Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Memory Strategies • Memory strategies improve: – Rehearsal: repeating items to oneself – Organization: grouping related items together – Elaboration: creating relationship between pieces of information from different categories • Combining several strategies is most effective approach. • Organization and elaboration combine items into meaningful chunks, further expanding working memory. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Culture, Schooling, and Memory Strategies • People in village cultures see no practical reason to use memory strategies. • Strategy use is motivated by tasks that require isolated recall, as in classrooms. • Children in developed nations do not use other memory cues, such as spatial location or object arrangement. • Societal modernization predicts – extent of schooling. – children’s scores on cognitive measures, including memory. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) • Symptoms: – Unable to stay focused on task requiring mental effort for more than a few minutes – Often ignore social rules and lash out when frustrated • Origins: – Highly heritable, but also related to environmental factors – Associated with a stressful home life • Treatment: – Stimulant medication reduces symptoms in 70% of children, but drugs have risks. – Best approach is medication combined with interventions that model and reinforce appropriate behavior. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood • School age children view the mind as an active, constructive agent that selects and transforms information. • Children understand more about sources of knowledge, including mental inferences and second order beliefs. • Children appreciate second-order false belief—incorrect beliefs about other people’s beliefs—which requires recursive thought. • ERP and f. MRI evidence reveals increasing selectivity in brain regions recruited when thinking about another’s mental states. • Schooling contributes to more reflective, process oriented view of the mind. • Children develop greater consciousness of how and why mental strategies work. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

A Second Order False Belief Task Figure 12. 3 (Adapted from Astington, Pelletier, & Homer, 2002. ) Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Cognitive Self Regulation • Process of cognitive self regulation involves – continuously monitoring progress toward a goal. – checking outcomes. – redirecting unsuccessful efforts. • Parents and teachers can foster self regulation by – pointing out important features of a task. – suggesting strategies and explaining their effectiveness. • Acquiring effective self regulatory skills promotes a sense of academic self-efficacy. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Applying Information Processing to Academic Learning: Reading • Whole language: – Children are exposed to text in complete form from the beginning. – Promotes appreciation of communicative function of written language. • Phonics: – Children are first coached on phonics—rules for translating written symbols into sounds. – Complex reading material is introduced only after mastering these skills. • Children learn best with a mixture of whole language and phonics approaches. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Sequence of Reading Development Age Development 2– 5 years 5– 6 years 6– 7 years 7 – 8 years 9– 15 years 15– 18 years “Pretends” to read and write. Prints own name and other words. Recognizes familiar written words. Decodes simple, one syllable words. Retells story main events in sequence. Decodes regularly spelled one syllable words. Recognizes some irregularly spelled words. Reads grade level stories more fluently, while also comprehending. Decodes multisyllable words and more irregularly spelled words. Reads to acquire new knowledge. Understands different types of texts: biographies, fiction, poetry. Reads more widely, exploring diverse viewpoints. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Applying Information Processing to Academic Learning: Mathematics • Math teaching in elementary school builds on informal knowledge of number concepts and counting. • Mix of drill in computing and “number sense” is most effective approach. • Understanding effective strategies is essential for solid mastery of basic mathematics. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Defining and Measuring Intelligence • Around age 6, IQ becomes more stable and predicts – school performance. – educational attainment. • Current IQ tests – provide an overall score representing general intelligence and separate scores measuring specific mental abilities. – do not measure all aspects of intelligence. • Factor analysis is used to identify abilities measured by intelligence tests. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

IQ Tests Group-administered tests • allow testing of large groups. • require little training to administer. • are useful for instructional planning. • identify students who need further evaluation. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

IQ Tests (continued) Individually administered tests • demand considerable training and experience to give well. • provide insight into whether test score accurately reflects child’s abilities. • are often used to identify highly intelligent children and those with learning problems. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Types of Tests • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, Fifth Edition – Age 2 to adulthood – Measures five intellectual factors: general knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual spatial processing, working memory, basic information processing. • Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV – Ages 6 to 16 – Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence–Revised (for younger children) – Measures four broad intellectual factors: verbal reasoning, perceptual (or visual spatial) reasoning, working memory, processing speed. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Recent Efforts to Define Intelligence • Componential analyses look for relationships between aspects of information processing and test scores. • Processing speed is moderately correlated with IQ. • Other equally important factors are – flexible attention. – memory. – reasoning strategies. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence Figure 12. 5 Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences Howard Gardner proposed eight independent intelligences: • linguistic • logico mathematical • musical • spatial • bodily kinesthetic • naturalist • interpersonal • intrapersonal Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Explaining Group and Individual Differences in IQ • Heredity: – Heredity accounts for about half of individual differences in IQ. – It does not explain the complex processes through which genes and experience influence intelligence. • Environment: – Adoption research confirms that heredity and environment jointly contribute to IQ. – Evidence suggests that poverty severely depresses intelligence of ethnic minority children. • Generational gains in IQ (Flynn effect) challenge assumption that ethnic group variations are genetic. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Cultural Influences on IQ • Language and communication styles: – use of African American dialect – collaborative vs. hierarchical style of communication between many ethnic minority parents and children • Knowledge: – specific information acquired through majority culture upbringing – effects of knowledge on reasoning ability – amount of time spent in school • Stereotypes: – effect of stereotype threat—fear of being judged on basis of negative stereotype Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Reducing Cultural Bias in Testing • “Static” assessments underestimate how well children can do after adult assistance. • Dynamic assessment – is a form of testing in which adult introduces purposeful teaching into testing situation. – is consistent with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. – reveals what a child can attain with social support. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Language Development in Middle Childhood • Metalinguistic awareness develops. • Vocabulary increases fourfold: – Reading contributes enormously to vocabulary growth. – Children grasp double meanings, appreciate riddles and puns. • Mastery of grammar increases: – Children use passive voice more frequently. – Understanding of infinitive phrases advances. • Dramatic gains occur in pragmatics: – Children can adapt to needs of listeners in challenging communicative situations. – Ability to evaluate clarity of others’ messages improves. – Narratives advance in organization, detail, and expressiveness. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Learning Two Languages • Children can become bilingual by – learning two languages at once. – learning a first language, then a second. • Bilingual children (like adults) engage in code switching—producing an utterance in one language containing “guest” words from the other. • A sensitive period for second language development exists. • Children who become fluent in two languages develop more efficient executive function skills. • Advantages of bilingualism provide strong justification for bilingual education. • In the United States, bilingual education is controversial. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Academic Achievement and Class Size • Small class size from kindergarten through third grade – predicts greater likelihood of graduating from high school. – is associated with better academic progress. • Teachers in small classes – spend less time disciplining. – spend more time teaching and giving individual attention. • Children who learn in smaller groups show – better concentration. – higher quality class participation. – more favorable attitudes toward school. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Philosophies • Traditional vs. constructivist classrooms • Social constructivist classrooms: – reciprocal teaching – communities of learners • Teacher–student interaction: – strong impact on academic self esteem, achievement, and social behavior of at risk children – educational self fulfilling prophecies • Grouping practices: – homogeneous vs. heterogeneous learning contexts – cooperative learning Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Magnet Schools • Racial divide in U. S. schools has improved only modestly since 2000. • Inner city schools are vastly disadvantaged in funding and educational opportunities. • Magnet schools offer usual curriculum plus specific area of interest, such as performing arts. • Research suggests higher achievement in reading and math achievement for low SES, ethnic minority students attending magnet schools. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Media • Computers and Internet access are integrated into schools in industrialized nations. • Computer use is associated with academic progress: word processing, problem solving, metacognition. • Nonviolent video game play has cognitive benefits: gains in eye and hand coordination, visual processing speed, attention, strategic thinking, spatial reasoning. • Digital divide: – Low SES homes are less likely to have computers/Internet, especially tablets and educational apps. – Boys spend more time with screen media than girls. – Girls and low SES students need opportunities to benefit from positive aspects of screen media technology. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Teaching Children with Special Needs • Inclusive classrooms: – Children with learning difficulties learn alongside typical students for part or all of school day. – Students with mild intellectual disability may be included. – Some students experience full inclusion. – If steps are taken to promote positive peer relationships, inclusion can foster prosocial behavior. • Students with learning disabilities: – These students have great difficulty with one or more aspects of learning, usually reading. – Some benefit academically from inclusion, but many do not. – Achievement gains depend on severity of disability and support services available. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Gifted and Talented Children Giftedness: • Exceptional intellectual strength • Usually measured by high IQ • Creativity: measured by divergent thinking Talent: • Outstanding performance in a specific field • Must be nurtured Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Figural Measure of Divergent Thinking Figure 12. 7 (Reprinted by permission of Laura E. Berk. ) Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

How Well Educated Are U. S. Children? • Factors that affect educational quality: – – societal values school resources quality of teaching parental support • Performance of U. S. students in international comparisons: – typically at or below international averages – less challenging, more fact focused instruction; less opportunity for high level reasoning, critical thinking. – large socioeconomic inequalities associated with lower achievement • U. S. families, schools, society must work together to upgrade education. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Average Mathematics Scores of 15 Year Olds by Country Figure 12. 8 (Adapted from Programme for International Student Assessment, 2012. ) Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.

Strategies for Improving U. S. Education • Support parents in – attaining economic security. – creating stimulating home learning environments. – monitoring children’s academic progress. – communicating often with teachers. • Invest in high quality preschool education. • Strengthen teacher education. • Provide intellectually challenging, relevant instruction with real world applications. • Vigorously pursue school improvements that reduce large inequities in quality between SES and ethnic groups. Copyright © 2016 Laura E. Berk. All Rights Reserved.