Physical Changes and Health Body growth and change

 Body growth begins to slow down.

 Children only grow an average of 2-3 inches and gain 5-7
pounds per year in elementary school.
 Boys will reach an average height of 4'10 1/4"
 Girls will reach an average height of 4' 9"
 This growth makes children appear more
proportionately developed.
 Muscle mass increases and bones become more
dense
Brain
 Myelination The process by which the nerve cells are
covered and insulated with a layer of fat cells, which
increases the speed at which information travels through
the nervous system.
 During this phase the brain's volume stabilizes, but
changes continue to be made.
 Pathways to the prefrontal cortex continue develop and
multiply.
 This improves the child's attention, reasoning and
cognitive control.
 Prefrontal cortex development is crucial in problem solving
skills.
 The cerebral cortex thickens, specifically in the temporal
and frontal lobes where language is controlled.
 Synaptic pruning occurs in areas where synapse is not
being used and development focuses on smaller areas
Motor development
 Gross motor skills develop and become more
coordinated, especially in boys.
 examples: running, skipping, skating, swimming
 Fine motor skills are improved as a result of central
nervous system myelination, especially in girls.
 examples: handwriting improves, dressing alone
becomes easier, cutting and pasting
Disabilities
 Around 14% of students are receiving special
education services for a variety of disabilities.
 Disablilites include:
 Learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, or
dyscalculia
 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
-inattention
-hyperactivity
-impulsivity
 Emotional or behavioral disorders
 Autism Spectrum Disorders such as Autistic Disorder
 Asperger Syndromes
 Students that are labeled with one or more of these
 disorders can be placed on an individualized
education plan (IEP) so that they may receive
assistance in dealing with their disability.
Educational Issues
 Individualized Education Plan (IEP)
 Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)
 Inclusion or Inclusivity
Illness and Injury
 The number one leading cause of death in this stage is
injury.
 Most injuries are a result of automobile accidents,
either as a passenger or pedestrian.
 Seat belts should be worn while riding in a car to
prevent automobile fatalities.
 Safety precautions should also be taken when
participating in outdoor activities such as sports,
bicycling, and skating of any kind.
 The second leading cause of death in children of this
age is cancer, which is due to abnormal cells being
over produced
 examples: cancer of the blood, brain, bones, nervous
 The cause of childhood cancer is largely unknown;
however, it is thought to be largely provoked by
environmental exposure to things such as pesticides,
radiation, maternal diet, and household chemicals
("Childhood cancers," 2008).
 More children survive cancer today than ever before
thanks to innovative cancer treatments.
 Cardiovascular disease is uncommon in this age group,
however precautions for the heart should be made
during this stage to prevent future heart problems.
Weight
 Issues with weight is an increasing problem for
children.
 To determine if a child has a weight issue physicians
compare a child's height to weight ratio.
 Children that fall in the 85th percentile are considered
to be at risk of becoming overweight. The percentage
of children in this category has nearly doubled to 30%
since the 1970's.
 Children considered to be overweight fall in the 95th
percentile. The percentage of children in this
percentile has tripled since the 1970's.
 Obese children fall in the 97th percentile.
 Children suffering from weight issues will be more
prone to serious medical issues in their youth and as
adults.
Cognitive Development Cognition
 Short term memory does not increase much more
after age 7.
 Long-term memory develops as age progresses in
middle and late childhood. To enhance this
development children should...
 be encouraged to engage in mental imagery
 try to "remember" rather than memorize content
 experience concepts in various ways
 be exposed to memory-relevant information.
 Children should be encouraged to think critically,
creatively, and scientifically.
Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
 Concrete Operational Stage – 7-11 years old; they can
perform concrete operation; they can reason logically
and reasons can be applied to specific or concrete
examples
 Seriation – Ordering stimuli along a quantitative
dimension
 Transitivity – the ability to logically combine relations
to understand certain conclusions
 Note for the neo-piagetian
 Long Term Memory – relatively permanent type of
memory that holds a large amount of info for a long
period of time
 Strategies to improve children’s Memory skills
 Encourage children to engage in mental imagery
 Motivate children to remember material by
understanding it rather than memorizing
 Repeat the with variation on the instructional
information and link early and often
 Fuzzy Trace Memory – Memory representation;
Verbatim Memory Trace and Gist
 Critical Thinking – thinking reflectively and
productively
 Mindfulness – alert, mentally present, cognitively
flexible
 Creative Thinking – novel and unusual ways
 Convergent thinking
 Divergent Thinking
 Metacognition
 Brainstorming
Intelligence
 Intelligence – problem solving skills and the ability to
learn from and adapt to the experiences of everyday
life
 Note Individual Differences
  Mental Age
 Chronological Age
 Intelligence Quotient
 IQ = MA/CA X 100
 Note Proponent William Stern
 Lewis Terman the Stanford Binet Test
 Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of intelligence; Analytical
Int, Creative Int and Practical Int
 Howard Gardner’s 8 frames of mind;
 Interpersonal intelligence
 Intrapersonal intelligence
 Kinesthetic intelligence
 Linguistic-verbal intelligence
 Mathematical intelligence
 Musical intelligence
 Naturalistic intelligence
 Visual-spatial intelligence
 Culture and Intelligence – that culture also affects
intelligence Western culture view intelligence in
terms of reasoning ang thinking skill, Eastern culture
view intelligence as a way for members of a
community who engage successfully in social roles
 Influence of Genetics
 Environmental Influence
 Culture-Fair Test
 Mental Retardation – IQ below 70
 Organic Retardation
 Cultural-Familial Retardation
 Giftedness – IQ 130 and above
 Ellen Winner 3 criteria that characterize gifted
children
 Precocity
 Marching to their own band
 Passion to Master
 Nature vs Nurture
 Domain specific giftedness and development
Language Development
Vocabulary, Grammar and Metalinguistic
 Vocabulary is stored and organized in a different,
more sophisticated manner.
 A 6-year-old has a vocabulary size of approximately
14,000 which will grow to around 40,000 words by
age 11.
 Grammatical skills also improve as a result of
improved logical reasoning and analytical skills.
 Children in this phase can understand, construct, and
naturally use language at a higher, more complex
level.
  Defining words becomes part of classroom activities
 Metalinguistic awareness
Reading
 Whole language approach – reading material should
be whole and meaningful
 Phonics approach – rules for translating written
symbols to sound
Writing
 Children tend to invent word and spellings
 Parents and teachers play an important role in
encouraging them to write but not be overly
concerned nor being excessive

 Second Language Learning

 Bilingual Education

Socioemotional Development Emotional and Personality Development

Self

 Development of Self – Understanding

o 8-11 years old, children increasingly describe
themselves with psychological characteristics
and traits, in contrast to a more concrete self
 Understanding others
o Perspective Taking - the ability to assume
other people's perspectives and understand
their thoughts and feelings
 Self Esteem
 Self Concept
 Self Efficacy
 Self Regulation
 Industry vs Inferiority
Emotional Development

 Developmental Changes
 Coping with Stress
Moral Development

 Kohlberg Stages
o Preconvetional Reasoning
 Heteronomous Morality
 Individualism, instrumental purpose,
and exchange
 o Conventional Reasoning
 Mutual interpersonal expectations,
relationships interpersonal conformity
 Social Systems Morality
o Postconvetional Reasoning
 Social contract or utility and individual
rights
 Unifersal ethical principle
 Kohlberg’s Critics
o Moral Thought and Moral Behavior
o Culture and Moral Reasoning
o Families and Moral Development
o Gender and the Care Perspective: justice
perspective vs care perspective
 Note Carol Gilligan Gender differences
and Moral view point
o Social Conventional Reasoning
 Pro-social Behavior
 Moral Personality
o Moral Identity
o Moral character
o Moral Examplars

Gender

 Gender stereotypes – broad categories that reflect

our impressions and beliefs about females and males
 Gender Similarities
o Physical development
o Cognitive Development
o Socioemotional Development
 Gender Role Classification
 Gender in context
Families

 Developmental changes in parent-child relationships

 Parent as Managers
 Stepfamilies
o Step mother
o Step father
o Blended or Complex

Peers

 Peer Developmental changes

 Peer status
 o Popular Children
o Average Children
o Neglected Children
o Rejected Children
o Controversial Children
 Social Cognition
 Bullying
 Friends
School
Contemporary Approach to Student Learning

 Constructivist Approach
 Direct Instruction Approach
 Accountability
 Socio Economic Status
o Education of Students from low-income
background
 Ethnicity in schools – Strategies for improving
relationships among ethnically diverse students
o Turn the class into a jigsaw class room
o Encourage students to have positive personal
contact with diverse other students
o Reduce bias
o View the school and community as a team
o Be a competent cultural mediator
 Cross Cultural Comparison