327 Ch. 12

Advances in information processing and brain functioning during middle childhood - faster response times -improved selective attention - automatization - development of hubs - control processes - executive function

- Reduction in reaction time, time 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 and actions makes the sequence routine, no longer requires conscious thought Effortful to Automatic Processing: repeated practice on the same task (adding the same numbers or doing the same karate moves) reduces the amount of cognitive effort needed, the process becomes more automatic. Effortful; require mental effort, interferes with other processing, improves with practice Automatic; require no effort, does not interfere with other processing, does not improve with practice Control Processes: regulate the analysis and flow of information within the brain. Two terms are often used to refer to cognitive control - metacognition (thinking about thinking, the ability to evaluate how best to accomplish a cognitive task, begins to develop in middle childhood) and metamemory (knowing about memory) -control processes require the brain to organize, prioritize, and direct mental operations. Aka executive processes, the ability to use them is executive function (righty- tighty) preschoolers ignore rules or use them only on command, 7 year olds begin to use them, 9 year olds can create and master more comlicated rules. By the end of middle childhood, some children understand that if birds can fly, and if elephants are birds, then elephants can fly. That logic is not spontaneously understood until formal operational thought, but when children are taught, they can master logical arguments ( even counterfactual ones) by age 11. - Brain Connections and pathways are forged from repeated experiences, allowing advances in processing. Without careful building and repetition, fragile connections between neurons break. Middle childhood is a crucial time for brain connections between one region and another, with specifics of cultural emphasis aiding those links. - increasing maturation results in connections between the brain's various lobes and regions. Connections are crucial for the complex tasks which require smooth coordination of large numbers of neurons Hubs: are locations where massive numbers of axons meet, damage to them correlates with notable brain dysfunction. Brain connections forming in middle childhood are crucial. Fluent reading at age 8 requires: 1) seeing a large sequence of letters, 2) segmenting them as words, 3) differentiating words spelled alike (such as read and read, bark and bark), 4) considering context to grasp unfamiliar words, 5) recognizing oddities and ironies, and 6) understanding meaning related to previous sentences

Explain language development in middle childhood - noting improvements in comprehension of metaphors and pragmatics - distinguishing between formal and informal code

-vocabulary, comprehension, communication skill, and code-switching advances each year from age 6-11. Vocab builds bc concrete operational children are logical, they can use prefixes, suffixes, compound words, phrases, and metaphors. That enables them to understand the meaning of a word they have never heard before. For example: 2-year olds know egg, but 10-year olds also know egg salad, egg drop soup, egghead, a good egg, and last one is a rotten egg. Pragmatics is evident when a child knows which words to use with teachers (never calling them a rotten egg) and informally with friends (who can be called rotten eggs or worse). For this, the social interaction foundation for cognition is apparent. As children master pragmatics, they become more adept at making friends. Shy 6 year olds cope far better with the social pressures of school if they use pragmatics well. By contrast children with asd are usually very poor at pragmatics -Mastery of pragmatics allows children to change styles of speech, or linguistic codes, depending on their audience. Each code includes many aspects of language-not just vocab but also tone, pronunciation, grammar sentence length, idioms, and gestures. -The switch is between formal code (used in academic contexts) and informal code (used with friends); sometimes it is between standard (or proper) speech and dialect or vernacular (used on the street).

Piaget's Concrete Operational thought with math

Concrete operational thinkers begin to understand that 15 is always 15 (conservation), that numbers from 20 to 29 are all in the 20s (classification); that 134 is less than 143 (seriation); and that because 5 x 3 = 15, it follows that 15/5 must equal 3 (reversibility). By age 11, children use mental categories and subcategories flexibly, inductively and simultaneously, unlike at age 7.

- metacognition - cognitive strategies -lead to improvements in working memory capacity

Metacognition: ability to think about thinking or the ability to evaluate how best to accomplish a cognitive task, begins to develop in middle childhood. Working Memory ( Short Term Memory) what is currently active in memory, duration - 20 seconds, capacity (memory span) - improves with age, memory improvements due to: improvements in processing speed, better cognitive strategies By the end of middle childhood, children can 1) realize that a comment could be made and 2) decide what it could be, 3) think about the other person's possible response and, in the same split second, 4) know when something should Not be said

Distinguish between -Public Schools - private schools - charter schools - home schooling

Public schools are supported by public funds. Vouchers subsidize schools that differ from public schools, which may allow parents to choose a school that does not follow public school policy or curriculum. private schools have smaller class sizes, special curricula, and expensive facilities (a stage, pool, garden) paid by tuition from wealthy parents. 11% of students in the U.S. attend private schools Charter schools are funded and licensed by states or local districts. They are public schools but are exempt from some regulations, especially those negotiated by teacher unions (hours, class size, etc). Most have some control over admissions and expulsions, which makes them more ethnically segregated, with fewer children with special needs. Overall, more children (especially African American boys) and teachers leave or are expelled from charter school than from other public schools, a disturbing statistic. Some charters report that children who stay learn more and are more likely t go to college than their peers in regular public schools. Homeschool: children must learn certain subjects (reading, math, and so on), but each family decides schedules and discipline.About 2 percent of all U.S. children were home-schooled in 2003 and about 3 percent in 2007. Since then, numbers have leveled off (Snyder & Dillow, 2013; Ray, 2013; Grady, 2017). Home schooling requires intense family labor, typically provided by an educated, dedicated, patient mother in a two-parent family. The major disadvantage for home-schooled children is not academic (some have high test scores) but social: no classmates. To compensate, many parents plan activities with other home-schooling families.

Note the correlation between language learning and socioeconomic standing (SES) and the factors that can account for this correlation

Ses affects cognitive development, with poor language mastery a prominent sign and perhaps the major cause of low academic achievement in low income children. Children from low ses fmailies usually have smaller vocabularies than those from higher ses families, and they also are impaired in grammar (fewer compund sentences, dependent clauses, and conditional verbs). That slows down school learning in every subject. The development of the hippocampus (crucial for memory) is particular affected by ses and that may be critical for language learning. Poverty affecting the brain: inadequate prenatal care, no breakfast, lead in the bloodstream, crowded and noisy households, few books at home, teenage parents, authoritarian child raring, inexperienced teachers, air pollution, neighborhood violence, lack of role models.- slower language development, and less learning The mother's education is influential, children who grow up in homes with many books accumulate, on average, three more years of education than children who live in homes with no books.

Piaget's concrete operational thought -reversibility - identity -decentration - transitive inference

The term for the ability to reason logically about direct experiences and perceptions. He emphasized productive thinking, using the word concrete, Piaget stressed that the logic of children is focused on specific experiences and observations, not on abstractions. Concrete operational thinking follows pre operational thought and preceds formal operational cognition when abstractions become possible. Thinking is concrete operational, grounded in actual experience, it arises from what is visible, tangible, and real, not abstract and theoretical. Thinking benefits from personal experience. Play, excursions, classroom interactions, games with objects. Reversibility- The ability to mentally go back and forth and to understand that when an object changes you can sometimes bring it back to its original state. Decentration- the ability to focus on more than one aspect of a situation at a time Identity- certain characteristics of an object remain the same even if other characteristics change, gender constancy, conservation tasks Transitive Inference- the ability to grasp connections that are implied but not clearly stated. Ex: John is taller than Jim. Jim is taller than Joe. Who is taller John or Joe? Hierarchical Classification - the ability to organize objects into groups and subgroups and switch between levels

Discuss the benefits of being bilingual & the issues related to bilingual education ELLs (English Language Learners), bilingual education, immersion and ESL (English as a Second Language)

Total immersion: a strategy in which instruction in all school subjects occurs in the second (majority) language that a child is learning Bilingual education: taught in both the original language and second (majority) language English as a second language (ESL) All children who do not speak English are placed together and given an intensive course in basic English so that they can be educated in the same classroom as native English speakers benefits: rational, less emotional, which usually leads to better thought, advancing in cognitive control, proficiency: children who are not fluent in at least one language are also impaired in cognitive skills. Many immigrant children have another advantage, powerful motivation to learn, seeking validation from their parents decision to leave their native land.

What are the gender similarities and differences in math, verbal abilities, and school performance?

Verbal: Males more likely to stutter and to be dyslexic, females better at speech production, girls and women have a small advantage in general verbal ability Math and Quantitative Ability: No gender difference in childhood, by preadolescence, boys begin to outperform girls on standardized tests, girls outperform boys on grades, there is greater variability in males' abilities than females' abilities, more males at both the high and low ends of distribution Gender Role Socialization and Math Math as a male domain, stereotype of people who excel in math, lack of female role models and positive images

Vgotsky's views on the influence of the sociocultural context on learning during middle childhood

Vgotsky felt that educators should consider children's thought processes, not just the outcomes of those processes. He also believed that middle childhood was a time for much learning, with the specifics dependent on the family, school, and culture. He appreciated children's curiosity and creativity, he believed that an educational system based on rote memorization rendered the child "helpless in the face of any sensible attempt to apply any of this acquired knowledge" Considered a repressive school destructive of cognitive development, "development depends heavily on the existing diverse social structures" Thus school organization and curriculum, as well as family interactions and values, and of cultural mandates and practices are crucial for Vygotsky. -welcomed direct instruction from teachers and other mentors. They provide scaffold between potential and knowledge, engaging children in their own zone of proximal development - would expect children with more social interactions within their zone of proximal development to benefit intellectually - Children tend to be matter-of-fact, absorbing whatever their parents and culture teach rather than seeking deeper meaning - Vygotsky stressed guidance, Piaget advocated discovery

Identity

certain characteristics of an object remain the same even if other characteristics change

Decentration

the ability to focus on more than one aspect of a situation at a time

Transitive Inference

the ability to grasp connections that are implied but not clearly stated - John is taller than Jim. Jim is taller than Joe. Who is taller John or Joe?

Reversibility -

the ability to mentally go back and forth and to understand that when an object changes you can sometimes bring it back to it's original state

seriation

the knowledge that things can be arranged in a logical series, it is crucial for using (not merely memorizing) the alphabet or the number sequence. By age 5 most children can count up to 100, but because they do not yet grasp seriation, most cannot correctly estimate where any particular two-digit number would be placed on a line that starts at 0 and ends at 100. The ability to remember a sequence of events or actions develops gradually in middle childhood. By age 8 children are better at putting things in sequence.

Hierarchal Classification

the organization of things into groups (or categories or classes) according to some characteristic they share. For example: family includes parents, siblings, and cousins. Classes: animals, toys, transportation, and food. The mental operation of moving up and down the hierarchy is beyond pre operational children. age 8 children can classify

Automatization

the process by which a sequence of thoughts and actions is repeated until no conscious thought is required, aids all academic skills, learning became more automatic as automatization fostered more learning