School Age (9-12) Flashcards
Physical Changes
- females and males have almost attained their full adult height
Growth
- females are ahead of males in overall growth rate
- females have more body fate and less muscle tissue; response to decreased physical activity and hormonal changes; (females body’s prepare for periods)
- skeletal and muscular structures cause females to be better coordinated, but slower and weaker than males
- more mylelinzation in frontal lobes occurs; they develop logic and planning skills
- selective attention becomes possible (reticular formation)
Immunizations
- HPB and Hep B vaccines are given at this age if missed in infancy
- Healthcare interactions with providers are much more frequent at age 2 than ages 9-12
Why does injury-related mortality increase with age?
- Bc they start to be a little more independent
- They push limits of what they think they are capable of; start taking risks
- higher for males and females
What is the most prominent injury at this age?
- motor vehicle crashes
(>1/2 of injuries are fatal)
Healthy Bodies
- 25% of children (bw 5-11) have unhealthy body weights
- <20% of females and males are overweight
- < 10% of females and makes are obese (highest level recorded)
What is obesity caused by:
- genetic predisposition
- epigenetic modifications set early in life
- environment (overeating, low PA)
- lower SES (lower participation ins sports)
- weight loss is difficult in this age group bc: it requires very specialized diets, their bodies are still developing, diets can have negative impacts both short and long term at this age
3 Risk Factors of Obesity
- over weight parents
- large size for gestation age at birth
- early onset of being overweight (age 5 and under)
What is the relationship between food insecurity and obesity?
- If food insecure, you are likely getting lower quality packaged foods
- there is evidence for associations bw food insecurity and obesity or weight gain in early childhood
Why is food insecurity particularly problematic for children?
- The # of children living in food insecure homes will continue to increase
- Particularly problematic for children because they are learning constantly and it is difficult to learn when hungry
Cognitive Skills
- they develop horizontal decalage
- they develop problem solving rules fro experience and trial and error (not age linked)
Horizontal VS. Vertical Decalage
Horizontal decalage
- takes kids YEARS to apply NEW skill to ALL problems
- Once a child learns a function they didn’t have before, and they apply the skill
○ They apply a skills to all problems
○ Ex. Conservation: once you master that mass can change, uyou might not maste that volume can also change
Vertical Decalage
- uses same cognitive function in different stages
- you can solve problems in a functional way and LATER able to solve them in more abstract way (ex. being able to divide 27 cookies bu 3 people by give each person 3 cookies, and then doing 27/9=3)
○ They use the same skill but at different ages
○ Ex. Toddler navigating physical space. When they are 10-12, they can apply the same function to drawing a map at a later age
Relationship bw Conservation and Horizontal Decalage
Conservation applies only to matter whereas horizontal decalage is broader and can apply yo any cognitive function
What is Automaticity?
- ability to recall information from long-term memory without using short-term
memory capacity - achieved through practice
Ex. Putting shoes on and tying shoe laces
- Brushing my teeth
- Speaking
What is expertise?
- more knowledge an individual has about a topic the more efficient their information- processing system will work (despite age)
- advanced skills in one area does not improve general levels of memory or reasoning
Information Processing
3 Skills emerging
- Elaboration
- finding shared meaning or a common referent for 2 or more things that need to be remembered
- when you tack something on to what you already know so you can remember the one thing - Mnemonic
- a device to assist memory - Systematic Searching
- ‘scanning’ one’s memory for the whole domain in which a piece of information might be found
Language
- vocabulary grows by 5,000-10,000 words per year
- by age 8 or 9, they can understand the structure of language, figuring out relationships between categories of words, (ex. b/w adjectives and adverbs)
- At this age, teaching mechanics of grammar is possible
○Developmentally, they can learn it
Literacy
- Balanced Approach: reading instruction that combines explicit phonics instruction with other strategies for helping children acquire literacy
- females read better than boys
Why are early elementary school years the best time to identify and help poor readers?
○ Brains are more plastic and they are willing to learn
○ When you are young, you learn to read, you can not read to learn
○ Stigma is a lot less at a young age
What are the 3 Components of Emotional Intelligence
- Awareness of own emotions
- Ability to express emotions appropriately
- Capacity to channel emotions
Why can regulating emotions help with doing well academically?
○ Dealing with failure
○ Being able to boune back and be okay with experiences as learning opportunities
○ If emotionally dysregulated, your ability to focus is diminished
○ children’s ability to exercise control over their emotions in early childhood is strongly related to measures of academic achievement in high school
Achievement VS. Aptitude
Achievement- assess specific information learned in school
○ Midterms are an example of achievements based testing
Aptitude- ability to learn
Why are females achieving better?
- females have always achieved better school marks than males for all subjects (esp language, science and math)
○ Females are better able to pay attention while boys are more physical
○ Consequences: males act out and get punished by niot being able to go to recess
§ So they can let out their energy and therefore can not focus on the upcoming test
○ Females are also more auditory processors
○ Result of sex differences engrained in the school system, niot genetical sex linked traits
○ Females are also people pleasers
Analytical Vs. Rational Thinking
- cognitive differences b/w males and females could be due to learning styles
Analytical
- tendency to focus on the details of the task- suits the school system
Relational
- tendency to ignore the details of the task in order to focus on the ‘big picture’
ADHD
- root cause is unknown
- studies suggest a genetic basis, premature birth is a risk factor
Characteristics of ADHD
- Higher activity level
- lower ability to sustain attention and control impulses.
- Treating/managing ADHD includes behavioural strategies, and/or stimulant medications
Social Cognitive
Industry vs inferiority (Erikson)
- development of a child’s sense of competence through mastery of culturally defined learning tasks
- They figure out what they are good at and what they are not good at
Reciprocal determinism (Bandura)
- interaction of personal, behavioural and environmental factors
- provides insight into the mechanisms that drive the development of self-efficacy
- Reciprocal determinism allows us to understand that when everyone’s knows the answer and you don’t, you may feel ashamed, dumb, and frustrated. As a defense mechanism, you act out
Self Concept
- from 6-12 kids understanding of themselves improves
- child moves through the concrete operational periods
- the psychological self becomes more complex, more comparativ
- their self concept is less tied to external features, and more centred on feelings and ideas
- Can lead to problems bec they realize that their self is deferent from that of others
- At this age, kids want tp be alike their peers
The Valued Self
Self-esteem - the evaluation of one’s own self worth
- Self-esteem is stable in the short term but less so over periods of several years during middle childhood and adolescence
- Self-esteem influenced by both a low perceived discrepancy between the ideal and actual selves and social support
What helps children to learn better?
Meaningfulness
- when children learn together, share decisions, and respect and trust one another, children develop a stronger sense of who they are
- Kids do better when they understand why they need to know something
Social Cognition
- children are beginning to understand the moral aspects of social relationships
- They start to understand that people are people outside of them who have different morals, values, and experiences that shape them
- They start to understand that there are rules that are just rules and also moral rules, things that are objectively right or wrong
Moral Reasoning
Moral reasoning - the process of making judgments about the rightness or wrongness of specific acts (Piaget)
Moral realism- the belief that rules are inflexible (first stage of moral development)
- Yes means yes and no means no
- There are no exceptions to the rule
Moral relativism- understand that many rules can be changed through social agreement (second stage)
- They understand that rules can and should change in responses to environments and people
Parenting
Parental Expectations
- as self regulation grows, parents allow children more independence (there are cultural and sex differences in parents’ responses)
Parenting for Self-Regulation
- parents model self-regulation behaviour, higher expectations
- parental monitoring = greater self-regulatory competence,
- development of self-regulation is associated with the authoritative style of parenting
- Is you provide kids with the opportunity to regulate and then ive feedback on it, helps children to develop self-regulation
Sex Segregation
- patterns in sex segregation are visible by age 3
Male Friendship Groups
- bigger and more accepting of newcomers
- involve more outdoor play and roam over a larger area
- appear to be focused more on competition and dominance, and higher levels of competition between pairs of friends than strangers
- Their play is not localized
Female Friendship Groups
- more likely to play in pairs or in small, more exclusive groups
- more playtime indoors or near home or school
- more agreement, more compliance, and more self- disclosure, and higher levels of competition between strangers than between friends
COVID and Social Skills
- negatively impacted the well‐being of individuals with a deterioration in mental health (anxiety/depression), social isolation, and development/stress/eating disorders among children and adolescents
- Who was more negatively impacted
○ Males need to fulfill connections could be fulfilled by playing video games with strangers online
○ Whereas females want to have their best friend and don’t want to talk to strangers
Social Status
1) Popular
- attractive children and physically larger children are more likely to be popular
2) Rejected
- being very different from their peers may cause a child be neglected or rejected
3) Neglected
- shy children usually have few friends, and highly creative children are often rejected, as are those who have difficulty controlling their emotions
Social Status
- children’s social behaviour seems to be more important than looks or temperament
What are turn key kids?
self-care children
- children who are at home by themselves after school for an hour or more
- are more poorly adjusted in terms of both peer relationships and school performance
- children younger than 10 do not have the cognitive abilities necessary to evaluate risk and deal with emergencies
- self-care is most negative for children in low income neighborhoods with high crime rates
- Has to do with their ability to participate in things
○ Many turn key kids are taking care of younger siblings, so they don’t participate in after school activities
Cellphones and Children
Causes
- poorer sleep
(sleep disruptions, staying up late)
- Increased anxiety and depression
(emotional regulation may be impaired, social comparison) - Poorer academic outcomes
(instruction time and phones are comepeting)
The Good
- social media afforded connections during COVID
The Bad
- sexting
The Ugly
- Pedophiles moved from being in parks to being more hidden on social media extending their reach
Screens and Children
- Free play is imp for child (8-12) which is incompatible with the 4-6 hrs/day they spend on screens
- Free play cultivates learning empathy, practicing self-direction, collaborative, communication, innovation, and creativity
○ These are skills that do not get developed online
What are solutions to high screen use?
- Society: give kids their independence back (playgrounds are safer today than ever)
- Schools - lock up smartphones so they cant be using during school hours
- Parents- no smartphones until kids are 16
- Everyone: encourage children to capture important childhood experiences
What is the “Let it Grow Program”
- Children with parents, chose something to do on their own that they haven’t done before (ie. Cook dinner, go to gricery store)
- Purpose: reclaim aspects of childhood such as independence, self-esteem, risk taking, (understanding personal limits), and problem solving (resilience)
Short VS. Long Term Learning
Short Term
- Diagrams
- models
- pictures
- Peers
- Analogies
- Fun
Long Term
- role models
- responsibility
