7.6 Summary

Health and Sickness

1. Middle childhood is a time of steady growth and few serious illnesses, thanks to genes and medical advances.

2. Physical activity aids health and joy. However, current social and environmental conditions make informal neighbourhood play scarce, school physical education less prevalent, and sports leagues less welcoming.

3. Childhood obesity and asthma are increasing worldwide. Although genes are part of the cause, public policies (e.g., food advertising, pollution standards) and family practices also have an impact.

Cognition in Middle Childhood

4. According to Piaget, middle childhood is the time of concrete operational thought, when egocentrism diminishes and logical thinking begins. School-age children can understand classification and conservation.

5. Vygotsky stressed the social context of learning, including the specific lessons of school and learning from peers and adults. Culture affects what children learn and how they learn.

6. An information-processing approach examines each step of the thinking process, focusing especially on brain processes, which continue to mature. Notable advances occur in reaction time, allowing faster and better coordination of many parts of the brain.

7. Memory begins with information that reaches the brain from the sense organs. Then, selection processes allow some information to reach working memory. Finally, long-term memory stores images and ideas indefinitely.

8. Selective attention, a broader knowledge base, logical strategies for retrieval, and faster processing advance every aspect of memory and cognition. Control processes, including metacognition, are crucial.

Language Advances

9. Language learning advances in many practical ways, including expansion of vocabulary and understanding of metaphors.

10. Children excel at pragmatics, often using one code with their friends and another in school. Many children become fluent in the school language while speaking their first language at home.

Teaching and Learning

11. Experts agree that primary education should be universal. Reading is assessed internationally with the PIRLS, and math and science with the TIMSS. On both, children in East Asia excel.

12. In Canada, where education is a provincial/territorial responsibility, the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program is a nationally administered test that measures the achievement of Grade 8 students in reading, mathematics, and science.

13. IQ tests are designed to quantify intellectual aptitude. Most such tests emphasize language and logic and predict school achievement. Critics contend that traditional IQ tests assess too narrowly because people have multiple types of intelligence.

14. Achievement tests measure accomplishment, often in specific academic areas. Aptitude and achievement are correlated, both for individuals and for nations.

Children with Special Needs

15. Many children have special educational needs. Among the more common causes are attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in which children have problems with inattention, impulsiveness, and overactivity; bipolar disorder, characterized by marked mood swings; specific learning disorders; and autism spectrum disorder.

16. All special needs are partly genetic, but family and school factors can make the problems better or worse. Treatments include medication, targeted education, and family training—some of which can be controversial.

17. In North America, about 13 percent of school-age children receive special education services, with an individual education plan (IEP) and assignment to the least restrictive environment (LRE), usually the regular classroom.