SUMMARY

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 neighborhood 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.

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 seriation.

5. Vygotsky stressed the social context of learning, including the specific lessons of school and learning from peers and adults. Culture affects not only what children learn but also how they learn.

6. An information-processing approach examines each step of the thinking process, focusing especially on brain processes, which continue to mature. Siegler took this approach and demonstrated that mathematical knowledge builds gradually rather than emerging at once.

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. A broad knowledge base, logical strategies for retrieval, and speedy processing advance memory and cognition. Control processes, including metacognition, are crucial.

9. Notable advances occur in reaction time and automatization during middle childhood, allowing faster and better coordination of many parts of the brain.

10. Language learning advances during middle childhood, including expansion of vocabulary and understanding of metaphors.

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

12. Nations and experts agree that education is critical in middle childhood. Almost all the world’s children now attend primary school. Schools differ in what and how they teach, especially with regard to the hidden curriculum.

13. International assessments are useful as comparisons. Reading is assessed with the PIRLS, math and science with the TIMSS. On both measures, children in East Asia and Finland excel and children in the United States are in the middle.

14. In the United States, the No Child Left Behind Act and the National Assessment of Educational Progress attempt to improve education, with mixed success. The Common Core is a controversial attempt to raise national standards and improve accountability.

15. Unlike almost all other countries, in the United States each state, each district, and sometimes each school retain significant control. Education is a political issue as much or more than a developmental one.

16. Disagreements about the best type of school are frequent. Some parents choose charter schools, others prefer private schools, and still others opt for home schooling. Judging quality is difficult: Parents value class size and homework more than do many educators.

17. IQ tests are designed to quantify intellectual aptitude, usually via tests of language and logic. Critics contend that traditional IQ tests assess too narrowly because people have multiple types of intelligence.

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

19. Developmental psychopathology uses knowledge of normal development to inform the study of unusual development. Four lessons have emerged: Abnormality is normal; disability changes over time; a condition may get better or worse; diagnosis depends on context.

20. Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are often inattentive, impulsive, and/or overactive. Stimulant medication often helps children with ADHD to learn, but any drug used by children must be carefully monitored.

21. Children diagnosed with specific learning disorders have unusual difficulty in mastering specific skills. The most common disorders that impair achievement in middle childhood are dyslexia (unusual difficulty with reading) and dyscalculia (unusual difficulty with math).

22. Children with autism spectrum disorder typically struggle with social interactions and language. They often exhibit restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. Many causes are hypothesized, and treatments are diverse: All are controversial and none is certain to help.

23. About 13 percent of all U.S. school-age children receive special education services, usually in the regular classroom.

24. Some children are unusually intelligent, talented, or creative, and states and nations provide special education for them. Specifics of that education vary and are controversial.