2. And on to development in middle childhood...

Chapter 11, Physical Development 

LECTURE OUTLINE

I. BODY GROWTH 

• Children add about 2 to 3 inches in height and 5 pounds in height each year.  
• Girls tend to have small growth spurts at ages 4 1/2, 61/2, 8 1/2, and 10, boys slightly later at 41/2, 7, 9, and 101/2. 
• Girls are slightly shorter and lighter than boys at ages 6 to 3, but by age 9, this trend is reversed. 
•  The lower portion of the body is growing fastest at this age and children during this time appear long-legged. 
• Girls have slightly more body fat and boys have more muscle. After age 8, girls begin accumulating fat at a faster rate.
• There are worldwide variations in children's body size.  Both heredity and environment account for these differences.
• Secular trends in physical growth are changes in body size from one generation to the next. These have taken place in many industrialized nations. The larger size of modern children is mostly due to a faster rate of physical maturation. due to improved health and nutrition. Although secular growth in heigbt has slowed in recent decades, gain in weight is continuing at a high rate and obesity is becoming a more common problem.
•  Skeletal growth.  During middle childhood, the body's bones lengthen and broaden, but ligaments are not yet firmly attached to bones. Thus, children are granted unusual flexibility of movement. Also between the ages 6 and 12, all 20 primary teeth are replaced with permanent teeth, but the jaw and cheek bones are not yet adult size, so the teeth appear too big and may, in fact, be crowded, altering their occlusion (how they meet). This creates the need for braces to prevent permanently crooked teeth.  Care of the teeth is very important at this time, as dental health affects the child's appearance, speech, and ability to chew properly.  More than 50 percent of American school-age children have at least some tooth decay, and low-SES children have especially high levels. 
• Brain Development. The frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex show a slight increase in surface area between ages 5 and 7 due to continuing myelinization.  The corpus callosum thickens, leading to improved communication between the two cortical hemispheres.  Synaptic pruning continues, and lateralization of the cerebral hemispheres increases over the school years. Brain functioning may also change because of an increase in androgens (male sex hormones) that occurs in both boys and girls around ages 7 to 8. 

II.  HEALTH ISSUES 

• Good nutrition and rapid development of the body's immune system work together to protect against disease, but poverty continues to be a powerful predictor of  health problems during middle childhood. 
•  Vision: The most common vision problem in middle childhood is myopia, or nearsightedness, which is a product of both heredity and experience. Myopia is increasing in the developing nations and much more common in developed nations due to the nature of school work. By the end of the school years, nearly 25 percent of children are affected. 
•  Hearing:  During middle childhood, the eustachian tubes become longer, narrower, and more slanted; as a result, otitis media (middle ear infection) becomes less frequent. However, damage from earlier ear infections may affect development as the demands on a child's hearing increases in school settings.
• Malnutrition:  School-age children need a well-balanced, plentiful diet to provide energy for successful learning in school and increased physical activity.  Readily available, healthy between-meal snacks can help meet school-age children's nutritional needs.  By middle childhood, the effects of prolonged and serious malnutrition are apparent in retarded physical growth, low intelligence test scores, poor motor coordination, inattention, and distractibility.  Interestingly, growth-stunted school-age children respond with greater fear to stressful situations than normally developing children.  Animal evidence reveals that a deficient diet alters the production of neurotransmitters in the brain.  When malnutrition persists for many years, permanent damage is done.
• Obesity: Over 25 percent of American children suffer from obesity, a greater-than-20-percent increase over average body weight, based on the child's age, sex, and physical build.  From 1980 to 2000, the rate of obesity in the American population climbed from 15 to 27 percent. Obesity rates are also increasing rapidly in developing countries as urbanization shifts the population toward sedentary lifestyles and diets high in meats, fats, and refined foods. Over 80 percent of obese youngsters remain overweight as adults. 

  	Causes of Obesity: Obesity has a genetic component; fat children tend to have fat parents, and concordance for obesity is greater in identical than fraternal twins. Research shows that obese children are more responsive to external stimuli associated with food and less responsive to internal hunger cues . Low-SES youngsters in industrialized nations are more likely to be overweight because of lack of knowledge about healthy diet; a tendency to buy high-fat, low-cost foods; and family stress. Six percent of American low-SES children are growth stunted due to  malnutrition in infancy and early childhood and are therefore at increased risk for obesity. Parental feeding practices also  contribute to childhood obesity. Fat children are less physically active than their normal-weight peers. Recent evidence indicates that the rise in childhood obesity in the United States is in part duo to television viewing.
  	Consequences of Obesity Both children and adults rate obese youngsters as less likeable. By middle childhood, obese children report fooling more depressed and display more behavior problems than normal-weight agemates. The psychological consequences of obesity combine with continuing discrimination to result in reduced life chances.
  	Treating Obesity Childhood obesity is difficult to treat because it is a family disorder. The most effective interventions are family based and focus on changing behaviors. Crash diets deprive children of essential nutrients during a period of rapid growth, and can make matters worse. Getting obese children to exercise is challenging, they find being sedentary pleasurable and activity stressful.  Positively reinforcement for  spending less time inactive is a successful technique. Schools could help reduce obesity by ensuring regular physical activity and serving healthier meals.

•  Bedwetting: Nocturnal enuresis is the technical term for bedwetting. In most cases, it is caused by a failure of the muscular responses that inhibit urination or a hormonal imbalance that permits too much urine to accumulate during the night Antidepressant drugs can be used to treat bedwetting as they have a side effect of reducing the amount of urine produced. This is a short-tern solution; once children stop taking the drug, they typically begin wetting again.  The most effective treatment is an alarm pad that wakes the child at the first sign of dampness. It works according to conditioning principles. 
•  Illnesses: While middle childhood is the time people are most likely to be healthy, children experience a somewhat higher rate of illness during the first 2 years of elementary school than they will later on, due to exposure to sick children and the fact that their immune system is still developing. The most frequent cause of school absence and childhood hospitalization is asthma, a condition in which the bronchial tubes are highly sensitive. The number of children with asthma has more than doubled over the past thirty years. Boys, African-American children, and children who wore born underweight; whose parents smoke, and who live in poverty are at greatest risk.  About 2 percent of American have chronic illnesses that are more severe than asthma, such as sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, and AIDS. 
•  Unintentional Injuries: The frequency of injuries increases steadily over middle childhood into adolescence, with boys showing a higher rate than girls.  Motor vehicle and bicycle accidents account for most of the rise in injury incidence.  children spend more time away from parents and range further from home, training for  good safety habits becomes more important.  Wearing protective helmets is a vital safety intervention. 

III.  HEALTH EDUCATION: The school age period may be the most important time for fostering healthy life-styles because of the child's growing independence, increasing cognitive capacities, and rapidly developing self-concept; which includes perceptions of physical well-being. Once formed, health habits are slow to change. However, health is not an important goal to children, as they do not yet have an adultlike time perspective, linking present preventive behaviors to future consequences. Also health information is often contradicted by other sources, such as television advertising and the examples of adults and peers. Information about health must be supplemented by reducing hazards, coaching children in good health practices, and modeling and reinforcing these behaviors. 

IV. MOTOR DEVELOPMENT AND PLAY  

•  Gross Motor Development: During middle childhood, running, jumping, hopping, and ball skills become more refined, with improvements in flexibility, balance, agility, and strength. Steady improvements also occur in reaction times; 11-year-olds can respond almost twice as quickly to a stimulus as 5-year-olds. Parents who encourage physical exercise tend to have youngsters who enjoy it more and who are also more skilled. Family income affects children's opportunities to develop a variety of physical abilities. School-ago boys' genetic advantage in muscle mass is not treat enough to account for their superiority in many gross motor skills; thus, environment plays a imp role in motor development. However, girls are ahead in gross motor activities such as skipping, jumping, and hopping, which depend upon balance and agility. Greater emphasis on skill training for girls along with increased attention to their athletic achievements in schools and communities is likely to increase their involvement. 
• Fine Motor Development: Over the school years, fine motor development also improves steadily, as demonstrated by improvements in writing and drawing.  Drawings not only show gains in execution, but also in content, organization, detail, and representation of depth. Girls remain ahead in the fine motor areas.
• Play:  

  Rough-and-tumble play is the friendly wrestling, rolling, hitting, and chasing that children engage in from early in life. School-age children are quite good at telling the difference between playful wrestling and a true aggressive attacks. Girls' rough-and-tumble play consists largely of running and chasing. whereas boys engage in more playful wrestling and hitting. Rough-and-tumble play is a shadow of our evolutionary past which serves to establish a stable hierarchy in which aggression among group members is limited. Organized games with rules become common in middle childhood.  Gains in perspective taking allow children to understand the roles of several players in a game and permit the transition to rule-oriented games.  Participation in child- organized games helps children form more mature concepts of fairness and justice and gives them skill in cooperation, leading and following, winning and losing.  Adult-organized games, such as youth sports have expanded rapidly in the past several decades. Some researchers worry that adult-structured athletic activities are robbing children of crucial learning experiences and depriving them of  the opportunities for development that come with child-organized games. Also, children who join teams so early that the skills demanded are beyond their capabilities soon lose interest and drop out. However, when parents and coaches emphasize effort, improvement, participation, and teamwork, young athletes enjoy their experiences more and gain in self. esteem.  Physical education classes that provide regularly scheduled opportunities for exercise and play help ensure that all children have access to physical activity that supports the development of healthy bodies, a sense of self-worth as physically active and capable beings, and  the cognitive and social skills necessary for getting along well with others. However, the average school-age child gets only 20 minutes of physical education a week! And, unfortunately, the growing fitness movement among adults has not filtered down to children. Physical education programs should emphasize informal games and individual exercise, pursuits that are most likely to last into later years. Physically fit children become more active adults who reap many benefits.

I. PIAGET'S THEORY: The concrete operational stage spans the years 7 to 11.
In this stage, thinking is more logical, flexible, and organized than during early childhood. at this stage, children further master:

• Conservation; demonstrates operations-mental actions that obey logical rules.
• Decentration: ability to focus on several aspects of a problem at once.
• Reversibility: the ability to mentally reverse operations.
• Classification By the end of middle childhood, can do class inclusion problems and can group objects into hierarchies of classes and subclasses and enjoy doing it (Collections become common in middle childhood: butterflies, stamps, coins, etc).
• Seriation: the ability to order items along quantitative dimensions. In transitive inference, the child is able to do seriation purely mentally.
• Spatial Reasoning: The child becomes better able to More accurately understand spatial relationships than in early childhood. The understanding of Distance  improves. As a result, children become better at giving directions, as they are able to perform mental rotations, seeing from another's point of view. Around 8 to 10 years, children can give clear, well-organized directions by imagining walking through a mental map
  
   Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought During this time period, for most children:
  1. Thinking is organized, logical only when dealing with concrete information that they can perceive directly.
  2. Their mental operations work poorly when applied to abstract ideas.
  3. Horizontal décalage is gradual development of a skill that occurs within a Piagetian stage. For example, children usually grasp conservation problems in a certain order: first number; then length, liquid, mass; and finally weight.
  
• Recent Research on Concrete Operational Thought 
  1. Different cultures and experiences (schooling) have different effects on development of 'concrete operations'; it is not a universal developmental phenomenon. Research indicates that conservation is often delayed in non.~Western societies. For children to master conservation and other Piagetian concepts, they must take part in everyday activities that promote this way of thinking.
• Evaluation of the Concrete Operational Stage: Debate about Piaget's stage centers on whether development is a continuous improvement in logical skills  (Information Processing theory) or a discontinuous restructuring of children's thinking. From early to middle childhood, children apply logical schemes to a much wider range of tasks. ln the process, their thought seems to undergo qualitative change toward a more comprehensive grasp of the underlying principles of logical thought. Some blend of Piagetian and information-processing ideas holds the greatest promise for understanding cognitive development in middle childhood.

 
II. INFORMATION PROCESSING states that brain development during the middle childhood years contributes to basic changes in information processing:

• Increased information-processing capacity and speed.
• Gains in cognitive inhibition, the ability to resist interference from irrelevant information (from environment or own thoughts/feelings). 
• Attention becomes more controllable, flexible, and planful. Older children can flexibly adjust their attention to the momentary requirements of situations. Selectivity and Adaptability: children become better at deliberately attending to just those aspects of a situation that are relevant to task goals.
  Attention strategy development follows a predictable, four-step sequence:

  1) Production deficiency-preschoolers fail to produce strategies 2) Control deficiency-young elementary school children fail to control, or use strategies effectively. 3) Utilization deficiency-slightly older children apply strategies consistently, but their performance does not improve.

• Effective strategy use-by mid-elementary school years, children
  use strategies consistently, and performance improves.
•  Planning: 
  a. On complex tasks, school-age children make decisions about what to do first and next in an orderly fashion.
  b. School-age children looks for similarities and differences more thoroughly.
  c. The development of planning illustrates how attention becomes coordinated with other cognitive processes.
  d. Children learn much about how to plan effectively by collaborating on tasks with more expert planners.
  e. Attentional difficulties are at the heart of problems of children with (ADHD), in which they are distractible, have difficulty staying on task, act impulsively, and may be hyperactive.
•  Memory Strategies: deliberate mental activities we use to store and retain information. Younger school-age children's use of multiple strategies is adaptive. Older children organize more skillfully and use organization in a wider range of memory tasks. Some of the techniques middle childhood children are acquiring include:
  a. Rehearsal: involves repeating information over and over again.
  b. Organization: grouping together related items.
  c. Elaboration: the strategy of creating a relationship between two or more items that are not members of the same category. Children start to use this strategy by the end of middle childhood.
  d. Organization and elaboration combine new information with old into meaningful chunks; more easily retained and recalled. When children store a new item in long-term memory by linking it to information they already know, they can retrieve it easily by thinking of other items associated with it.
• The Knowledge Base and Memory Performance: 
  1. During middle childhood, children structure the already vast amount of information in their memories into increasingly hierarchical networks.
  2. Knowing more about a particular topic makes new information more meaningful and familiar, so it is easier to store and retrieve.
  3. Children who are expert in a particular area acquire related knowledge more quickly and actively use what they already know to add more.
  4. Knowledge acquisition and use of memory strategies support each other.
•  Culture, Schooling, and Memory Strategies 
  1. A repeated finding of cross-cultural research is that people who have no formal schooling do not use or benefit from instruction in memory strategies.
  2. Western children usually get so much practice using memory strategies that they do not refine other techniques for remembering (such as those that rely on spatial location and the arrangement of objects.)
  3. Development of memory strategies is a product not just of a competent information-processing system but also of cultural exposure and relevant task demands
• The School-Ago Child's Theory of Mind refers to the child's developing set of beliefs about mental activities. It becomes more elaborate and refined during middle childhood. This awareness of cognitive processes is called metacognition. School-age children not only better able to understand other's point of view but also better able to reflect on their own mental life.  Some of the factors in developing a theory of mind include:
  a. Knowledge of Cognitive Capacity: Unlike preschoolers, older children regard the mind as an active, constructive agent capable of selecting and transforming information.
  b. Six- and 7-year-olds know that doing well on a task depends on focusing attention.
  c. They also grasp the interelatedness of memory and understanding.
  d.  Knowledge of Strategies for learning and recall. School-age children better understand to focus study on information least well-known. They can take account of interactions among variables-how age and motivation of the learner, effective use of strategies, and the nature and difficulty of the task work together to affect cognitive performance.
  e. Cognitive Self-regulation is the process of continuously monitoring one's progress toward a goal, checking outcomes, and redirecting unsuccessful efforts. While this skill begins in middle childhood, self-regulation is not well developed until adolescence when--it becomes a strong predictor of academic success. Parents and teachers can foster self-regulation by pointing out the special demands of tasks, encouraging the use of strategies, and emphasizing the value of self-correction. Children who acquire effective self-regulatory skills develop confidence in their own abilities
• One negative development may be the Learned-helplessness syndrome: when youngsters receive negative messages from parents and teachers that seriously undermine their academic self-esteem and self-regulatory skills, they acquire a negative mind-set about the effectiveness of their own efforts and stop trying.
•  Applications of Information -Processing to Academic Learning 
  1. Reading doesn't come 'naturally'. The whole language approach parallels children's natural pattern for learning language; reading materials are whole and meaningful to the child. The basic-skills approach emphasizes training in phonics - the basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds - and simplified reading materials. Research does not show clear-cut superiority for either of these approaches. Learning the basics enables children to decode words they have never seen before. Research shows that phonological awareness-the ability to segment, blend, and-manipulate the sound structure of words-predicts ~ reading success.
  If practice in basic skills is overemphasized, rather than encouraging reading because of interest in the subject matter, children may lose interest in reading.
  2. Mathematics: In early school years, children acquire basic math facts through frequent practice and reasoning about number concepts. Research indicates that conceptual knowledge (rather than rote memorization)serves as a vital base for the development of accurate, efficient computation in middle childhood. Other countries provide students with a variety of supports for acquiring mathematical knowledge.

III. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN MENTAL DEVELOPMENT  Around age 6, IQ becomes more stable, correlates well with academic achievement.

•  Defining and Measuring Intelligence: Virtually all intelligence tests provide an overall score (the IQ), which is taken to represent general intelligence or reasoning ability, and an array of separate scores measuring specific mental abilities.
  However, intelligence is a collection of many mental capacities, not all of which are included on currently available tests.
• The Stanford - Binet Intelligence Scale (p. 454) is appropriate for individuals for 2 years of age to adulthood. The latest version measures both intelligence and four intellectual factors: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract/visual reasoning, and short-team memory, but the verbal and quantitative factors emphasize culturally loaded, fact-oriented information. The abstract/visual reasoning factor tests children's ability to see complex relationships and is believed to be less culturally biased.
•  Recent Developments in Defining Intelligence: Some researchers conduct componential analyses of children's IQ scores by looking for relationships between aspects of information processing and intelligence test scores. One disadvantage of the componential approach is that it regards intelligence as entirely due to causes within the child.    Steinberg's Triarchic Theory is that intelligence is made up of three interacting subtheories and addressed the complexity of intelligent behavior and the limitations of current tests in assessing that complexity.  These three subcomponents are: componential (information-processing skills that underlie intelligent behavior), experiential (he ability to process information more skillfully in novel situations and to learn efficiently), and contextual (which proposes that intelligent people adapt their information-processing skills to fit with their personal desires and the demands of the everyday world).
  Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences identifies 8 independent kinds of intelligence and proposed distinct sets of processing operations that permit individuals to engage in a wide range of culturally-valued activities.
  Gardner argues that each intelligence has a unique biological basis, a distinct course of development, and different arenas of expertise.  In addition, cultural values and learning opportunities have a great deal to do with the extent to which a child's intellectual strengths are realized.(See Table 12.2, page 456) This  theory has yet to be firmly grounded in research but it highlights several intelligences such as emotional intelligence not measured by IQ scores. His theory has been helpful in understanding/nurturing children's special talents and abilities.
• EXPLAINING INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE: There is considerable variation within each ethnic and SES group.  Some correltions point up factors that seem to affect I.Q.The gap between middle-SES and low-SES children is about 9 points. About half the differences in intelligence scores is due Nature, to genetics. Adoption research confirms the balanced position that both heredity and environment affect IQ scores. Unique cultural values and practices do not prepare all children equally for the kinds of tasks that are sampled by intelligence tests. For example, ethnic minority subcultures often foster unique language skills and kinds of behaviors that do not fit the expectations of most classrooms and testing situations. In some communities, black adults asked their children very different kinds of questions than is typical in white middle - SES families. Children of Hispanic immigrants are taught to respect adult authority rather than express their own knowledge and opinions. Yet teachers/testers may equate their responses with lack of ability. Middle-class American tend to teach preschoolers the factual knowledge and ways of thinking valued in classrooms, which then has a sizable impact on intelligence test performance. In a testing approach called dynamic testing, designed to circumvent cultural differences,  the adult uses purposeful teaching to see what the child can attain with social support. (This approach is consistent with Vygotsky's concept of the 'zone of proximal development.) Many minority children perform more competently after adult assistance.
  
  1V. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT 
  A. Vocabulary:  By the end of the school years, recognition vocabulary reaches about 40,000 words, and vocabularies continue to enlarge through analyzing the structure of complex words as well as the context of use. Because of their increasing ability to think flexibly and hold onto more than one concept or meaning at a time, school-age children grasp the double meanings of some words, which leads to the understanding of metaphors, riddles and puns.
  B. Grammar: Use of the passive voice as well as infinitive phrases expands during middle childhood.
  C. Pragmatics, the side of language involved in useful communication continues to improve, as children become better at adapting to the needs of listeners in challenging communicative situations. Conversational strategies also become more refined. For example, older children are better at phrasing things to get their way, and they are sensitive to subtle distinctions between what people say and what they really mean.

  Learning Two Languages at a Time:        An estimated 6 million American school-age children speak a language other than English at home, and some children become bilingual by acquiring both languages at the same time in early childhood, or by learning a second language after mastering the first. Children who are fluent in two languages do better than their single-language agemates on tests of analytical reasoning, concept formation, and cognitive flexibility, and they are advanced in their ability to think about language. Bilingual Education:       Some educators believe that time spent communicating in the child's native tongue detracts from English language achievement. Other educators recommend to truly bilingual education, developing minority children's native language while fostering mastery of English. Providing some instruction in their native language lets minority children know their heritage is respected and prevents semilingualism (inadequate proficiency in both languages).At present, public opinion limits bilingual education programs, yet when both languages are integrated into the curriculum, minority children are more involved in learning, participate more actively in class discussions, and acquire the second language more easily.

  V. CHILDREN'S LEARNING IN SCHOOL 
  A. Class size: Small class sizes are beneficial because teachers spend less time disciplining, more time giving individual attention, and children's interactions with one another are more positive and cooperative. Also, when class size is small, teachers and pupils are more satisfied with school experiences. The advantages of small classes are greatest in the early years of school.
  B. Educational Philosophies
  a. In traditional classrooms, children are passive learners who acquire information presented by the teachers. Pupils are evaluated on the basis of how well they keep up with a uniform set of standards for all pupils in their grade.
  b. In an open classroom, children are active agents in their own development. The teacher shares decision-making with pupils, who learn at their own pace. Pupils are evaluated in relation to their own prior development.
  c. The combined results of many studies reveal that older school-age children in traditional classrooms have a slight edge in terms of academic achievements. However, open-classroom pupils are more critical thinkers, and they value and respect individual differences in their classmates more.(Note: The heavy emphasis in traditional kindergarten and primary classrooms on acquiring academic knowledge has contributed to a growing trend among parents to delay kindergarten for a year. However, research has not shown this to be an advantage.)
  C. Vygotsky's emphasis on the social origins of higher cognitive processes has inspired the following educational themes:
  1) Teachers and parents as partners in learning.
  2) Experience with many types of symbolic communication in meaningful activities.
  3) Teaching adapted to each child's zone of proximal development.
  The Kamehameha Elementary Education Program  (KEEP) is an example of a school based upon Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. In KEEP classrooms, children work on a project in which learning will be active and directed toward a meaningful goal. KEEP students frequently work in small groups and engage in cooperative learning. Research so far suggests that the KEEP approach is highly effective.
  D.  Reciprocal Teaching 
  1) Reciprocal teaching was originally designed to improve reading comprehension in pupils with achievement problems, but has been adapted to other subjects as well.
  2) Within dialogues, group members apply four cognitive strategies: asking questions, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting what is coming next in the text..
  3) Elementary and junior high students involved to reciprocal teaching show impressive gains in reading comprehension.
  E. Teacher-Student Interactions have a powerful effect on student achievement and school attitudes.
  1. One finding is that American teachers emphasize rote, repetitive drill more than higher-level thinking.
  2. Well-behaved, high-achieving pupils experience positive interactions with their teachers.
  3. The educational self-fulfilling prophecy is the idea that children may adopt teachers' positive or negative attitudes toward them and start to live up to these views.
  F. Grouping Practices: 

• Often pupils are assigned to homogenous groups or classes in which children of similar achievement levels are taught together.This may make it easier for the teacher to present the material at a level suited to the children's needs, but ability grouping of students actually widens the gap between high and low achievers.

• Another approach to grouping is to increase the heterogeneity of pupils. In multigrade classrooms, pupils who would otherwise be assigned to different grades are taught together in the same classroom. Peer tutoring is an aspect of mixed-age classrooms that makes them particularly cooperative. For collaboration between heterogeneous peers to succeed, children need extensive training and guidance in cooperative learning. 
  G. Computers in the Classroom: 

• In computer-assisted instruction: 
       Pros:  the use of computers to practice basic skills and transmit new knowledge. Word processing permits students to create written products that are longer and of higher quality. Computer programming leads to improvements in concept formation, problem solving, and creativity. Furthermore, gains in metacognition and self- regulation of cognitive processes result from programming experiences.New communications technology, available through e-mail and the World Wide Web, allow children to access information and interact with people around the world.
        Cons: By the end of middle childhood, boys spend much more time with computers than do girls, both in and out of school.  Many parents are concerned that their children will become overly involved as well as more aggressive through playing fast-paced computer games with highly violent content. 
  H. Teaching Children with Special Needs: Education for children with special needs or special abilities. 
  1.  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates that schools place children who require special supports for learning into "least restrictive" environments that meet their educational needs.
  2.  Mainstreaming is the integration of pupils with learning difficulties into regular classrooms for part or all of the school day. In some schools mainstreaming has been extended to full inclusion-placement in regular classrooms full time. Those best  served in this manner include:

  · Children who are mildly mentally retarded have IQs that fall between 55 and 70 and who also show problems in adaptive behavior. · The largest number of mainstreamed children have learning disabilities, which are specific learning disorders despite an average or above average IQ. Their problems cannot be traced to any obvious physical or emotional difficulty or to environmental disadvantage. Faulty brain functioning is believed to be responsible. How successful is mainstreaming? Achievement differences between mainstreamed pupils and those taught in separate groups in self-contained classrooms are not great. Children with disabilities in regular classrooms often are rejected by peers. These children do best when they receive instruction in a resource room for part of the- day and in the regular classroom for the remainder of the day. When the children enter the regular classroom, special steps must be taken to promote peer acceptance.

  3. 'Gifted' Children are those who display exceptional intellectual strengths, including high IQ, keen memory, and an exceptional capacity to solve challenging problems rapidly and accurately. High creativity can result in a child being designated a s gifted. Creative thinking is divergent thinking, the generation of multiple and unusual possibilities when faced with a task or problem. Tests of creativity tap divergent thinking. (Convergent thinking leads to a single correct answer to a problem. This is the type of cognition which is emphasized on intelligence tests.) Definitions of giftedness have also been extended to include specialized talents, such as artistic or musical talent. Parents of children labeled as talented emphasize curiosity, provide a home rich in stimulation, recognize their children's creative potential, and arrange for training under inspiring teachers. However, extreme giftedness often results in social isolation. also, many talented youths may become experts their fields, yet few become highly creative. Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences has inspired several model programs that include all pupils.
  I. How Well Educated Are America's Children? 
  American children fare unevenly when their achievement is compared to that of children in other industrialized nations.
  A variety of social forces combine to foster a much stronger commitment to learning in Asian families and schools.
  Families, schools, and the larger society must work together to upgrade American education.
  Achievement of U.S. elementary and secondary students has improved over the past decade in reading, math, and science.

I will finish the outline of the social development of the school-age child over the weekend...