Child development in the Middle Years

by all98 (student)

Is it true that children’s development from the ages of five to eleven is relatively unexciting, at least in comparison with the more dramatic changes of the early years or of adolescence and is, therefore, relatively unimportant?

Child development in brief

There is growing appreciation in policy, research, and educational practice that early and middle childhood, provide the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional foundations for lifelong health, learning, and well-being (Cooper, 2005). Bukatko & Daehler (2004, p.10) illustrates the general modern view of childhood:

Contemporary society views childhood as a separate, distinct, and unique period, a special time when individuals are to be protected, nurtured, loved, and kept free of most adult responsibilities and obligations.

The three stages of child development are represented by the specific age criteria, commonly known as: Early years, Middle Childhood, and Adolescence. Each stage is organised around the primary tasks of development for that period.

Early childhood, usually defined as Birth to age four, is a time of remarkable physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Within schools there are Early Year strategies, and special provisions, as well as specially trained Early Years Practitioners.

Middle childhood, usually defined as age five to eleven, is a time when children develop skills for building healthy social relationships and learn roles that will lay ground work for a lifetime. The exact developmental stages will be discussed in more detail further on.

Adolescence, usually defined as age twelve plus, is the period following the onset of puberty during which a young person develops from a child in to an adult. Some changes within cognitive development show profounder moral thinking, as well as a mounting ability for abstract thought. Social-emotional changes often include an insight into the thought that parents can be wrong which in turn leads to greater want of independence. The most noticeable changes are of puberty. As children begin to naturally develop physically feelings of unease and worry about these changes can begin to affect the child. Growing sexual interest can shape a young person’s future dramatically, for example, teen pregnancies (Mogler, 2008).

When looking at the noticeable physical changes at each of these three stages of child development it is easy to see why middle childhood can be seen as somewhat uninteresting. Both early childhood and adolescence show such physical signs of transpiring (Davies, 2011; Eccles, 1999). A new born baby cannot hold its head up but within months it has learnt to be more mobile along with showing signs of becoming more aware of his/her surroundings. Adolescents begin to go through puberty with obvious physical changes. Looking at middle childhood there largely seems to be no extreme physical changes from early years until adolescence, just a slow continuation of growth. However, if one delves deeper into exploring middle childhood then a view of importance can be established. Studies indicate that, although there may be some physical signs of development there are explicit cognitive and social-emotional changes that can influence the future of a child’s life (Davies, 2011).

What development happens in Middle Childhood?

During early middle childhood, children face changes such as going to a more structured classroom setting which introduces structured timetables for increased lessons and less play times than in nursery and reception classes, and thus beginning to increase their independence (Lee & Vagle, 2010).

PHYSICAL

Gross-motor skills

During middle childhood, children continue to shape and expand their development of gross motor skills; improving on the early developments that they first encountered in the early years of their lives, actions such as walking, and running (Davies, 2011).

These children, who are in middle childhood, also start to refine their control over gross-motor skills. They are able to gain enhanced control and co-ordination due to increases in their flexibility, balance, and agility (Zembar & Balter-Blume, 2009).

Fine-motor skills

Zembar & Balter-Blume (2009) suggest that as children progress through middle childhood they also begin to sharpen their fine-motor skills. These skills can be distinguished from gross-motor skills in that they require hand-eye co-ordination. Exclusively, children of middle-childhood age can show dramatic improvements with regard to their printed handwriting and ability to write in cursive letters.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Cognitive (mental) developments that occur in children during middle childhood are often more noticeable than physical changes. Cognition is the process involved in thinking and mental activity, such as attention, memory and problem solving. Children's ability to consciously, thoughtfully and ...

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Fine-motor skills

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Piaget vs. Vygotsky

Both Jean Piaget, a Swiss developmental psychologist and Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, agree that children’s cognitive development takes place in stages (Jarvis & Chandler, 2001). However, they are distinguished by different styles of theory. A bold theory of child development is Piaget’s Stage Theory. According to Piaget, from infancy children build schemes as they manipulate and explore their world. Piaget believed that all children progress through four different and very distinct stages of cognitive development. The four stages of development are; sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational, and these would always be ‘passed’ through at very distinct ages in a child’s life (Piaget, 2007). Conflicting with behaviourists views, this see’s children as independent agents in their own learning, and more important than the influences of parents or teachers.

During early middle childhood, children enter the pre-operational stage of development. At this stage they are pre-occupied with verbal skills. A flaw is the ability to cognitively conserve relevant spatial information. When a material is manipulated and no longer matches the cognitive image that a child has made, the child then believes that the amount of material has been altered instead of just its shape (Jarvis & Chandler, 2001). Initial research, most notably by Donaldson (1978), and subsequent research, such as Cohen (2002), has shown that under certain conditions young children are able to function at levels above those predicted by Piagetian theory. For example, simple adaptations to Piaget’s conversion tasks show that many children can grasp this concept at a pre-operational age.

Children then begin move on to late middle childhood, and into the concrete operational stage. Children begin to grasp abstract concepts such as numbers and how to reason. Using reasoning, the child is capable of understanding that mental and physical operations can be reversed (Piaget, 2007).

In contrast to Piaget, Vygotsky, correlated children’s development to the Social Constructivist Theory. The general claims of this theory is that human social and psychological processes are fundamentally shaped by cultural tools (Daniels, 2005).The lack of consideration to the social and cultural context of child development is a substantial criticism of Piaget’s ideas by Vygotsky.

Vygotsky believed that it is the adult’s in the child’s life and their peers that have a duty to share their collective knowledge. This type of learning in the middle years places teachers in active roles; whilst the child’s mental abilities develop naturally through various pathways of discovery. Vygotsky argued that through social activities children learnt cultural ‘tools’ and social inventions (Daniels, 2005).

Piaget and Vygotsky have many contrasting views. Piaget concluded that cognitive changes precede linguistic advances (Piaget, 2007), unlike Vygotsky who offered that language permits children vaster freedom of thought and this in turn leads to additional cognitive development (Flanagan & Levine, 2010). Piaget conjectured that thinking and language moved from individual to social (Ginsburg & Opper, 1988; Piaget, 2007). However, Vygotsky speculated that language moved from the social to the individual (Jarvis & Chandler, 2001).

Attention

During middle childhood, children’s attention spans extend in duration and their ability to focus and concentrate attention becomes more noticeable. The general effect is that children are becoming efficient learners and more able to accept classroom instruction (Zembar & Balter-Blume, 2009).

Of course, not all children experience this standard development in the improvement of attention span. Some children do not encounter these usual attention and memory developments and instead struggle to concentrate in the ever more demanding school, family and social environments they find themselves in. If not tackled sufficiently and promptly, such children's attention difficulties can go on to result in considerable academic and social hindrances (Charlesworth, 2010).

Memory

Memory is used in a wide range of frameworks, socially and pedagogically. The power of a child’s memory is connected to the level of interest which they have in the subject or the commitment which they have to specific information recall.

Long term memory and the use of memory strategies improve across middle childhood. Informal and formal learning in school will impact on the development of memory. As a result the importance of the link between the learning process in middle childhood and the outcomes of adulthood should be addressed (Zembar & Balter- Blume, 2009).

Meta-cognition

The term "meta-cognition" is descriptive of the way children become more aware of their own mental state in middle childhood, and paying attention to how to use this information when solving problems. For example, a child will now be starting to be aware of their ability to recognise whether they are progressing towards a specific target or goal. If they deem they are not progressing pleasingly, cognitive self-regulation skills will help the child to recognise that they are not happy with the approach they are using, and therefore will have to change tact in order to reach the desired target or goal (Zembar & Balter-Blume, 2009).

Language Development

Language development is a long process that begins form early years and progresses through middle childhood, and mostly continues through adolescence and adult life. During middle childhood, children start to perfect their understanding of word meaning, or semantic development.

According to Vygotsky (1986), previous generations improve upon the system of symbolic representation of language. It provides the basis of symbols the child needs in order to understand their worlds (Daniels, 2005). For Vygotsky, language is what makes thinking even a possibility, which in turn stresses the point that language development through middle childhood is extremely important for the future outcome of mental ability in young adults (Daniels, 2005).

During middle childhood, Syntax development, or grammatical understanding and construction, develop extensively. Children begin to understand the difference between active and passive voice which is important for social development (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2009).

Ninio and Snow (1999), and McDevitt and Ormrod (2009) suggest that middle childhood is the period where children improve on the pragmatics of language, or the social etiquette of language. As children move through middle childhood they become more conscious of when they are misunderstood, this in turn leads to them understanding that they may need to clarify their meaning and change or add words to their sentences in order to do so.

Charlesworth (2010) states the importance of recognising when a child is not developing well through middle childhood. If a child is not developing at the same rate as their peers and they have language difficulties, this often leads to literacy complications as well as social problems that can follow through to adulthood. Supervision and support strategies that are put in place by schools and implemented by teachers in middle school are important at monitoring development (Charlesworth, 2010).

EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Emotions

Larsen, To, and Fireman (2007) showed that the abstract understanding of mixed emotions develops primarily in middle childhood. As they develop through middle childhood, children become better at learning how to express, and just as important withhold, their emotions in socially acceptable ways. Children are beginning to understand their own limitations and strengths with increasing accuracy (Bosacki, 2008).

Social

Unlike early childhood where children have many superficial friendships, as a child develops through middle childhood they begin to understand the complexity of social relationships. Therefore they begin to concentrate of fewer friendships that are deeper and based on trust and intimacy. The expansion of social knowledge that happens during middle childhood leads them towards an increased comprehension of morals, and what it means to be a moral person (Bosacki, 2008).

Moral Development

Killen and Smetana, 2006, studied the development of morals through middle childhood. They found that children begin to develop an understanding of how to tell the difference between right and wrong. Children understand that they must use this knowledge to “do the right thing” when faced with complicated decisions or choices. Like other factors of development, morality is shaped by multiple components. As a child’s physical, emotional, cognitive, and social skills mature through middle childhood so do their experiences with family and peers, which combine to influence moral development (Killen & Smetana, 2006).

Moral Development and Piaget

According to Piaget's, rules handed down by authority figures (such as parents, teachers and government leaders) are seen as absolute and unbreakable. Children reason that the rules are absolute based on the appreciation of consequences associated with breaking the rules. Breaking the rules tends to lead to negative personal consequences therefore most children go through middle childhood accepting the rules as a way to avoid being punished (Gibbs, 2003; Mooney, 2005).

Moral Development and Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg (1984), suggests that moral development is learnt in three cumulative stages; each built off understanding and abilities gained in prior stages. moral development is a lifelong task that many people fail to develop more advanced stages of moral understanding. Kohlberg expanded and refined Piaget's earlier work which resulted in his stage theory of Children’s Moral Development (Mooney, 2005). According to Kohlberg (1984), children in middle childhood display pre-conventional moral reasoning. Supporting Piaget’s theory on moral development, Kohlberg finds that children will tend to live in accordance to rules governed by teachers and adults but primarily for selfish reasons, as a way of avoiding punishment and obtaining praise for (Mooney, 2005).

Moral Development and Bronfenbrenner

Piaget and Kohlberg's theories on moral development centre mainly on internal factors such as an individual’s understanding and cognitive abilities to regulate their moral decision-making. In contrast, Bronfenbrenner's (1979), work explores the influence of environmental forces on children's moral development. In this regard, Bronfenbrenner suggests that not only does a child cognitive development influence moral development but also factors such as family traditions, parental understanding, discipline, and socialisation. These forces deeply influence children’s sense of appreciation of right and wrong. Research supporting Bronfenbrenner suggests children might contemplate engaging in activities according to the appreciation of outcomes associated with particular behaviours. (Bukatko & Daehler, 2004; Killen & Smetana, 2006).

GENDER IDENTITY

Children's gender identity develops in complexity during the middle childhood years (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). Children start to identify particular activities and abilities as being thought of as "masculine" or "feminine". This new awareness can begin to affect their inclination to involve themselves in behaviours not characteristic of their own gender, even if they previously used to enjoy those behaviours (Kroger, 2007; Shaffer & Kipp, 2010).

Concluding Comments

Many scholars, including Piaget, saw middle childhood as a plateau in development which led to middle childhood being relatively unrepresented in developmental theory. It was seen as a time that children merely regarded the improvements they had made during early years, and a time for them to prepare for the changes that lay ahead in adolescence (Eccles, 1999).

Subsequently, as theorists such as Vygotsky, improved upon previous ideas and theories, more understanding of the developmental stages that occur through middle childhood were built upon. As the importance of middle childhood became evident governments expanded curriculums to help children through this period. Research by Lonsbury (2009), showed that the curriculum should be designed specifically for children who are experiencing middle childhood, unlike previous years when the curriculum for middle childhood was mainly comprised of a rehash of what was learned already in the early years or a preview of what was to come in secondary education. Manning & Bucher (2010) suggest the developmental needs of children in middle school should be considered and therefore creating a strong theme of guidance.

With this in mind, Manning & Bucher (2010) stress the need for a collaborative effort between teaching staff, learning support staff, mentors, parents, departments of education, and communities to ensure that children are developing to their abilities through ensuring that the process of development from early years, through middle childhood, and adolescence, provides a stable and continuous supporting platform to enable children to reach their full potential as adults. Through middle childhood research has shown that a teacher will be the key to lasting reform and improvements (Daniels, 2005). However, an individual teacher will not be as influential in reinforcing successful development through middle childhood if they are alone; therefore collaborative support from others is crucial (Manning & Bucher, 2010).

Parker (2009) states that a common assumption about children entering middle childhood is that as they are already moving towards adolescence they are ready to be treated as such. Looking at developmental theories can show that although children are progressing cognitively through middle childhood they are still developing an understanding of social situations and acceptability, and also that their understanding of vulnerability is still not matured. Research supporting the ideas that middle childhood is important and should be treated as such states that focus should be placed on the distinctive developmental features that children acquire and these must be adopted across middle childhood in order to support children’s academic, social, and emotional development (Jackson & Davies, 2000).

Eccles (1999) agrees that middle childhood is important in guaranteeing a positive outcome of a child’s future. Some children can decline in development rather than broaden their knowledge and skills. Issues such as mental health and declining motivation can affect a child’s behaviour through middle childhood. A school needs to have a variety of opportunities for children to partake in to help strengthen the development of social relationships (Bosacki, 2008). If a school does not acknowledge or promote the importance of the development of social characteristics in middle childhood then relationships between the children and adults can be stressful and superficial. Children will learn not regard the adults as a source of emotional support and guidance.