9.1 Physical & Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

middle childhood is also known as the school years and as you will see in a bit it basically takes time during the ages of six and up and this is where we are presented with different tasks different responsibilities so our cognition as we're as a physical development and social skills should be adequate to be able to perform well as you've seen there's been a pattern of growth decrease from the time we were infants and including the time we were prenatally in our mother's womb and from six to eleven years of age our growth decreases significantly we find that the average North American child at the age of six is forty five pounds since three and a half feet tall and we also find that there's a gender difference as girls tend to have slightly more fat than boys do and this is something that is brought about by the already development of muscle at this age this is due to hormonal differences and you will see throughout the future slides that this does not change for the most part on average now there are exceptions not all girls have more fat than boys but on average we do see that distribution it is also important to note that at the age of eight girls seem to accumulate fat faster than boys do and this is because this age girls are beginning on average to prepare for their menstrual cycles it takes about three years before the girls get their first period that the process and the body begins to adjust and accommodate for that so you will see that the precedence of estrogen and progesterone contribute to this increase of fat during this age boys and girls are very very flexible when they are at this age and the reason why they're able to maybe do the splits and bring their legs over their head and do a lot of different things this because their ligaments have not firmly attached to their bones yet this is something that in addition to their likelihood and energy they're likely to jump and do other activities that we as adults don't do or we may look silly doing in the street it's not unusual to see a child at target may be doing cartwheels whereas an adult it doesn't do that it is important to note that we may retain some of that flexibility or all of that into adulthood if we engage in regular exercise and specifically stretching another thing that children go through at this age is a something that is known as the growing pains and this is typically experienced in the legs and this is due to the muscles adapting to the enlarging skeleton and the structure of the bones it is not unusual I personally remember suffering from pain in my legs when I was younger and again it's not an unusual component in fact it's been argued that those growth spurts that you may remember seeing in earlier stages of our development we're also possibly in due in part from post of pain and that's why 24 hours before their growth spurt parents often reported that the child was very uncomfortable and fussy and crying a lot more than usual the primary teeth are typically lost by between the ages of 6 and 12 and we see also that for some reason girls seem to lose them slightly earlier than boys this is not unusual as girls tend to mature faster than boys do so we think that it has something to do with that patter and we also have noted that the lower teeth seem to be lost first and then followed by the upper front please note that there are also genetic reasons that may contribute to this if there are people who smoke in the house this weakens the immune system and also this may bring about difficulties and dental health so that also includes the loss of teeth and tooth decay and gum disease brain continues its journey and by six years old we find that the brain is about 90% of what the adult weight is this is almost there but 10% is a significant amount and we cannot of course attribute the maturity cognitive and personal of a child to the size of the brain alone there are various other reasons that contribute to this just culture and experience but we do find that the brain itself and the weight has a lot to do with it and growth seems to occur in certain brain structures and it's important for us to know the white matter and the gray matter these two components of the brain are important for us to understand as they give us some insight as to how our behavior may be changing with white matter we know that it consists of myelination and myelination of you remember is the that fatty and protein coating that wraps around the axon in the neuron and this as you also remember is responsible for increasing the speed of an impulse well what we find at this age endures during this developmental period is that there is an increase that is seen in a white matter at the prefrontal cortex parietal lobes and corpus callosum you can see in here that the prefrontal cortex we make decisions we control our impulses we focus on our thinking the parietal lobes are responsible for spatial abilities which are seen and tested and and and challenged in school activities and school tasks and the corpus callosum basically is that tissue that unites the left hemisphere to the right hemisphere this and good functioning would allow us to communicate and perform our activities more smoothly so the presence of white matter during this age it seems to be consistent with the curriculum and whatever we are taught additionally a gray matter which consists mostly of neurons and supportive material we're talking about the dendrites we're talking about the soma of the cell so the the anywhere where there is no myelination we would see that there's a gray matter within the neuron and we see that there's also a peak in middle childhood there's a decline of that occurs with synaptic pruning and this which may seem detrimental in fact it's not because with the pruning of the synapses that are not being utilized it increases our ability to process the information so now we may be listening to a teacher and we're processing the information in a deeper fashion rather than in shallow our ability to pay attention for extended periods of time is also increasing thanks to the increase in and and pruning of these synaptic synaptic connections inhibition of thoughts and of things that we want to do when someone suffers from ADHD they get the thought of ice cream and they may act it out or say it out loud when we have a synaptic pruning component we may be able to inhibit those those thoughts and maybe put them off until later and as well as working memory capacity which contributes to consolidation of the information we're exposed to regularly as you may remember the chemicals that are in between the neurons which are known as synapses are called neurotransmitters and these allow us to experience emotions they allow us to engage in behaviors and we find that there's a unique balance that typically we are born with having too much or too little of one of these or multiple of these can be troublesome as there could be hallucinations and inadequate behavior the secretion of certain neurotransmitters is related to cognitive performance social and emotional adjustment and our ability to withstand stress for example dopamine we would find that is one that brings about pleasure in fact it's one that secreted at greater amounts whenever there is a consumption of certain chemicals certain drugs so but the reason why the drug becomes addictive is because the dopamine feels good now secretion of that at lower levels could bring about a stressful and uncomfortable state of mind and as a result of that our ability to develop cognitively to control our emotions and - what's a stress can be in part contributed to maybe a reduction of secretion of dopamine itself that's just an example we also have serotonin which as you may remember it's associated with mood and with pain and appetite and sleeping patterns so if there's a decrease or a significantly lower amount of serotonin it's possible that we would not be sleeping well it's possible that we would not be eating well and those two factors alone combined can bring about not so pleasant mood we find that again the lack or inappropriate balances can be due to can be related to developmental problems in attention and over activity emotional disturbance and even epilepsy nutrition continues to be of utmost importance at this age and we find that in order for children to perform well academically and physically they need to have a well-balanced diet having access to all the protein and nutrients and minerals that our body needs we find that the availability of food is what seems to give way to our preference of food if a child who does not know how to make an egg has access to cookies then if that's readily available they will easily and conveniently pick cookies over an egg or something that may require preparation so we find that the caregiving process is essential for children in fact when we look at overweight children it is for the most part the responsibility of parents and that there have been controversial cases in which parents have lost or have not lost custody but they have lost physical custody at least temporarily because of over because their child where their children were significantly overweight and while that is something that is a touchy subject and definitely debatable and we find that for the most part a child's weight and health is at the ends of their caregiver of the parent we also find that the familiarity with food has a lot to do with food preferences children for the most part will prefer the foods that they've been exposed to and they may be reluctant to try maybe something new and this is seen again throughout past this middle school age middle childhood age you may already be aware of this in here but we do have an epidemic of overweight and obesity and these two are different things obesity is with a BMI and body mass index of greater than 30 overweight is between 25 and 30 and sadly we find that 32% of children in the United States and adolescents are overweight whereas 17% are obese this is a byproduct of unhealthy eating as well as a lack of physical activities especially now with access to iPads and electronic devices children may be great at playing soccer and video games but may have no skill whatsoever to play in the sport itself so balancing those activities with an adequate nutrition is essential here we find that in addition to the lifelong health problems that children may have there are also serious emotional and social difficulties children as you may remember from childhood can be quite painfully honest and they may call us names if we are overweight and this can impact the self-esteem of the child significant where is it may not only last then but it may be a lifelong problem their social attitudes may be different towards certain groups of people and and their bitterness and hatred in some cases has resulted in sometimes than making not good decisions later in life so nutrition is not just about health problems and about aesthetics but it's also about having a balanced state of mind for the child there are a series of things that can lead to being overweight and that we've found that the most common causes of obesity are that parents may be overweight lack of knowledge about healthy diet and that it's not unusual here in fact there's been talks about simplifying the nutrition facts table in the back of every food or item we've also seen an increase of calories being posted on restaurants so now you know what you are consuming the low-cost foods that we have access to especially in lower socioeconomic status places if you drive up to different parts of the wealthier communities in our city and across the nation you would find it very difficult to find fast-food places whereas in the lower socio economics communities we do find the low cost of foods and and they tend to be not not the healthiest so there's a lot of controversy on that as well the argument is that there may be a targeting by some of these corporations of lower socioeconomic status and mixing that with lack of knowledge and even dependency on that is a problematic babies are born underweight and they're also at elevated risk for later overweight and obesity and that has a lot to do with lower metabolism rate and also if they don't eat regularly it contributes to that and also children who get less nightly sleep we're more likely to be overweight five years later for a study in 2007 so this is consistent with us even in adulthood as you find that if you were to for example go out or be up at night 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. well if you're not sleeping you may get hungry and that's where King Taco or whatever other late-night spot may come in handy and of course you don't find the healthy options available at 2 or 3 a.m. typically it's fast food and restaurants know this as there are a series of commercials out there targeting late-night cravings with munchies boxes and and various things treating obesity is very difficult because it's often perceived to be a personal issue an individual issue but it's not it's now been recognized that obesity is a family disorder once again even if the child is the only one that's overweight or obese it's still a family disorder because he is having access to the food that is brought at home we find that fewer than 20% of children get treatment for obesity and oftentimes parents may not be concerned about that as they find it cute however when children reach adolescence and they begin to maybe have interest in dating they often take matters into their own hands and their results and their attempts and I'm trying to combat this overweight can result in dangerous disorders such as anorexia and bulimia and this is because there is a sense of despair to fix something in one year or in two months something that has been ongoing for for 1213 years so we find that taking a family approach to obesity and being overweight is the best approach and that's what seems to have the highest success rate the suggestion is that also parents not focus much on the body shape but that they focus on health components telling a young girl or a young men that they need to exercise so they could lose their stomach where the belly or the fat is offensive and it could be hurtful instead they what experts recommend is that we should encourage them to exercise for health reasons and for the most part if we pick up good habits and balance our nutrition the aesthetic reasons the aesthetic factors made may fall into place some things that are recommended for families are exercise together that they maybe pick different eater eating patterns praise each other as reinforcement and hold each other accountable if the child is now an adolescent or maybe even a young adult what I typically recommend it to my clients who want to lose weight and wanted some tips was that they communicate with the close friend that they are trying to lose weight and before they have a meal they should take a picture of the meal and send it over to their friend and expect feedback from them such as all right go ahead and eat that cake or maybe you should think about it you already had one so just putting something visual and putting it out there may make you think twice about eating that cheesecake or that double fried Oreo at this age we continue seeing children's cognition develop and some of the ways we explore this is through their interaction with peers they often engage in playing games with peers but it's not always with kids they may engage in games by themselves using boxes using brooms and and person to find different items around the house these games with rules become a lot more common during middle childhood and as there seems to be a sense of morale and sharing and responsibilities and consequences in them these typically contribute to an emotional and social development with kids as they learn that they need to adhere to the rules and play by the rules it's not unusual to see that a kid would maybe play tag with others and then state where base is but when they're caught they may say well this is base as well so I'm safe making it seem as though because they invented the game they could to change the rules as they please and it is important for parents to guide them so that they could learn about responsibility and respect toward others games that are invented by children typically enhance the imagination as they can get really creative with that and they also sharpen their physical skills as they may have to engage in twisting and hopping and jumping and turning and sprinting so this is always a good time to maybe also exercise their bodies a little bit then we also find that these games allow a child to try different roles different styles of cooperating and learning to also accept losing losing is an important component of living we all want to win the entire time but we know that life is a mix of both and teaching children that it's not the end of the world if we were to lose a game goes a long way later in life we also see that children are often placed either because they ask where parents wanted them to be part of organized youth sports so you have the peewee and you have the peewee leagues and various other little leagues where children can learn about teams they can learn about unity they could also learn about roles and we find that these are often associated with increased self-esteem and social skills because they are now a part of a team they have they they contribute to a victory in a game they may be praised for their performance one day or they may also learn that maybe they shouldn't be putting people down because they also could lose and there's injuries and different aspects that could be learned from from being part of organized youth sports now this for the most part is a healthy activity but when coaches and parents get too emotional and they criticize rather than incur this can turn into something that this can make a child feel anxious and we find the typically high parental pressure can result in emotional difficulties by the child often times the child who is criticized harshly can start feeling incompetent and the often develop a sense of bitterness and resentment toward to their parents for high pressure of that parents sometimes want their children to succeed because they view their child as the last opportunity maybe for their dreams so if I have kids and I wanted to be a professional basketball player then I may put all the pressure on my child hoping that he would make it and this is an unnecessary pressure as youth sports are supposed to be for self esteem and social skills not to necessarily get to the NBA or NFL if it happens then it does but it shouldn't be that way as it does affect us emotionally