PSYC 289 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: How 2, Behavior Management, Decision-Making
Health issues middle childhood
❖Overweight-bmi bt 85th and 95th percentile for kids of same age and sex
❖Obesity-bmi at or above 95th percentile
❖Caution about bmi-can be used as a screener, but is not diagnostic of health of an
individual
Most obesity is prevalent in the south vs north
Health risks for obese kids
❏More likely to be overweight adults
❏Lifelong health risks
❏High bp, cholesterol
❏Respiratory problems
❏Diabetes
❏Liver, gallbladder disease
❏Sleep, digestive disorders
❏Cancer
❏Early death
Psychological and social consequences of obesity
●Feeling ugly
●Stereotyping
●Teasing, social isolation
●Depression, emo. Problems
●School problems/academic
●Problem behaviors
●Reduced life chances
causes/correlates of obesity in middle childhood
★Overweight parents
★Low ses
★Genetics
★Parental eating habits
○Parents feeding practices
■Bad eating habits
★Low physical activity
○Screen time, less time outside
Interventions
--family based
--school based with family involvement
--if successful, children keep weight off better than adults, often continue to have healthy weight
Major cognitive developments
➢Thinking and reasoning
Piaget’s model
❖Shift from preop to concrete op thought
❖Kid becomes capable of logical systematic reasoning about complex cases
Characteristics of concrete thought
--Decentration----taking multiple things in account
During a conservation-of-water experiment, Emme can focus on several aspects of the
problem and relate them, rather than center on just one aspect. Therefore, Emme is
capable of decentration
--No longer make centration errors in concrete op
-become capable of reversibility
3+5=8
8-5=?
Hierarchical classification
Member of generation three and a son of family d
More yellow flowers or more flowers, now understand flowers include both, understand it is a
hierarchy,
According to Piaget, children who pass class inclusion tasks
Can focus on relations bt a general higher order category and two specific categories at the
same time
Seriation-lining things up in order or in a sequence
Seriation-can put things from shortest to tallest preoperational cannot
Although 8-year-old Claire can easily arrange sticks of differing lengths from shortest to
tallest, she cannot solve the following problem: “Jack is taller than Sam, and Sam is taller
than Max. Who is the tallest?” (Claire does not know Jack, Sam, or Max.) This is because
Claire’s concrete mental operations work poorly with
Abstract ideas.
Jill sees that Sally is taller than Bill and then sees that Bill is taller than Jane. Jill's mother
asks who is taller, Sally or Jane? If Jill is in the concrete operational stage, she will MOST
likely say,
Sally is taller if they were hypothetical, she wouldnt know
Limitations of concrete op thought
➢Operations work best with concrete info
○Problems with abstract ideas
○Continuum of acquisition
■Master concrete operational tasks gradually, step by step
Comments on piaget's view
❏Estimates of kids competence
❏Training
❏Culture and education--kids experiences that are gained when passing these tests, some
people do not use type of thought piaget tests
❏Continuous or discontinuous? More gradual then he allows for
Key info processing improvements
❖Increase in info processing speed and capacity
❖Gains in inhibition(stopping themself from unwanted behavior?)
Memory
Strategies
Kids memory is influenced by
Attitude(do you think you are good at memory), motivation, health(healthier=better
cognitive processes), knowledge(ex: children were better at chess bc they were novice, vs
beginner adult making memory easier)
Develop of memory strategies
●rehearsal(early grade school)---repeating something over and over) often does not
improve memory at 4 or younger ages--kids usually don’t rehearse in order, skip things
●organization(early grade school)
●elaboration(end of middle childhood)
Development of memory strategies
Organization---kids go with most salient/obvious not the thing that will best help you
remember/most relevant dimension
Culture, schooling, and memory strategies
➔Memory strategies useful for remembering isolated bits of info
➔Western schooling--little practice in using everyday cues
◆Spatial location
◆Arrangement of objects
Learning disabilities
Definition
Difficulty in one or more academic subjects (vision may be cause for reading disability
vs actual trouble with reading)
Normal intelligence
Not caused by some other condition
5-10% of school aged children
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
ADHD: disability, consistently show one or more of the following characteristics over a period
of time
-inattention
-hyperactivity
-impulsivity
Document Summary
Overweight-bmi bt 85th and 95th percentile for kids of same age and sex. Caution about bmi-can be used as a screener, but is not diagnostic of health of an individual. Most obesity is prevalent in the south vs north. Reduced life chances causes/correlates of obesity in middle childhood. -if successful, children keep weight off better than adults, often continue to have healthy weight. Shift from preop to concrete op thought. Kid becomes capable of logical systematic reasoning about complex cases. During a conservation-of-water experiment, emme can focus on several aspects of the problem and relate them, rather than center on just one aspect. -no longer make centration errors in concrete op. Member of generation three and a son of family d. More yellow flowers or more flowers, now understand flowers include both, understand it is a hierarchy, According to piaget, children who pass class inclusion tasks.
