Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle

Childhood

COGNITIVE CHANGES

LANGUAGE

By ages 5 or 6: All
children have
mastered the basic
grammar and
pronounciation of
their first language

Most children
understand various
ways of saying
something about the
past, such as I
went, I was going,
I have gone, I had
been going, and so
on

LANGUAGE

6-12 years : children continue to add

new vocabulary from 5,000 to 10,000
words per year.

LANGUAGE
8 9 years: figure out
relationships between
whole categories of words
happy and happily
happy &
happiness
sad and sadly
sad &
sadness
9 years: most children are fully
ADJECTIVES & ADVERBS
ADJECTIVE &
capable
NOUN of engaging in fluent
conversation with speaker of any
age, and their speech rates approach
those of adults

PIAGETS CONCRETE OPERATIONAL

STAGE

Concrete Operational Stage this

stage is devoted to the constructionof
schemes that enable children to think
logically about objects and events in
the real world. This is Piagets third
cognitive development.

Ages 6 12

PIAGETS CONCRETE OPERATIONAL

STAGE

Decentration: the child now takes into

account multiple aspects of a problem to
solve it.

They are
equal

For example, the child will no longer perceive

an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain
less than a normally wide, taller cup.

PIAGETS CONCRETE OPERATIONAL

STAGE

Another example of
decentering: In
diagram A, both lines
of candy have the same
number and length.
In diagram B, the first
line is spread out,
making it look longer
than the 2nd line of
candies, but still have
the same amount.

Q: In line B, which had

more candy?
A: Both have the same
amount of candy.

PIAGETS CONCRETE OPERATIONAL

STAGE

Reversibility: the child now understands

that numbers or objects can be changed
and then returned to their original state.

For example, child realizes that a ball of

clay, once flattened, can be made into a
ball of clay again.

PIAGETS CONCRETE OPERATIONAL

STAGE

Inductive Logic
-she can go from her own experience to
a general principle
For example, when one toy is added to
a set of toys, it has one more than it
did before
Adding always makes more

PIAGETS CONCRETE OPERATIONAL

STAGE

Not yet good at Deductive Logic

Deductive Logic based on
hypothetical premises, which requires
starting with a general principle and
then predicting some outcome or
observation like going from a theory
to a hypothesis
Must imagine things they have not
experience

PIAGETS CONCRETE OPERATIONAL

STAGE
Example of Deductive Logic:
When asked why are the leaves
green?
Children from middlechildhood are
unable to use theories to formulate
their own hypothesis.
Instead of answering that leaves are
green because of the chlorophyll that
produces pigments, they respond
based on what she can only see in the

DIRECT TESTS OF PIAGETS VIEW

Horizontal Decalage
refers to fact that once a child learns
a certain function, he or she does not
have the capability to immediately
apply the learned function to all
problems.

DIRECT TESTS OF PIAGETS VIEW

Concrete operational thinking

Are rules for problem solving according to

Robert Siegler
Problem solving rules emerge from
experience from repeated trial and error
and experimentation.
Siegler used a balance scale to test his
theory.

DIRECT TESTS OF PIAGETS VIEW

The child is asked to predict which way

the balance will fall.

A complete solution requires the child to

take into account both the number of
disks on each sideand the specific
location of the disks.

DIRECT TESTS OF PIAGETS VIEW

Rule 1: number of weights. The side

with more disks will go down.
Rule 2: distance. The child takes
distance from the fulcrum into account
Rule 3:Takes both weight and distance
into account simultaneously.
Rule 4: Understanding the actual
formula for calculating the combined
effect of weight and distance for each
side of the balance.