Lecture 10 Chapter 6 Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood General Body Development o average infant about 7 5 pounds at birth o double birth weight by 3 months triple birth weight by 1 year o o by age 2 about 30 pounds o by 3 about 33 pounds o o rapid initial growth decelerating curve from birth on slow weight gain of about 10 per year in early elementary school years o prepubescent growth spurt right before puberty increase to about 20 weight gain per year corresponds to height spurt increase in skeletal size weight hormonal shifts influence physical appearance increase in musculature increase in internal organs increase in fat growth o boys and girls are about same size during elementary years o girls more likely to enter puberty earlier o at ages 11 12 average girl is about 0 5 inch taller than average boy o average 7 to 10 year old needs a well balanced diet of 2 400 calories a day o sex and gender breakfast should comprise 1 4 of this there are social consequences or correlates of physical changes that are socially prescribed by different cultures gender differences in motor skills o girls better than boys in fine motor skills i e handwriting and certain gross motor skills flexibility balance o boys do better in other gross motor skills strength throwing catching running jumping boys better strength is due to their bodies having relatively less fat but more muscle o on average girls may spend less time on sports and fitness related activities participating in sports o o o sports involvement can promote social skills and self esteem helps children learn initiative children playing sports use cognitive skills to devise new game strategies children lose interest in sports if these are too stressful and when adults overemphasize competition instead of skill development more sophisticated thinking Piaget s version concrete operational period 7 11 years o can perform REVERSIBLE mental operations actions that can be performed on objects or ideas that yield a consistent result mental operations are limited to concrete problems in the here and now cannot deal effectively with abstract or hypothetical problems o formal operational period 11 years to adult can reason abstractly and hypothetically understand that a hypothetical problem need not correspond to the real world use deductive reasoning to draw logical conclusions from the facts from premises to conclusion engage in combinatorial reasoning generating all the different ways a given number of items can be arranged more sophisticated thinking the information processing view strategies for learning and remembering o working memory WM the temporary storage and use of information that one needs to perform a task limited in capacity and how long it lasts most thought takes place in WM o long term memory LTM the storehouse for memory that is permanent and of unlimited capacity information must be transferred into LTM stored in it and retrieved from it forgetting could reflect malfunctions in any step o memory strategies 7 8 year olds use less effective learning and memory strategies such as rehearsal simply repeating new information over and over in a rote fashion older children use more effective learning and memory strategies taking notes keeping a calendar organization matters structuring new information into elaboration making new information memorable by related categories embellishing it o metacognition being aware of how perception cognition intentions and knowledge work and adjusting strategies related to each metacognitive knowledge understanding connections among goals strategies monitoring and outcomes cognitive self regulation identifying goals selecting effective strategies and monitoring accurately successful learners better cognitively self regulated metamemory our intuitive understanding of memory diagnosing memory problems accurately and monitoring their effectiveness children gradually understand memory through their theory of mind including that memory is fallible some memory tasks are easier than others Lecture 11 Family Systems Theory Coparenting and Intergenerational Relationships and Development family systems theory a body of knowledge that has arisen out of the observations of clinical and counseling psychologists as they work with individuals and their families o o families are systems of interconnected and interdependent individuals to understand the individual we must understand the family system of that individual people cannot be understood in isolation from one another o Beginnings in the 1950s Dr Murry Bowen introduced a transformational theory family systems theory o what does it mean to say a family is a system consider example of a mobile when you move one piece all other pieces move too they do not exist in isolation from one another and movement in any one part of the system will affect all other parts o basic elements family is a structure of related parts or subsystems each action or change affects every other person in the family has elements that can only be seen in its interactions individual people are part of a family system but such system is a complex whole cannot be understood by examining members separately family systems have subsystems as well mother father marital dyad sibling alliances parent child dyads each subsystem affects the overall family i e quality of parents relationship affects co parenting issues and thus parent child relationships family systems are self reflective as humans we are capable of examining our own behavior and quality of our relationships allows us to focus on our systems and set goals no longer need to accept that what we experience is just the way things are changing the way I am changes my family o terms you want to understand main ideas of family systems family roles family rules what s expected of each family member family rules are norms about how the family operates these rules are often unspoken how affectionate are family members allowed to be with each other how do decisions get made how much are members allowed to talk to people outside family about problems families develop patterns about these sorts of things And similar types of things may see these things as just the way it is but different families do things differently homeostasis equilibrium systems develop typical ways of being which are reliable and predictable family roles rules establish typical ways of being whether these roles and rules are adaptive or not there is