During a child's middle and late childhood, they grow taller, heavier, and stronger. They have continuous physical changes with their bodies, fine tune their motor skills, and learn to gain greater control

over their bodies.

This period involves slow and consistent growth Children grow an average of 2-3 inches a year during elementary

school years

Children gain an average of 5-7 pounds a year (mainly because of their skeletal and muscular systems growing)

Head and waist circumference decrease as height increases

Bones continue to ossify (yielding to pressure & pull more than mature bones)

Muscle mass/strength increase gradually as "baby fat" decrease, usually doubling their strength capabilities

Brain volume stabilizes by the end of this period, but significant changes in various structures and regions of the brain continue to occur.

Pathways and circuitry in the prefrontal cortex continue to increase and as a result, a child has increased attention, reasoning, and cognitive control.

Thickness of the cerebral cortex (cortical thickness) changes.

Cortical thickness was observed in the temporal and frontal lobe areas which caused children show improvements in language abilities ,such as reading.

Running, climbing, skipping rope, swimming, bicycle riding, skating etc. are just some that can be mastered

Improvements occur because of the myelination of the central nervous system

Children can use their hands as tools more easily Playing musical instruments and writing in cursive are a reflection

in the improvement of motor skills In gross motor skills (involving muscle activity) boys usually

outperform girls In fine motor skills (involving complex, intricate, and rapid

movements) girls usually outperform boys

Children's’ motor skills become much more coordinated and smoother than they

were in early childhood

Children at this age are far from physical maturity, so they need to be active

Increased fatigue more in long periods of sitting than running or jumping

Exercise plays an important role in children's development because it helps refine their developing skills

•offer more physical fitness programs run by volunteers at school facilities •Improve physical fitness activities in school 

•Have children plan community and school activities that really interest them

•Encourage families to focus more on physical activity, and encourage parents to exercise more

Middle to late childhood for the most part is a time of excellent health. Disease and death are less prevalent than in other periods of

childhood and adolescence. However, there are some health problems that children have during this time that harm their development.

Leading cause of death and the most common cause of severe injury are:

• Car accidents either as passenger or pedestrian

other injuries include bicycles, skateboards, roller skates and

other sports equipment

This is an increasing child health problem. Overweight children have an increased risk for developing:

•Pulmonary problems, such as sleep apnea and hip problems

•Diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels are very common

•Some children also develop low self esteem issues

Uncommon in children, but things that children do now can lead to this later in adulthood!!!!!

•Second leading cause of death in U.S.

•Child cancers (ages 5 to 14) mainly attack the white blood cells (leukemia), brain, bone, lymph system, muscles, kidneys, and nervous system.

•Most common is leukemia, a cancer where bone marrow manufactures an abundance of abnormal white blood cells that "crowd out" normal cells, making the child susceptible to bruising and infection.

•Advancements in cancer treatment has increased the survival rate in child cancer patients.

Based on research from the National Center for Education Statistics , the four largest groups of students with a disability being served by federal programs and receiving special education services in the U.S. public

school systems are those with:

Learning disabilities - 5.6 % of all children in public schools

Speech and language impairments - 3.0 % of all children in public schools

Mental retardation - 1.1 % of all children in public schools

Emotional disturbance - 0.9 % of all children in public schools

According to the definition created by the U.S. Government, a child with a learning disability suffers from difficulty in learning that

involves understanding or using spoken or written language.

This difficulty will appear in :

•Listening

•Thinking

•Reading

•Writing

•Spelling

•Mathematics

•visual

•hearing

•motor disabilities

•mental retardation

•emotional disorders

•environmental disadvantages

•cultural disadvantages

•economic disadvantages

 Three times as many boys than girls are classified as

having a learning disability. This is due to:

a greater biological vulnerability

Precise cause of learning disabilities have not yet been determined by scientists and researchers.scientists do know based on evidence from Brain Imagery Techniques (such as Magnetic Resonance Imagery - M.R.I.) that it is unlikely that learning disabilities reside in one specific brain location.

Evidence Suggest that learning disabilities are due to:

Problems in integrating information from multiple brain regions and/or difficulties

in brain structures & functions

• Dyslexia

• Dysgraphia

• Dyscalculia

•Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

a category of learning disabilities involving a severe impairment in the ability to read and spell

a learning disability that involves difficulty in handwriting

(also known as developmental arithmetic disorder) a disability that involves math computation

a disability that consistently showcases one ore more of the following characteristics over time : inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity

1. inattention - difficulty focusing on any one thing , and/or becoming bored with a task after a few seconds or minutes

2. hyperactivity - being in constant motion, showing high levels of consistent physical activity

3. impulsivity - not thinking before acting, and being impulsive while having difficulty curbing their reactions

1. ADHD with predominately inattention

2. ADHD with predominantly hyperactivity/impulsivity

3. ADHD with both inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity

There is some controversy surrounding ADHD due in part to the fact that no definitive causes of ADHD have yet been found. The number of children diagnosed and treated for ADHD has increased substantially in recent decades, and this disorder is 4 - 9 times more prevalent in boys than girls. Some experts are concerned that due to the heightened awareness of this disorder, many children are being incorrectly diagnosed.

While there are no known definitive causes of ADHD, some theories of what causes this disorder are :

inheritance from parents

low birth weight

damage to the brain during prenatal or postnatal development

cigarette and alcohol exposure during prenatal development

While most children have minor emotional difficulties, a small percentage of 0.9 of all children in the public school system have emotional problems serious and persistent enough to be classified as emotional and/or behavioral disorders.

It consist of serious, persistent problems involving relationships, aggression, depression, fears associated with personal and school matters, and inappropriate socio-emotional characteristics. 

Autism Spectrum Disorders are pervasive developmental disorders that are characterized by :

•problems in social interaction

•problems in verbal and nonverbal communication

•repetitive behaviors

•atypical responses to sensory experiences

•mental retardation in some ( others show average or above average intelligence)

The Autistic disorder is a severedevelopmental disorder with an

onset in the first three years of life that includes :

deficiencies in social relationships

abnormalities in communication

restricted, repetitive , and stereotyped patterns of behavior.

Aspergers syndrome is a mild disorder on the Autism spectrum in which the individual :

displays obsessive, repetitive routines preoccupations with a

particular subject

restricted range of interests and relationships

relatively good verbal language

displays milder nonverbal language problems

Up until the 1970's children with disabilities were often refused enrollment to public schools. In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped Children Act ( Public Law 94- 142) was passed. This public law required that all students with disabilities be given free, appropriate public education.In 2004 this law was reauthorized and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA)

IDEA has given a legal basis to the efforts in educating children with disabilities in the regular classroom.The law mandates services to children with all kinds of disabilities. Services include:

1. evaluation

2. eligibility determination

3. appropriate education

4. individualized education plan (IEP)

5. education in the least restrictive environment (LRE)

With emphasis on the IEP (individualized education plan) and the LRE (education in the least restrictive environment) , the individual with special needs is educated full time in the regular classroom.

For many children inclusion in the regular classroom with modifications or supplemental services is appropriate.

Some leading experts argue that the effort to educate children with disabilities in the regular classroom has become too extreme. Many believe that children with disabilities may benefit more from an individualized approach that does not involve inclusion , but instead allows special education outside of the regulate classroom.

James Kauffman, a leading expert on special education argues that children need the services of specially trained professionals , altered curricula , and adaptations to make learning possible. He states, " We sell students with disabilities short when we pretend that they are not different from typical students. We make the same err when we pretend that they must not be expected to put forth extra effort if they are to learn to do some things in a different way… Like general education, special education should challenge students with disabilities to become all they can be."

The famous Swiss developmental psychologist, changed the way we think about the development of children's mind.

A schema is a concept or framework that already exists at given moment in a person's mind and the organizes information and provides a structure for interpreting it. For example, sucking is an early, simple schema. Later on, more complex schemas include licking, blowing, crawling, hiding, and so forth. 

Piaget's interest in schemas had to do with how they help in organizing and making senses out of current experience.

Assimilation: occurs when

individuals incorporate new information into existing

knowledge

For example - the first time a child realizes that she might pick up a set of keys, she is assimilating the category "keys" into the schema of "picking up".

Accommodation: occurs when

individuals adjust their schemas to new information

For example- the schema "picking up" becomes modified into different schemas the accommodate the realities of different types of objects.

Stage 3 & 4 are a part of middle and late childhood.

Stage 3- Concrete Operational Stage

The child can now reason logically about

concrete events and classify objects into

different sets.

Stage 4- Formal Operational Stage

The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways.

•Piaget opened a new way of looking at how children's minds develop.

•We owe him for a long list of masterful concepts that have enduring power and fascination.

•We also owe Piaget for the currently accepted vision of children as active, constructive thinkers who manufacture their own development.

Intelligence: refers to individual differences in problem solving-skills and in important abilities. Intelligence is understood as something that is relatively stable and on which people can be compared. 

Intelligence is mainly measured through tests. Certainly, a person's intelligence quotient (IQ) can be a powerful measure.

The criteria for a good intelligence test: validity, reliability, and standardization.

•Validity, refers to the sourness of conclusions to be drawn from an experiment. 

•Reliability is the extent to which a test yields a consistent, reproducible measure of performance. Reliability and validity are related.

•Standardization involves developing uniform procedures for administering and scoring a test, as well as creating norms.