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Cognitive Development in
Middle Childhood
Chapter 12
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Dr. Karen Hoblit – Associate Professor of Psychology, Victoria College
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
I.
PIAGET’S THEORY: THE
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
The concrete operational stage spans the
years from 7 to 11; during this period thought is
more logical, flexible, and organized than it was
during early childhood.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Conservation
 The ability to pass conservation tasks provides clear evidence of
operations—mental actions that obey logical rules.
 Decentration is the ability to focus on several aspects of a problem
at once and relate to them.
 Reversibility is the ability to mentally go through a series of steps in
a problem and then reverse the direction, returning to the starting
point.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Classification
 By the end of middle childhood, children pass Piaget’s class inclusion
problem.
 They can now group objects into hierarchies of classes and
subclasses.
 Collections become common in middle childhood.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Seriation
 Seriation is the ability to order items along a quantitative dimension,
such as length or weight.
 Transitive inference is the ability to perform seriation mentally.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Spatial Reasoning
 Piaget found that school-age children have a more accurate
understanding of space than they did earlier.
 Distance
 Middle childhood brings improved understanding of distance.
 By the early school years, children understand that a filled-up space has the
same value as an empty space.
 Directions
 Between 7 and 8 years, children start to perform mental rotations, in which
they align the self’s frame to match that of a person in a different
orientation. As a result, they can identify left and right for positions they do
not occupy.
 Around 8 to 10 years, children can give clear, well-organized directions for
how to get from one place to another by using a “mental walk” strategy in
which they imagine another person’s movement along a route.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought
 Children think in an organized, logical fashion only when dealing
with concrete information that they can perceive directly.
 Their mental operations work poorly when applied to abstract ideas.
 Horizontal décalage is gradual development that occurs within a
Piagetian stage. For example, children usually grasp conservation
problems in a certain order: first number; then length, liquid, mass;
and finally weight.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Recent Research on Concrete Operational Thought
 The Impact of Culture and
Schooling
 According to Piaget, brain
development combined with
exposure to a rich and varied
world should lead children in
every culture to reach the
concrete operational stage.
 For children to master
conservation and other
Piagetian concepts, they must
take part in everyday activities
that promote this way of
thinking.
 Research indicates that
conservation is often delayed
in non-Western societies.
 Some researchers believe that
the forms of logic required by
Piagetian tasks are socially
generated by practical
activities in particular cultures.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Recent Research on Concrete Operational Thought
cont.
 An Information-Processing View
of the Horizontal Décalage
 Some neo-Piagetian theorists argue
that the development of operational
thinking can best be understood in
terms of gains in informationprocessing capacity rather than a
sudden shift to a new stage.
 When cognitive schemes are
repeatedly used, they demand less
attention and become more automatic.
This results in more working memory
space, and children can then focus on
combining old schemes and generating
new ones.
 Once enough working memory is
available to integrate schemes,
children acquire central conceptual
structures—networks of concepts and
relations that permit them to think
about a wide range of situations in
more advanced ways.
 Children show horizontal décalage
because first, different forms of the
same logical insight vary in the
processing demands they make on a
child. Second, children’s task-specific
experiences vary widely.
 Research has shown that children not
at the expected level of scheme
integration for their age can usually be
trained to reach it.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Evaluation of the Concrete Operational Stage
 Debate about this stage centers on whether development is a
continuous improvement in logical skills or a discontinuous
restructuring of children’s thinking.
 From early to middle childhood, children apply logical schemes to a
much wider range of tasks. In the process, their thought seems to
undergo qualitative change toward a more comprehensive grasp of
the underlying principles of logical thought.
 Some blend of Piagetian and information processing ideas holds
greatest promise for understanding cognitive development in middle
childhood.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Evaluation of the Concrete Operational Stage
Play grocery store used to investigate children’s planning
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
II.
INFORMATION PROCESSING
Brain development contributes to two basic
changes in information processing.
 Increase in information-processing capacity. A fairly rapid decline
in time needed to process information occurs during middle childhood,
with this decline trailing off around age 12.
 Gains in cognitive inhibition. Cognitive inhibition—the ability to
resist interference from irrelevant information makes great strides
during middle childhood.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Attention
 During middle childhood, attention becomes more
controlled, adaptable, and planful.
 Selectivity and Adaptability
 Through the elementary years, children become better at deliberately
attending to just those aspects of a situation that are relevant to task goals.
 Older children can flexibly adjust their attention to the momentary
requirements of situations.
 Attention strategy development follows a predictable, four-step sequence:
 Production deficiency—preschoolers fail to produce strategies when they
could be helpful.
 Control deficiency—young elementary school children fail to control, or
execute, strategies effectively.
 Utilization deficiency—slightly older children apply strategies consistently,
but their performance does not improve.
 Effective strategy use—by mid-elementary school years, children use
strategies consistently, and performance improves.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Attention cont.
 Planning
 School-age children scan
detailed pictures and written
materials for similarities and
differences more thoroughly
than do preschoolers.
 On complex tasks, school-age
children make decisions about
what to do first and next in an
orderly fashion.
 The development of planning
illustrates how attention
becomes coordinated with
other cognitive processes.
 Children learn much about
how to plan effectively by
collaborating on tasks with
more expert planners.
 Attentional difficulties are at
the heart of the problems of
children with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), a disorder in which
children have great difficulty
staying on task, act
impulsively, and may be
hyperactive.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Memory Strategies
 Memory strategies are the deliberate mental activities we
use to store and retain information.
 Rehearsal and Organization
 Rehearsal involves repeating information to oneself over and over again.
 Organization is grouping together related items.
 Memory strategies require time and effort to perfect. At first, control
deficiencies are evident.
 Although younger school-age children’s use of multiple strategies has
little impact on performance—a utilization deficiency—their tendency to
experiment is adaptive.
 Older children organize more skillfully and use organization in a wider
range of memory tasks.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Memory Strategies cont.
 Elaboration
 Elaboration is the strategy of creating a relationship, or shared
meaning, between two or more items that are not members of the
same category. Children start to use this strategy by the end of
middle childhood.
 Organization and elaboration combine items into meaningful
chunks and permit children to retain more information.
 When children store a new item in long-term memory by linking
it to information they already know, they can retrieve it easily by
thinking of other items associated with it.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
The Knowledge Base and Memory Performance
 During middle childhood, children arrange the vast amount of
information in their memories into increasingly elaborate, hierarchically
structured networks.
 Knowing more about a particular topic makes new information more
meaningful and familiar so it is easier to store and retrieve.
 Children who are expert in a particular area acquire knowledge more
quickly and actively use what they know to add more.
 By the end of the school years, knowledge acquisition and use of
memory strategies are intimately related and support one another.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Culture, Schooling, and Memory Strategies
 A repeated finding of cross-cultural research is that people who have
no formal schooling do not use or benefit from instruction in memory
strategies.
 Western children get so much practice using memory strategies that
they do not refine other techniques for remembering that rely on
spatial location and arrangement of objects.
 Development of memory strategies is a product not just of a more
competent information-processing system but also of task demands
and cultural circumstances.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
The School-Age Child’s Theory of Mind
 Children’s theory of mind —a set of beliefs about mental
activities—becomes more elaborate and refined during middle
childhood. This awareness of cognitive processes is called
metacognition.
 School-age children have an improved ability to reflect on their own
mental life, which accounts for some of the advances in thinking and
problem solving that take place at this time.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
The School-Age Child’s Theory of Mind cont.
 Knowledge of Cognitive
Capacities
 Unlike preschoolers, who view the
mind as a passive container, older
children regard it as an active,
constructive agent capable of
selecting and transforming
information.
 Six- and 7-year-olds know that
doing well on a task depends on
focusing attention.
 They also grasp the
interrelatedness of memory and
understanding.
 Knowledge of Strategies
 School-age children are also aware
that in studying material for later
recall, it is helpful to devote most
effort to items that you know least
well.
 They can take account of
interactions among variables—
how age and motivation of the
learner, effective use of strategies,
and nature and difficulty of the
task work together to affect
cognitive performance.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Cognitive Self-Regulation
 Cognitive self-regulation is the process of continuously monitoring
progress toward a goal, checking outcomes, and redirecting
unsuccessful efforts.
 Self-regulation is not well developed until adolescence, when it
becomes a strong predictor of academic success.
 Parents and teachers can foster self-regulation by pointing out the
special demands of tasks, encouraging the use of strategies, and
emphasizing the value of self-correction.
 Children who acquire effective self-regulatory skills develop
confidence in their own abilities.
 Learned helpless youngsters receive messages from parents and
teachers that seriously undermine their academic self-esteem and
self-regulatory skills.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Applications of Information Processing to Academic
Learning
 Reading
 A whole language approach to
beginning reading parallels
children’s natural language
learning and keeps reading
materials whole and meaningful.
 Learning the basics—relations
between letters and sounds—enables
children to decode, or decipher, words
they have never seen before. Research
shows that phonological awareness—
the ability to segment, blend, and
manipulate the sound structure of
words—predicts early reading success.
 A basic-skills approach
emphasizes training in phonics—
the basic rules for translating
written symbols into sounds—and
simplified reading materials.
 If practice in basic skills is
overemphasized, children may lose
sight of the goal of reading—
understanding.
 Research does not show clear-cut
superiority for either of these
approaches.
 As decoding and comprehension skills
reach a high level of efficiency, older
readers can become actively engaged
with the text.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Applications of Information Processing to
Academic Learning cont.
 Mathematics
 Over the early elementary school years, children acquire basic
math facts through a combination of frequent practice and
reasoning about number concepts.
 Research indicates that conceptual knowledge serves as a vital
base for the development of accurate, efficient computation in
middle childhood.
 In Asian countries, pupils receive a variety of supports for
acquiring mathematical knowledge that are not broadly available
in the United States.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
III. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN
MENTAL DEVELOPMENT
Around age 6, IQ becomes more stable
and it correlates well with academic
achievement.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence
 Virtually all intelligence tests provide an overall score (the IQ),
which is taken to represent general intelligence or reasoning ability,
and an array of separate scores measuring specific mental abilities.
 Intelligence is a collection of many mental capacities, not all of
which are included on currently available tests.
 The statistical technique called factor analysis determines which sets
of items on an intelligence test correlate strongly with one another.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence cont.
 Representative Intelligence Tests
 Group administered tests permit large numbers of pupils to be
tested at once and require little training of teachers who give
them.
 Individually administered tests demand considerable training and
experience to give well.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence cont.
 The Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale
 The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale is appropriate for
individuals between 2 years of age and adulthood.
 The latest version measures both intelligence and four intellectual
factors: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract/visual
reasoning, and short-term memory.
 The verbal and quantitative factors emphasize culturally loaded,
fact-oriented information.
 The abstract/visual reasoning factor tests children’s ability to see
complex relationships and is believed to be less culturally biased.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence cont.
 The Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children–III
 The Wechsler Intelligence Scale
for Children–III (WISC–III) is
appropriate for 6- through 16-yearolds.
 The Wechsler Preschool and
Primary Scale of IntelligenceRevised (WPPSI-R) is appropriate
for children 3 through 8.
 Both tests measure two broad
intellectual factors: verbal and
performance scores. Each contains
6 subtests, yielding 12 separate
scores in all.
 The Wechsler tests provided one of
the first means through which nonEnglish-speaking children and
children with speech and language
disorders could demonstrate their
intellectual strengths.
 The Wechsler tests were the first to
be standardized on samples
representing the total population of
the U. S., including ethnic
minorities.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence cont.
 Recent Developments in Defining Intelligence
 Some researchers conduct componential analyses of children’s IQ
scores by looking for relationships between aspects of
information processing and intelligence test scores.
 One disadvantage of the componential approach is that it regards
intelligence as entirely due to causes within the child.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence cont.
 Sternberg’s Triarchic
Theory

 The contextual subtheory
proposes that intelligent people
adapt their information-processing
skills, shape or change the
situation, or select new contexts to
fit with their personal desires and
the demands of the everyday
world.
Made up of three interacting
subtheories.
 The componential subtheory spells
out the information-processing skills
that underlie intelligent behavior.
 The experiential subtheory states
that highly intelligent individuals, in
comparison to less intelligent ones,
process information more skillfully
in novel situations. Brightness is the
ability to deal with novelty and learn
efficiently.

This theory emphasizes the
complexity of intelligent behavior
and limitations of current tests in
assessing that complexity.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence cont.
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Defining and Measuring Intelligence cont.
 Gardner’s Theory of
Multiple Intelligences
 Identifies at least eight
independent intelligences on the
basis of distinct sets of processing
operations that permit individuals
to engage in a wide range of
culturally valued activities.
 Gardner argues that each
intelligence has a unique
biological basis, a distinct course
of development, and different
expert performances.
 Cultural values and learning
opportunities have a great deal to
do with the extent to which a
child’s intellectual strengths are
realized.
 Gardner’s theory has yet to be
firmly grounded in research.
 Nevertheless, Gardner’s theory
highlights several intelligences not
measured by IQ scores, such as
emotional intelligence.
 Gardner’s theory has been helpful
in efforts to understand and nurture
children’s special talents.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Explaining Individual and Group Differences in IQ
 American black children score, on the average, 15 IQ points below
American white children, although this difference is shrinking.
 The gap between middle-SES and low-SES children is about 9
points.
 There is considerable variation within each ethnic and SES group.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Explaining Individual and Group Differences in IQ
cont.
 Nature versus Nurture
 Identical twins have more similar IQ scores than do fraternal twins.
 On the basis of twin studies and other kinship information, current
researchers estimate that about half the differences among children in IQ
can be traced to their genetic makeup.
 Adoption research confirms the balanced position that both heredity and
environment affect IQ scores.
 Research on black children adopted by well-off white homes during the
first year of life indicates that poverty severely depresses the intelligence
of large numbers of ethnic minority children.
 In addition, unique cultural values and practices do not prepare these
children for the kinds of tasks that are sampled by intelligence tests and
valued in school.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Explaining Individual and Group Differences in IQ
cont.
 Cultural Influences
 Language Customs
 Ethnic minority subcultures often foster unique language skills that do not fit
the expectations of most classrooms and testing situations.
 Anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath observed that black adults asked children
very different kinds of questions than is typical in white middle-SES families.
 Children of Hispanic immigrants are taught to respect adult authority rather
than express their own knowledge and opinions. Yet teachers may equate this
silence with having a negative attitude toward learning.
 Familiarity with Test Content
 Evidence indicates that the amount of time a child spends in school is a
strong predictor of IQ.
 Teaching children the factual knowledge and ways of thinking valued in
classrooms has a sizable impact on their intelligence test performance.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Explaining Individual and Group Differences in IQ
cont.
 Reducing Cultural Bias in Intelligence Tests
 Many experts do acknowledge that IQ scores can underestimate the
intelligence of culturally different children.
 In a testing approach called dynamic testing, the adult introduces
purposeful teaching into the testing situation to see what the child can
attain with social support. This approach is consistent with Vygotsky’s
concept of the zone of proximal development.
 Many minority children perform more competently after adult
assistance.
 Intelligence tests are useful measures when interpreted carefully by
examiners who are sensitive to the impact of culture on test
performance.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
IV.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Vocabulary
 By the end of the school years, recognition vocabulary reaches about
40,000 words.
 School-age children enlarge their vocabularies through analyzing the
structure of complex words.
 As their knowledge base becomes better organized school-age children
think about and use words more precisely.
 School-age children grasp the double meanings of some words, which
leads to the understanding of metaphors and the use of riddles and
puns.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Grammar
 Use of the passive voice expands during middle childhood.
 Another grammatical achievement is the understanding of infinitive
phrases.
 Appreciation of subtle grammatical distinctions is supported by
metalinguistic awareness.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Pragmatics
 Improvements in pragmatics, the communicative side of language,
take place in middle childhood.
 Children become better at adapting to the needs of listeners in
challenging communicative situations.
 Conversational strategies also become more refined. For example,
older children are better at phrasing things to get their way, and they
are sensitive to subtle distinctions between what people say and what
they really mean.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Learning Two Languages at a Time
 An estimated 6 million American school-age children
speak a language other than English at home.
 Bilingual Development
 Children become bilingual by acquiring both languages at the
same time in early childhood, or by leaning a second language
after mastering the first.
 Children who are fluent in two languages do better than their
single-language agemates on tests of analytical reasoning,
concept formation, and cognitive flexibility, and they are
advanced in their ability to reflect on language.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Learning Two Languages at a Time cont.
 Bilingual Education

Some educators believe that time spent
communicating in the child’s native
tongue detracts from English language
achievement.

Other educators are committed to truly
bilingual education: developing
minority children’s native language
while fostering mastery of English.
 Providing instruction in the native
tongue lets minority children know
their heritage is respected and
prevents semilingualism, or
inadequate proficiency in both
languages.
 At present, public opinion sides
with limiting bilingual education.
 Yet, when both languages are
integrated into the curriculum,
minority children are more
involved in learning, participate
more actively in class discussions,
and acquire the second language
more easily.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
V.
CHILDREN’S LEARNING IN
SCHOOL
Class Size
 Small class sizes are beneficial because teachers spend less time
disciplining and more time giving individual attention, and children’s
interactions with one another are more positive and cooperative.
 Also, when class size is small teachers and pupils are more satisfied
with school experiences. Learning advantages of small classes are
greatest in the early years.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Educational Philosophies
 Traditional versus Open
Classrooms


In a traditional classroom, children are
passive learners who acquire
information presented by the teachers.
Pupils are evaluated on the basis of how
well they keep up with a uniform set of
standards for all pupils in their grade.
In an open classroom, children are
active agents in their own development.
The teacher shares decision making
with pupils, who learn at their own
pace. Pupils are evaluated in relation to
their own prior development.

The combined results of many studies
reveal that older school-age children in
traditional classrooms have a slight
edge in terms of academic
achievements.

However, open-classroom pupils are
more critical thinkers, and they value
and respect individual differences in
their classmates more.

The heavy emphasis on traditional
kindergarten and primary classrooms on
knowledge absorption has contributed
to a growing trend among parents to
delay kindergarten for a year.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Educational Philosophies cont.
 New Vygotsky-Inspired Directions
 Vygotsky’s emphasis on the social origins of higher cognitive processes
has inspired the following educational themes:
 Teachers and parents as partners in learning.
 Experience with many types of symbolic communication in meaningful
activities.
 Teaching adapted to each child’s zone of proximal development.
 Reciprocal Teaching
 Reciprocal teaching was originally designed to improve reading
comprehension in pupils with achievement problems, but has been
adapted to other subjects as well.
 Within dialogues, group members apply four cognitive strategies: asking
questions, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting upcoming content.
 Elementary and junior high students exposed to reciprocal teaching
show impressive gains in reading comprehension.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Educational Philosophies cont.
 The Kamehameha Elementary Education Program
(KEEP)
 Based upon Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.
 In KEEP classrooms, children work on a project that ensures that
their learning will be active and directed toward a meaningful
goal.
 KEEP students frequently work in small groups and engage in
cooperative learning.
 Research to date suggests that the KEEP approach is highly
effective.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Teacher–Student Interaction
 A disappointing finding is that American teachers emphasize rote,
repetitive drill more than higher-level thinking.
 Well-behaved, high-achieving pupils experience positive interactions
with their teachers.
 The educational self-fulfilling prophecy is the idea that children
may adopt teachers’ positive or negative attitudes toward them and
start to live up to these views.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Grouping Practices

Often pupils are assigned to
homogenous groups or classes in
which children of similar
achievement levels are taught
together.

Ability grouping of students
widens the gap between high and
low achievers.

Another approach to grouping is to
increase the heterogeneity of
pupils. In multigrade classrooms,
pupils who would otherwise be
assigned to different grades are
taught together.

Peer tutoring is an aspect of mixedage classrooms that makes them
particularly cooperative.

For collaboration between
heterogeneous peers to succeed,
children need extensive training
and guidance in cooperative
learning.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Computers in the Classroom
 Advantages of Computers
 Computer-assisted instruction is the use of computers to
practice basic skills and transmit new knowledge.
 Word processing permits students to create written products that
are longer and of higher quality.
 Programming leads to improvements in concept formation,
problem solving, and creativity. Furthermore, gains in
metacognition and self-regulation result from programming
experiences.
 New communications technology, available through e-mail and
the World Wide Web, allow children to access information and
interact with people around the world.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Computers in the Classroom cont.
 Concerns about Computers
 By the end of middle childhood, boys spend much more time
with computers than do girls, both in and out of school.
 Many parents are concerned that their children will become
overly involved as well as more aggressive through playing fastpaced computer games with highly violent content.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Teaching Children with Special Needs
 Children with Learning
Difficulties


The Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act mandates that
schools place children who require
special supports for learning into
the “least restrictive” environments
that meet their educational needs.
Mainstreaming is the integration
of pupils with learning difficulties
into regular classrooms for part or
all of the school day.

In some schools mainstreaming has
been extended to full inclusion—
placement in regular classrooms
full time.

Children who are mildly mentally
retarded have IQs that fall between
55 and 70 and who also show
problems in adaptive behavior.

The largest number of
mainstreamed children have
learning disabilities, which are
specific learning disorders that lead
children to achieve poorly in
school, despite an average or above
average IQ.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Teaching Children with Special Needs cont.
 Their problems cannot be traced to any obvious physical
or emotional difficulty or to environmental disadvantage.
Faulty brain functioning is believed to be responsible.
 How Effective Are Mainstreaming and Full Inclusion?
 The goals of mainstreaming and inclusion are to provide more
appropriate academic experiences and to integrate participation in
classroom life.
 Achievement differences between mainstreamed pupils and those taught
in self-contained classrooms are not great.
 Children with disabilities in regular classrooms often are rejected by
peers.
 These children do best when they receive instruction in a resource room
for part of the day and in the regular classroom for the remainder of the
day.
 Once children enter the regular classroom, special steps must be taken to
promote peer acceptance.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Teaching Children with Special Needs cont
 Gifted Children
 Gifted children display exceptional intellectual strengths,
including high IQ, keen memory, and an exceptional capacity to
solve challenging problems rapidly and accurately.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Teaching Children with Special Needs cont
 Gifted Children cont.
 Creativity and Talent
 High creativity can result in a child being designated as gifted.
 Divergent thinking is the generation of multiple and unusual
possibilities when faced with a task or problem. Tests of creativity tap
divergent thinking.
 Convergent thinking is the generation of a single correct answer to a
problem. This is the type of cognition emphasized on intelligence tests.
 Definitions of giftedness have been extended to include specialized
talent.
 Parents of talented children emphasize curiosity, provide a home rich
in stimulation, recognize their children’s creative potential, and
arrange for apprenticeship under inspiring teachers.
 Extreme giftedness often results in social isolation.
 Many talented youths become experts in their fields, yet few become
highly creative.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
Teaching Children with Special Needs cont.
 Educating the Gifted
 The extent to which programs for the gifted foster creativity and
talent depends on opportunities to acquire relevant skills.
 Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has inspired several
model programs that include all pupils.
 Evidence is still needed on how effectively these programs
nurture children’s talents.
 These programs may be useful in identifying talented, low-SES
minority children, who are underrepresented in school programs
for the gifted.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002
How Well Educated Are America’s Children?
 American children fare unevenly when their achievement is
compared to that of children in other industrialized nations.
 A variety of social forces combine to foster a much stronger
commitment to learning in Asian families and schools.
 Families, schools, and the larger society must work together to
upgrade American education.
 Achievement of U.S. elementary and secondary students has
improved over the past decade in reading, math, and science.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2002