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Middle Childhood Paper

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Developments Through Middle Childhood Every stage in the span of life is critical and valuable, as each stage builds upon the last stage and lays the groundwork for the next stage. Middle Childhood is a developmental stage that spans the time from age seven to age eleven that is filled with both complex and simple changes that span multiple categories of development including cognitive, physical, social, emotional, moral, and spiritual development. In each category leaps and bounds of progress are made. While some of these changes and progressions are obvious, such as the serious physical changes that a child in this age range undergoes, some changes are not as obvious. This is the stage where an individual begins to become more aware of themselves and the perspectives of others. …show more content…

Another cognitive process that develops in this stage is working memory capacity. Between the ages of 6 and 12, the time it takes to process information decreases quickly (Berk, 2014, p. 302). The speed of thinking has a direct effect on working memory, and this is where a difference in the individual intelligence of children truly begins to reveal itself (Berk, 2014, p. 302). Another cognitive development is the development of executive function, where it “undergoes its most energetic period of development” (Berk, 2014, p. 302). Even more noticeable of a development in cognition is the development of attention. While infants and toddlers and even young children can be distracted easily, a child in middle childhood has a more focused attention (Berk, 2014, p. 303). Children learn to only pay attention to information that is relevant to their current focus (Berk, 2014, p. 303). Another advance in cognition is the development of metacognition, where children are more aware of their mental activities (Berk, 2014, p. 306). Despite this awareness of their own mental state, children are still not fully able to achieve cognitive self-regulation, or the “process of continuously

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