My Development
The concrete operational stage extends from 7-11 years. Compared with early childhood, thought is far more logical, flexible, and organized.
(Berk, 2013, p.234-236).
Grades: Throughout elementary school I earned honor roll every quarter and performed well in most of my classes. My biggest struggles centered on spelling and history, and continue to be the most difficult subjects for me. I remember engaging in rehearsal strategies for spelling time and time again throughout elementary school only to get a C or B on the test. My difficulty with history surrounds the memorization of dates and names. Memorization strategies that centered around elaboration and grouping worked best for me which was difficult to do with the bare essentials that just needed to be memorized.
In contrast to Piaget’s focus on overall cognitive change, the information –processing perspective examines separate aspects of thinking . Working memory continues to increase in middle childhood yielding significant advances in attention, planning, memory and self-regulation.
During middle-childhood, children engaged memory strategies such as rehearsal (repeating information to self), organization (grouping related items together), and elaboration (creating a relationship or shared meaning between two or more piece of information).
(Berk, 2013, p.237-238).
Information Processing
Cognitive Development
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
My Development
Gardner defines intelligence in terms of distinct sets of processing operations that permit individuals to engage in a wide range of culturally valued activities. Dismissing the idea of general intelligence, Gardner proposes at least 8 independent intelligences.
Linguistic, Logico-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.
(Berk, 2013, p.244-245).
I believe that I excel in the areas of logico-mathetmatical, musical, bodily-kinethetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.
Logico-mathetmatical: Especially in elementary school, I excelled in math and science. I enjoy finding patterns in numbers and get a great feeling of accomplishment if I am able to complete a math problem. As I’ve grown older, I was able to apply this to my logic course as part of my philosophy minor and not only excelled, but enjoyed doing the work. I believe this also translates to my interest in research, specifically quantitative rather than qualitative
Musical: I started playing music at the age of 3 and have continued to make music a part of my life. It’s hard for me to understand what it would be like to look at music and not know what it says or what it sounds like. Music is like the English language, and although I struggle with the theory (comparable to spelling/history), I believe I perform well and have talent in this area. During middle childhood I not only took piano lessons but I started playing violin in the school orchestra and began private violin lessons. As I continued to excel I became a part of Toledo. Jr. Youth Orchestra, Toledo Youth Orchestra, and even won scholarships and a concerto competition my senior year of high school.
Bodily-kinethetic: I believe I was strongest in this area during middle childhood as I took dance lessons 5 days a week. Dance helped me to be aware of my entire body. As time has passed, I don’t have as much control over my entire body as I do in my hands and arms from violin and piano.
Interpersonal: This is an area I believe I have grown in as time has gone on. Throughout elementary school I had a solid friend group and in high school grew to be the person people came to when they had problems they wanted to work through. Through my experiences, and coursework this area has only continued to grow.
Intrapersonal: This area of intelligence has not blossomed until about 4-5 years ago after I graduated from undergrad at BGSU. In my year off I did a lot of introspection and self-evaluation and now feel that I know myself better than I ever have and understand the underlying meanings of my behaviors.
My Development
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
My Development
Middle Childhood
Sternberg's Triarchic theory of successful intelligence identifies three broad , interacting intelligences:
1. Analytical 2. Creative 3. Practical.
(Berk, 2013, p.243).
I believe that I have a balance of the three, but throughout my life, I’ve found that I am sometimes lacking in practical intelligence. Much of my life has been spent engaging and developing my analytical (school) and creative (music) intelligences while leaving my practical intelligence unused. As I start to engage in real-world work, and start utilizing the strategies I have learned in school, I believe my practical intelligence will follow.
Language Development
My Development
Vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics continue to develop in middle childhood, though less obviously than at earlier ages. In addition, children’s attitude toward language undergoes a fundamental shift: They develop language awareness.
-Vocabulary increases 4x during middle childhood
-Middle childhood shows a marked improvement in pragmatics and phrasing to get what you want.
(Berk, 2013, p.248).
Although I have struggled with spelling most of my life, my writing and communication abilities have always been at par. I believe the growth in language and communication at this time is showcased through my writing abilities and ways of thinking. In 5th and 6th grade I was lucky enough to have a teacher than encouraged writing and sharing. At this time we wrote a lot of poems, and short stories and I believe show language development.
Middle childhood is when I began to excel in math and science, probably due to being more logical, flexible and organized.
During middle childhood I likely understood conservation and classification of hierarchies. During this time I was also likely able to order items in a quantitative dimension and think through a series of steps and then mental reversing the direction. I likely was also about to understand space a bit better but still had issues with more abstract thinking. Many of the skills gained in this stage coincide with my improved math and science ability at this time.
