AppId is over the quota
To the Editor:
Re “Now We Are Six” (Basics, Dec. 27): Recent research on middle childhood gives valuable new information and insight, but why does David Lancy think that middle childhood as a research topic has been overlooked?
I am 95, and my memory is much longer. The present researchers had a lot to build on. The 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s were times when basic research was done on children between birth and adulthood. Mental and physical growth were studied through repeated measurements of children of all ages. Results included physical growth charts, norms for skeletal growth and tooth eruption, the Stanford-Binet test of mental development, the California mental and motor development scales.
The grand stage theorists of our time also made essential contributions to understanding childhood. Piaget showed that children develop; they create different modes of thinking. Erickson’s model of personality development made middle childhood distinct. Even earlier, Gesell contributed mental and motor scales, and before that, his principles of growth. Stage theorists actually date back to Greek and Roman times, even Biblical times.
Mollie S. Smart
Ridgefield, Wash.
The writer is emerita professor of child development, University of Rhode Island.
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