Behavioral and cognitive differences between boys and girls

Cognitive Development in Middle childhood

This part of the blog, will show how congnitive changes occur and behavioral, understanding how children emotionally grow and develop. 

Cognitive Progresses

Children who are in the stage of concrete operations perform various tasks at a level much higher than when they are in the preoperational stage. They have a better understanding of spatial concepts, causality, conservation and the numbers. 

According to the book "Psicology  Development Infancy through Adolescence", the authors question the following: Why a lot of children at six or seven years old can go from their home to their school and come back without losing themselves, while this maybe difficult to do for a younger child? 

One reason is that children who go through the stage of concrete operations get better understanding of the  spatial relationships (Gauvain, 1993). They have a clearer idea of how far one place from another and how long it takes them to get there, plus they can remember  easily the path and benchmarks that are in the way. With age, improves both the ability to use maps and models as the ability to communicate spatial information. And though a child of six years  can seek and find hidden objects, they do not give instructions common to find them duly organized-perhaps because they lack the appropriate vocabulary or do not realize what is the information the other person need (Plumbert, Pick, Marks, Kintsch and Wegesin, 1994).

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning 

According to Piaget, children going through the stage of concrete operations resort to inductive reasoning. From observations on certain elements of a class of people, objects, animals or events, they draw general conclusions about the class as a whole. 
("My dog barks,  Terry and Mike's dog also does. Therefore, it seems that all dogs bark"). 

While the deductive reasoning, according to Piaget  does not develop until adolescence stage, and it starts with an afirmation or general affirmation about one clase and it can be applied to selected elements of the class. As for example, "All dogs bark. Puchis is a dog. Puchis barks". 

It is important not to forget that the concrete operations, proposed by Piaget, start approximately about 7 to 12 years of age. 

Moral Reasoning

Let us first explain that to make flourishing the children's moral, Piaget (1932) told them a story about two kids: "Once August observed that his father's ink vase was empty and, to help him, he decided to fill it in. When he opened the ink bottle, it spills out a massive amount of ink in the tablecloth. Another day, Julian, was playing with the ink bottle and it spills a bit amount of the ink in his clothes". Then, Piaget asked them: "Who was the most mischievious child of the two of them? " 

The younger children who were less than seven years normaly considered that August was the most mischievious, because he made the biggest spot of ink. The children recognized that August did well and made the biggest spot by accident, while Julian made one small spot at doing what he should  not have done. The inmature moral judments, stated Piaget, are focused only in the degree of the offense made by the child. In the more mature judgments, the intention is considered. 

In the second stage, between 7 to 8 and 10 or 11, it is characterization goes for a major flexibility  and they have certain degree of authonomy that is based on the mutual respect and the cooperation. 

There is a great difference between a 4 years old child versus a 6 or 7 child, cognitively speaking, the last ones are more logical and have their own oppinions about what they see or live. I do not really know how a girl's moral behavior is, but as my opinion, I think that girls are not that mischievious than boys, they are not regularly into an argument or if they are, they fight with their girl classmates. I think boys, according to my experience in the school I go to finish my community service, they are not likely to cooperate in activities, they are always finding ways to mess around and do not want to get punished, they make up stories, excuses not to get grounded. 


There is certainly differences in behaviors. Girls are not that impulsive than boys, this contributes them to behave quietly. However, cognitively speaking, both genders have the same developmental changes. This has helped me to realize that is not that easy to live those changes. Children do not know they are going through many variations in the development of their brain, but they feel that they are quite different, they can feel that a partner does not like her or him and they have to behave according to their context. 

This is the end of the reflection! It is certain that their cognitive development is complex and intense!