Major Theories of Development
The developmental changes that occur from birth to adulthood were largely ignored throughout much of history.
Children were often viewed simply as small versions of adults and little attention was paid to the many advances in cognitive abilities, language usage, and physical growth. Interest in the field of child development began early in the 20th-century and tended to focus on abnormal behavior.
The following are just a few of the many theories of child development that have been proposed by theorists and researchers. More recent theories outline the developmental stages of children and identify the typical ages at which these growth milestones occur.
psychosexual Theory
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a Viennese doctor who came to believe that the way parents dealt with children's basic sexual and aggressive desires would determine how their personalities developed and whether or not they would end up well-adjusted as adults. Freud described children as going through multiple stages of sexual development 'psychosexual stages.', which he labeled Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital stages. each stage focused on sexual activity and the pleasure received from a particular area of the body. and can later play a role in adult personality.
psychosocial theory
Erik Erikson (1902-1994)He used Freud's work as a starting place to develop a theory about human stage development from birth to death. In contrast to Freud's focus on sexuality, Erikson focused on how peoples' sense of identity develops; how people develop or fail to develop abilities and beliefs about themselves which allow them to become productive, satisfied members of society. Erikson believed that each stage of development is focused on overcoming a conflict. Success or failure in dealing with conflicts can impact overall functioning.. Because Erikson's theory combines how people develop beliefs psychologically and mentally with how they learn to exist within a larger community of people, it’s called a 'psychosocial' theory. Erikson’s stages are, in chronological order in which they unfold: trust versus mistrust; autonomy versus shame and doubt; initiative versus guilt; industry versus inferiority; identity versus identity confusion; intimacy versus isolation; generativity versus stagnation; and integrity versus despair.
Each stage is associated with a time of life and a general age span. For each stage, Erikson's theory explains what types of stimulation children need to master that stage and become productive and well-adjusted members of society and explains the types of problems and developmental delays that can result when this stimulation does not occur
The first psychosocial stage is trust versus mistrustit spans from birth to about age one year.
During this phase, if children are consistently provided all their basic needs such as food, clean diapers, warmth, and loving affection and soothing from caregivers, they will learn that they can trust other people in their environment to love them and to take care of them, and they will believe the world is good. If infants are neglected and not given these things consistently or if they are taken care of roughly and unpredictably, they will learn to question their caretakers and to believe that others will not always be there to support them when it’s needed.
Learning to trust others is the first necessary step to learning how to have loving, supportive relationships with others and to have a positive self-image.
The second stage, autonomy versus shame and doubt, spans ages one to three years.
When children are autonomous, they feel confident that they can make their own choices and decisions and that they will be positive experiences.
Young children become autonomous when caregivers are supportive and give children the safe space to make their own decisions and to experiment with their bodies and problem-solving skills without shaming or ridiculing the child. When children feel shame and doubt, they believe that they are not capable of making valid decisions and not capable of doing everyday tasks.
This will begin stunting a positive self-esteem as these small children start seeing themselves as “stupid.”
The third stage, initiative versus guilt, spans ages three to six years.
When children develop initiative, they continue to develop their self-concept and gain a desire to try new things and to learn new things while being responsible for their actions to some extent.
If caregivers continue to give children a safe space to experiment and appropriate stimuli to learn, the children will continue to find their purpose. However,If caregivers try to create too many strict boundaries around what children can do and to force too much responsibility on kids, children will feel extreme guilt for their inability to complete tasks perfectly.
Behavioral Theories:
Behavioral theories of development focus on how environmental interaction influences behavior and are based upon the theories of theorists such as Watson, Pavlov, andSkinner.
These theories deal only with observable behaviors. Development is considered a reaction to rewards, punishments, stimuli, and reinforcement.
Cognitive Theory:
Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1990), created a cognitive-developmental theory that described how children's ways of thinking developed as they interacted with the world around them.
Infants and young children understand the world much differently than adults do, and as they play and explore, their mind learns how to think in ways that better fit with reality. He suggested that children think differently than adults and proposed a stage theory of cognitive development. He was the first to note that children play an active role in gaining knowledge of the world.
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget believed that children go through a number of fixed stages on their way to independent thinking.
His theory on cognitive development, though, is perhaps the most widely accepted and most cited. Piaget believed that all children will go through the following stages in order, the age ranges are only a general guideline.
It is important to keep in mind that each child is an individual person with a slightly different pattern and pace of skill development.
Individual children may develop skills before or after the suggested period.
Each child matures in his own time, and even siblings don't do the same things at exactly the same age.
Stages of Cognitive Development
Piaget's theory has four stages:
1- Sensory Motor Stage
Birth to 2 Years
An enormous amount of growth and development takes place in the first two years of life. During that time span, children go from being completely helpless to walking, talking, and to a degree, being able to make sense of the world around them.
One of the most important milestones that children achieve in their first few years, according to Piaget, is their mastery of "object permanency," or the ability to understand that even when a person or object is removed from their line of sight, it still exists.Early on, children are only able to perceive things that are right in front of them, but as they mature, they understand that if a ball rolls under a chair and they can no longer see it, it still exists, under the chair. This is an especially important understanding for children, helping them to have an increased sense of safety and security since they can now grasp the fact that when mum leaves the room, she hasn't disappeared, but will soon retur
PreoperationalStage
2-7 Years
Once object permanency is achieved, children move onto this next stage, which is marked by a number of advancements.Language skills develop rapidly, allowing kids to better express themselves. Also, children in the preoperational stage are egocentric, meaning that they believe that everyone sees the world the way that they do, leaving no room for the perspectives of others.
For example, a child will sometimes cover their eyes so that they cannot see someone and make the assumption that the other person now cannot see them, either.
A major indicator of this stage is called conservation, or the ability to understand that quantity does not change just because shape changes.
For example, if you were to pour the same quantity of liquid into two separate glasses, one short and wide and the other tall and thin, younger children would insist that the taller glass holds more.
Children who have mastered the concept of conservation would be able to understand that the quantities are identical.
Piaget explained that the child's inability to yet grasp the concept is due to their (centration),capacity to focus on only one aspect of a problem at a time their tendency to take things at face value (appearance), and the fact that they see something only in its current condition (state).
They cannot yet understand that the wider with of the short glass compensates for the height of the taller one.
Concrete Operations Stage
7 to 11 Years
During the concrete operations stage, the centristic thought process is gradually replaced by the ability to consider a number of factors simultaneously, giving them the ability to solve increasingly complex problems.Also, kids at this stage can now understand how to group like objects, even if they are not identical.
For example, they are able to see that apples, oranges, cherries, and bananas are all types of fruit; even they are not exactly the same.
Another important developmental advancement that occurs during this phase is seriation, the ability to place things in order according to size.
Children who have a mastery of this concept are able to take jars of varying heights and place them in order, tallest to shortest.
They still have some distinct limitations to their thinking process, however, especially when it comes to applying concepts that they are unfamiliar with.
While their understanding of the things that they have direct access to is strong, kids at this age still have a tendency to lack understanding of things that theyhaven't personally seen, touched, heard, tasted, or smelled.
Formal Operations Stage
11 and Beyond
In the final phase of cognitive development, children hold a much broader understanding of the world around them and are able to think in abstract ways.They are also able to hypothesise possible outcomes to a given problem and then think of ways in which to test their theories. Children in the formal operations stage learn to use deductive reasoning to draw conclusions, which opens them up to a wider base of knowledge than ever before.
An example might be as follows:
A bear is a mammal. All mammals havefur. Therefore, a bear has fur.
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