Child_development, Child_development Information, Child


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Child development refers to the biological and psychological changes that occur in human beings between conception and the end of adolescence,as the individual progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy. Developmental change may occur as a result of genetically-controlled processes known as maturation, or as a result of environmental factors and learning, but most commonly involves an interaction between the two. Pediatrics is the branch of medicine relating to the care of children. Age-related development terms are: newborn (ages 0–1 month); infant (ages 1 month – 1 year); toddler (ages 1–3 years); preschooler (ages 4–6 years); school-aged child (ages 6–12 years); adolescent (ages 12–18) (Kail, 2006). The optimal development of children is considered vital to society and so it is important to understand the social, cognitive, emotional, and educational development of children. Increased research and interest in this field has resulted in new theories and strategies, with specific regard to practice that promotes development within the school system. In addition there are also some theories that seek to describe a sequence of states that comprise child development.

Developmental milestones

Main article: Child development stages

Milestones are the specific physical and mental abilities (such as walking and understanding language) according to age of a child. Milestones are the major focus of child development stages. Milestones can be described as what a child accomplishes throughout the different stages in his or her life. An example of this would be eye-hand coordination, which includes a child\'s increasing ability to manipulate objects in a coordinated manner. Increased knowledge of age-specific milestones allow parents and other caring adults to keep track of appropriate development. Crucial aspects of child development include: patience, problem solving, social skills, and creativity. All of these traits should be taught at a young age and practiced frequently.Rutter, Michael (1990), Straight and Devious Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood, Cambridge Press A common concern in child development is developmental delay. This concern involves a delay in age-specific ability for important developmental milestones. Early intervention and prevention of developmental delay are the major foci of research in child development.

Theories

Confucius

Main article: Confucius

Confucius, a Chinese teacher and educator, believed that moral principles, virtues and discipline should be the very first lessons taught to a child, and that children need to practice them daily. It was most important to the ancient Chinese parents that their children learned moral principles and virtues first - before any other subjects, because without these as a foundation, the learning of all other subjects would be futile. Di Zi Gui, an ancient book based on the teaching of Confucius, had been for thousand of years, the recommended standards for child moral development. Di Zi Gui in English, means Standards for being a Good Student and Child. When a child is instilled with those values outlined in the book at a very young age, he will develop into a respectful and virtuous person.

Freud

Main articles: Sigmund Freud and Psychosexual development

In accordance with his view of a basic human motivation being the sexual drive, Sigmund Freud developed a psychosexual theory of human development from infancy onward, divided into five stages. Each stage centered around the gratification of the libido within a particular area, or erogenous zone, of the body. He also argued that, as humans develop, they become fixated on different and specific objects through their stages of development. The first stage is the oral stage exemplified by an infant\'s pleasure in nursing and where gratification of needs centers around feeding. The second is the anal stage (toddlerhood), which revolves around interest in bodily functions and gratification of need by retaining or expelling faeces.Wood SE, Wood CE and Boyd D.(2006). "Mastering the world of psychology" (2nd Ed.). Allyn & Bacon Third is the phallic stage which lasts for about three years and it is during this stage that the oedipal conflict arises wherein a boys desires for his mother are in conflict with his fear of castration by the rival father. Freud argued that children pass through a stage in which they fixate on the mother as a sexual object (known as the Oedipus Complex) but that the child eventually overcomes and represses this desire because of its taboo nature. Freud\'s attempts to formulate a comparable process for girls fixating on fathers, the lesser known Electra complex, was less successful. The fourth stage is the repressive or dormant latency stage of psychosexual development. This is followed by a genital stage during which the properly developing human should mature from pleasure seeking infant into the sexually mature, genital stage of psychosexual development. In Freuds theory, each stage contains conflict which requires resolution to enable the child to develop. Lemma A. (2007). "Psychodynamic Therapy: The Freudian Approach" in Handbook of Individual Therapy. Dryden W. 5th Edition. Sage publications.

Erikson, a follower of Freud\'s, synthesized both Freud\'s and his own to create what is known as the "Psychosocial" stages of human development, which spans from birth to death, and focuses on "tasks" at each stage that must be accomplished to successfully navigate life\'s challenges.

Piaget

Main articles: Jean Piaget and Theory of cognitive development

Piaget was a French speaking Swiss theorist who posited that children learn through actively constructing knowledge through hands-on experience. He suggested that the adult\'s role in helping the child learn was to provide appropriate materials for the child to interact and construct. He would use Socratic questioning to get the children to reflect on what they were doing. He would try to get them to see contradictions in their explanations. He also developed stages of development. His approach can be seen in how the curriculum is sequenced in schools, and in the pedagogy of preschool centers across the United States.

Vygotsky

Main articles: Lev Vygotsky and Cultural-historical psychology

Probably least well-known is Vygotsky, a theorist whose ideas only recently emerged from behind what was known as the Iron Curtain, in the former Soviet Union. He believed children learn through hands-on experience, as Piaget suggested. However, unlike Piaget, he claimed that timely and sensitive intervention by adults when a child is on the edge of learning a new task (called the Zone of Proximal Development) could help children learn to do new tasks. This technique is called "scaffolding," because it builds upon knowledge children already have with new knowledge that adults can help the child learn.Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press An example of this might be when a parent "helps" an infant clap or roll his hands to the Pat-a-Cake rhyme, until he can clap and roll his hands himself.Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wertsch, J.V. (1985). Cultural, Communication, and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives. Cambridge University Press.

Vygotsky (1978) was strongly focused on the role of culture in determining the child\'s pattern of development. In 1978, he argued "Every function in the child\'s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals."Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (p57).

An interesting point to note is that all but one theorists believed in stages of development. Not many agreed on how these stages worked. Were there large jumps from one stage to another, where a child at first did not know how to do something, and then was suddenly able to do it? Or was it more like a continuous incline of knowledge a child walked up gradually to adulthood, understanding more with every step? Vygotsky did not believe in stages at all, but asserted that development was a process.Wertsch, J.V. (1985). Cultural, Communication, and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives. Cambridge University Press

Watson: Behavior analytic theory

Main article: Child development in behavior analytic theory

John B. Watson’s behaviorism theory forms the foundation of the behavioral model of development.Watson, J.B.(1926). What the nursery has to say about instincts. In C. Murchison (Eds.) Psychologies of 1925. Worchester, MA: Clark University Press. He wrote extensively on child development and conducted research (see Little Albert experiment). Watson was instrumental in the modification of William James’ stream of consciousness approach to construct a stream of behavior theory.White, S.H.(1968). The learning maturation controversy: Hall to Hull. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 14, 187-196. Watson also helped bring a natural science perspective to child psychology by introducing objective research methods based on observable and measurable behavior. Following Watson’s lead, B.F. Skinner further extended this model to cover operant conditioning and verbal behavior. In doing this, Skinner\'s radical behaviorism focused the science on private events such as thinking and feeling and how they are shaped by interacting with the environment.Skinner, B.F. (1974). About Behaviorism. KnopfSkinner, B.F. (1953) Science and Human Behavior. New York: The Free Press Bijou (1955) was the first to bring this approach to human children. Bijou, S. W. (1955). A systematic approach to an experimental analysis of young children. Child Development, 26, 161-168.Bijou, S. W. (1957). Patterns of reinforcement and resistance to extinction in young children. Child Development, 28, 47-54Bijou, S. W. (1958). Operant extinction after fixed-interval schedules with young children. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1, 25-29.

In the 1960s, while at the University of Kansas in the home economics/family life department,Sidney Bijou and Donald Baer began to apply behavior analytic principles to child development in an area referred to as "Behavioral Development" or "Behavior Analysis of Child Development".Bijou SW, Baer DM (1961). Child Development: Vol. 1: a Systematic and Empirical Theory. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0131303775. Skinner’s behavioral approach and Kantor’s interbehavioral approach was adopted in Bijou and Bear’s model. Bijou and Baer created a three-stage model of development (e.g., basic, foundational, and societal). In behavior analysis, the stages are neither essential nor explanatory.Rosales-Ruiz, J. & Baer, D.M.(1997).Behavioral cusps. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 30, 533-544.[1] They posit that these stages are socially determined, although behavior analysts tend to focus much more on change points or cusps rather than stages.Bosch, S. and Hixson, M.D. (2004). The Final Piece to a Complete Science of Behavior: Behavior Development and Behavioral Cusps. The Behavior Analyst Today, 5.(3), 244-253 BAO While not all cusps result in a stage change, all stage changes do involve cusps.Commons, M. L., & Richards, F. A. (1995). Behavior analytic approach to dialectics of stage performance and stage change.Behavioral Development, 5(2), 7–9. In the behavioral model, development is represented as behavior change and is dependent on a combination of factors including the level/kind of stimulation, behavioral function, and the learning/genetic history of the organism.Baer, D.M. (1982). Behavior analysis and developmental psychology: Discussant comments. Human Development, 25, 357-361 This model is closer to Skinner’s model than Watson\'sGerwitz, J.L. & Pelaez-Nogueras, M.(1992). B.F. Skinner\'s legacy to infant behavioral development. American Psychologist, 47(11), 1411-1422. in that it rejects the idea of a purely passive organism.Reese, H.W.(1980). A learning theory critique of the operant approach to life span development. Human Development, 23, 368-376. Behavior analysis in child development is between mechanisticReese (1986) and contextual, pragmatic approaches.Morris, E.K.(1988). Contextualism: The worldview of behavior analysis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 46, 289-323.Schlinger, H. D. The almost blank slate: Making a case for human nurture. Skeptic, 11, 34-43.

From its inception, the behavioral model has been focused on prediction and control of the developmental process.Baer, D.M. (1973). The control of developmental process: Why wait? In J.R. Nesselrode & H.W.Reese (Eds.) Life Span Developmental Psychology: Methodological Issues. Oxford,England: Academic Press The model was greatly enhanced by basic research on the matching law of choice behavior developed by Richard J. Herrnstein, especially in the study of reinforcement in the natural environment as related to antisocial behavior. As the behavioral model has become increasingly more complex and focused on metatheory,Morris, E.K. & Hursch, D.E.(1982). Behavior analysis and developmental psychology: Metatheoretical considerations. Human Development, 25, 344-349 it has become concerned with how behavior is selected over time and forms into stable patterns of responding.Reese, H.W. (2005). A Conceptual Analysis of Selectionism: Parts I and II. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 1(1), 8-16.BAO Vyse, S. (2004). Stability over time: Is behavior analysis a trait psychology? The Behavior Analyst, 27(1), 43-54. A detailed history of this model was written by Pelaez.Pelaez, M. (Ed.). (1998). Behavior analysis of development: History, theory, and research. Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 24, 85–95. In 1995, Henry D. Schlinger, Jr. provided the first behavior analytic text since Bijou and Baer comprehensively showing how behavior analysis-a natural science approach to human behavior-can be used to understand existing research in child development. In addition, the Quantitative Behavioral Developmental Model by Commons and Miller is the first behavioral theory and research to address notion similar to stage.Behavioral Development Bulletin, 13(1)

References

Infants, Children, and Adolescents by Laura E. Berk.
Theories of Childhood: an Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget & Vygotsky by Carol Garhart Mooney.