Child Development Theories Essay

During this developmental interview, I chose to conduct an observation/interview study with my one of my cousin’s child. This child is a 4 year old girl and will be identified as “child K” in relation to her first name. Her parents had no problem letting me interview her, but I had them stay in the same room as us. The purpose of this interview was to observe the child’s physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development. I observed her behavior and gave her several tests to show how well she has progressed.

Explain the reasons why children and young people’s development may not follow the expected pattern: The reasons why children and young people’s development may not follow the expected patters is due to them maybe having a disability, emotional influences, physical influences, environmental influences, cultural influences, social influences, learning needs and communication skills. Children with disabilities require a lot more support than those without a disability in order to help them develop their skills and become more independent. Disabilities can affect more than one area of a child’s development depending on what disability they have and what support is available in order to help improve the child’s needs etc. Emotionally children are affected due to them maybe having signs of depression where they are quiet than the rest of the children and they shy away from joining in with different activities and getting involved with other children.

References Levine, L.E., & Munsch, J. (2010). Child Development:

Developmental psychology is a scientific approach that describes growth, change and coherence throughout life. Developmental psychology looks at how one's thoughts, feelings and behavior change throughout his or her life. An important part of the theories within this discipline focus on development in childhood; because it is the time that elapses throughout the life of the individual when the most change occurs. Developmental psychologists examine broad theoretical domains such as biological, social, emotional, and cognitive processes. Prenatal development refers to the process of development of a baby from a single cell after pregnancy to embryo and then to a fetüs.

It starts with infancy and continues to adulthood. By gaining knowledge about child development, a synopsis of what children can do at various ages can be formed. Following are the three theoretical perspectives of child development: i. Maturationist’s View of Child Development : Maturationism is a premature childhood educational philosophy emphasizing the child as a growing individual in which knowledge exists. Based on Arnold Gessell’s work, maturationists suggest that “genetic factors play a bigger role in development than environmental ones” [8].

Having the right knowledge, skills and experience in understanding how children or young people develop are very important tools for early years practitioners. We must put to mind that each child born into this world is unique. Children are born with different characters, their personalities and behaviours are formed and influenced by a variety of factors. These factors may affect their ways of interacting with the environment and community or setting in which they live in.

Introduction: In this assignment I will apply development theory to real life scenarios. Dr. Berger an author and professor at the City University of New York states, “A developmental theory is a systematic statement of general principals that provide a framework for understanding how and why people change as they grow older.” Therefore, I will be analyzing and applying real life scenarios to the life of my son Christopher Ramirez and explain how his development is associated with very specific theories or a theorist. This developmental theory will be applied to all four age ranges which are: the first two years (0-2), the play years (2-6), the school years (7-11), and the adolescence years (11-18).

Child development is an area of significant interest to professionals who deal with children on a daily basis. It is through child development theorists and their theories that we begin to form an understanding of how children develop emotionally and socially to become fully grown adults in society with a moral and emotional compass/. Teachers need to study child development in order to provide developmentally appropriate educational experiences for children. Health professionals also need to understand this area to support children in their physical, social, emotional and cognitive journey to becoming functioning adults in society. Childhood is a concept that is affected by social context and also by history. Here in the West childhood was not always considered to be a fundamental developmental phase in life with children in Victorian times working from as early as the age of four.

Bad Parents Raise Bad Children W.E.B. Du Bois said that “children learn more from what you are than what you teach”. Society always takes pride solely in the way a child has been raised by its parents. Children do not misbehave because they feel like misbehaving, but because something vital is missing in that child’s nurturing. Many parents allow their young to deviate from what is morally right or equal and their authority and choose violence over all odds as a solution for anger. Firstly, the consequence of ill nurturing can be the outcome of long-term mental health issues because of the child being prone to violence, anger, and stress.

Children look to their parent’s guidance and development. Parents are the first example and if the family environment is not healthy, the children could be subjected to a lacking strong physical development. “Effective parenting skills are fundamental to child development” (The Chief Public Health Officer 's Report, 2008). Children learn from their environment, if a child’s parent is not in the picture, children will learn from what surrounds them. For example, Genie did not speak because she was never spoken to as a child.

Having the right knowledge, skills and experience in understanding how children or young people develop are very important tools for early years practitioners. We must put to mind that each child born into this world is unique. Children are born with different characters, their personalities and behaviours are formed and influenced by a variety of factors. These factors may affect their ways of interacting with the environment and community or setting in which they live in.

Having the right knowledge, skills and experience in understanding how children or young people develop are very important tools for early years practitioners. We must put to mind that each child born to this world is unique; they are born with different characters and their personalities and behaviours are formed and influenced by variety of factors. These factors may affect their ways of interacting to the environment and community or setting in which they live in. In my experience as a child care practitioner most of the time, adults mainly focus on the physical development of a child and so quick to base their conclusion or judgement on the physical aspect.

These theories really expanded and informed me about child development because it dealt with the child’s thinking process as well as how they progress in life. Jean Piaget viewed child development on their efforts and how they acted upon it which geared towards conginite development. It consisted of four stages: sensorimotor,preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. His idea of adoption correlates with my perspective because it is impressive to see how the child adapts to certain information. Also with his perspective of the four cognitive stages due to the child’s life span “mental operations evolve from learning based on simple sensory and motor activity to logical, abstract thought” due their development as the years go by (Martorell, 2013, pg.

  By: García, Justin D., PhD, Salem Press Encyclopedia, January, 2017. Retrieved from: https://content.ashford.edu/ Groark, C., McCarthy, S. & Kirk, A. (2014).  Early child development: From theory to practice [Electronic version]. Retrieved from:

Reaching a milestone in a child’s life is considered a significant event. Milestones is when your baby is where he or she needs to be at a particular developmental age. This means, sitting and crawling when she needs to be, walking and talking when it 's time to do so. It is a thrill for parents to witness a baby’s milestone, whether it be the first time their baby smiles, grabs or hold onto a toy, or rolls over.