Theories of Child Development - Essay Example

The child goes through certain phases in this development continuum with distinct periods in his life, such as toddler, preschooler, school aged and adolescent, to finally forming his own identity. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the more popular theories on child development. Discussion Although psychologists have put forward many theories regarding child development, it is the purpose of this brief paper to limit the discussions to only five of the more prominent ones. A child development theory is a set of organized principles designed to help adults understand a child and thereby contribute to his or her development through caring and teaching.

The theories can help adults on what are the best ways to teach a child based on the aforesaid principles in the hope they will work to the best ways of bringing up the child, molding his thinking and influence his behavior. Psychologists and scientists are not totally agreed on which theory is the best which is why there are many theories on child development. . The strategy is to show to the child good and proper behavior in certain situations so they will know how to act in each situation as they grow older and eventually become adults.

A social learning theory emphasizes that actions of parents and peers greatly influence an action of a child where the child acquires new skills and gains knowledge by new information shown by actions. Observation, imitation and modeling are the ways by which a child learns something new. This development theory was propounded by psychologist Albert Bandura as a mixture of behaviorist and cognitive learning theories proposed by other child psychologists. He believed there is cause and effect between external and internal reinforcements such as pride, satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment in a reciprocal loop such as in forming their sexual identities (Bandura, 1986, p. 94). A teacher must exhibit at all times appropriate behavior as children will mimic him or her.

Cognitive Development Theory – this theory considers the child as a little scientist who goes on his own active role to gain new knowledge. Cognition (the acts or process of perceiving, knowing and making decisions based on experiences) in a child follows four distinct stages, this according to its foremost proponent, Jean Piaget (1896-1980). These are sensorimotor stage (up to age 2), the preoperational stage (up to age 7), concrete stage and formal operational stage. His theory further states that learning is best done by doing, that is interactively and the play process.

This theory is applied in most pre-school and kindergarten centers, where kids are taught to have logical and abstract reasoning through use of graphic visualization (Oakley, 2004, p. 13). Socio-cultural Development Theory –