Human Growth and Development - Essay Example

Human growth and development Human growth and development is a study, which helps us to understand how biology and environment interact to influence behavior focusing on physiological, cognitive, social, emotional, and personality development from conception to death. Many changes occur during one's lifetime and it is important to understand human development across the life span. These changes can be physical, emotional, or cognitive. There is a set of principles that characterizes the pattern and process of growth and development. These principles or characteristics describe typical development as a predictable and orderly process, that is, we can predict how most children will develop and that they will develop at the same rate and at about the same time as other children. Although there are individual differences in children's personalities, activity levels, and timing of developmental milestones, such as ages and stages, the principles and characteristics of development are universal patterns. The understanding of the principles of development helps us to plan appropriate activities and stimulating and enriching experiences for children, and provides a basis for understanding how to encourage and support young children's learning. Principles of Development 1. Development proceeds from the head downward. This is called the Cephalocaudle principle. This principle describes the direction of growth and development. According to this principle, the child gains control of the head first, then the arms, and then the legs. Infants develop control of the head and face movements within the first two months after birth. In the next few months, they are able to lift themselves up by using their arms. By 6 to 12 months of age, infants start to gain leg control and may be able to crawl, stand, or walk. Coordination of arms always precedes coordination of legs. 2. Development proceeds from the center of the body outward. This is the principle of Proximodistal development that also describes the direction of development. This means that the spinal cord develops before outer parts of the body. The child's arms develop before the hands and the hands and feet develop before the fingers and toes. Finger and toe muscles are the last to develop in physical development. 3. Development depends on maturation and learning. Maturation refers to the sequential characteristic of biological growth and development. The biological changes occur in sequential order and give children new abilities. Changes in the brain and nervous system account largely for maturation. These changes in the brain and nervous system help children to improve in thinking or cognitive and motor or physical skills. 4. Development proceeds from the simple to the more complex. Children use their cognitive and language skills to reason and solve problems. For example, learning relationships between things, or classification, is an important ability in cognitive development. The cognitive process of learning how an apple and orange are alike begins with the most simplistic or concrete thought of describing the two. Seeing no relationship, a preschool child will describe the objects according to some property of the object, such as color. Such a response would be, "An apple is red or green and an orange is orange." The first level of thinking about how objects are alike is to give a description or functional relationship between the two objects. "An apple and orange are round" and "An apple and orange are alike because you eat them" are typical responses of three, four and five year olds. As children develop further in cognitive skills, they are able to understand a higher and more complex relationship between objects and things; that is, that an apple and orange exist in a class called fruit. The child cognitively is then capable of classification. 5. Growth and development is a continuous process. As a child develops, he or she adds to the skills already acquired and the new skills become the basis for further achievement and mastery of skills. Most children follow a similar pattern. Also, one stage of development lays the foundation for the next stage of development. In motor development, there is a predictable sequence of developments that occur before walking. The infant lifts and turns the head before he or she can turn over. Infants can move their limbs before grasping an object. Mastery of climbing stairs involves increasing skills from holding on to walking alone. By the age of four, most children can walk up and down stairs with alternating feet. As in maturation, in order for children to write or draw, they must have developed the manual hand control to hold a pencil and crayon. 6. Growth and development proceed from the general to specific. In motor development, the infant will be able to grasp an object with the whole hand before using only the thumb and forefinger. The infant's first motor movements are very generalized, undirected, and reflexive, waving arms or kicking before being able to reach or creep toward an object. Growth occurs from large muscle movements to more refined smaller muscle movements. 7. There are individual rates of growth and development. Each child is different and the rates at which individual children grow are different. Although the patterns and sequences for growth and development are usually the same for all children, the rates at which individual children reach developmental stages will be different. Understanding this fact of individual differences in rates of development should cause us to be careful about using and relying on age and stage characteristics to describe or label children. There is a range of ages for any developmental task to take place. This dismisses the notion of the "average child". Some children will walk at ten months while others walk a few months older at eighteen months of age. Some children are more active while others are more passive. This does not mean that the passive child will be less intelligent as an adult. There is no validity to comparing one child's progress with or against another child. Rates of development also are not uniform within an individual child. A child's intellectual development may progress faster than his emotional or social development. Erik Erikson Developmental theory Erik Erikson (1950) has made a contribution to the field of psychology with his developmental theory. He can be compared to Sigmund Freud in that he claimed that humans develop in stages. Erikson developed eight psychosocial stages in which humans develop through throughout their entire life span. Erikson recognized the basic notions of Freudian theory, but believed that Freud misjudged some important dimensions of human development. Erikson said that humans develop throughout their life span, while Freud said that our personality is shaped by the age of five. Erikson developed eight psychosocial stages that humans encounter throughout their life. 1. Stage One - from birth to one, marked by the conflict between trust and mistrust; 2. Stage Two - from one to around two, marked by autonomy versus doubt; 3. Stage Three - from three to six, marked by feelings of initiative versus inadequacy; 4. Stage Four - corresponding to Freud's latency period, is marked by industry versus inferiority; 5. Stage Five - adolescence, marked by a conflict between identity versus confusion; 6. Stage Six - early adulthood, marked by intimacy versus isolation; 7. Stage Seven - later adulthood, marked by generativity versus stagnation; 8. Stage Eight - marked by fulfillment versus despair. The first stage, Trust vs. Mistrust, occurs from approximately birth to one year. Erikson (1950) defined trust as an essential trustfulness of others as well as a fundamental sense of one's own trustworthiness. He thought that an infant who gets fed when he is hungry and comforted when he needs comforting will develop trust. He also said that some mistrust is necessary to learn to discriminate between honest and dishonest persons. If mistrust wins over trust in this stage, the child will be frustrated, withdrawn, suspicious, and will lack self-confidence. The second stage, Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt, occurs between ages two and three. During this period it is important that the parents create a supportive atmosphere in which the child can develop a sense of self-control without a loss of self-esteem. Shame and doubt about the child's self-control and independence occur if basic trust was insufficiently developed or was lost such as when the child's will is broken by an over controlling parent. In this stage, Erikson said the child encounters rules, such as which areas of the house he is allowed to explore. The third stage, Initiative vs. Guilt, occurs between ages four and five. This is the stage in which the child must find out what kind of person he/she is going to be. The child develops a sense of responsibility that increases initiative during this period. If the child is irresponsible and is made to feel too anxious then they will have uncomfortable guilt feelings. Erikson (1950) believed that most guilt is quickly compensated for by a sense of accomplishment. Erikson's fourth stage, Industry vs. Inferiority, occurs between six years and puberty. This is the period in which the child wants to enter the larger world of knowledge and work. One of the great events of this time is the child's entry into school. This is where he is exposed to the technology of his society: books, multiplication tables, arts and crafts, maps, microscopes, films, and tape recorders. However, the learning process does not only occur in the classroom according to Erikson, but also at home, friend's houses, and on the street. Erikson said that successful experiences give the child a sense of industry, a feeling of competence and mastery, while failure gives them a sense of inadequacy and inferiority, a feeling that one is a good-for-nothing. Components of Erikson's prior four stages contribute to the fifth stage, Identity vs. Identity Confusion. This occurs during adolescence. During this period the identity concern reaches climax. According to Erikson this is the time when adolescents seek their true selves. Erikson's sixth stage, Intimacy vs. Isolation, occurs during young adulthood. Intimacy with other people is possible only if a reasonably well-integrated identity emerges from stage five. The main concern of Erikson's seventh stage, Generativity vs. Stagnation, is to assist the younger generation in developing and leading useful lives. When the individual feels that he has done nothing to help the next generation then they experience stagnation. The final stage, Integrity vs. Despair, occurs during late adulthood. This is the time in which the individual looks back and evaluates their life. If the previous stages have developed properly then they will experience integrity. If the previous stages have not developed in a positive way then they will feel despair. Erikson (1950) believed that development is primarily qualitative because changes are stage like, but also quantitative as one's identity becomes stronger and one's convictions solidify. He believed that nature determines the sequence of the stages and sets the limits within which nurture operates. However, all must pass through one stage before entering the next in the stated order. An important aspect of development is socialization: how children learn to live within their culture and social environment. Socializing influences include parental behavior, social deprivation, sex roles, and the development of moral judgment. Erikson's Theory of Personality (1956) is a psychoanalytic theory. However, it extends beyond Freud's concept of biologically determined psychosexual stages. Erikson speaks of a series of psychosocial stages that govern the entire life of the individual, not simply the years before childhood. Erikson's theory differs from Freud's in another important way: It does not include the concepts of id and the superego. However, Erikson does accept Freud'd concept of ego. He defines its functions as the source of the behavior that characterizes the individual's adjustments, decisions, beliefs, and attitudes. In effect, the ego acts as the executive of the personality. Perhaps the most conspicuous way, in which his theory differs from that of Freud is that, in contrast to Freud's list of stages that take development up to the age of eleven or twelve, Erikson lists eight stages of development, going across the entire lifespan. Each of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development is marked by a conflict, for which successful resolution will result in a favorable outcome of each stage are sometimes known as "virtues", a term used, in the context of Eriksonian work, as it is applied to medicines, meaning "potencies". For example, the virtue that would emerge from successful resolution of the eighth stage is that of wisdom. Erikson's theory of personality (1956) attempts to cover the complete development of the individual, from birth to death. His theory emphasizes interaction. He takes into account the individual 's effect on the environment as well as the environment's changing effect on the individual. The Ethological Perspective and Attachment Theory -John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) is one of the major proponents of attachment theory. His work was influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution and by psychoanalytic theory. Attachment is an innate human survival mechanism. It is a control system that achieves these specific goals: 1) It helps the infant primate maintain proximity (closeness) to its caretaker. 2) It provides the young child with a secure base from which to explore the world. 3) It helps the child regulate his/her emotions. Babies behave in such a way as to ensure proximity (closeness) to the caretaker. When fretful, they cry. This usually brings the caretaker, who tries to make the crying stop. Through this process, infant learns, in a fundamental way, that they can have an effect on the behavior of other people; that they can have an effect on the world. As young children grow older, they gradually move farther away from the caretaker as they explore the environment. However, they maintain contact with the caretaker through visual and verbal communication. The attachment bond can be seen in the two-way conversation and visual interchange between an infant and its caretaker. Mary Ainsworth (1969) describes attachment as an emotional tie that a person or animal forms with another person or animal. It is a tie that binds these two beings together and it endures over time. Human attachments last for a lifetime. Attachment is an indicator of the quality of care received by the infant. According to the experts secure attachment relationships are established when we see parental behaviors that demonstrate 1) Sensitivity to the child's need for stimulation and quiet 2) Responsiveness to the child 3) Playing with the child in ways that promote growth and development. Attachment researchers note that too much stimulation can produce fussy, avoidant babies. Too little stimulation can produce anxiously attached babies. Observing the way the child reacts when separated from the caretaker formally assesses the strength and quality, of the infant and toddler's attachment, to the caretaker. Ainsworth, Sroufe, and others used the "Strange Situation Test" to study attachment behavior. The child's reaction to being separated from (and later reunited with) the caretaker is observed and recorded. Attachment theorists believe that most babies one of the following: securely attached, insecurely attached, or resistant. When provided with responsive care, the infant acquires internal working models that have an impact on its future development. These involve the infant's expectations of the mother/caretaker and sense of itself as worthy/not worthy. Responsive, sensitive care results in the creation of a sense of self as a potent (effective) person - one that can have an impact on the world. Thus, security of attachment influences personality and the individual's feelings of self-reliance. Bowlby's first formal statement of Attachment Theory, drawing heavily on ethological concepts, was presented in London in three now classic papers read to the British Psychoanalytic Society. The first, The Nature of the Child's Tie to his Mother was presented in 1957 where he reviews the current psychoanalytic explanations for the child's libidinal tie to the mother (in short, the theories of secondary drive, primary object sucking, primary object clinging, and primary return to womb craving). This paper raised quite a storm at the Psychoanalytic Society. Even Bowlby's own analyst, Joan Rivire protested and Donald Winnicot wrote to thank her: "It was certainly a difficult paper to appreciate without giving away everything that has been fought for by Freud". Anna Freud, (1960) who missed the meeting but read the paper, wrote: "Dr Bowlby is too valuable a person to get lost to psychoanalysis". The next paper in the series Separation Anxiety was presented in 1959. In this paper, Bowlby pointed out that traditional theory fails to explain both the intense attachment to mother figure and young children's dramatic responses to separation. Robertson and Bowlby had identified three phases of separation response: 1. Protest (related to separation anxiety) 2. Despair (related to grief and mourning), and 3. Detachment or denial (related to defense). All of which proved Bowlby's crucial point: separation anxiety is experienced when attachment behavior is activated and cannot be terminated unless reunion is restored. Unlike other analysts, Bowlby advanced the view that excessive separation anxiety is usually caused by adverse family experiences, such as repeated threats of abandonment or rejections by parents, or to parent's or siblings' illnesses or death for which the child feels responsible. In the third major theoretical paper. Grief and Mourning in infancy and early childhood, read to the Psychoanalytic Society in 1959 (published in 1960), Bowlby questioned the then prevailing view that infantile narcissism is an obstacle to the experience of grief upon loss of a love object. He disputed Anna Freud's (1960) contention that infants cannot mourn, because of insufficient ego development, and hence experience nothing more than brief bouts of separation anxiety provided a satisfactory substitute is available. He also questioned Melanie Klein's claim that loss of the breast at weaning is the greatest loss in infancy. Instead, he advanced the view that grief and mourning appear whenever attachment behaviors are activated but the mother continues to be unavailable. Recently, Michael Lewis (1998) and other psychologists have challenged some of the claims attachment theorists have made about the long-term effects of the attachment process. This is a very important issue; because our degree of optimism or pessimism about possibilities for personal change depends on how much weight we put on the long-term impact of early experiences. Can we overcome the difficulties of a traumatic infancy Does the psychological evidence support the idea that those who don't form solid attachments to their parents early on will encounter difficulty later in life Lewis provides a fascinating set of arguments in favor of the idea that our early experiences do not shape us for life. (Michael Lewis 1998). Hereditary, experience and culture influences the formation and development of personality. Factors that influence children's developing personalities include contact with parents, playmates, relatives, and others. Children's home environment, the manner in which they are raised, and more specifically, the relationship they have with their primary care giver (a parent) influence personality development. Parental behavior and the parent's characteristics play an important role in the socialization of children. Parents set examples for their children, although they do not always do so intentionally. For instance, most parents do not want their children to show aggression. Yet a parent will punish a child by spanking, thereby unwittingly encouraging the child to use aggression. Sears (1951) has shown that children who are frequently punished by their parents show a great deal have disguised aggression. In another study, Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957) showed that very aggressive children came from homes in which there was much physical punishment, the parents condoned overt aggression, they disagreed frequently, and the mother was not satisfied with her role in life and held a low opinion of her husband. Parent's characteristics influence the social development of children in subtle ways. Imitation plays a role, but the influence may be more complex. For example, his son sometimes imitates an aggressive father, but, if the father is very aggressive and dominates his son, the son may develop timid patterns of social behavior. A mother who takes pride in her own beauty may be imitated by her daughter, but, if the mother is more vain than maternal, her daughter may see herself as inferior to mother and take little pride in hers own appearance. Infants are totally dependent on their parents for the satisfaction of all their basic needs, and parental response to these needs strongly influences the infant's social development. The feeding situation represents the first crucial test of parent child interaction. If the child 's experiences are gratifying and relatively free from discomfort, they become a source of contentment and satisfaction. These feelings of contentment spread from the parent to other adults. If the feeding situations are unpleasant, as might happen if the parent is rough with the child and usually hurries with the feeding, then the feeding situation and the parent come to arouse feelings of discomfort and tension. These negative feelings may generalize to other adults. In the course of development from infancy through and beyond adolescence, children progress from total dependency to becoming individuals who can act independently. Between these two widely separated extremes, however, individuals pass through various intermediate stages in which their dependency vary. Discouraging dependency is done in two ways, by with holding reward and punishment. The effects of withholding reward vary with the past learning experience of the child. If dependency has been strongly rewarded, withholding reward encourages still more dependent behavior. For example, Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957) found that generally affectionate mothers who disapproved of their children's excessive emotional demands and who used withdrawal of affection as punishment were unwittingly encouraging their children to remain dependent. On the other hand, if dependency has not been strongly rewarded, dependent behavior decreases when parental affection is withheld. As children develop into adolescents, people responses to them and expectations of them change. As they struggle to adapt to their new roles, adolescents may find that little of what they have learned so far is useful to them, that they need a whole range of feelings and behavior. In order to survive this " identity crises" (Erikson, 1950), adolescents must discover ways to mesh their personalities and desires with society's expectations of them. Development does not end at puberty. People are always developing in some ways. As we get older, the development is perhaps more social and intellectual than biological. We constantly adjust to the changing demands of our lives. Employment, marriage, parenthood, and many problems we confront in our social roles force us to modify our behavior in various ways. Much of our adult life is devoted to a series of confrontations with change. A change from college student to self-sufficient wage earner is very demanding. A change from being single to being married requires major adjustments, as does parenthood. The human development does not end with transition from adolescence to adulthood. The aging process, an extension of the process of maturation, goes on throughout life. References: Ainsworth, M. I). S., & Wittig, B. A. (1969). Attachment and the exploratory behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. In B. M. Foss (Ed.), Determinants of infant behavior (Vol. 4, pp. 113-136), London: Methuen. Bowlby, J. (1959). Separation anxiety. International Journal of Psychoanalysts, XLI, 1-25. Bowlby, J. (1960). Grief and mourning in infancy and early childhood. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, VX, 3-39. Bowlby, J, (I 962). Defenses that follow loss: Causation and function. Unpublished Manuscript, Tavistock Child Development Research Unit, London. Bowlby, J. (1962). Loss, detachment and defence. Unpublished manuscript, Tavistock Child Development Research Unit, London. Bowlby, J. (1969), Attachment and loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. New York: Basic Books. Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss, Vol. 2: Separation. New York: Basic Books. Bowlby, J. (I980). Attachment and loss, Vol. 3: Loss, sadness and depression. New York: John Bowlby and Attachment Theory (The Makers of Modern Psychotherapy) Jeremy Holmes / Paperback / Published (1993) http://psychematters.com/bibliographies/bowlby.htm Erikson, E.H. Childhood and Society. New York: Norton, (1950). Erikson, E. H. Growth and crises of the "healthy personality". New York: Knopf, (1956). http://psychematters.com/bibliographies/erikson.htm Freud, A. (1960), Discussion of Dr, JohnBowlby's paper. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 15, pp 53-62. Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id, In 3. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 19, pp. 3- 66). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923). Klein, M. (1932). The psychoanalysis of children. London: Hogarth Press. Klopfer, B., Ainsworth, M. D., Klopfer, W. F., & Holt, R. B., (1954). Developments in the Rorschach technique (Vol. 1). Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book. Michael Lewis (1998), Altering fate: Why the past does not predict the future. Miller, P. (1983). Theories of Developmental Psychology. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company. Sroufe, L. A. (1988). The role of infant-caregiver attachment in adult development. In J. Belsky & T. Nezworski (1988), Clinical implications of attachment (pp. 18-38). Hillsdale. NJ; Erlbaum. Sroufe, L. A., & Waters, B. (1977). Attachment as an organizational construct. Child Development, 49, 1184-1199. Sears, R. R. A theoretical framework for personality and social behavior. American Psychologist, (1951), 6, pp 476-483. Sears, R. R., Maccoby, E. E., & Levin, H. Patterns of child rearing. Evanston, III. : Row, Peterson, (1957). Santrock, J. (1996). Child Development. Dubuque, IA: Brown and Benchmark Publishers. Read More