Incredible Journey of Development - Essay Example

From when a baby is born to when he or she becomes an adult is a long and incredible journey of development. A baby is usually clueless about survival in this world at the time of its birth, but under the influence of parents, teachers, society, the surrounding culture, and inherent and emotional abilities, the baby grows into a child, a child to an adolescent and an adolescent to an adult. From what I see of the children around me, I recognize that their learning ability, be it in terms of language, text or activity, is much greater than that of adults. Adults have better survival and day-to-day capabilities but infants, children, and adolescents have an amazing ability to pick up knowledge from their surroundings through interaction and instruction. My observation about children and their learning abilities is precisely the direction experts have taken almost a century ago. Experts on child behavior have concluded their thoughts in the form of various theories, most of which attempt to explain how a child develops, in order to have a better understanding of the support, resources and care a child needs to attain his or her entire potential and also assess the risks of negative influences or lack of physical or intellectual nourishment at various periods of growth. While some theorists hold that children develop smoothly and continuously, others contest this by their belief in the stage-wise development of children, where each stage can be distinguished from the other and is recognizably stable. But both agree that there are certain periods of a children's development when they are capable of learning to perform certain tasks better than at any other age, for example, infants and toddlers have better language grasping abilities. It is also generally agreed that each child is a unique individual, and would pick up skills according to a unique pace and pattern. The first of these developmental theories was by Sigmund Freud, which though considered inaccurate is important because it formed the basis of later theories to mark this field. He held that the way children's basic sexual and aggressive desires are handled by its parents would dictate the development of their future personalities and traits. Freud divided the developmental stages of children in terms of their sexual development, and named them Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital stages. Freud's theory formed the basis of Erik Erikson's work which suggested a theory of human development in stages from birth to death in terms of how children begin to gain a sense of identity, as well as develop self-belief allowing them to become productive and successful members of society in their future life. Erikson associates each stage with a particular stretch of life span and goes from trust- versus-mistrust which lasts from birth to one year; autonomy-versus-shame and doubt which can be said to last from one to three years; initiative-versus-guilt which goes from three years to six ; and so on in stages such as industry-versus-inferiority; identity-versus- identity confusion; intimacy-versus- isolation; generativity versus stagnation; and integrity versus despair, each of which corresponds to a particular age. But usually from experience we see around us that the particular age of a child during infancy, childhood or adolescence is actually merely indicative of the developmental stage he or she is in. Different children of different ages could be at the same developmental stage, because of varying rates of growth, and children of the same biological age could be at different developmental stages. What really determines the stage a child is in, is the set of tasks he or she is able to perform, and it is thus very important for caregivers to realize this while interacting with a child. It is also important to realize that each child goes through particular phases of his or her life known variously as "sensitive" or "critical" periods. Theorists who believe in the "sensitive" periods hold that a child is particularly receptive to stimuli, learning resources and inputs at these "sensitive" periods during which they are able to pick up specific skills, and if not given the required intellectual and emotional nourishment may find it difficult to learn these skills at a later period of their life, and can only do so at the cost of lots of extra effort. Those who call these open windows of learning as "critical" periods feel that if a child misses these learning opportunities due to neglect, abuse, or physical inabilities, the specifically indicated skills may never be learned. I therefore feel that a caregiver should have access to information on what specific intellectual and emotional stimuli a child should be exposed to at what particular developmental stage, as well as the means to identify the exact nature of that stage and the demands related to it. But not all theoretical approaches relate development with age alone. The cognitive theory follows the process of how human beings come to know more about themselves, other humans and their environments, and delineates the stages in which this knowledge is gained by relating intellectual abilities to the environment. The most renowned proponent of the cognitive approach is John Piaget, who held that infants are born with reflexes, which remain unchanged in animals throughout their lives, but in human beings evolve through an increasingly complex process of adaptation to the environment. This can be approximately divided into two types: assimilation and accommodation. According to this children learn as they interact with their world through work and play, and figure out better and better strategies of dealing with situations, and thus develop skills in language, social behavior and emotional responses. Piaget's theory has different stages, such as : sensori-motor, during which infants and toddlers are trying to learn how to grasp more knowledge through their sensory and motor agencies;and pre-operational, in which typically two to seven year olds begin to use mental symbols to understand and interact with the world around them especially through language and pretend play. These two stages are followed by the concrete operational stages when the child, usually aged seven through eleven, children gain the capability to think logically, to figure out problems in concrete terms and to organize and categorize the information they have gathered. Finally, Piaget talks about the formal operational stage which usually has an onset at eleven and carries on well into adolescence during which kids learn how to think in abstract terms in order to figure out problems and they also start thinking symbolically. At this stage language and intellectual abilities are fairly developed, and this becomes possible through continuous interaction with the environment and adaptation. But the development of a child cannot be studied in its completeness without considering the social aspects, and I think the relevance of moral codes as keepers of society and their assimilation by children may be discussed here. One of the theorists who was concerned with the moral development of children, where they learn to distinguish right from wrong, was Lawrence Kohlberg who divided the process into three cumulative stages : the 'pre-conventional' level which talks about kids who understand morality only in terms of consequences; the second stage 'conventional' morality where children learn to act in moral ways in order to relate better to immediate relatives and community; and lastly, the 'post-conventional' level talks about those whose view of morality go beyond rules or laws. In addition, theorists like Erikson talk about a child's ability to develop social skills, to become a useful member of society and to come up with the appropriate social, emotional and cultural response to a particular situation, and to my mind Erikson's theory is one of the prime bases for our understanding of children's social and emotional development. Erikson and others have also had an impact on A.Bandura's social cognitive theory which holds that human development results from a complex interplay of many factors and contend that gender development, an essential part of a child's social development, is deeply rooted in external sanctions early in a child's life. The environment that a child grows up in, the clothes, nursery dcor, and the toys and activities form a basis for gender stereotypes in the family as well as society, which is only reinforced through behavioral instructions from caregivers based on gender stereotypes. Over a period of time the cognitive ability of a child kicks in and he or she independently takes up suitable gender-specific behavior, without the need for external guidance in the matter. The development theories form an essential basis and guideline for teaching theories. Cognitive theories of development can be seen to have their impact on teaching theories like Experiential / performance-based learning, Constructive instruction, Multiple intelligence instruction or Problem-based learning where teachers try and provide opportunities for real-world experiences based on students' prior knowledge, so that the student can further develop his or her understanding on the basis of previous knowledge. Social theories of development have their counterpart in teaching theories like Social learning, Thematic instruction or Social cognition where teachers try to facilitate student learning by strengthening students' ability to retain information as well as analyze and solve problems through social interaction and inter-disciplinary research. After browsing through a gamut of children's development and teaching theories, I cannot help noticing how important it is for caregivers to be aware of theories in both the categories, but also for them to realize that the child in their charge is a unique individual. A caregiver should believe in the importance of early positive experiences and the proper introduction of stimuli at the right times in children's lives. Only through a judicious study and application of these theories can teachers and care givers decide what is best for the children under their care: these would afford them insights such as toddlers have the best ability to learn languages, or that adolescents would thrive if given ownership of the learning process. The theoretical background would give them the confidence they need to nurture fragile young lives, and allow researchers to delve and discover more of the human psyche in its developmental stages. Read More