Importance of the life span perspective of development & most fascinating one to study in your opinion - Essay Example

Lifespan development Lifespan development The theory of lifespan development was first pioneered by Charles Darwin in his evolutiontheory. It is significant to note that unlike other theories of human development, lifespan perspective views development of humans from conception until end of life. Life span development can be defined as the process beginning from conception that goes on until death. This process begins with the formation of a fetus that grows into a baby. As the child is born and enters the world, the environment around the child begins to influence its development process.

The main developmental periods during lifespan development includes child and adolescence, early childhood, middle childhood and the late childhood or old age. Each period transitions to the other which involves significant change in character of a person’s life and in most cases it takes up to six years to successfully and completely transition to the other stage (Boyd & Bee, 2006). Life span development states that important modifications occur throughout development. The lifelong human development is multidimensional and contextual in that it involves growth, maintenance and regulation of the body.

According to human development perspective, human beings have the potential of positive or plasticity alteration or change to environmental challenges and difficulties throughout life. In this argument, human have the ability to adapt to new developments that occur in their life as they transition from one stage to another such growing from early age to an old age. Human development takes place through various domains such as physical, social and cognitive development. The physical aspect of human development is featured by how human grows and change physically.

The cognitive aspect of human development is concerned with how learning takes place and the reasons as to why memories fade at old age. Lastly, the social aspect is concerned with how humans adjust to variations within social situations such as social skills and building relationships (Boyd & Bee, 2006). The life span perspective also argues that human development periods span the lifetime of people from conception to death. For instance, these periods includes prenatal, adolescent, early, middle and late adulthood.

Summarily, development of human lifespan perspective began with Charles Darwin and it has continued to intrigue scientist and psychologists. Human development aspects of physical, cognitive and social awareness are vital in that they take place throughout prenatal, childhood and adult development. The important fact that this perspective bring on board is the idea that life begins at conception and ends at death. The most fascinating stage of human development is adolescence. Because at this stage, human development primarily depends on what is done to us by those around us.

This is a stage where someone is neither a child nor an adult; therefore, life is more intricate as people strive to find their own identity, struggle with socialization and moral issues. At this stage, the main motive is that people have to unravel who they are as separate individuals and as members of the wider society. Human development is not universal because human behavioral aspects begin from the environment in which one is born. Studies have shown that some elements such as sense of humor are learned trait, influenced by cultural and family environment and not genetic.

Culture is very instrumental in human development in that as people develop, they acquire certain skills and norms of the society which they are expected to uphold and transmit to the next generation. This is due to the fact that all children grow as members of their cultural societies. All pre-teens in all cultures do not go through same level of cognitive development because each teen progress differently at varying rate in developing their thinking ability due to the fact that they develop different perception of the world around them.

For instance, different cultures of the world nurture its people in different manner in adapting to the cultures of the society. Piaget would disagree with this statement because he argued that all pre-teens regardless of their culture or environment first learn to differentiate self from objects and that they can think logically about abstract preposition and have the ability to test hypotheses. ReferenceBoyd, D., & Bee, H. (2006). Lifespan development, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.