Grand Theories Of Child Development

There are many theories of development, but some are more influential and have inspired a lot of

Psychoanalytic theories describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored by emotion. Psychoanalytic theorists emphasize that behavior is merely a surface characteristic and that true understanding of development requires analyzing the symbolic meanings of behavior and the deep inner workings of the mind. They also stress that the experiences children have with their parents earlier on in life shape development. The psychoanalytic theory highlighted by Sigmund Freud who was born in 1856 and died in 1939. As he listened to and examine his parents he was influenced they were the result of experiences early in life. He thought that as children grow up, their focus of pleasure and sexual impulses shifts from the mouth to the anus and eventually to the genitals. As a result, we go through five stages of psychosexual development: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. The oral stage is when the infant’s pleasure centers on the mouth, the anal stage is when

The second theory examined is Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development. Each stage in Erikson’s theory involves a conflict/crisis that a person must work through to evolve their personality. Rosenthal (1981) explains that, “Each stage arises because a new dimension of social interaction

Theories of development offer insights into the forces guiding childhood growth and what can affect them.

Prior to the early 20th century little interest was paid to how a child developed; indeed most early research appears to be based on abnormal childhood behaviour (Oates et al. 2005). However, over time researchers began to acknowledge that both genetics and environment factors impacted on the way a child developed. Although there are many theories of child development, in particular constructivism, behaviourism, social constructivism and social learning have influenced developmental psychology enormously (Oates et al. 2005).

There have been many theories on how children develop and learn, some of the theorists who influence the educators of today on how to best teach children.

There is a plethora of child development theories that have a degree of influence over current practice. Each of which both have criticism and contrasting theories.

Development of a person throughout his or her whole lifetime can be seen either as a continuous process or as a final status to be attained. Psychologists agree

There are many different theories of development which we use to understand children’s behaviour, reactions and the way in which they learn.

Key concepts of developmental theory include that development is separated into domains of developmental theory such as physical, social/emotional and cognitive. Development occurs in stages that are generally age related. Each stage is defined by a set of typical skills or understanding that children would normally

There are many theories of child development because we have been studying the field for so many years. Each theory has their different factors; biology, sociology, genetics, environment, relationships are just a few of them. “Thank you for making me so wonderful and complex”! (Psalms139:14). When one theory is formulated and used for awhile someone else may come behind that particular theorist and add some new points to expand the theory and then create a new one. That’s why I feel so many different theories exist.

Theories of development are important as they can influence practice and help us understand a Childs way of learning, behaviour and reactions

Development psychology refers to the scientific study of the systematic psychological changes that normally occur to human beings throughout their growth period from birth to old age. It was originally concerned with children and infants, but it has since expanded to include the entire life span of mankind including adolescence and adulthood. Development psychology covers the extent to which human development occurs through gradual accumulation of knowledge, and the extent to which children born with inmate mental structures learn through experience. Several psychological theories and approaches like the behavioral, humanistic, psychoanalytic, biological, and cognitive approaches have been developed to explain the

If two children were being observed by some of the childhood development theorists such as Freud, Piaget, Skinner, Bandura, and Bronfenbrenner although each would see all five of the areas of growth, each would probably focus on their interpretation of social and emotional grown, and possible on language and cognitive abilities with a passing nod to physical growth.

There are five theories of development which are psychoanalytical, behaviorism, cognitive, socio-cultural, and epigenetic (Santrock). These theories help develop an outline from which to explain the patterns and problems of development (Berger). I am only going to discuss two of these which are psychoanalytical and behavioral.