Lifespan Development Research Paper

     Going back forty-five years is not an easy task to complete because I can’t remember some of the finer details of my childhood. I know I was born on a hot August afternoon in Birth Year at Place Of Birth in City ands State. My mother was just twenty-two at the time and was already the mother of two, I was her third child. My father was twenty-one and already a workaholic, I know because my mother would constantly remind me not to be like that. My mother and father were good parents and they tried to give us the best upbringing they could. My father was the kind of person that believed he should provide and protect his family, and he did a very good job of doing that.

The interview was conducted with a married female, 59 ½ years of age. The purpose was to document the subject’s lifespan history with recollections of significant events in her development. The focus was to identify any dystonic outcomes during any of the stages of Erikson’s personal developmental theory, theory of the mind, Levinson theory, attachment theory and Identity theory. It is anticipated that the questions could quarantine specific areas and incidents that may have obstructed any of the developmental theories thereby influencing the subject’s later view of adolescent, young adult and middle age. The focus for the paper is inspired by Erickson’s emphasis on the identity crisis as the “psychosocial

Life is a series of continuous ebbs and flows. Life span development goes through the cycles and stages of infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early or emerging adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood; it is the definitive culmination to the end of life (Berger, 2008). Lifespan development focuses on human development. Although there are develop mentalists who study the course of development in nonhuman species, the vast majority examines growth and change in people. Some seek to understand universal principles of development, whereas others focus on how cultural, racial, and ethnic differences affect the course of development. Still others aim to understand the unique aspects of individuals, looking at the traits

From ages 6-11 you are considered early middle childhood. Around these ages you start changing your physical development by growing about 2 to 3 inches in height and 5 pounds in weight each year. A female body will mature quicker than the male body. Girls are slightly lighter and shorter than boys at ages 6-8, and then at age 9 it gets reversed. Around the middle childhood age the lower portion of the body is growing fastest, children appear to look long-legged. Girls end up having slightly more body fat and boys have more muscle. Between ages 6-8 the child should be able to do independent things like dress themselves, and tie their shoes. Children also start to develop more independence from their parents. It becomes important for a child

Grown-up deliberation is frequently more complicated and adaptive that youthful concept. Unlike adolescents, adult understand the contradictions inherent in thinking. They see both the possibilities and the problems in every course of action in deciding whether to start a new business, back a political candidate, move to a new place, or change jobs. Full-grown adults are more knowledgeable that youngsters or adolescents at creating logical resolutions and at correlating reason and generalization to actions, feelings, common concerns, and special affiliations. As they appreciate these relationships, their thought becomes more global, more concerned with broad moral and practical issues. The achievement of these new kinds of thinking reflects a stage of cognitive development that goes beyond Piaget’s formal operational period. In this stage, people’s thinking becomes dialectical, which means they understand that knowledge is relative, not absolute such that what is seen as wise today may have been thought foolish in times past. They see life’s contradictions as an inevitable part of reality, and they tend to weigh different solutions to problems rather than just accepting the first one that spring to mind.

Lifespan development is “the field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and the stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire life span” (Feldman, 2014, pg 5). The biological inheritance from my parents, the environments I have walked through, and my increase awareness of spirituality have molded me into a great person. Thus, “development requires that we look at the joint efforts of the interaction of heredity and environment, and how, in the end underlie human behavior” (Feldman, 2014, pg 5). Throughout this paper important aspects of each developmental stage- prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early and middle adulthood, and spirituality will be discussed and I will include examples of my own development ultimately showing that I have been blessed with a great life.

Research has indicated that regardless of theory, there are six stages of lifespan development. These are: infancy, childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age, and older age. Lifespan development refers to changes that take place due to age, throughout life. There are three main areas these changes will alter as a result of age progression and they are biological, cognitive and psychosocial (Zastrow & Ashman, 2016, p. 77). This would mean every change to our abilities, and physical bodies, as well as our capacity to think from birth, to finally, old age adjusts throughout a lifetime. This paper will concentrate on the first lifespan, from birth to two years old.

Prenatal Development and the newborn: The focal point of this section was conception and the development of life before birth. I’ve read that every woman is born with a number of eggs that will later be released. Out of that number 1 in 5,000

On March 10th, 2016, I decided to observe my younger brother, Nathan, who just turned 15 years old. I observed him while I was at home for spring break for my Life-Span Development class that I am taking at Dordt College. Before I observed my younger brother, I followed the proper procedure of asking for consent from his mother and having her sign a confidentiality statement. I had the pleasure of using my younger adolescent brother for this report and I was able observe him while he is in this adolescent stage of development.

Life span developmental psychology takes a scientific approach to human growth and change, focusing on change during the life span. There are three main aspects to life span development: cognitive, social, and physical development. This class is not simply a discussion of nature vs. nurture, it explores the interaction between genetic and environmental factors that orient us towards specific behaviors. Initially, my views on life span development were limited to more sociological factors, and did not take into consideration physical developments of the brain. In relation to my personal and professional identity this course has made me realize that development occurs on a spectrum and that not everyone develops at the same time, in the same ways, making me more understanding and compassionate towards those who developed differently than me. The three most important lessons I have learned from this class are that development occurs throughout the entire life span, infants begin learning at a very young age, and that senescence begins as early as young adulthood.

Piaget stated that from birth to age 2, an infant’s knowledge of the world is limited to their sensory perceptions and motor activities, thus the child learns about him/herself and his/her environment through motor and reflex actions. Thought derives from sensation and movement. The child learns that he/ she is separate from his/her environment and that aspects of his/ her environment, the parents or favourite toy, continue to exist even though they may be outside the

During this course, we discuss human develop through the lifespan perspective and analyze the five major theories Psychoanalytic, Behaviorist, Cognitive, Humanistic and Evolutionary. Psychoanalytic is a theory of human development that holds that irrational, unconscious drives and motives, often originating in childhood, underlie human behavior. I will be analyzing my development through the psychoanalytic theory.

The three theories I have chosen to discuss are all extremely relevant ideas; although I prefer Erik Erikson’s stage of psychosocial development. Erik Erikson’s theory covers a person’s entire lifespan showing the many different stages throughout one’s life. A person is always

The development of a child is viewed from a number of different perspectives by several developmental theorists. While some say that development continues throughout the life, others would hold an opinion that children stop to develop as soon as they mature. Therefore, lifespan developmental theorists have focused on a number of areas while studying the development of an individual. Some of these areas include cognitions, social development, sexual development, moral development and more. Each of these theories is important in order to completely analyze the process whereby which a child matures and transitions into an adult.

“Early life experiences impact the person across their lifespan” is conveyed in the Jane Piaget theory ‘Stages of cognitive development’ (1936) and Erik Erikson theory ‘Psychosocial stages’ (1950). Piaget argued that children develop knowledge by constructing their experience and observe with their own ideas about how the thing works.(Burton, L.J., Westen, d. & Kowalski, R.M. 2015) He developed 4 stages of his theory: Sensorimotor Stage, Preoperational Stage, Concrete Operational Stage and Formal Operational Stage. At the same time, Erik Erikson proposed a psychoanalytic theory of psychosocial development comprising eight stages from infancy to adulthood. At every stage, a person will encounter a psychological crisis, the development of