Reflection Paper On Developmental Theories

Developmental theory, with Piaget as the most prominent theorist, presents the idea that children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore the world around them. Development is seen to take place in broad stages from birth through to adulthood, with each stage characterized by qualitatively distinct ways of thinking. However, some developmental theorists, in contrast to Piaget, place more emphasis on personal, social and emotional development rather than cognitive development and prefer to delay ‘academic’ experiences until later, for instance after the age of seven years in Steiner’s theory.

Developmental theories are propositions that view crimes, holding the perception that as people undergo life transitions, their experiences influence their behavioral characteristics and patterns. These inevitable behavioral characteristics do change at different points of life. They are also used to seek out the identification, description and comprehension of the factors explaining the inception and continuation of criminal professions. The theories also seem to find the assertion behind the why people engage in criminal and the reason behind their ability in altering the trajectory of their progress in criminal involvement. These theories are distinctively categorized in two broad categories that are contextualized in this paper, the latent trait and life course theories.

Adulthood in the later years of life is different from the previous stages of life. Unlike the stages in later adulthood, the earlier stages emphasize developmental growth and achievements. In the later years in life, a person must deal with deteriorating health and death. The developmental theories in late adulthood involve the methods in which an individual can deal with their relationships with their bodily changes, mental abilities, changes in close relationships, families, overall society, and intended and unintended relocations (Rathus, 2013).

The field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire lifespan is called lifespan development. Lifespan development takes a scientific approach in its study of growth, change, and stability. This development emphases on human development. Developmentalists study the course of development in nonhuman species, the most popular examine growth and change in people. In contrast I will focus on the ways people and myself change and grow during our lives, with the consideration of stability in our live span. Together, these findings suggest that we will go through

Being aware of what life course one’s on and the impact of transitions within a person’s life course is important for social work practice. It is important that social workers reflect on both their own and other’s experiences throughout the life course and support this understanding within the various theoretical frameworks. It helps us to understand the common themes which have affected people through the age and helps us understand why people behave the way they do in certain situations.“Understanding of life

As Bernstein (2010) points out, often times people with ADHD “zone out” and miss valuable parts of conversations. This results in them bouncing back, often with a quick lie in order to continue the flow of conversation. These lies occur so quickly in order to fill voids of conversation, and so often, that they can sadly become a habit.

As a social worker, it is extremely important to be aware of the biological factors that are affecting your client’s life. Clients could be suffering from illness such as depression caused by a decrease level in serotonin, or a behavior such as increased aggression caused by higher testosterone levels. It is important to understand that because both of these behaviors are caused by biological factors, they are out of our client’s control (Wormer, 2011). However, it is not only important to be aware of biological factors, it is also crucial to be aware of the person and environment in addition to the biological aspect. The specific perspective that includes all of these factors is known as life course perspective.

When an infant arrives in the world they are helpless tiny humans who depend on adults for every need from love, to feeding them. It is amazing how these tiny babies grow into adults able to make decisions and become self-dependent. There are many theories about how children develop and what roles the environment plays, what people affect their lives and how events can shape their personalities. Some of these children have and easy life and some have a harder time making that journey to adulthood.

This essay will demonstrate my understanding of developments which occur at each stage of an individual's life cycle. I will relate these developments to two relevant psychological theories and discuss how an individual's needs must be met to enable them to develop.

New needs and tensions will arise in each area of life initiating one to seek new ways of adapting to these new found stressors. In return this forces them to form different kinds of intimate relationships. This maturation helps forms one’s personality (Kowalski, & Westen, 2002). “Relationships formed during each stage of life serve as a prototype for interactions in later stages. For this reason, there exists a continuum of relationships formed throughout a lifetime that shape and mold specific personality traits. Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg, describe development as a series of stages. A stage is a period in development in which people exhibit typical behavior patterns and establish particular capacities” (Kowalski, & Westen, 2002). “The various stage theories share three assumptions: First people pass through stages in a specific order, with each stage building on capacities developed in the previous stage, second stages most related to one’s age, third development is discontinuous, with qualitatively different capacities emerging in each stage” (Kowalski, & Westen, 2002).

From the day they are born, children are immersed in a social world. Rapid learning takes place and is supported not only by parents, siblings, teachers and friends but also the important values and beliefs within their culture. All of this provides the foundations for cognitive development. As trainee teachers, it is fundamental that we have a deeper understanding of how children learn and how we can support learning. In order to do this we must first look at some of the theories of learning.

B) our ability to modify our behavior based on the prospect of rewards or punishment.

During this time the explorations are being done and they are basing their possibilities on them. When this is discouraged it causes confusion of themselves and their role in society.

Leading up into the class I was both bit nervous and excited, since this was the first time in years that I haven’t taken a class outside of my particular major. As I was going through the course schedule, I had in my mind that I did not just want to take any old class just because I need it to graduate. So I came across developmental psychology and thought to myself that this would be a good fit because I enjoy learning about other people. Once class started, I was a little confused about how it the class was going to be, since I already had the thought in my head that I was going to be learning about people older in age. After understanding more about what I was going to learn from this class, I became much more excited because this is actually affecting me in my personal life now, as my wife is pregnant and due in December. I thought this was a great pre baby learning experience for myself, since each week I had the ability to learn everything from development, prenatal development, physical development, intelligence, temperament and attachment, gender role development, and development of the family.

Different theorists have different ideas about the development of children. Two of these include Urie Brofenbrenner and Mason Durie. The western theorist, Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) was born in Russia however was relocated to the United States in his early years, where his father worked as a clinical pathologist. This is likely to have impacted on Bronfenbrenners future career path of psychology (Moffitt, n.d.). Bronfenbrenner explores the ideas around ecological theory. A Maori perspective is Durie, born in New Zealand in 1938. He studied medicine and surgery at University of Otago, and continued on to do a postgraduate diploma in psychiatry (Massey University, 2010). Durie explores ideas around Maori wellbeing. Both of these theorists have implications on teaching.