They “observe, formulate theories, make predictions, and do experiments” (Gopnik, 237) to learn about people, objects, and their surroundings. Like scientists, when a significant amount of counter evidence is present, babies and young children will change their theories. Finally, Gopnik concludes her essay by saying the role of adults in the learning of children is an important one, and recommends that readers work towards “paid parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and publicly
Scientific Perspective of Child Development In the informative essay "Kiddy Thinks", Alison Gopnik enlightens readers on the role of childcare in the early stages of child development. The main objective of her writing is to compare babies and toddlers to scientists, stating they use knowledge they are born with to create thoughts, "I argue that very young children use the same strategies as scientists. They think, observe, formulate theories, make predictions then do experiments." (Gopnik, 237) She uses different examples throughout her essay to test this perspective. Gopnik first uses a personal experience to captivate her audience then proceeds to provide scientific evidence on the psychological abilities of children, beginning with newborn babies to toddlers about the age of four.
Many psychologists are perplexed when it comes to addressing when children understand certain concepts. For instance, they may ask questions regarding when a child has the ability to understand that objects still exist even when you cannot see them. Or at what age can a child distinguish that people have desires and dreams, but objects do not. Developmental psychologists, such as Jean Piaget, investigate not only what children think but how they think. Piaget developed four periods to distinguish different cognitive developments amongst children.
Erikson for his theory of psychosocial development, who believed that personality develops in a series of stages. However, each author has their own view regarding the educational implication of the various processes, as well as, the role of various environmental components. The following articles (Horn 2009), will attempt to support and the educational implications of each theory. The articles highlight the major theories, research and opinions of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Erik Erikson’ on how children develop and learn. The first article by (Webb 1980) talks about Piaget belief that within each person there is an internal self-regulation mechanism that responds to environmental stimulation by constantly fitting new experiences into existing cognitive structures called schemas developmental stages in teaching.
The subsequent discussion offers an analysis of these levels and their influence to child development, and then the writer offers a personal analysis of the influence of the ecological theory in decision making. The theory suggests there are four levels of the environment that simultaneously influence individuals. Brofenbrenner suggest that we can’t fully understand development without considering how a person is influenced by each of these levels (Vander Zanden, 2007). Bronfenbrenner examines the mutual accommodations between the developing person and these changing contexts in terms of four levels of environmental influence: the microsystem, the mesosytem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem (Vander Zander, p. 8, 2007). The microsystem consists of the network of social relationships and physical settings in which a person in involved in each and every day.
Aspects or areas of development classified as Physical development, Social and emotional development, intellectual development and language development. The sequence of development from birth to 19 years as follows: Development 0-3 years Physical Development : Turn their head towards sounds and movements Watching an adult face when feeding Look and reach for objects Move from sitting with support to sitting alone Raise arms to be lifted Creep and crawl Reaches hands towards source of food Begin to walk Feed themselves Crawl steps/stairs Throw objects, pour liquids Social and Emotional Development Respond to adults especially mother’s face and voice Smiles and concentrates on adults Dependant on adults for reassurance and comfort Showing affection to known faces and shy to strangers May use comfort object Become anxious or distressed if separated from known adults Play alongside other children Intellectual development Beginning to realise others are separate beings from themselves Becoming more confident but still needs adult support Respond to variety of sounds, make variety of sounds Watching adults and copy their movements Language Developments Able to make different variety of sounds Star to copy words from adults Will be able to show feelings and express them in different ways Joining words and putting sentences Development 3-7 years Physical Development Walks up and
WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF EARLY SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN? Everybody is focusing on how early social development affects children. Psychologist made research and came up with a solution to prove why early social development affects children. In scientific terms, early childhood development is a process through which the young children grow and thrive physically, mentally, socially, emotionally and morally. It begins from conception and extends up to 8 years of age.
COPYRIGHT MICHAEL P M MHLANGA THE NATURE NURTURE DEBATE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALS. MICHAEL P M MHLANGA GREAT ZIMBABWE UNIVERSITY The concepts of nature and nurture shape the development of human beings. This write up sets out to assess the nature nurture debate, pinpointing the effects each has on the development of children. Terms that will be defined are nature nurture debate, nature and nurture. Feldman (2009) defines the nature nurture debate as the issue of the degree to which environment and hereditary factors influence the behaviour.
Social Learning Theory and Child Development Name: Institution: Social Learning Theory and Child Development Albert Bandura is the theorist who proposed the social learning theory, which has become one of the most significant theories of human learning and development. He believed that direct reinforcement cannot explain all categories of learning. This theory added a new component, holding that individuals can learn new behaviors, values, and information through watching other individuals. Modeling or observational learning can be utilized in explaining a range of human behavior (Akers, 2009). Bandura holds that behavior is learnt through observational learning process from the environment.
THE CORRELATION BETWEEN EARLY CHILDHOOD AND THEORIES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Many of the most important theories of human development in the 20th century stress the role of early childhood. Specifically, the work of Erik Erikson, Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget all, in their different schemes of development, note the importance of early childhood experiences. Features 1. All major theories of human development stress the movement from grasping concrete things, which the child perceives as symbols, to abstraction, which involves coming to conclusions using logic; this occurs roughly from toddlerhood to fourth or fifth grade. The issues of each stage in human development differ not so much in kind but in the degree of complexity.