Human Development

Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes PhD, LMHC, CRC
Executive Director AllCEUs.com
Copyright AllCEUs.com Unlimited CEUs
$99/year

 Review the most common theories of child
development: Psychoanalytic, behavioral, social
learning, cognitive, attachment, ecological
 Apply theoretical concepts to child development
 Hypothesize how failure to accomplish tasks in one
area of development can negatively impact other
areas
$99/year

 Definition:
◦ Change in the child that occurs over time. Changes
follow an orderly pattern that moves toward greater
complexity and enhances survival.
 Periods of development:
◦ Prenatal period: from conception to birth
◦ Infancy and toddlerhood: birth to 2 years
◦ Early childhood: 2-6 years old
◦ Middle childhood: 6-12 years old
◦ Adolescence: 12-19 years old
$99/year

Development is described in three domains, but growth
in one domain influences the other domains.
 Physical Domain:
◦ body size & shape, appearance, brain development, motor development,
perception capacities, physical health.
 Cognitive Domain:
◦ thought processes and intellectual abilities including attention, memory,
problem solving, imagination, temperament
 Social/Emotional Domain:
◦ self-knowledge and identity, moral reasoning, understanding and
expression/regulation of emotions, interpersonal skills, and friendships.
$99/year

 Discuss how development (or lack thereof)
can impact the other areas
 How can problems in development lead to the
development of
◦ Depression
◦ Anxiety
◦ Addiction
$99/year

 What is a theory?
◦ Orderly set of ideas which describe, explain, and predict
behavior.
 Why are theories important?
◦ To give meaning to what we observe.
◦ As a basis for action -- finding ways to improve the lives
and education of children.
$99/year

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 Preformationism: children seen as little adults.
 Childhood is not a unique phase.
 Children were cared for until they could begin
caring for themselves, around 7 years old.
 Children treated as adults (e.g. their clothing,
worked at adult jobs, could be married, were made
into kings, were imprisoned or hanged as adults.)
$99/year

 Puritan religion influenced how children were
viewed.
 Children were born evil, and must be civilized.
 A goal emerged to raise children effectively.
 Special books were designed for children.
$99/year

 John Locke believed in tabula rasa
 Children develop in response to nurturing.
 Forerunner of behaviorism
$99/year
www.cooperativeindividualism.org/ locke-john.jpg

 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
◦ children were noble savages, born with an innate
sense of morality; the timing of growth should not
be interfered with.
 Rousseau used the idea of stages of
development.
 Forerunner of maturationist beliefs
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 Charles Darwin
◦ theories of natural selection and survival of
the fittest
 Darwin made parallels between
human prenatal growth and
other animals.
 Forerunner of ethology
$99/year

Theories about children's development expanded
around the world.
 Childhood was seen as worthy of special
attention.
 Laws were passed to protect children,
$99/year

Beliefs focus on the formation of personality.
According to this approach, children move through
various stages, confronting conflicts between biological
drives and social expectations.
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 Based on his therapy with troubled adults.
 Emphasized that a child's personality is
formed by the ways which parents
manage his sexual and aggressive
drives.—ID, EGO, SuperEGO
 Introduced the concept of defense
mechanisms such as sublimation,
identification, reaction formation, denial,
displacement, dissociation, rationalization
and more…
$99/year

 Defense mechanisms can be helpful. Give an
example of each of the following:
 Discuss the possible positive and negative
applications of each.
$99/year
Anger/Acting Out
Denial
Devaluation
Idealization
Displacement
Intellectualization
Passive aggression
Projection
Rationalization
Suppression
Sublimation

 Believed that development is life-long.
 Identified 8 stages:
◦ Basic trust vs mistrust (birth - 1 year)
◦ Autonomy vs shame and doubt (ages 1-3)
◦ Initiative vs guilt (ages 3-6)
◦ Industry vs inferiority (ages 6-11)
◦ Identity vs identity confusion (adolescence)
◦ Intimacy vs isolation (young adulthood)
◦ Generativity vs stagnation (middle adulthood)
◦ Integrity vs despair (the elderly)
 Emphasized that at each stage, the child acquires attitudes and skills
resulting from the successful negotiation of the psychological conflict.
$99/year

 In what ways does failure to resolve the crisis at a
psychosocial stage negatively impact further
development?
 What are 5 possible reasons Erickson would give for the
development of
◦ Depression
◦ Anxiety
◦ Addiction
$99/year

Beliefs that describe the importance of the
environment and nurturing in the growth of a
child.
$99/year

 Developed as a response to psychoanalytic theories.
 Provided a tangible/observable explanation for behaviors
 Behaviorism became the dominant view from 1920's-1960's.
 Believed that learning could be broken down into smaller
tasks, and that offering immediate rewards for
accomplishments would stimulate further learning.
◦ Punishment
◦ Reinforcer
◦ Discriminitive Stimuli
◦ Behavior Chain
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 Based on Pavlov's experiments on dogs.
 Researched classical conditioning
◦ Reinforcement/Punishment
◦ Conditioned and Unconditioned Stimuli
 Children can be molded by controlling the stimulus-
response associations.
$99/year

$99/year
Depression/Recovery Anxiety/Recovery Addiction/Recovery
Positive
Reinforcement
Negative
Reinforcement
Positive
Punishment
Negative
Punishment
Discriminitive
Stimuli
Behavior
Chain

Albert Bandura
 Stressed how children learn by observation and
imitation.
 Believed that children gradually become more
selective in what they imitate.
$99/year

 Give examples of what and how children learn
that contribute to the development of
◦ Depression
◦ Anxiety
◦ Addiction
$99/year

 John Bowlby applied ethological principles
to his theory of attachment.
 Attachment between an infant and her
caregiver can ensure the infant’s survival.
$99/year

Beliefs that describe how children learn
$99/year

Cognitive development
theory
 Children "construct" their understanding of the
world through their active involvement and
interactions.
 Studied children to understand not what they
knew but how they knew it.
 Described children's understanding as their
"schemas” and how they use:
◦ assimilation
◦ accommodation
$99/year

 Sensori-motor
 Ages birth - 2: the infant understands the world through sensory input
 Preoperation
 Ages 2-7: uses metal representations of objects and is able to use
symbolic thought and language
 Concrete operations
 Ages 7-11: uses logical operations or principles when solving problems
 Formal operations
 Ages 12 up: uses logical operations and ability to use abstractions
$99/year

Socio-Cultural Theory
 Agreed that children are active learners, but their
knowledge is socially constructed.
 Cultural values and customs dictate what is
important to learn.
 Children learn from more expert members of the
society.
 Vygotsky described the "zone of proximal
development", where learning occurs.
$99/year
ced.ncsc.edu/hyy/devtheories.htm

The belief that development can't be explained by a
single concept, but rather by a complex system.
$99/year

Ecological Systems Theory
 The varied systems of the environment
and the interrelationships among the
systems shape a child's development.
 Both the environment and biology
influence the child's development.
 The environment affects the child and the
child influences the environment.
$99/year

 The microsystem - activities and
interactions in the child's immediate
surroundings: parents, school, friends,
etc.
 The mesosystem - relationships among
the entities involved in the child's
microsystem
 The exosystem - institutions which affect
children indirectly: the parents' work
settings and policies, extended family
systems, media, community resources
 The macrosystem - broader cultural
values, laws and governmental
resources
 The chronosystem - changes which
occur during a child's life, both
personally, like the birth of a sibling and
socially
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 There are a variety of theories to explain behavior and child
development
 Each theory makes a unique contribution to our
understanding of human development and behavior
 We understand now that
 Behavior and cognition is partially age-dependent
 The immediate and extended environment and interactions
therein shape what is perceived and how it is perceived
 Behaviors are motivated by rewards of pleasure and/or
survival or avoiding punishment or extinction
$99/year

Human Development

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