Child Development Theories by of Interest to Developmental Psychologists Is development continuous or discontinuous? Some psychologists believed that human functioning does not undergo fundamental changes but instead changes gradually in its efficiency and working capacity; initially a child spoke a few words but gradually these words become longer and more complicated, increasing the child’s ability to remember and use them in sentences.
Other psychologists maintain that changes in development Theories reflect psychological processes that mediate human functioning. These are qualitatively unique stages, in which the evolution of one stage may depend on the traits of the preceding stages. e.g. Roger Brown, psychologist, maintains that in the process of language acquisition, a child progresses systematically Psychologist in five steps or stages. Each stage has its own set of rules and skills from which a higher level of language acquisition takes place. Physical Development in Children Jean Piaget maintained that cognitive development Theories occurs in a series of steps in which the child acquires and uses unique sets of cognitive processes that allow the child to think in identifiable ways.
Is development Theories general or specific?
• Many aspects of functioning show simultaneous changes; a co-occurrence of change in different situations.
• Changes occur in specific areas of functioning that do not occur in other level of functioning.
• Development Theories may remain isolated in specific domains.e.g. Video game mastery in young boys In some respects development Theories is stable and stays there for very long, whereas in some ways it keeps moving. Temporal aspect: degree of stability or change across the lifespan Situational aspect: degree of stability or change across a wide variety of experiences.e.g. Aggressive behavior in children
