Major Developmental Themes In Child Development Essay

, Research Paper

Major Developmental Themes

Is development the result of genetics or the result of the love, guidance and the upbringing one receives. That is a very interesting and personal question. In reviewing Table 4.1 in the textbook regarding where the main developmental theories stand on the six themes in development, it appears that most of the theorists involved believe that both nature and nurture have an impact on the development of the child (Child Development: A Thematic Approach (3rd. ed.) (Bukato, Daehler, 1998, p.29). The Ethological theme reports that although behavior is biologically based the environment has an impact and influences behavior patterns. Most of the other themes such as the Learning Theory and the Socioculture Theory are based on nurture or environmental experiences with some biological experiences.

An article on the Internet titled Quotations about Nature, Nurture,

and Nature via Nurture (1998), reports that there are in fact three ‘nature vs. nurture’ issues rather than just one. They concern what is innate, what is inherited, and what is important. What is innate to the species, in this case, Homosapiens. Features of human behavior and experience arise from the genes that are shared and without most of which a human child is unlikely to be born with. What is inherited. We can look at genetically similar or even identical twins that grow up in different environments, thus allowing us to learn whether environmental differences, between families, contribute to final observable differences in behavior and personality. Not all physical factors appear to be genetically inherited. For example, the best-known example of this is the case of eye colors in Homosapiens; two brown-eyed parents can have a blue-eyed child if each of them carries the recessive gene for blue eyes as well as the dominant gene for brown eyes. Finally, what is important. With genetic cloning a fact, not a possibility, a society has to determine what is important to them in today.s culture. Discussion such as .Is it more important to have smart or good-looking children.. Or, .As a society will we allow genetic defects such as dwarfism.. There is much controversy regarding this developing topic and I am sure much more to come. The previously cited article reports that most current psychologists admit that it is impossible to prove nature vs. nurture outcomes because there are such complex interactions that effect all development processes in a child.

Growing up within the larger scheme of things is the concept of the Socioculture theme. This theory indicates that the community one grows up in has a great impact on what experiences, beliefs and values they will have. Every society changes over time. Some change rapidly; others seem to stay virtually unchanged for generations. But, however slowly, change does occur. Communication and language are two important aspects that play major roles in the socioculture development. Functions of communication such as, actions, words, behaviors, settings, topics and/or events all envelope the different forms and styles of communication that members of the group or culture utilize. Factors such as proximity, the space people need or use for themselves within a community, and the poverty cycle are very important in the development of an individual and a culture. Children are biologically predisposed to develop language and the environment triggers rather than serves as a stage of development. A child learns most and is most impressionable during the first five years of his life. Therefore, a child in poverty is exposed to his environment, and that is what they know, even before entering into the educational system. This has a lot to do with the continuation of the poverty cycle.

An example that I am familiar with at work is with families involved with Child Protective Services (CPS) and the subject of discipline or communicating through the use of corporal punishment. In some cultures spanking is perfectly acceptable. When a person is CPS involved because of neglect due to addiction, it is not conducive to the goal of reunification to hit or spank child. Teaching CPS participants can be challenging because it is sometimes very difficult for them to understand different concepts when corporal punishment is what their culture and society has deemed the norm.

A child plays an active role in his or her development by the way he responds to being taught. In each of the theories described in the textbook it is apparent that the child plays an active role. Even in the learning theory where the child is not active in behavior analysis but engages the environment to determine what is learned in social cognitive theory (Child Development: A Thematic Approach (3rd. ed.) (Bukato, Daehler, 1998, p.33). In contextual theories the child is biologically equipped to deal with the environment yet actively engaged with the environment. The relationship between the biological and environment are always influencing each other. I am inclined to favor Piagot.s theory that a child.s knowledge is constructed; that the child is always thinking therefore, always active in its development.

Is development continuous or discontinuous. Continuous is flowing and discontinuous is stages. When children get better with each task so that it becomes natural for them to move on to the next task that is continuous develop