• The developmental changes that occur from birth to adulthood
were largely ignored throughout much of history.
• Children were often viewed simply as small versions of adults
and little attention was paid to the many advances in cognitive
abilities, language usage, and physical growth. Interest in the
field of child development began early in the 20th-century and
tended to focus on abnormal behavior.
The following are just a few of the many theories of child
development that have been proposed by theorists and
researchers. More recent theories outline the developmental
stages of children and identify the typical ages at which these
growth milestones occur.
Child development
theories
Psychoanalytic theories
Sigmund Freud
Erik Erikson
Cognitive theories
Jean piaget
Social development theories
Bowlby
Behavioral theories
Pavlov
Psychoanalytic Theories
• Sigmund Freud
The theories proposed by Sigmund Freud
stressed the importance of childhood events
and experiences, but almost exclusively
focus on mental disorders rather than
normal functioning.
According to Freud, child development is
described as a series of 'psychosexual
stages.' In "Three Essays on Sexuality"
(1915), Freud outlined these stages as oral,
anal,, latency period, and genital. Each stage
involves the satisfaction of a specific desire
and can later play a role in adult personality.
• Erik Erikson
Theorist Erik Erikson also proposed a stage theory of
development, but his theory encompassed development
throughout the human lifespan.
• Erikson believed that each stage of development is
focused on overcoming a conflict. Success or failure in
dealing with conflicts can impact overall functioning..
Behavioral Theories
• Behavioral theories of
development focus on how
environmental interaction
influences behavior and are
based upon the theories of
theorists such as Watson ,Pavlov,
and Skinner.
• These theories deal only with
observable behaviors.
Development is considered a
reaction to rewards, punishments,
stimuli, and reinforcement.
Social Development Theories
• There is a great deal of research on the
social development of children.
• John Bowbly proposed one of the earliest
theories of social development. Bowlby
believed that early relationships with
caregivers play a major role in child
development and continue to influence
social relationships throughout life.
• Theorist Jean Piaget suggested that children think
differently than adults and proposed a stage theory
of cognitive development. He was the first to note
that children play an active role in gaining
knowledge of the world.
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive
Development
 Jean Piaget believed that children go
through a number of fixed stages on their
way to independent thinking.

His theory on cognitive development,
though, is perhaps the most widely
accepted and most cited.
• Piaget believed that all children will go
through the following stages in order, the
age ranges are only a general guideline.
• Each child matures in his own time, and
even siblings don't do the same things at
exactly the same age.
Sensory Motor Stage
Birth to 2 Years
•
•
•
•
An enormous amount of growth and development
takes place in the first two years of life. During
that time span, children go from being
completely helpless to walking, talking, and to a
degree, being able to make sense of the world
around them.
One of the most important milestones that
children achieve in their first few years,
according to Piaget, is their mastery of "object
permanency," or the ability to understand that
even when a person or object is removed from
their line of sight, it still exists.
Early on, children are only able to perceive
things that are right in front of them, but as they
mature, they understand that if a ball rolls under
a chair and they can no longer see it, it still
exists, under the chair.
This is an especially important understanding for
children, helping them to have an increased
sense of safety and security since they can now
grasp the fact that when mum leaves the room,
she hasn't disappeared, but will soon return.
Preoperational Stage
2-7 Years
• Once object permanency is achieved, children
move onto this next stage, which is marked
by a number of advancements.
• Language skills develop rapidly, allowing
kids to better express themselves.
• Also, children in the preoperational stage are
egocentric, meaning that they believe that
everyone sees the world the way that they do,
leaving no room for the perspectives of
others.
For example, a child will sometimes cover
their eyes so that they cannot see someone
and make the assumption that the other
person now cannot see them, either.
• A major indicator of this stage is called conservation, or the
ability to understand that quantity does not change just
because shape changes.
•
• For example, if you were to pour the same quantity of liquid
into two separate glasses, one short and wide and the other tall
and thin, younger children would insist that the taller glass
holds more.
•
Children who have mastered the concept of conservation
would be able to understand that the quantities are identical.
•
• Piaget explained that the child's inability to yet grasp the
concept is due to their capacity to focus on only one aspect of
a problem at a time (centration), their tendency to take things at
face value (appearance), and the fact that they see something
only in its current condition (state).
• They cannot yet understand that the wider with of the short
glass compensates for the height of the taller one.
Concrete Operations Stage
7 to 11 Years
• During the concrete operations
stage, the centristic thought process
is gradually replaced by the ability to
consider a number of factors
simultaneously, giving them the
ability to solve increasingly complex
problems.
• Also, kids at this stage can now
understand how to group like
objects, even if they are not identical.
For example, they are able to see that
apples, oranges, cherries, and
bananas are all types of fruit; even
they are not exactly the same.
• Another important developmental advancement that occurs
during this phase is seriation, the ability to place things in
order according to size.
• Children who have a mastery of this concept are able to
take jars of varying heights and place them in order, tallest
to shortest.
• They still have some distinct limitations to their thinking
process, however, especially when it comes to applying
concepts that they are unfamiliar with.
• While their understanding of the things that they have direct
access to is strong, kids this age still have a tendency to
lack understanding of things that they haven't personally
seen, touched, heard, tasted, or smelled.
Formal Operations Stage
11 and Beyond
•
In the final phase of cognitive development, children
hold a much broader understanding of the world
around them and are able to think in abstract ways.
•
They are also able to hypothesise possible outcomes
to a given problem and then think of ways in which to
test their theories.
•
Children in the formal operations stage learn to use
deductive reasoning to draw conclusions, which opens
them up to a wider base of knowledge than ever
before.
•
An example might be as follows:
A bear is a mammal. All mammals have
fur. Therefore, a bear has fur.
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