Is child development a gradual or in stages

The development of kids occurs from birth to adolescence. Children start developing their physical, rational, societal, and emotional senses at an early age and while people change throughout their lives, the developmental alterations occur largely during childhood. All the manner through this phase, the baby becomes person who can command his linguistic communication, he becomes self-conscious, and he can believe and socialise with others. Child development is studied for several grounds. The first one being that it provides practical counsel for parents, instructors, child-care suppliers and other people who cater for kids. The 2nd ground is that it allows the population to keep a healthy growing. Besides, analyzing development of kids supports them in understanding themselves and others. We know ourselves better by acknowledging the influences that have made us who we are today. There are multiple facets impacting kid development and these characteristics are nature and raising, continuity versus discontinuity and phases of development. These characteristics will be evaluated throughout this essay. Whether kid development is a gradual alteration or phases of development, research workers are still discoursing about it. But evidently, we can detect that it is both of it, that is, kid development occurs through a set of phases but it is besides a gradual alteration throughout the lives of the kids.

It is normally known today that facets of kid development are a merchandise of both raising and nature ( Bee, 2004 ) 1. The nature versus raising disagreement present groundss of how each factor impacts development. Nature, besides known as heredity is the familial codification of birth, which was passed on to by our parents. An illustration of the impact of nature on the development of kids is the acceptance of babes. Families with adoptive kids have the same environment, but do non portion the same cistrons. ( Myers, pg. 139 ) 2 There are small similarities between adopted kids and their household, and greater similarity between adopted kids and their biological parents. Raising, besides known as the influence of environment on our development is an recognized factor on the development of kids. Environment plays a important function in the development of worlds. After sing a individual ‘s environment in act uponing ability, nutrition plays an of import function. For illustration, the survey of a group of kids, they were provided vitamin and mineral addendums for eight months and they had to go through intelligence trials after the eight-month intervention. It was seen that these kids had betterments in tonss as compared to another group whom we non given vitamin and mineral addendums ( “ Nature vs. Nurture ” , 2001 ) 3. Therefore, the consequences put frontward the fact that environment helps in the rational ability of people. But as we continue inquiring ourselves, where nature and raising comes in the gradual alteration or phases in the development of kids, we come to continuity and discontinuity.

There are two major ways in which development advancement. There is the continuity procedure, where the kids are invariably developing, where kids gather accomplishments, consciousness, cognition and behavior. On the other manus discontinuity is the development of kids at different phases and different times, here the development can non continue if at an earlier phase, and the kid did non get a particular accomplishment. For illustration if a kid has non started babbling at the first phase, so it will be hard for him to get down speaking. There are some theories of development that argue that alterations are merely an matter of measure ; that is ; kids displayA more certain accomplishments as they grow older4. Other theories outline a series of consecutive phases in which accomplishments emerge at certain points of development.A One theory is the Psychoanalytic theory, influenced by Sigmund Freud ( 1900 ) , who believed in the importance of the unconscious head and childhood experiences. Freud ‘s part to developmental theory was his proposal that development occurs through a series of psychosexual phases, where the pleasure-seeking energies of theA idA become focused on certain erogenous countries. This energy, besides known as libido, was described as the force moving on the behaviour.5

Theorist Erik Erikson ( 1963 ) developed in deepness Freud ‘s theory by saying that kid development involved phases, where he put accent on clangs that arise at the different phases of development. But unlike Freud ‘s theory, he believed that development occurred throughout gradual alteration. Erikson said that our self-importance individuality invariably evolves in respects to new experiences and cognition we attain daily when interacting with others. He besides believed that capablenesss motivate behaviors and accomplishments. Each phase in Erikson ‘s theory is concerned with going competent in an country of life. If the phase is handled good, the individual will experience a sense of command, which he sometimes referred to asA ego strengthA orA self-importance quality.A If the phase is managed ill, the individual will emerge with a sense of failure6.

Finally, we have Jean Piaget ( 1920 ) who suggested that kids construct their apprehension while interacting with the universe ; they experience jets of alteration, followed by greater stableness as they move from one cognitive tableland to another. ( Myers, pg. 181 ) He viewed these tablelands as phases. Piaget proposed that kids grow through 4s phases ; the sensorimotor phase, preoperational phase, concrete operational phase and formal operational phase ; all divided between birth to maturity. By detecting the three old paragraphs, the readers may reason that these three theoreticians have come far in the development of kids and we can understand that they are all right in their theories.7

After reading the different subdivisions of this essay, we may observe that kid development is a mixture of gradual alteration and different phases. We observed that each theoretician concluded that their theories are the best, but by looking profoundly, Piaget, Erikson and Freud ‘s theories complete one another and that kid development can hence be described as such. We can besides see that nature and raising has besides an impact on kid development and that it is non merely a uninterrupted development, but besides if the kids as some phases do non develop decently at that phase, traveling on to the following degree would be a job for the kids since they have non achieved the needed degree. Thus the continuity if their development is interrupted.