Key Characteristics of Developmental Changes

Key Characteristics of Developmental Changes

  • Submitted By: awright
  • Date Submitted: 04/14/2011 7:21 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 987
  • Page: 4
  • Views: 1

Supplementary Notes
Overview of Development

What is development?

General view: Changes in height, weight, behavior, or other characteristics or traits

However, not all changes are development.

Key characteristics of developmental changes:

Systematic - not haphazard
Successive - interdependent increments with recent changes built on previous achievement for example, walking.

Example: Walking counts but not weight increase. Infants put on weight as a result of physical growth. That is part of development in infancy, toddlerhood, young childhood and adolescence. Adult weight gain is not about development. After reaching young adulthood weight should stabilize and not increase unless more calories are consumed than burned.

Why Study Infant, Toddler, Child and Adolescent Development?

Reason #1: Raising Children

Knowledge of child development can help parents and teachers meet the challenges of rearing and educating children

Researchers have identified effective approaches that caregivers can use successfully

Reason #2: Choosing Social Policies

Knowledge of child development permits informed decisions about social-policy questions that affect children
Research on children’s responses to leading interview questions helped  

Reason #3: Understanding Human Nature

Child-development research provides important insights into some of the most intriguing questions regarding human nature

• The existence of innate concepts
• The relationship between early and later experiences

Children adopted from inadequate orphanages in Romania show that the timing of experiences often influences their effects

Historical Foundations: Early Philosophical Views

Contributed what became enduring ideas about issues in childrearing
Methods were unscientific

Plato and Aristotle believed that the long-term welfare of society depended on children’s being raised properly (so understanding the importance of...

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