Indraprastha College for Women,

Delhi University

PRINCIPLE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Historical foundation of child development

Name - Purvi Sagar

Roll no. - 22/BAP/177
Department - BAP (HDFE+ PSYCHOLOGY)
Discipline - HDFE DSC1
 Abstract

This assignment explores how early philosophers and psychologists thought about child
development and how the views influenced the ways in which children were treated. It
examines early perceptions of child development, before psychology was a science. It
examines five ground-breaking psychologists at the turn of the 20th century: Sigmund Freud,
John Watson, B. F. Skinner, Albert Bandura, and G. Stanley Hall.

The assignment details the mid-20th century psychologies of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Erik
Erikson, and John Bowlby who laid the foundation for the further specialization of
developmental psychology into cognitive development and social-emotional development.
Piaget and Vygotsky both developed global theories of children's cognitive development that
explored how children's mental processes of thinking, reasoning, memory and language
developed. There are a few similarities and some fundamental differences between the study
of developmental psychology today and that of a hundred years ago (Hagan, 2016).
Introduction:

The notion that children "develop" seems an intuitive, obvious, and even self-evident idea.
Children are born small, knowing the world in limited ways, with little or no understanding
of other people as separate from themselves in body or mind, and no understanding of social
relations or morality. They grow larger, learn about the physical and social worlds, join
different cooperative social groups, and cultivate a more and more complex sense of right and
wrong.

The idea of development is used extensively to give order and meaning to changes over time
in children's physical, cognitive, psychosocial, and moral development. Development
provides the rationale for myriad practices and policies related to children. There are,
however, several concepts embedded in the idea of development that, upon closer inspection,
may not be quite so obvious. What is not as obvious as the idea of development itself are the
mechanisms, directions, and ends of development. When one thinks about development in
these terms and considers more deeply the origins and meaning of the idea of development,
the obvious does not appear quite so obvious any longer.

Child Development has emerged as an important area of scientific work. Several disciplines
are involved in understanding the growth and development of the child. By its very nature,
therefore, child development is an interdisciplinary area of knowledge and work. Social
workers and educationists have been, for a long time, concerned more with child
development and have contributed a great deal in focusing the attention of the people to the
importance of several factors which should be taken care of in helping the children to develop
fully. Although it has been a truism that "The Child is the Father of the Man", it is only in
recent times that scientific works in the fiel6 of Psychology, Medicine, Sociology and
Education have really developed an insight into the real meaning of the proverb.

What does child development include?

Child development covers the full scope of skills that a child masters over their life span
including development in:

 Cognition – The ability to learn and problem solve

 Social interaction and emotional regulation – Interacting with others and mastering
self-control
  Speech and Language – Understanding and using language, reading and
communicating
 Physical skills – Fine motor (finger) skills and gross motor (whole body) skills
 Sensory awareness – The registration of sensory information for use

Why is child development important?

Observing and monitoring child development is important to ensure that children meet their
‘developmental milestones’. Developmental milestones (a ‘loose’ list of developmental skills
believed to be mastered at roughly the same time for all children but that are far from exact)
act as a useful guideline for ideal development.

By checking a child’s developmental progress at particular age markers against these

arbitrary time frames, it allows a ‘check in’ to ensure that the child is roughly ‘on track’ for
their age. If not, this checking of developmental milestones can be helpful in the early
detection of any hiccups in development. This ‘check’ is usually carried out through
child/mother services and Paediatricians as infants and toddlers, and later through preschool
and school term skills assessments.

The earliest possible detection (and early intervention treatment if appropriate) of

developmental challenges can be helpful in minimizing the impact these developmental
hiccups can have on a child’s skill development and subsequently their confidence, or serve
as an indicator of a possible future diagnosis.

Developmental milestone checklists or charts are used as a guide as to what is ‘normal’ for a
particular age range and can be used to highlight any areas in which a child might be delayed.
However, it is important to be aware that while child development has a predictable
sequence, all children are unique in their developmental journey and the times frames that
they meet the many developmental milestones.

The Historical Origins of the Idea of Development in Children

The idea of development did not begin or end with children. The idea of development in
children arose from a set of older ideas about natural and human history. By the mid-
nineteenth century, ideas about evolution, development, and progress formed a virtual trinity.

o Evolutionary history (phylogeny)

o Individual development (ontogeny)
o Social change (history).

The nineteenth is most famously known as the century of "history," "development," and
"progress."

Historical timeline of Child Development:

YEAR PHILOSPHERS AND THEORY

PSYCHOLOGISTS
1632-1704 John Locke Tabula Rasa
1712-1778 Jean Jacques Rosseau Qualitative Identity
1809-1882 Charles Darwin Nature and environment
influence
1844-1924 G. Stanley Hall Normative Period
1856-1939 Sigmund Freud Psychosexuality
1857-1911 Arnold Gesell Measuring Stage
1857-1911 Alfred Binet Invented IQ
1902-1994 Erik Erikson Psych sociality
1971 Jean Piaget Cognitive Perspective
SOME PERSPECTIVES AND
VIEWS
Behaviourist Perspective Behavior can be reflected as a
daily life stimulus
Preformationist View Sperm Supremacy

Some Pioneers of the History of Child Development:

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939):

Freud believed that personality develops during early childhood and that childhood
experiences shape our personalities as well as our behavior as adults. He asserted that we
develop via a series of stages during childhood. Each of us must pass through these childhood
stages, and if we do not have the proper nurturing and parenting during a stage, we will be
stuck, or fixated, in that stage even as adults.

In each psychosexual stage of development, the child’s pleasure-seeking urges, coming from
the id, are focused on a different area of the body, called an erogenous zone. The stages are
oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development

Stage Age Erogenous Major Conflict Adult Fixation

(years) Zone Example

Oral 0–1 Mouth Weaning off breast or Smoking,

bottle overeating

Anal 1–3 Anus Toilet training Neatness,

messiness

Phallic 3–6 Genitals Oedipus/Electra complex Vanity,

overambition

Latency 6–12 None None None

Genital 12+ Genitals None No

Charles Darwin (1809-1882):

Child growth and development are affected by 4 major types of environmental factors:
biological, physical, psychosocial, and familial as well nature helps a child's development in
many ways such as in increase physical health, also enhance social-emotional and intellectual

development. Playing in nature, and spending time in the natural atmosphere increase the
motor skills of a child. Outdoor play and learning enhance body balance and coordination.
 Fig 1. Influence of environment and nature on child

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990):

He proposed that children learn from the consequences of behavior. In other words, if
children experience pleasantness as a result of their behaviour, then they are likely to repeat
that behaviour. Conversely, if children experience unpleasantness as a result of their
behaviour, then they are unlikely to repeat that behaviour.

Skinner proposes the use of reinforcements to encourage desirable behaviour and discourage
negative behaviour in children.

Reinforcements can be in the form of rewards and sanctions which parents can use in the
home to promote good behaviour and deter bad behaviour. Equally, in the early years setting,
practitioners can use reinforcements to create a positive environment in which children learn
about rules for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

E.g., Mum asked Ivan to tidy his room. When he finished tidying, his mum allowed him to
watch cartoons on TV. From this experience, Ivan will learn to tidy his room often without
being told because he knows mum will reward him.

Albert Bandura (1977):

Albert Bandura's theory is called Social Cognitive Theory. The encompassing idea behind it
is that children learn by observing the people around them, by being modeled to, and by
imitating that modeling. Bandura proposed that important elements in developing strong self-
efficacy in children are: having opportunities to observe other children succeed, being given

positive verbal feedback from adults and perhaps most importantly, developing their capacity
to understand and manage their feelings and emotions. He also emphasized that four
conditions were necessary in any form of observing and modelling behaviour: attention,
retention, reproduction, and motivation.

G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924):

The Normative Period was developed by G. Stanley Hall. He regarded development as a

maturational process –a genetically determined series of events that unfold automatically,
much like a flower. The development of the human child follows the same general plan as the
evolution of the human species.

Jean Piaget (1971):

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four
different stages of learning. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children
acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence.

Piaget's stages are:

 Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years

 Preoperational stage: Ages 2 to 7
 Concrete operational stage: Ages 7 to 11
 Formal operational stage: Ages 12 and up

Lev Vygotsky:

Vygotsky's social development theory asserts that a child's cognitive development and
learning ability can be guided and mediated by their social interactions. His theory (also
called Vygotsky's Sociocultural theory) states that learning is a crucially social process as
opposed to an independent journey of discovery. He expands on this by stating that a child's
learning benefitted greatly from being guided by a more knowledgeable member of the
community - such as a parent or teacher.

Vygotsky's sociocultural theory also suggested that children internalise and learn from the
beliefs and attitudes that they witness around them. He believed that culture played an
important role in shaping cognitive development and therefore that this development varied
across cultures. Vygotsky also stressed the importance of language as the root of all learning.

Erik Erikson (1902-1994):

Erik Erikson was an ego psychologist who developed one of the most popular and influential
theories of development. While his theory was impacted by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's
work, Erikson's theory centred on psychosocial development rather than psychosexual
development.

The stages that make up his theory are as follows:1

 Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy from birth to 18 months)

 Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Toddler years from 18 months to three
years)
 Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool years from three to five)
 Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority (Middle school years from six to 11)
 Stage 5: Identity vs. Confusion (Teen years from 12 to 18)
 Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adult years from 18 to 40)
 Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle age from 40 to 65)
 Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair (Older adulthood from 65 to death)

John Locke (1632-1704):

Tabula rasa, the view was proposed by the English philosopher John Locke, argued that
children were not innately sinful, but instead were like a 'tabula rasa', or 'blank slate'. Locke
believed that experiences in childhood were important in determining adult characteristics.
He advised parents to spend time with their children (something that was not commonplace)
so that they could help them to become contributing members of society. Locke and others
believed that an adult’s personality is largely determined by their upbringing.

Jean Jacques Rosseau (1712-1778):

Rousseau contended that children were inherently innocent (not sinful, as Hobbes believed),
weak, and easily tempted. He believed that humans were born pure until one's interactions
with the environment caused negative effects on one's development as well as he taught that
the children are far more different than those of adults in qualities.

Arnold Gesell (1857-1911):

Gesell emphasized that growth always progresses in a pattern through predictable stages or
sequences. Sequential development begins within the embryo and continues after birth. While
an individual progresses through these stages at his or her own pace, the sequence remains
the same. He used this knowledge to document predictable, or normative, stages of growth
among children, with the environment causing minor variations in the age at which a skill
might emerge but never affecting the sequence or pattern. Gesell's theory is known as a
maturational-developmental theory.

Alfred Binet (1857-1911):

The most basic tenet of Alfred Binet's theory is that intelligence can be defined by the
comparison of the performance of children at the same idea. The concept is that there are
certain tasks that most six-year-olds can complete. Binet asserted that children who could not
complete those tasks were below average. Binet believed that the purpose of cognitive
development is to allow children to adapt to the physical and social demands of their
environment, emphasizing the fact that children learn by assimilating new experiences into
their existing ways of thinking.

Behaviourist View:

It states how environmental factors influence behaviour, virtually ignoring innate or inherited
factors.

Preformationist View:

In 18th century, children were merely thought of as little adults. Preformationist or the belief
that a tiny, fully formed human is implanted in the sperm or egg at conception and grows in
size until birth, was predominant early theory.
Conclusion

Early childhood development is crucial to how a person develops later on in life. Reasons for
how a person acts behaves and thinks can be traced back to their childhood circumstances
and environment. Parents also play a very important role in a child's development. If they are
involved and provide a nurturing and rich environment then they contribute in a positive way
to their child's development, which will help them later on in life. The human brain is most
impressionable in the first several years of life. This is why these years are so extremely
important and can impact a person's life even into adulthood. Unhealthy eating habits and
negative social interactions, such as a child being isolated, can lead to a child not developing
properly. A child who is raised under these circumstances could suffer consequences later on
in life such as speech impediments or the inability to socialize in a proper and civilized
manner.

However, parents can do many things to ensure their child's developmental process is
successful such as, developing a positive bond with their child, surrounding their child with
positive influences and encouraging family and friends, and attending child development
support groups if need be. Since children truly are the future of any society each community
must recognize the proper steps that need to be taken to ensure each child is allowed to
develop properly. Early childhood development programs are extremely effective and should
strongly be considered by parents. Research has proven that those who attend ECD programs
benefit greatly. These children see better results in school, have better social and more stable
emotional behavior, and develop stronger relationships with their parents, to name a few.

Overall, early childhood development is an extremely important issue that needs to gain
recognition. Every parent needs to understand and be aware of how crucial the first several
years of their child's life are. They should not hesitate to research or ask for help on this topic
if need be.
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