©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Module 1
Human Development: Meaning,
Concepts and Approaches

Chapter 1: Introduction
Meaning
 Development: the pattern of movement or change
that begins at conception and continues through the
human life span
 Scientificstudy of processes of change and stability
throughout the human lifespan.
 Involves growth and decline (negative or positive
development)

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Some Major Principles of Human Development

 Development is relatively orderly.

 Cephalocaudal pattern
 Proximodistal pattern

 While the pattern of development is likely to be

SIMILAR, the OUTCOMES of development
processes and the RATE of development are likely
to vary among individuals
 Heredity and Environment

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Some Major Principles of Human Development

 Development takes place gradually

 More often it takes weeks, months or years for a
person to undergo changes that result in the display of
developmental characteristics.
 Development as a process is complex because it is
the product of biological, cognitive and
socioemotional processes. (Santrock, 2002)
 Biological, Cognitive and Socioemotional processes

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Some Major Principles of Human Development

 Development is the product of biological,

cognitive, and socioemotional processes
 Biological: changes in an individual’s physical nature
 Cognitive: changes in thought, intelligence, and
language
 Socioemotional: changes in relationships with other
people, changes in emotions, and changes in
personality

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Developmental Changes Are a Result of Biological,
Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes

Biological
processes

Cognitive Socioemotional
processes processes

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

2 Approaches to Human Development

 Traditional Approach: emphasizes extensive

change from birth to adolescence, little to no
change in adulthood, and decline in old age

 Life-Span Approach: emphasizes developmental

change throughout childhood and adulthood

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Life-Span Perspective
 Life-Span Perspective views development as:

 Lifelong
 Multidimensional
 Plastic
 Contextual
 Development is a process that involves growth,
maintenance, and regulation of loss

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Life-Span Perspective
 Development is Lifelong
 Earlyadulthood is not the endpoint of development
 No age period dominates

 Development is Multidimensional
 Consists
of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional
dimensions
 Multiple components within each dimension

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Life-Span Perspective
 Development is Plastic
 Plasticity: capacity for change and adaptation

 Development involves Growth, Maintenance, and

Regulation of Loss

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Life-Span Perspective
 Development is Contextual
 All development occurs within a context (setting)
 Each setting is influenced by historical, economic, social, and
cultural factors
 Contexts exert three types of influences:
 Normative age-graded influences: similar for individuals in a
particular age group
 Normative history-graded influences: common to people of a
particular generation because of historical circumstances
 Non-normative life events: unusual occurrences that have a major
impact on the individual’s life

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Principles of Child development and
learning that inform practice

 All the domains of development and learning –

physical, social and emotional, and cognitive – are
important, and they are closely related.

 Many aspects of children’s learning and

development follow well documented sequences,
with later abilities, skills and knowledge building
on those already acquired.

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Principles of Child development and
learning that inform practice

 Development and learning proceed at varying rates

from child to child, as well as uneven rates across
different areas of a child’s individual functioning.

 Development and learning result from a dynamic

and continuous interaction of biological maturation
and experience.

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Principles of Child development and
learning that inform practice

 Early experiences have profound effects, both

cumulative and delayed on a child’s development
and learning; and optimal period exists for certain
types of development and learning to occur.

 Development proceeds toward greater complexity,

self-regulation, and symbolic or representational
capacities.

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Principles of Child development and
learning that inform practice

 Children develop best when they have secure,

consistent relationships with responsive adults and
opportunities for positive relationships with peers.

 Development and learning occur in and are

influenced by multiple social and cultural contexts

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Principles of Child development and
learning that inform practice

 Always mentally active in seeking to understand

the world around them, children learn in a variety
of ways; a wide range of teaching strategies and
interactions are effective in supporting all these
kinds of learning.

 Play is an important vehicle for developing, self-

regulating as well as for promoting language,
cognition, and social competence.

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Principles of Child development and
learning that inform practice

 Development and learning advance when children

are challenged to achieve at a level just beyond their
current mastery, and also when they have many
opportunities to practice newly acquired skills.

 Children’s experiences shape their motivation and

approaches to learning, such persistence, initiative,
and flexibility; in turn, these dispositions and
behaviors affect their learning and development

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

MODULE 3: ISSUES ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

reserved.
The Nature of Development
 Developmental Period: a time frame in a person’s
life that is characterized by certain features
 Prenatal period: conception to birth (9 months)
 Tremendous growth
 Infancy: birth to 18-24 months
 Dependenceupon adults
 Development of many psychological activities

 Early childhood: end of infancy to 5-6 years

 Preschool years
 Self-sufficiency and increased play

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Nature of Development
 Developmental Period (continued)
 Middle and late childhood: 6-11 years
 Reading, writing, and arithmetic
 Focus on achievement and self-control

 Adolescence: varying endpoints; from 10-12 to 18-22 years

 Rapid physical changes
 Pursuit of independence and identity

 Early adulthood: late teens to early 30’s

 Personal and economic independence
 Selecting a mate

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Nature of Development
 Developmental Period (continued)
 Middle adulthood: 40-60 years
 Social involvement and responsibility
 Assisting the next generation

 Late adulthood: 60’s-70’s to death

 Lifereview
 Adjustment to new social roles
 Longest developmental span
 “youngest old” vs. “oldest old”

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Developmental Issues
 Nature and Nurture: the extent to which
development is influenced by biological inheritance
and/or environmental experiences
 Nature proponents argue that an evolutionary and
genetic foundation produces commonalities in growth
and development
 Nurture proponents emphasize the importance of both
the biological and social environment

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Developmental Issues
 Stability and Change: the degree to which early
traits and characteristics persist through life or
change
 Stability/Constancy: traits and characteristics are seen
as the result of heredity and early life experiences
 10-15% of children are consistently shy
 10-15% are bold/expressive

 Change: traits and characteristics can be altered by

later experiences
 Role of early and later experiences is hotly debated

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Developmental Issues
 Continuity and Discontinuity: focuses on whether
development is either:
 A process of gradual, cumulative change (continuous)
 A set of distinct stages (discontinuous)

 Evaluating Developmental Issues:

 Most developmentalists acknowledge that
development is not all-or-nothing
 There is debate regarding how strongly each of these
issues influences development

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Developmental Issues
 Continuity
 The typical 18-month-old child might have between 10
and 50 words to speak (1y.o and 6 mo.)
 but by the time children reach kindergarten age, they have
a very mature sounding vocabulary of about 2000 words
 Discontinuity
 Development appear rather ABRUPTLY rather than
GRADUALLY
 We see discontinuity when children hit “milestones”

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Developmental Issues

The interaction of heredity and environment is so

extensive that to ask which is more important, nature or
nurture, is like asking which is more important to a
rectangle, height or weight.
William Greenough

©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.