美国paper代写 Details Involving Developmental Theories

When babies arrive in the world, they are tiny, helpless people who depend entirely on adults to take care of all their needs and wants. Somehow, with the proper loving nurturing and care over the next 22 years, they grow to become independent adults who can take care of themselves and others. The journey from infancy to adulthood is an amazing time when children soak up everything in the world around them and mix it with the qualities they are born with in order to mature bit by bit, in every way. Over the years, people who study children have created theories to explain how children develop. While these theorists realize that every child is special and grow in his or her unique way, they also have recognized that there are general patterns children tend to follow as they grow up, and they have documented these patterns in their theories. Three specific theories that explain child development are Jean Piaget's Cognitive Stage Theory, Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory and Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory.

Jean Piaget's cognitive developmental stage theory describes how children's ways of thinking develops as they interact with the world around them. Infants and young children understand the world much differently than adults do, and as they play and explore, their mind learns how to think in ways that better fit with reality. Cognitive perspective is the view that thought processes are central to development (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 33). Piaget's theory has four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. During the sensorimotor stage, which often lasts from birth to age two, children are just beginning to learn how to learn. Though language development, thought to begin during this time, the more major tasks occurring during this period involve children figuring out how to make use of their bodies. They do this by experiencing everything with their five senses, hence "sensory," and by learning to crawl, walk, point and then grasp, hence, "motor."

During the preoperational stage, which often lasts from ages two though seven, children start to use mental symbols to understand and to interact with the world, and they begin to learn language and to engage in pretend play. In the concrete operational stage that follows, lasting from ages seven through eleven, children gain the ability to think logically to solve problems and to organize information they learn. However, they remain limited to considering only concrete, not abstract, information because at this stage the capability for abstract thought isn't well developed yet.

Finally, during the formal operational stage, which often lasts from age eleven on, adolescents learn how to think more abstractly to solve problems and to think symbolically, even about things that aren't really there concretely in front of them. Piaget suggested that cognitive development begins with an inborn ability to adapt to the environment (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 33).

Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory focused on how peoples' sense of identity develops; how people develop or fail to develop abilities and beliefs about themselves which allow them to become productive, satisfied members of society. Because Erikson's theory combines how people develop beliefs psychologically and mentally with how they learn to exist within a larger community of people, it's called a 'psychosocial' theory.

Erikson's theory covers eight stages across the life span: trust versus mistrust; autonomy versus shame and doubt; initiative versus guilt; industry versus inferiority; identity versus identity confusion; intimacy versus isolation; generativity versus stagnation; and integrity versus despair. Each stage is associated with a time of life and a general age span. For each stage, Erikson's theory explains what types of stimulation children need to master that stage and become productive and well-adjusted members of society and explains the types of problems and developmental delays that can result when this stimulation does not occur.

For example, the first psychosocial stage is trust versus mistrust, and it spans from birth to about age one year (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 30). During this phase, if children are consistently provided all their basic needs such as food, clean diapers, warmth, and loving affection and soothing from caregivers, they will learn that they can trust other people in their environment to love them and to take care of them, and they will believe the world is good. If infants are neglected and not given these things consistently or if they are taken care of roughly and unpredictably, they will learn to question their caretakers and to believe that others will not always be there to support them when it's needed. Learning to trust others is the first necessary step to learning how to have loving, supportive relationships with others and to have a positive self-image.

The second stage, autonomy versus shame and doubt, spans ages one to three years (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 30). When children are autonomous, they feel confident that they can make their own choices and decisions and that they will be positive experiences. Young children become autonomous when caregivers are supportive and give children the safe space to make their own decisions and to experiment with their bodies and problem-solving skills without shaming or ridiculing the child. When children feel shame and doubt, they believe that they are not capable of making valid decisions and not capable of doing everyday tasks.

The third stage, initiative versus guilt, spans ages three to six years (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 30). When children develop initiative, they continue to develop their self-concept and gain a desire to try new things and to learn new things while being responsible for their actions to some extent. If caregivers continue to give children a safe space to experiment and appropriate stimulation to learn, the children will continue to find their purpose. However, if caregivers try to create too many strict boundaries around what children can do and to force too much responsibility on kids, children will feel extreme guilt for their inability to complete tasks perfectly.

The fourth stage, industry versus inferiority, spans ages six to eleven. The child must learn skills of the culture or face feelings of incompetence (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 30). This involves the shift from whimsical play to a desire for achievement and completion. A child learns that he receives praise and recognition for doing well in school and completing tasks and also realizes he can fail at these tasks as well. The fifth stage, identity versus identity confusion, spans ages eleven to young adulthood. Adolescents must determine sense of self or experience confusion about roles (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 30). The Sixth stage, intimacy versus isolation is where individuals face the developmental task of forming intimate relationships with others. Erikson describes intimacy as finding oneself yet losing oneself in another. If the young adult forms healthy friendships and an intimate relationship with another individual, intimacy will be achieved; if not, isolation will result.

The seventh stage generativity versus stagnation happens during middle adulthood and it is where a mature adult is concerned with establishing and guiding the next generation or else feels personal impoverishment (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 30). A chief concern is to assist the younger generation in developing and leading useful lives is generativity and the feeling of having done nothing to help the next generation is stagnation. The last stage integrity versus despair happening in late adulthood is where an elderly person achieves acceptance of own life, allowing acceptance of death, or else despairs over inability to relive life (Papalia, D.E., 2008, p. 30). In the later year of life, we look back and evaluate what we have done with our lives. Through many different routes, the older person may have developed a positive outlook in most of all of the previous stages of development. If so, the retrospective glances will reveal a picture of a life well spent, and the person will feel a sense of satisfaction-integrity will be achieved.

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) described three stages of moral development which described the process through which people learn to discriminate right from wrong and to develop increasingly sophisticated appreciations of morality. He believed that his stages were cumulative; each built off understanding and abilities gained in prior stages. According to Kohlberg, moral development is a lifelong task, and many people fail to develop the more advanced stages of moral understanding.

Kohlberg's first 'preconventional' level describes children whose understanding of morality is essentially only driven by consequences. Essentially, "might makes right" to a preconventional mind, and they worry about what is right in wrong so they don't get in trouble. Second stage 'conventional' morality describes people who act in moral ways because they believe that following the rules is the best way to promote good personal relationships and a healthy community. A conventional morality person believes it is wrong to steal not just because he doesn't want to get punished but also because he doesn't want his friends or family to be harmed. The final 'postconventional' level describes people whose view of morality transcend what the rules or laws say. Instead of just following rules without questioning them, 'postconventional' stage people determine what is moral based on a set of values or beliefs they think are right all the time. For example, during the Vietnam War, many Americans who were drafted to be soldiers opposed the war on moral grounds and fled to Canada rather than fight. Even though this behavior was against the law, these people decided that these particular laws did not follow the higher rules they believed in, and they chose to follow their higher rules instead of the law.