Developmental Stages Paper
...and cultures has gone through much research and development in the past decades. To illustrate, the research and development of childhood theories today involves theorists such as Jean Piaget (1920, e.g. child intellectual development) and Freud (1933, e.g. components of personality) to more recent
theorists such as Lev Vygotsky (1934/1962, e.g. stages of cognitive development) and Urie Bronfenbrenner (1995, contextual development) (Sigelman & Rider, 2003). Specifically, the following paragraphs will focus and illustrate on how children develop during infancy and early childhood according to the social relationships and cultural context(s) of the child as an individual or group member.
According to (Sigelman & Rider, 2003), development is defined as the changes and adjustments that individuals experience from the time of conception till death. They established that age grades, age norms and the social clock influence the development of individuals (children) socially. To illustrate, age grades are socially classified age groups which include pre-assigned statuses, roles, privileges, and responsibilities. Next, age norms refers to the society's permitted and prohibited behaviours individuals' should and should not do according to one's age. Last, social clock refers to a sense of what and when things have to be done according to one's age norms (Sigelman & Rider, 2003). As society evolves parallel to as time progresses, the context in time becomes very important to understand the social environment. In addition, Valsiner (1988) denotes that social development functions hand-in-hand with the cultural environment. Thus, as we understand the developmental process of the infancy and early childhood stage we must consider two factors such as the social environment and the cultural context of the child as an individual as we answer the developmental questions to...
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