Developmental psychology Essay Example

Developmental psychology Essay Environmentalist, the characteristic of this and the meaning is how the environment can have an impact on how children can develop or even adults. There are so many things that can impact on how children develop in their lifes.Whether people live in poverty or if they are in a well financial home, this can have an impact on childrens development for a numerous of reasons. Direct quote: â€Å"low income parents are often over whelmed by diminished self-esteem, depression and a sense of powerlessness and inability to cope, these feelings can get passed on to children† â€Å"in a study of emotional problems, of children with single Mom (Keegan-Eamon and zuehl (2001) ) found stress of poverty increased and children them selves are susceptible to depression† WRITTEN BY: ERIC JENSONThis evidence shows prove that being in a low income family or living in poverty as some might like to say, has a very big impact on childrens life if a parent has low self-esteem no drive in thems elves then it is not showing young children how to grow into young positive, confident and thriving adults, so therefore just copy what they know and this can cause a cycle. Quality of food we eat and give our children is another environmental fact that can can help with our childs development, Junk food for example an make children obese, this can cause all sorts of problems in health, children who are obese will have less energy, this will cause children to not want to socialise, and this can lead to other problems such as low self-esteem,depression and anger. If you feed children more healthy food they are going to have so much more energy it will make them eager to go out and socialise and most of all help them to learn, Direct quote: â€Å"improve your childs behaviour and learning by improving their diet.Eating adequate protein and getting other nutrients that support optimal brain function† WRITTEN BY: POLIQUIN EDITORIAL STAFF 09/11/2012 Home life and school is another most important environmental fact that has a big impact on a childs development. Some children can not have the love and attention they would like and need at home this can cause children to be rebels as some people would say, this could be caused by not knowing how to show emotion, this could be because of them not being shown emotion by familyPage 1 /5 Lisa Henderson MD12077 at home so in a sense its attention seeking this is due to a child doesnt feel that they are getting any attention of their family/parents and the only way to do that is to play up even though its not necessarily the attention they would like from their family, its there only way of getting it.School has another impact on childrens development, if a child is asked to do something at school and feels they are incapable but yet the teacher still insists that the child carries out the activity the child can then start to feel frustrated,angry and then leaves the child feeling inadequate and leaves them with a se nse of failure and embarrassment.Bullying is another major problem that can happen inside or outside of school and has a major impact on childrens behaviour and development this can cause low self-esteem, and stress which can then cause lack of sleep due to worry which then stops the main from functioning to its full a capability, stopping the child to fully express them selves. To help children who are in this situation they need support and need confidence and trust in somebody if a child doesnt have these they will end up bottling it up and can lead to something more serious such as suicide.CONSTRUCTIVIST: Constructivist, the characteristic of this and the meaning is that children or adults develop through a more hands on approach, by this I mean learning by doing. A Russian man named Lev Vygotsky was one of the first men to push to prove that children can learn through constructivist learning. Lev Vygotsky used a method called scaffolding in this method he changed the level of s upport which was provided depending on how skilled the child was and this of course did vary.Depending on how skilled the child was would depend on how much help they would need, and in time need none at all. Quote: The term scaffolding is meant to represent the support for assistance provided by the teacher or mentor in the learning process. â€Å"scaffolding† is a metaphor that describes the way a teacher provides assistance to the students during the learning process in much the same way that construction scaffolding serves as a temporary support until the building can stand on its own. WRITTEN BY: RIVER LINImagination is a big part in childrens lifes and development and constructivism learning will enable children to do this more. Quote: â€Å"children imagine and pretend when they are playing, they try out ideas,feelings and roles, they re-enact the past and rehearse the future. This can involve them reading and writing long before they develop these skills† ALSTE AR : THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CURRICULM FRAMEWORK Constructivist play can also be used in order to teach children maths, they could use objects such as blocks by counting them as a team together, by oing this they can learn from each other. They can also use constructivist play to learn day to day activities such as brushing your teeth, brushing your hair. Page 2/5 Lisa Henderson MD12077 MATURATIONIST: Maturationist,the characteristic and the meaning is that children or adults develop through maturing and family genes. Quote: â€Å"Maturationism is and early childhood educational philosophy asserting the child as a growing organism.Based on Arnold Gesseurs work, maturationists believe genetic factors play a larger role in development then enviromental ones. MATURATIONIST 2005 An example of this is some children might be able to write their name at the age of three and some children might not be able to until they are five. This is a good example to compare this theory against the constr uctivist theory, the reason for this is children might learn to write their name at school by using the more hands on learning approach, but younger children could learn it earlier then this by maturing earlier.Maturationism learning was a way that children could learn at their own pace, every child learns different and some faster than others, this was also a way of children improving on what they already new and choosing new ways of learning by themselves, instead of somebody trying to teach them something they are was not ready to learn. Maturationism also believed it allowed children to develop in a natural way. Quote: â€Å"observe progress in a child and choose to focus on what a child already knows, rather than what he or she doesnt know† WRITTEN BY ELIZABETH VAUDRINChildren mature at different stages and this could be for a numerous reasons, due to being a premature baby or just they are incapable of doing something because they havent developed the skills to perform certain tasks yet. An example of this is, a three year old child at the age of three being able to talk in full sentences and another child exactly the same age not being able to talk at all with no medical reason whats so ever just that he is not yet capable of doing so. I know this from experience.With a child who isnt capable of doing things like other children there own age this would be a good way of trying to teach them, its a good way of them learning at their own pace in their own time without feeling pressured. Page3/ 5 Lisa Henderson MD12077 II: Using Jean Piagets stages of cognitive development, describe the rationale behind the use of Key stage testing in primary schools. Jean Piagets stated that children progressed through four different stages in their childhood.The stage he stated children was at during primary school was the concrete operations stage. This was studied with ages 7-11. Quote: â€Å"Concrete operations (ages7-11). As physical experience accumalates, ac comodation is increased. The child begins to think abstractly and conceptualize, creating logical structures that explaine his or her physical experiences† LEARNING – THEORIES. COM â€Å"Discovery learning- the idea that children learn best through doing and actively exploring- was seen as central to the transformation of primary schools curriculum. BY SAUL MCLEAD 2009. Children shouldn’t be taught certain concepts until they have reached the right stage of development. Jean Piagets theories helped teachers plan a more appropriate school curriculum for the children and what development stage they was at. Quote: â€Å"in Britain the national curriculum and key stages broadly reflect the stages that Piaget laid down† â€Å"curricula need to be developed that take into account the age and stage of thinking of the child† WWW. PSYCHOLOGY4A. COMKey stage testing has been designed in my opinion to see if children are learning what they should be during th eir different stages of their childhood which have been based on Jean Piagets theories.