Child Development Theories

Child Development Theories

Child Development Theories

Introduction

Children are in a continuous process of learning. As they grow, the world expands from home and parents to the brothers with their peers and, finally, people and places to visit. To live actively in society, children must learn to know themselves, to achieve their own identity. Children should also learn about social interaction and recognize the ways that are similar and different from others. These are forms of psychological thought. At the same time, children are experiencing tremendous growth in cognitive abilities and motor skills. Therefore, childhood is regarded as a crucial stage of life. Understanding the needs of children, cognitive abilities, psychosocial crises, and the moral and social development can help us in selecting the types of books and reading-related activities that will be most satisfactory for a child of a certain age. A brief survey of those aspects of development theories of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson and Albert Bandura that is most relevant to the experiences with literature. A comparison and contrast is done on the basis of the key elements, points of similarities and differences between the three theories.

Jean Piaget's Cognitive Child Development Theory

Piaget's theory defines the stage of cognitive development of children. It includes changes in cognitive processes and skills of the children. In his view, early cognitive development involves share-based processes and then progresses to the changes in mental operations (Papalia, 2008).

Key concepts of the Theory

A schema describes both physical and mental activities involved in child development. The schemas are the type of knowledge that helps the child understand and interpret the world. A schema contains the process of gaining new knowledge for development (Piaget, 1972). This new information is used to modify, add or change existing patterns as per the experiences faced by the child. For example, a child may have a schema of an animal, like a dog. If the child's unique experience has been with small dogs, the child may assume that all dogs are small. And when the child is introduced to a very large dog. The child will save this new information in his schema and modify the existing schema to include this new information.

Assimilation is the process of absorbing new information in our existing system. The process modifies the experience or information to fit in our existing beliefs. In the example above, watching the dog and then getting information about it is an example of assimilation in the child's system.

Accommodation is another part of adaptation that involves changing or altering our existing schemes of information in the light of new information. Accommodation also modifies existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences.

Equilibrium is a mechanism in which all children try to find a balance between assimilation and accommodation. It is important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge and behavior change to take account of new knowledge when children proceed through stages of cognitive development. The balance explains the movement of children from ...