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One FREE Continuing Education Hour This course meets the qualifications for one hour of continuing education credit for MFTs and/or LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Tectonic Corporation - BBS CE Provider #PCE2476
Goals of the course
1. Approaches to Studying Child Development
The topical approach to studying child development focuses on the following aspects: a child's physical development, cognitive development, personality development, and social development. The age range approach to child development concentrates on the following phases of childhood: prenatal (before birth), infancy and toddlerhood (birth through age 3), preschool (age 3 through age 6), middle childhood (age 6 through age 12), and adolescence (age 12 through age 20) The ecological approach to child development considers the systems that surround the child. The microsystem includes a child's parents and siblings, childcare provider and any other person or object present in the child's everyday experience. The mesosystem is made up of the relationships between all those people and objects that make up the child's microsystem. The exosystem consists of outside organizations and institutions that affect the child's experience, such as churches, government, and schools. Finally, the macrosystem includes the overall cultural, religious and philosophical belief systems that guide the institutions in the exosystem and thereby have an affect on the child. 2. Important Terms  Important terms in the area of child development include continuous change, that is, the gradual development of a child where achievements at one level build on those of previous levels This is the case in language development, where the understanding of simple sounds, words, and sentences are the building blocks for later understanding and creation of more complex vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. In contrast, discontinuous change refers to change that occurs in distinct steps, each being distinctly different from previous steps, for example, riding a bike versus walking.According to developmentalists, at various stages of childhood children experience different types of growth that can drastically impact their later development. A critical period is defined as that period where a particular event or series of events during a specific time in development have their greatest consequences. The assertion that an absence or presence of certain stimuli or training during critical periods may affect a child's development both dramatically and permanently is supported by cases of children who have, for various reasons, not received language training during the first few years of life. These children often experience extreme difficulty acquiring and utilizing language skills later in life. Several historical examples of this viewpoint are described in an excerpt from the book, "The Myth of Immortality" by John McCrone (1993). In contrast, some developmentalists assert the existence of sensitive periods, where a child may be especially able to learn knowledge of a particular type or a particular skill set during a specific time in development. In the case of a sensitive period, however, if the child does not acquire the knowledge or ability during that time span, the child can still acquire it later, effectively catching up with his or her peers. This may well be the case in areas of social learning and behavior modification. The argument of nature versus nurture has captivated developmentalists for decades. Some geneticists contend that childhood development and behavior is a product of a child's genes; a result of nature. Genetic researchers have in fact isolated what has been termed in the media as the "bad gene", a possible explanation for criminal behavior as merely a natural consequence of a person's particular DNA structure. An important term in the area of genetics is maturation, that is, the process of predetermined unfolding of genetic information. Behavioralists, on the other hand, see children as a blank slate, where behavior is a result of the learning or nurturing that occurs throughout our lifetime. Though all theorists seem to have a preference in this debate, most concede that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes, where behavior is a result of a complex and person-specific combination of both nature and nurture factors. 3. Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Child Development The world of psychology is replete with theories on how the human brain functions, but for the purposes of this course the following four theoretical approaches to child development will be explored: psychodynamic theory, psychosocial theory, cognitive-developmental theory, and cognitive theory.
3.1 The psychodynamic perspective regarding child development is based on the theory that human behavior is motivated by inner forces, memories and conflicts of which the person has little awareness or control. It was first theorized by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), a physician from Vienna, whose psychoanalytic theory proved to be a revolutionary concept for the psychological community and for society in general. Important concepts within Freud's theory include the Unconscious, that is, that part of our personality of which we are unaware, containing wishes, desires, demands and needs that we hide from ourselves because of their disturbing nature. Working within the Unconscious is the Id, consisting of raw drives that include hunger, sex, aggression, and irrational impulses. The concept of thanatos, what some have called the "death impulse" is also part of Freud's understanding of what motivates human behavior, as is the pleasure principle (see "Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud," Dr. Mary Klages, 2001). A second motivational force within the Unconscious is the Ego; that rational part of us that works to control the Id so we can survive civilly within society. The Ego's perspective is based on the reality principle. Finally, the Superego functions as our moral/ethical conscience. Developmentalists state that this part of the personality does not begin to emerge until after age 6. For example, a person diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder, previously called Sociopathy, is someone who in terms of this theory would have never developed a Superego. As a neurologist, Freud was fascinated with the development of the central nervous system and the human body. He theorized five stages of psychosexual development: According to Freud, if a child is unable to gratify themselves adequately, or is gratified too much during a particular stage, fixation may occur. Fixation is the exhibition of behavior from a particular psychosexual stage due to an unresolved conflict. In Freud's view, for example, a person fixated in the anal stage might, as an adult, find him or herself preoccupied with control issues. Freud's theory is no longer as broadly accepted in the psychological community as it once was. In evaluating the psychoanalytic theory it is best to view it in terms of its value as a pioneering effort, rather than attempting to determine the approach's inherent accuracy or efficacy in practice. No matter one's opinions on the details of his theory, however, most would agree that Freud's revolutionary perspectives have had a profound affect on the world of psychology and Western thought in general.
Erikson contended that people progress through the stages chronologically, but that individuals who do not experience success in a particular stage may find themselves stuck, unable to move on to the next developmental stage.
3.4 Of all developmentalists, Jean Piaget (1896-1980), a Swiss psychologist, may have had the greatest impact with his cognitive theory of development. Piaget stated that children evolved through several stages of cognitive development. His theoretical approach included several important terms and concepts, the first of which is that action equals knowledge. That is to say, knowledge is the result of motor behavior, that infants learn by doing. Another Piagetian concept is that changes in understanding occur in an orderly fashion. In other words, physical maturation plus relevant experience equals movement from one stage of development to another. Schemes are organized patterns of sensorimotor functioning that allow a child to achieve mental development. For instance, an infant's simple and concrete behavior like sucking is a scheme that helps the child understand objects in his or her surrounding environment, whereas in an older child schemes are more symbolic and complex. According to Piaget transitions occur between each stage. These are periods where the infant's behavior reflects both the previous and upcoming developmental stages. Assimilation is defined as perceiving and understanding new stimuli in the context of existing ways of thinking. Accommodation, by contrast, involves change, where a child must modify her or his ways of thinking to fit new stimuli or events that do not correlate with existing cognitive structures. Piaget defines a circular reaction as a repetition of a motor event that leads to learning. Examples of circular reactions are listed below in various stages of cognitive development. Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development include first, the sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years). This is comprised of several substages:
Then after the preoperational stage comes the concrete operational stage (7-12 years), which is characterized by the active and appropriate use of logic. Important processes that occur during this stage are: Finally, Piaget's formal operational stage (12 years into adulthood) is characterized by the ability to think abstractly, to formulate and test hypotheses, and to make conclusions from the information available. |
Following successful completion of this course, participants will be able to 
