PSY605 Week 6 - Final Paper

Running Head: SELECTING AN AGE GROUP/DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE 1

SELECTING AN AGE GROUP/DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE 6

Junius Applewhite

Selecting An Age Group/ Developmental Stage

PSY 605

William Gibson

October 9, 2017

Child development is mainly the method in which individuals normally develop and age from infant until they reach adulthood. There are dissimilar features when it comes to aging and maturing, which consist of physical growth, cognitive growth, and social growth. Child development emphases on the differences that occur in individuals as they age from newborn to 17 years old.

Piaget’s childhood phases of cognitive development are preoperational; a child is two to seven years of age and concrete operational, a child is seven to twelve. During the preoperational stage, young children thoughts about things are symbolical. Their communication skills are more mature. They can memorize and imagine elements, which allows them to recognize the dissimilarity between past and present, and take part in make-believe. However, their thoughts are created on intuition and are not completely logical. Young children at this stage do not have a clear understanding of complex ideas such as cause and effect, time, and comparison. “The hallmark of preoperational thought is the child’s capacity to engage in symbolic thought” (Hockenbury, 2006).

Symbolic thoughts relate to the ways individuals communicate, descriptions, and methods to exemplify their environment. Many children gain communication skills during this stage. Children also have a great use of fantasy and imagination during their play time. A child may use a shoe box for a dollhouse or spaceship; a child imagination may take on the role of different characters. In doing this, children mimic performances they have seen days or weeks ago. Preoperational children at this stage are still distinguishing the connection between symbols and the correct objects they symbolize. When it comes to the thoughts of preoperational children they sometimes display egocentrism, irreversibility, centration, and conservation. Egocentrism children cannot consider events from other individual perspectives. At this stage, children believe that others enjoy the same things that they enjoy. Irreversibility means that a child does not have the ability to psychologically reverse an order of procedures or rational tasks back to the beginning on the process.

At the start of the concrete operational stage, children use their true logical thinking skills. “They are much less egocentric in their thinking, can reverse mental operations, and can focus simultaneously on two aspects of a problem” (Hockenbury, 2006). They recognize the process of conserving. When presented with three lines of cars, each line of cars is equally spaced, concrete operational children know that a number of cars in all three lines do not change, even when the spacing between the cars in one line increases. Children in the concrete operational stage sometimes have a difficult time thinking logically when it comes to possible circumstances or abstract concepts. For instance, a 9 year old student will explain the meaning of being friends, such as, “Friends are people that play with me.” The concrete operational child’s ways to handle theoretical concepts and possible circumstances is restricted to their individual capabilities and actual occurrences.

Sigmund Freud was a doctor, and he believed that the way parents handled their children's primary sexual and aggressive needs would define the ways children behaviors develop and whether or not they would become well-adjusted when they reach adulthood. Freud believes that children go through different phases of sexual development that is known as Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital. The anal period is mainly known as the beginning of children from ages 18 months to 3 years old, starts their toilet process. Children at this stage have to learn to regulate their bowel movements, and also other destructive desires. At this stage, children develop pleasure from eliminating and retaining feces and starts to recognize the control this provides them over their caregivers. “Freud believed that anal fixation results from parents being too strict with children during toilet training” (Burns, 2017). However, when children have parents that are too lenient throughout this stage of development, they maybe messy and disorganized when they become adults. The phallic stage of development deals with penis envy. Freud belief is that children are fascinated with their parent of the opposite sex at the age of four and five. Children also have major issues toward the same sex parent. The latency stage begins from the age of six until the beginning of puberty. “Sexual urges remain repressed as children become more independent of their parents and learn, through developing peer relationships, to interact with other people and respond to their needs” (Burns, 2017).

Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development reflects on the impact of external aspects, caregivers and the surroundings on individual growth from childhood to adulthood. Erikson’s believes that all individuals have to go through eight interrelated phases throughout life. During the initiative vs. guilt period, children try to copy the grown-ups that are around them and create play situations. Children usually make up different events with their dolls, toy phones, and electric cars. Children act out adults roles. Children also start using the word “Why” whenever things do not go their way. Freud influenced Erikson. However, he downplays biological sexuality. He favors psychosocial features of warfare among a child and his/her caregiver. “Nevertheless, he said that at this stage we usually become involved in the classic “Oedipal struggle” and resolve this struggle through, social role identification” (David, 2014). Erikson believes that when people are upset because of essential requirements and goals, they may think that they are the cause of what has taken place. The most critical relationship consists of the intermitted family. During the Industry vs. Inferiority stage, children can gain knowledge, create and accomplish different expertise and information. This is considered to be a social stage of growth, and when children endure unresolved feelings of inadequacy and lowliness among their associates, they can have dangerous situations which may consist of competence and self-confidence. As children environment expands, their most important relationship is with the school and their neighborhood. Parents are still a vital part in their children lives, but they are not considered to be the complete authorities they once were.

Children go through different stages of development as they move from stage to stage. Throughout each stage various changes in the development of the brain are taking place. What happens and what takes place are hereditarily determined. On the other hand, environmental situations have an essential influence on the ways children benefits from each developmental event.

References

Burns, E. (2017). Freud's Five Stages of Development, Retrieved October 9, 2017, from

http://classroom.synonym.com/freuds-five-stages-of-development-12083197.html

David, L. (2014). Erikson’s Stages of Development: In Learning Theories, Retrieved October 9,

2017, from https://www.learning-theories.com/eriksons-stages-of-development.html

Hockenbury, D. (2006). Psychology (4th ed.) New York: Woods