Give an overview of developmental changes across lifespan stages
An overview of developmental changes across lifespan stages Development describes the growth of humans throughout the lifespan, from conception to death. It refers to development as patterns of change over time. It does not just involve the biological and physical aspects of growth, but also the cognitive and social aspects related to the development. The scientific study of human development seeks to understand and explain how and why people change throughout life. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills and other psycho physiological processes. Cognitive development refers to the areas of problem solving, moral understanding, conceptual understanding, language acquisition, social, personality, and emotional development, and self-concept and identity formation. Growth is defined as an increase in size developmental changes across lifespan stages
In other words development is defined as a progression towards maturity. Even though development is a continuous process with competencies developing, then disappearing, only to appear at a later age, it is not continuous in the sense that it increases constantly but rather in a series of waves with whole segments of development reoccurring repetitively. changes across lifespan stages For example, new borns walk, if held, and then this ability disappears only to reappear at eight or ten months of age.
Life span refers to the ongoing process that we go through while growing up. It is the period of time from conception extending to death. Studying life span development is very important because it helps in describing and explaining the mysteries of human development. Life span development includes issues such as the extent to which development occurs through the gradual accumulation of knowledge versus stage like development, or the extent to which children are born with innate mental structures versus learning through experience. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual’s behaviour, and environmental factors including social context, and their impact on development. The scientific study of development is important not only to psychology, but also to sociology, education, and health care. By better understanding how and why people change and grow, one can then apply this knowledge to helping people live up to their full potential. Give an overview of developmental changes across Life span development is defined as the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life cycle. Lifespan development can also be defined as a methodical, intra-individual change associated with progressions corresponding to age. The development progresses in a manner implicating the level of functioning. overview of developmental changes across Life-span developmental psychology is the field of psychology which involves the examination of both constancy and change in human behaviour across the entire life span, that is, from conception to death (Baltes, 1987).
Development occurs in different domains, such as the biological (changes in our physical being), social changes in our social relationships), emotional (changes in our emotional understanding and experiences), and cognitive (changes in our thought processes). Some developmental psychologists prefer to restrict the notion of development only to changes which lead to qualitative reorganisation in the structure of a behaviour, skill or ability (Crain, 2000). Lifespan development is a process in which the progression initiates with the emergence of a fetus from a one celled organism. As the unborn child enters the world, the environment in which the child exists begins to influence the child’s development (Educational Foundation, 2001). The developmental periods are child and adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. developmental changes across lifespan stages. The transition in each of the developmental periods, involves a necessary change in the character of the individual’s life and sometime this takes up to six years to complete the change (Smith, 2009). The transition deals with the common developmental stages that human beings pass through: birth, infancy, adolescent, adulthood, old age and death.
Human development is a multidisciplinary study of how people change and how they remain the same overtime. overview of developmental changes across lifespan stages It reflects the complexity and uniqueness of each person and their experiences as well as commonalities and patterns across people. There are four interactive forces that combine to shape human development and these are given below:
i) Biological forces include all genetic and health related factors that influence the development of a child. They provide raw materials (in case of genetics) and set boundary conditions (in the case of one’s health) for development. Prenatal development, brain maturation, puberty, menopause, facial expression and change in cardio-vascular functioning, diet, and exercises are the some example of biological forces.
ii) Psychological forces include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional and personality factors that affect the development of a child. Intelligence, self confidence, honesty and self esteem are examples of psychological factors.
iii) Socio-cultural forces include interpersonal, societal, cultural and ethical factors that affect the development of a child. This is important to know that how people and environment interact with each other. The family, peers, coworkers and social institutions and culture influence development. Poverty is the example for socio cultural forces.
iv) Life cycle forces reflect differences in how the same event affects people of different ages. Each individual is a product of a unique combination of these forces. No two individuals even in the same family experience these forces in the same way.
Often, developmental stages are defined by milestones. The term milestone refers to the development that has to take place according to the age of the child. For instance, almost all children start standing and walking at the age of 1 year and more, start saying a few words by the time they are one and half to two years developmental changes across lifespan stages .That a developmental stage has been successfully passed is indicated by the child mastering the developmental tasks of the particular period of development. Often, special milestones mark children’s accomplishments, such as walking in infancy and entering school in early childhood, and these milestones can help mark children’s movement inside and between developmental stages. Individuals pass various stages throughout their life. overview of developmental changes across lifespan stages There are systematic progressions in a certain order through a series of phases. Step by step they move closer to some form of adult status. This movement can be seen as involving changes in intellectual and physical powers Example, changes in intelligence, expertise and ability to reason) and the impact of life events and experiences.
The main developmental periods of a human being are:
i) Childhood and adolescence {birth to age 20 (early childhood transition by age 03)
ii) Early adulthood (age 17 to 45)
iii) Middle adulthood (age 40 to 65)
iv) Late adulthood (over 60 years of age) (Tennat and Pogson, 1995)
The lifespan perspective argues that significant modifications take place throughout development. It consists of development of humans in multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual factors. The development involves three factors i.e. growth, maintenance and regulation. Changes that occur are interpreted in terms of the requirements of the culture and context of the occurrences. changes across lifespan stages According to Paul Baltes, humans have the capacity, plasticity and the ability for positive change to the environmental demands that are being made on the individual constantly. Individual learns ways and means to compensate and overcome difficulties throughout the life. According to Baltes positive characteristics of growing old such as learning ways to compensate and overcome (Boyd and Bee, 2006) are considered important characteristics of old age. These characteristics form a family of beliefs which specify a coherent view of the nature of development. It is the application of these beliefs as a coordinated whole which characterises the life-span approach. The important characteristics beliefs of the life span approach are given below:
1) Lifelong development: This belief has two separate aspects. First, the potential for development extends across the entire life span, that is, there is no assumption that the life course must reach a plateau or decline during adulthood and old age lifespan stages
Second, development may involve processes which are not present at birth but emerge throughout the life span. No age period dominates during development. Researchers increasingly study the experiences and psychological orientations of adults at different points in their development. Gains and losses in development occur throughout the life cycle.
2) Development is Multidimensional: Multidimensionality refers to the fact that development cannot be described by a single criterion such as increases or decreases in a behaviour. It occurs in the biological, cognitive and social emotional domains.
3) Development is Multidirectional: The principle of multidirectional maintains that there is no single, normal path that development must or should take. In other words, healthy developmental outcomes are achieved in a wide variety of ways. Development is often comprised of multiple abilities which take different directions, showing different types of change or constancy. Some dimensions or aspects of development may be increasing while others are declining or not changing.
4) Development is Plastic: Plasticity refers to the within-person variability which is possible for a particular behaviour or development. developmental changes across lifespan stages For example, infants who have a hemisphere of the brain removed shortly after birth (as a treatment for epilepsy) can recover the functions associated with that hemisphere as the brain reorganises itself and the remaining hemisphere takes over those functions. A key part of the research agendas in developmental psychology is to understand the nature and the limits of plasticity in various domains of functioning. An overview of developmental changes across lifespan stages Development can be modified by life circumstances to some extent. Plasticity involves the degree to which characteristics change or remain stable.
5) Development is Contextual: Development varies across the different contexts in which we live our lives. For example, social and rural environments are associated with different sets of factors which have the potential to impact on development; understanding how development differs for individuals within these two settings requires an understanding of the differing contexts. It occurs in the context of a person’s biological make-up, physical environment and social, historical and cultural contexts.
6) Development is Multidisciplinary: The study of developmental psychology is multidisciplinary. That is, the sources of age-related changes do not lie within the province of any one discipline. For example, psychological methodologies may not be appropriate for understanding factors that are sociological in nature. developmental changes across lifespan stages
Rather, an understanding of human development will be achieved only by research conducted from the perspective of disciplines such as sociology, linguistics, anthropology, computer science, neuroscience and medicine.
7) Development involves Growth, Maintenance, and Regulation: The mastery of life involves conflict and competition among three goals of human development: growth, maintenance and regulation.
8) Development is embedded in History: Development is also historically situated and is always influenced by historical conditions. developmental changes across lifespan stages
The historical time period in which we grow up affects our development.
9) Normative Age Graded Influences: Biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group example: Childhood, Puberty) also influences development.
10) Normative History Graded Influences: Biological and environmental influences that are associated with history that are common to people of a particular generation (example: Depression, the AIDS epidemic) also influences.
11) Non-normative Events: Unusual occurrences that have a major impact on an individual’s life; the occurrence, the pattern, and sequence of these events are not applicable to most individuals Death of a parent at young age, getting a serious illness, winning a lottery .