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Child development theories focus on explaining how children change and grow over the course of childhood. These developmental theories center on various aspects of growth, including social, emotional, and cognitive development. The study of human development is a rich and varied subject.
From Freud’s theory on behaviour modification to Piaget’s stages of development, we can see pieces of each theorists’ philosophy woven into our current approaches to learning and the education system, which ultimately shapes child development.
Child development theories have emerged to help us better understand the many forces that influence how children learn and grow. Explore some major theories of how children develop.
Child development theories are sets of assumptions about how young children learn and develop, as well as what learning and instruction should look like. These assumptions impact how educators think and act, as well as their ideas and beliefs.
It focuses on five theories that have had the most impact: maturationist, constructivist, behavioral, psychoanalytic, and ecological. Each theory offers interpretations on the meaning of children's development and behavior. Although the theories are clustered collectively into schools of thought, they differ within each school.
As Educators working with children, it's important to understand each theoretical approach and use parts of different theorists in context. Each theorist’s ideas are independent of the other, but when put together, they give us a good overall understanding of how children develop as they age.
However, some theories of child development are more widely known, accepted, and used to describe how children learn and grow than others. Five of these theories are explored in detail below. Related Resource: 5 Great TED Talks About Child Development