Developmental StagesMatrix

Developmental Stage

Physical changes

Cognitive changes

Socioemotional changes

Infancy

Rapid growth rate: birth weight doubles at 6 months and triples at a year, great head and chest expansion: permits development of vital organs (heart, lungs, and brain) bones began to harden

Objective permanence, recognition, learning how to play with toys rather than just banging toys, learning their name, construction of words can began.

Piaget found that there are permanence of objects, imitation, and other accomplishments such as sensory motor. These are often know to happen earlier and have different variation then what Piaget thought .

Attachment to familiar faces, voices, and caregivers, become uneasy in the presence of strangers, anxiety occurs with separation, start learning the word “no”, “cover-up” when they’ve done something wrong, starting “to and fro” play with others than the caregivers

Early Childhood

Slim down in weight, gain muscle and lose fat. Able to start some motor skills such as somersaults, cartwheels, dancing and being able to get a swing going is a possibility of motor skills as well. The proportions of the body is changing and this is what is helping the children achieve their goals.

Advance language, understanding of social situations, able to think quicker than before, and are able to name what things are when just looking at it. Are able to catch things better with hand and eye coordination.

In the text it states that Piaget has said that the development that happens between two - six years is the preoperational intelligence. This when the thought is symbolic and the language and imagination is most important.

Emotions are changed by the different stimuli. There are not as many fits thrown as when they were infants. Adult emotions become a big part of the child's emotions. When they see that adults are upset about something they tend to do the same as the adult and become upset about the situation as well.

Middle Childhood

Growth spurts. Puberty starts. Children become stronger as their muscle mass increases. Motor skills—in both strength and coordination—improve. A school-age child's hair may become a little darker. The texture and appearance of a child's skin gradually changes, becoming more like that of an adult.

Count, knows alphabet. Hand-eye coordination continues to get better. Answer questions with complete sentences. Rhymes words together. Draw pictures without assistance.

Dramatic social and emotional changes. More competent and confident. Less clingy. Develop a better sense of how they fit into their social environment. Self-esteem grows. Friendship is important. Think about the future. Like/accepted by friends. Distance from family.

Adolescence

Puberty begins within 8 to 14 years of age.Adolescent girls will begin to develop breast, pubic hair and wider hips. They will also experience their first menstrual cycle (menarche) between the ages of 9 and 16. Adolescent boys will develop a deeper voice, pubic hair and testes growth. They will also experience Spermarche, around age 12.5 years.

Complex thinking, Self-consciousness, egocentrism, deductive logic, abstract thinking, intuitive thinking and hypothetical reasoning are apparent.

Emotions are greatly influenced by hormones during puberty because the prefrontal cortex (area that regulates emotions and impulsive behavior) of the brain is not fully matured. Hormones will cause rapid mood shifts and sexual thoughts. The behavior of most adolescent boys and girls tend to be risk takers, impulsive and seek intense emotional experiences.

Early Adulthood

An individual is concerned with developing the ability to share intimacy, seeking to form relationships and find intimate love. Long term relationships are formed, and often marriage and children result. The young adult is also faced with career decisions. While 'young adulthood is filled with avid quests for intimate relationships and other major commitments involving career and life goals', there is also "a parallel pursuit for the formulation of a set of moral values". Erikson has argued that it is only now that what he calls the 'ideological mind' of adolescence gives way to 'that ethical sense, which is the mark of the adult.

Earlier life stages result in dramatic and critical changes, whereas in early adulthood essential brain growth already has taken place, and individuals are now applying and using their knowledge, and analytical capabilities. However many researchers point to continued changes, such as those taking place in the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex of the brain, which are areas where judgment, planning, speaking, and moving muscles are localized. Brain growth in this area only reaches final development in the early 20s.

Additionally, many theorists, such as Jean Piaget (1896-1980) noted a significant difference between adult and adolescent thinking. Adults have more flexibility in their thought patterns, understanding that there are multiple opinions on issues, and that there is more than one way to approach a problem.

Proximity is important. We tend to develop relationships with this who are geographically close to us. Obviously, this makes establishment and maintenance of a relationship more likely. Thus, the closer you are to a person, literally, the more likely that a relationship will develop. Proximity increases the likelihood of opportunities in which you get to know one another and increases familiarity. Familiarity and similarity are important. We tend to develop relationships with those who are like us. This tendency has been formally described as the similarity theory of mate selection. We probably choose those who are like us due to our own preferences, and possibly as a result of external pressure. In addition to similarity, research has demonstrated that, all other things being equal, the more exposure we have to something, the more favorable we tend to feel about that something.

Middle Adulthood

Wrinkles develop, organs do not function efficiently as they once did, heart and lung capacity decreases, decrease in strength, coordination, reaction time, senses, and fine motor skills, difficulty reading, difficulty hearing high pitched sounds, menopause and climacteric

Start to decide what they want to have as skills. When this is done other skills may be forgotten. Cognition is starting to stabilize. The process starts to slow down; this means that solving problems or being able to divide attention is not as good as it use to be.

Gradual life changes. Have family, work success. Health declines, friends start to die. Looking forward to future. Figure out what to do with the rest of their life. No kids living at home. Life with spouse, might work or not. Mid-life crisis. Possible struggle with personal issues.

Late Adulthood

Late adulthood starts around 65 years of age. All senses, which include sight, hearing, taste and smell are not as accurate. The immune, respiratory and circulatory systems are also not as acute. Hair, skin and body figure may continue to change.

Though most of our intellectual abilities increase or remain stable throughout early and middle adulthood, once beyond the age of 60 everyone experiences a decline in all of our primary mental abilities. We tend to start to forget things in this stage of life. Overall, memory fades as people age and there are marked differences in each decade - the 70s, 80s, and 90s. However, some people defy the general trends and either maintain their mental sharpness into their 80s and 90s, or, more rarely, develop a form of dementia in the middle or beginning of late adulthood.

Control processes are ways people use their intellectual powers; however, with older adults they seem less efficient at managing control processes, especially decision making. Older adults seem to prefer NOT to gather and consider all relevant data, but instead rely on prior knowledge, general principles, or even rules of thumb.

Two possible reasons of the decline in control processes are either that the aging brain is less capable of strategizing the best use of mental ability OR that older people do not know how to organize, memorize, and analyze information as they once did.