Theories of Development
Ronny Wagner
PSY Child and Adolescent Development
Instructor: Daniella Atwell
September 10, 2012

Theories of Development Child development from birth to adulthood was largely ignored throughout much of early history. The knowledge of child development is essential in allowing us to understand the cognitive, physical, and psychosocial growth that children go through from birth into early adulthood. There is much debate whether emotional responses are genetic, as we are born with them, or are they learned from our environment. This is known as the nature vs. nature debate. Children were often viewed simply as small versions of adults and little attention was paid to progress in reference to cognitive, physical, and psychosocial growth. Many childhood developmental theories have been proposed by theorists and researchers. Following are a few of those theories and the theorist behind the theory.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Childhood is a culturally defined period in human development that is between infancy and adulthood. Only in the past 400 years or so has the idea of childhood been a part of Western culture. Early childhood most often refers to the months and years between infancy and school age or middle childhood: 2 to 5 years. The preschool years are a time of significant and complex advances and reorganization in behavior. Learning, perception, reasoning, memory, and social relations undergo important changes and progressions in early childhood. Psychoanalytic development posits early childhood as the critical period in development during which personality orientations emerge that will continue into childhood. A person’s sense of self and his and her gender identity are formed during this period of development (The Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science, 2004). Freud’s theory of psychosexual