Human Development, Nature, Continuity, And Stability And Change

Developmental psychologists examine human physical, cognitive, and social development, and tend to focus on three main issues; Nature and Nurture, Continuity and stages, and Stability and Change. Nature and Nurture tends to ask the question of how human development is influenced by both our inheritance (nature) and experiences (nurture). Continuity and Stages focuses on what parts of development are gradual and continuous throughout life and what aspects change more abruptly. These issue of Stability and Change focuses on the overall lifespan of a person and which traits remain consistent and which change through life.
The life of a human begins at conception. Conception occurs when one of 250 million deposited sperm unites with an egg cell

In the womb, the developing brain form nerve cells at an explosive rate, overproducing neurons, with numbers peaking at 28 weeks of development. The birth of an infant spurs a rapid growth spurt of the neurons and also a series of synaptic pruning influenced by environmental and genetic stimuli. During the three to six-month year of development, the brain experiences rapid frontal lobe growth that continues beyond adolescence. This early childhood period is a critical period for certain skills such as language, vision, and reasoning. As the brain develops, the motor skills begin to improve and develop, allowing for greater physical

One such theorist is Piaget. Piaget believed that children are active thinkers, and their minds develop through a series of universal, irreversible stages from simple reflexes to abstract reasoning. Throughout these stages, Piaget theorized that children’s’ maturing brains build schemas which are used and adjusted through assimilation and accommodation. The first of these stages that Piaget theorized is the sensorimotor stage. This stage, lasting from birth to nearly 2 years of age, is the one in which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities. Infants learn through adaptation, assimilation, and accommodation. Infants also gain object permanence, or the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived, during this period of rapid development. The preoperational stage occurs from 2 to 7 years of age. In this stage, children learn to use language but are incapable of performing complex logic. It is within this time that children develop a sense of egocentrism, and also a theory of mind, or the ability to read the mental state of others. Once a child matures to around 7 years of age, they enter a concrete operational stage that remain in until they are around 11 or 12. In this stage, children gain the capability to think logically about concrete events. Piaget believed that during the concrete operational stage, children become capable of