Nature Nurture Debate Analysis

The nature nurture debate explains the key process of explaining how a child grows, changes and develops. The nature nurture debate is a debate about the contributions of genetics and the environment on human development. ….

Cognitive developmental theories are theories that emphasize children’s actions on the environment and suggest that age related changed in reasoning precede and explain changes in other domains. There are four main stages of cognitive development, the sensory-motor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage. The sensory stages occur from new-born till two years, during this stage the child gains an understanding of the world by having a sensory experience with physical

Many different theorists have been investing time in trying to find out the answer from this debate. The nature side of the debate was represented by idealists and rationalists such as Plato, who believed that some of your knowledge is there when you are born. The nurture side of the debate was represented by empiricists such as John Locke, they believed that you learned through experience as you are a blank slate when you are born. Another theorist called Watson didn’t believe that you were born with knowledge and came up with a new term which was behaviourism. This is a theoretical view that defines development in terms of behaviour changed by environmental influences ( …… ) .The nature and nurture debate has influenced many things one of these things being language development. Nature has influenced language development as it was said that language was taught through imitation, but a behaviourist called Skinner believed that in addition to imitation it was mainly taught through systematic reinforcement, this is the giving of rewards for progress- as the child learned more language they were giving better rewards. The nativists believed that the language a child had was already built into their brain