Developmental Psychology

The roots of developmental psychology stem from the early part of the twentieth century in the seminal work of B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget, and Erik Erikson, who promulgated theories of behaviorism, constructivism, and psychosocial development, respectively. The latter half of the century saw the rise of constructivism, which compares learning and brain function to the inner workings of computers. Modern developments in learning theory are multiple intelligences, a theory that attempts to explain the ways in which different individuals learn; and neurophilosophy, which tries to unite neuroscience and previously held theories on learning and brain function.

Keywords Behaviorism; Cognitive Science; Computationalism; Constructivism; Developmental Psychology; Learning Theory; Multiple Intelligences; Neurophilosophy; Neuroscience; Psychosocial Development; Social-Pragmatic Theory

Overview

Developmental psychology is the branch of psychology that studies the intellectual, social, and emotional development of preschool and school-aged children. During the earliest years of life, the human brain sees explosive growth and development. Scientists estimate that during this time, a baby's brain consumes 60 percent of the body's total energy, compared with an adult brain that, on average, uses only between 20 percent and 25 percent (Brunton, 2007). Research has shown that memory begins not long after birth and matures significantly by the age of six. The development of sight, hearing, and other senses reaches its peak at three months, and at four months babies start distinguishing between the faces of loved ones and strangers ("Inside a Baby's Brain," 2005).

Much has been learned in the late-twentieth century and early twenty-first century about brain development during this stage. Babies, it seems, are much more aware of and influenced by their surroundings than was once thought. And the mechanical ways in which the brain processes information—along with how the mind learns—can have a tremendous bearing on a child's intellectual, emotional, and social outcomes. Undoubtedly, understanding brain function and learning can only help adults teach children better. The purpose of this article is to explore the evolution of learning theory and of cognitive science (as an extension of learning theory) since the beginning of the twentieth century. It defines constructivism, behaviorism, psychosocial development, and multiple intelligences simply as learning theories, whereas computationalism is, in addition to being a learning theory, an offshoot of cognitive science, as it also examines the inner workings of the brain.

Behaviorism

The roots of behaviorism can be traced back to the beginning of the twentieth century and the close of the Industrial Revolution. Behaviorism was a widely held learning theory for more than a half century, until cognitive science emerged after 1950 (Bush, 2006). While behaviorism concerns itself mainly with changes in an organism's outward behavior as a result of learning, cognitive science tries to "look under the hood" to understand what occurs in the brain during the learning process.

A Harvard-trained psychologist, Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner (1904-1990) is the figure most associated with behaviorism (Bush, 2006). By experimenting with pigeons, Skinner developed his theories on operant conditioning. Operant conditioning differed from Ivan Pavlov's work in classical conditioning, which showed that an existing behavior can be changed by associating it with a new stimulus. Studies done by Skinner revealed that through operant conditioning, a desired behavior can be reached by rewarding partial steps toward that behavior (WGBH, 1998). For example, Skinner got pigeons to turn a complete circle in a chosen direction by giving them food rewards every time they turned even partially in that direction. In time, the birds associated the rewards with turning that way and learned to turn completely around before receiving any reward. Skinner extrapolated that humans could be taught complicated tasks in this way. Many modern computer programs that enable people to teach themselves use Skinner's reward-for-desired-behavior models (WGBH, 1998).

Unlike most learning theorists who would emerge later, Skinner was uninterested in the psyche and the inner workings of the brain. He was a strict behaviorist: He concerned himself only with how behavior is shaped from without (WGBH, 1998). It was because of this rigidity that he would find his ideas supplanted by new ones. The years following 1950 saw the gradual emergence of cognitive science, which was born of a growing frustration over behaviorism, which concerned itself only with observable phenomena. An increasing amount of research was being done on language and on how the brain processes information (Bush, 2006).

Constructivism

It is widely believed that the single greatest contributor to twentieth-century learning theory was Jean Piaget. A Swiss psychologist born in 1896, Piaget began experimenting on his own children in the 1920s. His studies eventually led him to believe that babies less than nine months old have no comprehension of how the world around them functions. Piaget is best known for his "constructivist" theories, which maintain that children must construct concepts of how the world around them works from experience. He discovered, for example, that nine-month-olds cannot grasp "object permanence," the idea that objects and people continue to exist when they are not in view. It is only through accumulated experience that babies come to understand that things and people continue to exist, even when they leave the room (Brunton, 2007).

Piaget broke the mind's inner learning processes into four components: schemata, assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium. Schemata are cognitive processes and thought structures used by a child's brain to conceptualize and categorize incoming stimuli, enabling him either to generalize about, or make distinctions between, particular events. At first, a child tries to assimilate new stimuli into existing schemata. Assimilation is the cognitive process by which a child integrates new stimuli into present schemata, which may expand as a result (Clark, 2005).

When entering stimuli do not match pre-existing concepts, disequilibrium occurs. The mind then tries to accommodate the stimuli and return to equilibrium (Harlow, 2006). Accommodation is when a child's existing schemata changes as a result of the assimilation of new stimuli, either by being modified or further developed. When stimuli do not match any existing schemata, new concepts and cognitive processes are invented to assimilate similar stimuli in the future (Clark, 2005). This is the manner in which the environment enters through all the five senses and is reconstructed as knowledge in the brain, or, as Piaget himself said, "For me, it's quite the contrary of a copy of the world: It's a reconstitution of reality by the concepts of the subject who, progressively and with all kinds of experimental probes, approaches the object without ever attaining it in itself" (cited in Harlow, 2006, p. 45).

Piaget asserted that children pass through four major cognitive developmental stages:

• Sensorimotor: occurs between infancy and two years of age. Children acquire knowledge that leads to grasping object permanence and to goal-directed behaviors.

• Preoperational: children, ages two to seven years, show an increasing ability to represent objects in their world using symbols—such as words and numbers—images, and gestures.

• Concrete operational: between seven and eleven, children learn to put objects in logical order—by size, shape, color—and show beginning mastery of not only measurement, but also of time and quantity. During the concrete operational phase, children also use other mental operations, such as object classification and conservation (the understanding that a thing remains essentially the same, even when small changes are made to its appearance or form).

• Formal operational: after age eleven, children enter an open-ended phase, during which they begin using logic and abstract thinking and can form new knowledge using information already known. The mind in this stage learns to contemplate what is possible, instead of staying fixed on what already exists (Meece & Defrates-Densch, 2002).

Piaget's findings and conclusions were widely embraced for decades, but since the 1980s, critics have begun to doubt some of his theories. They question whether constructivism really explains how children learn and how their minds develop. Some are confused by the term "schemata" and how it relates to what is actually going on in the physical brain.

Some question Piaget's research methods and whether his four stages of cognitive development can be applied universally. Others are skeptical about equilibration and whether it really explains how the mind develops. Still, Piaget's work has largely stood the test of time, as it reveals a great deal about how children of different ages think (Meece & Defrates-Densch).

Constructivist theories dominated education and psychology until the mid-1980s, when they began to be supplanted by new ideas. Research done by psychologists and scientists produced new information leading to the belief that infants are born already possessing knowledge of their world. These "nativist" theories also maintain that babies arrive with basic tools for learning language and arithmetic (Brunton, 2007).

Psychosocial Development

Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1902. His mother was Danish, and he never knew his biological father. Erikson was cared for lovingly by his mother and stepfather, but the desire to know more about his biological father never left him. It is possible that it was this gap in his own childhood memories that drove Erikson to study children and author his theories of "psychosocial development" ("Erik Erikson," 2001). Though Erikson would never find his real father, the search helped him become a key figure in the study of developmental psychology.

In the early 1920s, Erikson enrolled at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute where he studied Sigmund Freud's theories on human behavior. Eventually he would break from Freud, believing not that biological instinct drives humans (a Freudian tenet), but that social interaction drives us ("Erik Erikson," 2001). In 1933, Erikson immigrated to America and joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School. While also working as a private practitioner of child psychoanalysis, he began developing his own theories. Humans endure eight stages of development, he believed, the first of these occurring during childhood. During each stage, we must resolve a set of inner conflicts arising from demands placed on us as children by our parents and by society. As these conflicts are resolved (or left unresolved), we go to the next stage ("Erik Erikson," 2001).

• Stage one, "trust versus mistrust:" by the time children are one year old, they must learn to trust their environments. When parents and caregivers are loving and nurturing, children learn this trust and feel safe and accepted.

• Stage two, "autonomy versus shame and doubt:" between the ages of eighteen months and three years, children want to test their independence and explore the world. When adults fail to indulge this desire—while continuing to meet needs for love and nurturing—they can instead instill feelings of doubt and shame.

• Stage three, "initiative versus guilt:" from ages three to six years, children have achieved considerable language mastery and are overflowing with questions, anxious to acquire new skills and eager to socialize with other children and resolve inner conflicts, especially through play. They depend on adults for feelings of safety and acceptance. If this desire to communicate and connect with the world around them is ignored or overlooked, children can act out aggression by lashing out physically or verbally.

If conflicts from these first three phases are not met and resolved during childhood, they can—as can challenges from later stages—recur in later life and hamper the individual's development ("Erik Erikson," 2001).

Applications

This section discusses theories that rose in popularity in the first part of the twenty-first century. Though behaviorism, constructivism, and psychosocial development still influence the fields of psychology and education, the following theories are more the center of modern studies. Multiple intelligences theory proposes new and unique ideas as to how the human mind solves problems. Connectionism and neurophilosophy draw parallels between brain function and how computers process information and try to close the schism that has long existed between past philosophies of learning and brain function, and neuroscience.

Multiple Intelligences

In 1983, cognitive psychologist Howard Gardner introduced his theory of multiple intelligences (Wehrheim, 2006). Gardner believes that intelligence tests are too limited in scope to assess human intelligence for three reasons: One, they engage a range of cognitive abilities that is too narrow. Two, they require individuals to express answers to problems in notation or language. Three, human problem solving really occurs, not in one area of general intelligence, but within several areas, or intelligences (Kornhaber, 1999).

Most tasks, jobs, and careers draw on more than one of the eight intelligences. Likewise, different people carry strengths and weaknesses in each of the eight categories in different combinations (Moran, Kornhaber, & Gardner, 2006). So, teachers might teach more effectively if they consider the various learning styles and intelligences of different children and craft lessons with these things in mind. The eight intelligences are: bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalist, and spatial (Kornhaber, 1999).

• Bodily-Kinesthetic: Able to coordinate physical movement; expressive with body, athletic.

• Interpersonal: Understands and interfaces well with others, could excel in sales or politics.

• Intrapersonal: Skilled in understanding one's own nature (feelings, thoughts, desires.); could go into business for oneself or write with a preference for autobiographical, experiential subjects.

• Linguistic: Understands spoken and written language well; articulate, poetic.

• Logical-Mathematical: Grasps numerical symbols and mathematical functions and logic.

• Musical: Grasps musical concepts such as melody, harmony, rhythm; may be gifted in composing music.

• Naturalistic: Gifted in identifying and categorizing creatures and things found in nature.

• Spatial: Skilled in manipulating three-dimensional space; perhaps suited to being an architect. (Moran, Kornhaber, & Gardner, 2006)

To this list Gardner adds a ninth "half-intelligence," one that is important to human reasoning, but does not meet all his criteria for being an intelligence. (Wehrheim, 2006) "Existential intelligence" is used to contemplate concepts and questions that may lie beyond human understanding, such as philosophical issues regarding the existence of God and the meaning of life (Moran, Kornhaber, & Gardner, 2006).

Gardner's theory is thought-provoking and, if applied correctly, could make teaching much more effective and learning much easier for challenged and gifted children alike. As innovative as it is, his work stands on the shoulders of theories dating back to the turn of the twentieth century, when behavior offered the only clues to how children learn. In modern work, the field of developmental psychology draws from the rich and diverse theories of scientists who have analyzed not only human behavior—but also computers and cognitive science—to link learning to the inner workings of the brain.

Teachers who understand their students' strengths within these intelligences are able to tailor their teaching to them and understand why these students struggle with certain teaching approaches. For example, to help pupils who are strong in linguistic intelligence, teachers need to use language to which they can relate and is clear and understandable. Students with musical intelligence are often found to have this intelligence at an early age and should be nurtured with classes in music analysis. Those possessing mathematical-logical intelligence begin by ordering objects, such as marbles. In time, they can do computations in their heads and eventually excel in following long chains of deduction and reasoning. These pupils can become model students, as they are able to follow the logic and sequencing of lesson plans in most subjects and should be nurtured and encouraged in math and math-related subjects (Nolen, 2003).

According to Nolen (2003), teachers can reinforce the strengths of children with spatial intelligence by teaching them using pictures, diagrams, overheads, films, and photographs, as well as asking them to draw their ideas. Activities like chess—that use spatial, strategic logic—appeal to these students. Bodily-kinesthetic pupils are very skilled with their hands and are able to manipulate objects and perform precise movements. Such students—who can become surgeons, sculptors, athletes, dancers—are able to express different emotions through movement. Teaching of these children can be done through physical movement, the use of manipulatives, and by getting them to use their hands in some way.

Individuals possessing interpersonal intelligence frequently become politicians, religious figures, teachers, therapists, or counselors. Activities in which children work together draw on their natural abilities. Children with intrapersonal intelligence need to be praised a lot in class and thrive on activities that call upon their imaginations. Long-term projects that develop in stages and progress with teacher approval are good, as they call upon these students to conceptualize ideas and then execute them, step by step. Students with naturalistic intelligence are adept at sorting and classifying plants, animals, insects. These students thrive when taught in an outdoor environment or when given activities that entail observing nature, collecting plant and insect specimens, or monitoring environmental changes. In planning effective lessons, teachers should try to accommodate all the different styles to reach all the learning styles within a single classroom (Nolen, 2003).

Neuroscience

Neuroscience, or "brain science," draws from neurology, psychology, physiology, and other disciplines. Among the contributions made by neuroscience are brain imaging techniques that allow scientists to observe the brain as it performs different cognitive functions. Brain imaging, or "neuroimaging" has enabled scientists to study the brain as it performs speech, reading, math, and language functioning. And it has made it possible for scientists to study how drugs, such as Ritalin, can enhance cognitive and academic performance (Goswami, 2004).

Cognitive neuroscience has already found ways to study how teaching affects the brain. Research may eventually help identify certain special educational needs early and show how different kinds of curricula and teaching techniques affect brain function. Already neuroscience can assess how teaching affects children with dyslexia and other special needs and, in time, it very likely will offer insights into how to tailor teaching to fit the different learning styles of different students (Goswani, 2004).

Neuroscience has also helped dispel certain myths about how human beings learn. It has been found that the concept of "left brain" versus "right brain" learning is unfounded. Despite the claim of some philosophers, scientists, and teachers, that certain learning (of language, for example) is done by the hemispheres of the brain and that teaching should be done to one or the other hemisphere has not been supported by neuroimaging. Both hemispheres work together equally in all cognition. Neuroscientists are still in the process of identifying these and other myths about how people learn. While some scientists believe that neuroscience is still too young to guide education in any meaningful way, others maintain that findings already made have laid adequate groundwork for beginning to answer some questions about how education impacts brain function (Goswani, 2004).

Connectionism & Neurophilosophy

Another cognitive science, connectionism, compares computers and the brain, but uses the brain, not the computer, as its starting point. Further, it points to the anatomy of the brain to offer a more scientific explanation of assimilation and accommodation, facets of Piagetian constructivism thought by some critics to be incomplete or too abstract (Clark, 2005).

Connectionists try to explain cognitive processes without separating them from the mechanical functioning of the brain. A number of theories and research agendas are being developed within connectionism. One of these, neurophilosophy (Clark, 2005), combines neuroscience and philosophy of mind functioning into one academic discipline. Until the 1980s, neuroscientists and philosophers had remained in their separate camps, ignorant of, and, at times, even hostile towards one another (Kalinka, 2005). But in 1986, Patricia S. Churchland, a philosophy professor at the University of California, published "Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain," a book arguing for the confluence and co-evolution of the fields of neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. According to Churchland, "many philosophers used to dismiss the relevance of neuroscience on grounds that what mattered was the 'software, not the hardware,' [but] increasingly, philosophers have come to recognize that understanding how the brain works is essential to understanding the mind" (Churchland, n.d.). Churchland—who is credited for coining the term, neurophilosophy—and other neurosphilosophers are studying consciousness, the self, free will, learning, and other older philosophical issues, using knowledge brought forth by neuroscience (Churchland, n.d.).

This increased focus on the inner workings of the brain has brought to the fore much information about how it develops in young children. Children enter the world already possessing most of the brain cells they will require. These cells are isolated but over time develop synapses, which bridge them, making communication and information sharing possible. During the earliest years of life, the brain overproduces synapses, but it compensates later by eliminating ones it does not need. Also during the earliest years, it begins producing myelin, a nerve coating it will manufacture until middle age. Myelin insulates nerves and increases the rate of information transfer through synapses. In time, it allows the brain to multitask ("Inside a Baby's Brain," 2005).

At six months, babies recognize the basic sounds of most languages—a skill that peaks around eight months but is lost at one year, when most children begin learning a single language. The ability to form mental images develops dramatically after eight months and allows children to picture objects and people when they are not present. At this time, separation anxiety can be observed in babies when a parent leaves the room. Higher reasoning develops gradually. Its growth—which increases a child's emotional control—reaches zenith after the first year of life and continues into the teenage years ("Inside a Baby's Brain," 2005).

Though much is known about how infants' brains develop in the earliest years, much remains to be discovered about how learning actually occurs within the physical brain. Neuroscience is working to determine how learning disabilities can be discovered and diagnosed early and how different teaching methods and strategies are received by the mind. Neurophilosophy hopes to close the gap between neuroscience and philosophy. And multiple intelligences theory seeks to explain the different ways in which people learn and how they can be taught more effectively.

Viewpoints

Since the 1970s, researchers in the field of developmental psychology have tried to determine how young children learn new words from conversation. What exactly does a child take from either hearing others talk or from their own initial attempts to converse that helps them build a lexicon? Twenty-first century studies have given rise to two new theories.

The first, social-pragmatic theory, states that children learn word meanings by inferring or otherwise determining the subject of a speaker's focus and the intentions and reasons for communicating. Through participation in regular, routine verbal interactions with adults, children learn to infer subject and intention more quickly and acquire new words more rapidly. An important implication of social-pragmatic theory for teachers is that children learn language more effectively when styles of adult-guided verbal interaction are consistent. In this way, they can understand what is being said without necessarily being familiar with the words spoken and can in time learn new words at their own pace (Hoff & Naigles, 2002).

A second theory revolves around the "data-providing" elements of speech and says that children are able to amass vocabulary simply by hearing words and sentence structures contained in everyday conversation. In time, a child recognizes familiar sentence structures and familiar words, and uses context to determine the meanings of any unknown words spoken (Hoff & Naigles, 2002). Adults who are in constant contact with early language learners can help them acquire language by using familiar phrases and vocabulary, while inserting newer vocabulary and using it frequently and repetitively.

However, Hoff & Naigles point out that these two theories do not sit in opposition to one another. Rather, research has shown that children rely on multiple sources for building vocabulary and that their style of building both lexical and syntactical skills is an integrated one. The dynamics of such theories continue to keep the field of developmental psychology intriguing and ever-changing.

Terms & Concepts

Behaviorism: Learning theory advocated by B.F. Skinner that concerns itself solely with changes in external behavior in an organism that results from learning

Cognitive Science: A science that draws on psychology, computer science, philosophy and linguistics, to study how the brain functions and performs mental tasks

Computationism: A cognitive science that uses computers as the basis for analyzing the functions of the human brain.

Constructivism: A set of theories based on the premise that children "construct" concepts of their environments through experience

Developmental Psychology: The branch of psychology that studies the intellectual, social, and emotional development of children

Multiple Intelligences: Introduced in the 1980s by Howard Gardner, a theory that says humans solve problems not with one central intelligence, but instead using a combination of eight basic intelligences

Neurophilosophy: Theory introduced in 1986 that combines neuroscience and philosophy of mind functioning into one academic discipline

Neuroscience: Scientific study of that brain that draws from neurology, psychology, physiology, and other disciplines

Psychosocial Development: A learning theory developed by psychoanalyst Erik Erikson that states that humans go through eight main developmental stages and must resolve unique inner conflicts during each before moving to the next stage

Social-Pragmatic Theory: A proposal stating that children learn new words by inferring the subject on which the speaker is focused and on his intention

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Hoff, E. & Naigles, L. (2002). How children use input to acquire a lexicon. Child Development, 73, 418. Retrieved March 6, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=6327026&site=ehost-live

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Suggested Reading

Hansen, C. C., & Zambo, D. (2005). Piaget, meet Lilly: Understanding child development through picture book characters. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33, 39-45. Retrieved February 2, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=19740261&site=ehost-live

McInerney, D. M. (2005) Educational psychology - theory, research, and teaching: A 25-year retrospective. Educational Psychology, 25, 585-599. Retrieved February 6, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=18786909&site=ehost-live

Maker, J. & Mi-Soon, L. (2006). The discover curriculum model: Nurturing and enhancing creativity in all children. KEDI Journal of Educational Policy, 3, 99-121. Retrieved February 11, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=23720530&site=ehost-live