Child Developmental Theories

Paper Summary:

This paper describes Piaget's Theory of Childhood Development, Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development, Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development and Bronfenbrenner's Ecological System Theory. The author points out that critics assert that many of the classic developmental theories do not adequately address social context; thereupon, Uric Bronfenbrenner developed an ecological theory, which includes social context, such as family, school, society and culture. The paper relates that, based on these theories, researchers developed a new programming environment called Electronic Blocks, specifically designed for children three to eight years old, to introduce meaningful technology education in an early childhood setting

Table of Contents
Introduction
Piaget's Theory of Childhood Development
Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development
Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development
Bronfenbrenner's Ecological System Theory
Implications for Classroom Instruction

From the Paper:

"Piaget's theory was developed by Jean Piaget to explain childhood development. According to this theory, moral sense arises from interactions between developing cognitive structures and expanding social experiences. Piaget outlined four stages of cognitive development (Jean Piaget's stage theory). The first stage, the Sensorimotor stage, occurs from birth to two years of age and involves the child's use of their senses and reflexes to form knowledge. There are six sub-stages in the Sensorimotor stage. The first stage from birth to six weeks emphasizes the development of basic reflexes while the second stage from six weeks to four months deals with the development of circular reactions as the infant modifies their reflexes in response to the environment."

More papers on Child Developmental Theories:

• Research Paper # 118665 : "Developmental Theories"
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