Continuity vs discontinuity in child development. Issues in Developmental Psychology 2022-10-23

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Child development refers to the changes and progress that occur in children from birth to adolescence. These changes can be physical, cognitive, social, and emotional. While there are many theories and approaches to understanding child development, one of the main debates in the field is the issue of continuity versus discontinuity.

The continuity perspective suggests that child development is a continuous and gradual process, with one stage building upon the previous one. According to this perspective, children do not undergo sudden or dramatic changes, but rather, their abilities and behaviors evolve slowly over time.

On the other hand, the discontinuity perspective suggests that child development is marked by distinct stages, with each stage representing a significant shift in a child's abilities and behaviors. According to this perspective, children undergo fundamental changes as they move from one stage to the next, and these changes are often marked by qualitative differences rather than gradual improvements.

One of the main proponents of the continuity perspective is Jean Piaget, who proposed a stage theory of cognitive development. According to Piaget, children progress through four distinct stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. While each stage represents a shift in a child's cognitive abilities, Piaget believed that these shifts occurred gradually and were the result of the child's increasing ability to process and understand information.

Erik Erikson, on the other hand, proposed a stage theory of psychosocial development, which suggests that children undergo eight distinct stages of development, each marked by a different crisis that must be resolved in order for the child to move on to the next stage. According to Erikson, these crises involve both psychological and social factors and are marked by qualitative shifts in a child's sense of self and relationships with others.

While the continuity and discontinuity perspectives both have their strengths and limitations, it is important to recognize that child development is a complex process that is influenced by a wide range of factors, including genetics, environment, and experience. Rather than viewing development as either continuous or discontinuous, it is likely that both perspectives have some truth and that child development involves both gradual changes and significant shifts. Ultimately, understanding the complexity and uniqueness of each child's development is essential for providing the support and guidance that children need to grow and thrive.

What is continuous and discontinuous child development?

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

We need some time to prepare a perfect essay for you. With puberty, however, a new drive emerges or, at least, emerges in a mature form —the sex drive. We are always waiting to answer all your questions. In contrast to this view, researchers have found that the influence of childhood events does not necessarily have a dominating effect over behavior throughout life, however there is evidence that childhood adversity may correlate to greater levels of stress in adulthood. It should be clear that gappiness must also be a part of an emergent change. How do we explain this type of development in light of the continuity and discontinuity themes? Discussion topic 2 Does mental development and thinking progress continuously or discontinuously as we age? Normative development is typically viewed as a continual and cumulative process.

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The continuity vs. discontinuity issue in development relates to the idea that development

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

For instance, among the Yurok Indians, there is a custom of stimulating the early crawling of the baby: starting from the twelfth day of life, the grandmother massages legs. Step 1 To make an Order you only need to click ORDER NOW and we will direct you to our Order Page. Identity and the life-cycle. As you can imagine, discontinuous development is like walking up the stairs: a series of stages, or steps, that get you to the top of the mountain. Question 5 Renaldo is four years old and is experiencing a neurological growth spurt. For example, a baby starts immobile, then sits up, crawls, stands, and walks. Food for thought: In terms of language acquisition, we often encounter a child with a limited vocabulary one day but then find that same child with an exponentially larger vocabulary shortly thereafter.

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Continuity and Discontinuity in Development

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

Continuous development in psychology emphasizes that development and changes in individuals occur gradually. Question 35 Current evidence suggests that full adult-level visual acuity is reached by what age? They will go on to become better and better through little league and school teams, and eventually are more likely to make it to the professional level in their given sport. For example, children go from only being able to think in very literal terms to being able to think abstractly. It's just like hiking up the mountain path: a slow, steady ascent that leads to the top. Question 18 The ecological perspective in developmental psychology Answers: uses evolutionary theory to explain inborn patterns of behaviors.

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Issues in Developmental Psychology

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

Think about babies: when they are first born, they can't even hold their heads up; someone must support the head so it doesn't just loll back. Our writers will help you write all your homework. Do early childhood experiences have the greatest impact on development, or are later events equally important? But how do people develop? On the other hand, some people see development as consisting of different stages. Just like a sapling grows into a tree and then into a giant oak, continuity theorists see nature as shaping our development in a slow, gradual process. Discontinuity can mean changing abruptly rather than gradually or it can mean changing qualitatively in kind rather than quantitatively in degree. Moreover, the author states that this issue is one of the main problems of the psychology of personality development, the subject of lengthy scientific disputes.

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Continuity vs Discontinuity in Human Development

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

Discuss and give examples. For example, in mastering culture by a person, his or her primitive instincts fade into the background. . What is continuity vs discontinuity? Even Piaget made it a point to recognize the continuity between stages and that a child may straddle between two stages during development. After an adolescent is at the formal operational stage, there will be no additional stages through which they will progress, and the individual's development is considered completed under this model.

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Developmental Psychology

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

Explanations of development also can vary in regard to whether one accounts for change by positing quantitative changes e. Does change occur smoothly over time, or through a series of pre-determined steps? Remember that developmental psychologists' main priority is to study change. That is, any particular description or explanation of intraindividual change is the result of a particular theoretical view of development. Our writers are also well trained to follow client instructions as well adhere to various writing conventional writing structures as per the demand of specific articles. Continuity in a developmental theory implies a development without levels or without discernible pauses. Moreover, both descriptive quantitative discontinuity and descriptive qualitative continuity may be explained by the same ideas, such as by continuous explanatory principles. Answers: learned; inborn inborn; genetic acquired; learned genetic; inborn inborn; learned Question 17Children born to poverty-level parents who were adopted into middle-class families typically have IQs that are Answers: identical to those of their natural parents.

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CONTINUITY webapi.bu.edu

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

We have writers spread into all fields including but not limited to Philosophy, Economics, Business, Medicine, Nursing, Education, Technology, Tourism and Travels, Leadership, History, Poverty, Marketing, Climate Change, Social Justice, Chemistry, Mathematics, Literature, Accounting and Political Science. The February kids are likely larger and more physically adept because they are almost a year older than the December kids. We offer unlimited revisions at no extra cost. In 1877 he published a short paper detailing the development of innate forms of communication based on scientific observations of his infant son, Doddy. We attempt to demonstrate the validity of our argument successively for psychometric, Piagetian, cognitive, and contextual points of view, and then make the same demonstration in somewhat more detail from the standpoint of the triarchic theory of human intelligence. Theorists who believe children grow continuously believe that kids constantly add new lessons and skills on top of old lessons and skills as they get older. Rather, development involves both continuous and discontinuous elements simultaneously.

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Child Development

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

In turn, descriptive qualitative changes involve differences in what exists, in what sort of phenomenon is present. Indeed, if different explanations are, in fact, invoked, they may involve statements that constitute either quantitatively or qualitatively altered processes. In regard to continuity and discontinuity, descriptions or explanations of development can involve quantitative or qualitative changes. On one hand, the continuity theory says that development is a gradual, continuous process. Thus, it is impossible to answer whether culture affects development unequivocally or it occurs regardless of the socio-cultural context. The publishing house is dedicated to serving the information needs of the scientific community, clinicians and patients with publications of high-quality content and services in health sciences.

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Continuity vs Discontinuity Theories in Human Development

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

The nurture point of view will consider the basketball player's success to be because they had been practicing since they were young, they had met great coaches, and their family provided them with the opportunity to focus on learning basketball. Continuous and Discontinuous Development. If you are short of Budget, contact our Live Support for a Discount Code. This horizontal continuity includes policies and systems for consultations, referrals, and follow-up. Are we more affected by events that occur in early childhood, or do later events play an equally important role? Let's look closer at two competing theories about development - continuity and discontinuity - and what they have to do with the classic 'nature versus nurture' debate in psychology.

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Continuity Vs Discontinuity

continuity vs discontinuity in child development

For example, the nature view considers a great basketball player to be great because they were born taller than their counterpart and have inherent basketball skills. Psychoanalytic theories are those influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud, who believed in the importance of the unconscious mind and childhood experiences. For example, the development of behavior that appears discrete or disordered at the execution level occurs through processes that are themselves continuous and ordered. Discontinuity in human development usually signifies some form of change, whereas continuity implies maintaining the status quo Lerner, 2002. Synthesizing nature-nurture: Prenatal roots of instinctive behavior. Other theories outline a series of sequential stages in which skills emerge at certain points of development. Often, the context and the type of development play a significant role in whether or not psychologists take a continuous vs discontinuous perspective.

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