Developmental Perspectives Of Child Development

A basic introduction to child development theories

Developmental perspectives The NSW Office of Child Care (Department of Community Services, DoCS) published a document in 2002 called the NSW Curriculum Framework for Children 's Services: A practice of relationships (.pdf 1.4 MB). This document has some interesting perspectives of the role of child development and developmental norms. It is important to consider multiple

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Contents

Child development theorists .......................................................3 Use of theories............................................................................3 Emotional and psychological development ................................4
Erik Erikson ..........................................................................................................
10 Sara Smilansky .................................................................................................. 10 Mildred Parten .................................................................................................... 12 Kenneth H. Rubin ............................................................................................... 13 Jerome Singer .................................................................................................... 14

Development of autonomy and independence .........................14 References ...............................................................................16

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A basic introduction to child development theories Centre for Learning Innovation
© State of New South Wales, Department of Education and Training, 2006

A basic introduction to child development theories

Child development theorists
There are a number of different theorists associated with child development. The table below lists those most well known. Table 1: Major theorists Theoretical approach
Maturation

Principles of the theory
Jean Piaget and Sara Smilansky
Both Piaget and Sara Smilansky developed categories of play, as follows:  Sensory motor play Here an infant up to two years of age will use various senses and motor skills to explore objects and their environment.  Symbolic play In this type of play, symbols are much more evident. Children can pretend that one object is another, the cubby house becomes a rocket. This  Games with rules In this stage, children are able to follow rules of games, changing their understanding of the purpose of rules as they get older. Children in the concrete operations stage are usually also in this play stage (Nixon and Gould 1999). Note that Piaget did not tend to see play as learning through the accommodation of new information, but rather the assimilation of new materials into existing cognitive structures. In his view it is relaxed practice time rather than the challenging learning time for taking in completely new information.

Sara