Human Development

• Development


  It pertains to growing and changing across the lifespan.
• Domains of Development:

  •Physical development

  •Cognitive development

  •Psychosocial development
• Physical development


  involves growth and changes in the body, brain, senses, motor skills, and health, and wellness.
• Cognitive development


  Involves learning, memory, attention, language, thinking, reasoning and creativity
• Psychosocial development


  Involves emotion, personality, and social relationship
• Stages of Development:

  •Prenatal

  •Infancy and toddlerhood

  •Early childhood

  •Middle and Late childhood

  •Adolescence

  •Emerging adulthood

  •Early adulthood

  •Middle adulthood

  •Late adulthood
• Prenatal


  Starts at conceptions, continues through implantation in the uterine wall by the embryo, and ends at birth.
• Infancy and toddlerhood


  Starts at birth and continues to two years of age
• Early childhood


  Start at two years of age and continues until six years of age
• Middle and Late childhood


  Starts at six years of age and continues until the onset of puberty
• Adolescence


  Starts at the onset of puberty until 18
• Emerging adulthood


  Starts at 18 until 25
• Early adulthood


  Starts at 25 until 40-45
• Middle adulthood


  Starts at 40-45 until 60-65
• Late adulthood


  Starts at 65 onward
• Conceptions of age:

  • Chronological age

  • Biological Age

  • Psychological age

  • Social age
• Chronological age


  It pertains to the amount of time an individual has inhabited the world upon conception
• Biological age


  It pertains to the rate at which the body ages. This age is influenced by factors such as genetics, lifestyle, and temperament.
• Psychological age


  It pertains to one's psychological standing and capacity when compared to others at tge same age group
• Social age


  This age is typically reliant on prevailing societal norms and cultural pressures on individuals in a particular group.
• Issues on human development:

  • Is development continuous or discontinuous?

  • Is the pattern of change universal or context-specific?

  • Is development a matter of nature or nurture?

  • Which is more influential to development, eaely experiences or late experiences?
• Lifespan perspective

  German psychologist Paul Baltes, a leading expert on lifespan development and aging, developed one of the approaches to studying development called the lifespan perspective. Baltes' perspective emphasizes that development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, contextual, and multidisciplinary. Moreover, it is a process that involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss.
• Development is lifelong


  Development occurs from womb to tomb. Hence, the study of human development should span the entire lifespan.
• Development is multidimensional


  Development is achieved through the interplay of biological, cognitive, and psychosocial changes
• Development is multidisciplinary

  Human development is such a vast topic of study that it requires the theories, research methods, and knowldege base of many academic disciplines.
• Development is multidirectional


  Development is not linear. It is characterized by both increases and decreases in functioning. Hence, development is a joint expression of gains and losses.
• Development is plastic


  Developmental plasticity holds that human characteristics are malleable and changeable. Amidst internal and external influences, we can adapt and modufy our behaviors and biology.
• Development is contextual


  Biological and environmental influences significantly impact the extent and intensity an individual develops
• Normative Age-Graded Influences


  Biological and/or environmental influences that affect a certain age group
• Normative History-Graded Influences


  Biological and/or environmental influences that affect a certain generation
• Non-normative Influences

  Biological and/or environmental influences that are unpredictable and arent associated with a particular age group or historical period