Theories of Child Development

2. Theories of Child Development
The Development Interaction
Approach is an important part of
Early Childhood Education. This
approach is based upon the
theories presented by world
known developmental psychologists
and child educators Erik Erikson,
John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Lucy
Sprague Mitchell.
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3. Focus & Domain of Development
Interaction Approach
The Development Instruction Approach
primarily focuses upon learning through
discovery. Five domains are included in
this approach i.e.
• Physical Domain
• Social Domain
• Emotional Domain
• Language
• Cognitive Skills.
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4. Theories of Child Development
The Physical Domain
• The physical domain includes developing
a child's biological and physical functions,
such as the development of eyesight and
motor skills.
The Social Domain
• The social domain comprises how a child
learns to interact with the members of the
community. He develops a sense of
responsibility both as a member of his
family and his community. He also
develops the ability to relate and work
with others.
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5. The emotional domain
focuses on creating
emotional connections and
self-confidence. These
connections develop once a
child learns to interact and
relate with the feeling of
others.
The Emotional Domain
The domain of language enables a
child to communicate efficiently.
This includes presenting their
feelings and emotions to
themselves and others. The
developmental pattern of
comprehending a language can be
broken down as follows:
- At three months, a child cries in
different ways or with different
needs
- At six months, he can recognize
and copy the basic sounds of the
spoken language
- In the first three years, he picks
up the spoken language by being
constantly exposed to
communication.
The Domain of Language
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The Domain of Cognitive Skills
Cognitive skills include the ability of a child
to organize the information, problem-solve,
show creativity, memory, and imagination.
According to Jean Piaget (famous Swiss child
development psychologist), children tend to
display differences in their thought
processes while moving across cognitive
development stages. These differences in
thought patterns can be divided into three
distinct stages:
- The sensorimotor period (beginning at
birth and ending at two years old)
- The pre-operational period (beginning at
two years old, when children begin to talk,
and ending at around seven years old)
- The operational period (beginning at seven
to eleven years of age. This is the period or
well formed rational thinking)

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Three distinct world-known theories can be presented in
terms of child development:
•Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb made a theory
of experiential learning which offers a robust model to
establish training application)
•Piaget’s Constructivist Theory (Piaget's theory of
cognitive growth empowered educators to understand
children's intellectual development)
•Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Learning Theory (It furnishes
ideas to offer an important support to children
development within their cultural, social and historical
perspective)
These three theories are very useful to understand the
dynamics of early learning and education.

7. David Allen Kolb is an American educational theorist. According to
David Kolb's experiential learning theory, children must experience
things in order to learn. This can be simplified as
“The resulting of knowledge from combinations of grasping and
transforming experience.”
Kolb has broken down this learning cycle of children into four stages,
i.e.,
• Concrete experience, where children observe the new situation
• Reflective observation, where children think about that situation
• Abstract conceptualization, where children try to add meaning to
their situation
• Active experimentation, where children look for practical
implications of that situation
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Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory

8. Learning with ones self:
Jean Piaget’s Constructivist Theory reflects the idea that
learning comes from within. According to him, the children
create their knowledge of the world by experiencing and
subsequent reflection.
Trial and error:
The constructivist theory focuses on experiential education in
schools, where students learn through trial and error. Hence,
experimenting with new environments and exploring new
objects constitute an essential part of early childhood
development and education.
Acquiring Knowledge:
Therefore by working on Piaget's idea, teachers should
facilitate children acquiring new knowledge instead of merely
transferring it to them.
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Piaget’s Constructivist Theory

9. Vygotsky's social development
theory asserts that a child's cognitive
development and learning ability can
be guided and mediated by their
social interactions. His theory (also
called Vygotsky's Sociocultural
theory) states that learning is a
crucially social process as
opposed to an independent
journey of discovery.
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Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Learning Theory

10. Dr. Maria Montessori and Her Observational Approaches:
As a scientist, Dr Montessori began her work with children
with special needs. She used her observational skills and
tried to learn about them.
The Montessori approach implies that instead of guiding the
child to do certain actions, we should the child and learn
through his observations. With this approach, she tried to
understand the natural patterns of growth and development of
these children. Later, she devised a whole new program
using the results of her observations.
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Montessori’s Observation on Children

11. The first observation which she made was the movements
that the children make. Through her observations, she found
the close link between movements made by a child and his
physical and mental development. The results of her findings
were:
- The intricate patterns of children's movement help in their
brain development
- A child learns and discovers his surroundings through his
movements.
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The observations she made while interacting with children are given as
follows:
Movement Pattern of Children-Observation No. 1

12. The second observation which she made was the children's
will to do things by themselves. Her observations pointed out
that a child never misses the opportunity of practicing and
mastering a new skill on their own. Whenever a child will
come across an independent learning opportunity, their will
happily respond to it.
She discovered an inner sense of urgency as a main drive for
motivating these children to move forward and learn things on
their own. This included learning numbers and words, doing
practical tasks, and getting an understanding of their
surroundings.
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The Will of Working Independently-Observation No.2

13. Her Third observation concluded that a child's brain absorbs information
from its environment all at once. This is in contrast with an adult's brain,
which learns by logically gaining information. During its early years, a
child’s brain functions completely differently than any other time in his life.
Dr. Montessori’s discoveries suggested that while a child is completely
involved and focused on his environment, or when he is busy in
repeating an activity again and again, his brain is busy in building new
and fundamental structures. This structuring of the brain is helpful for the
child in later years of life.
Modern neuroscience also confirms this discovery of Montessori.
According to it, while children are absorbing their environment, their
brains are busy in opening hundreds of thousands of new neural
pathways every second.
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Absorption of Information from the Environment-Observation No. 3

14. Another observation of Dr. Montessori suggested the need for children to learn
from concrete experience. This means that a child requires a three-dimensional
object to hold and observe before developing an abstract image in his mind.
The example of this Montessori concept can be seen as a child who is learning
the concept of round or circular objects. In order for him to develop this concept
and visualization of roundness mentally, the child will first need to hold and
observe numerous round objects with his hands. Once the child gets adequate
sensory impressions from real-lie examples, he becomes able to conceptualize
the circular objects in abstract and finally, he will learn to associate the object’s
qualities through his words.
This can also be explained with an example of an artist, who is an adult. While
the artist first imagines and then draws blueprints, a child first observes the
material, and then visualizes the object.
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Concrete Learning & Experience-Observation No. 4

15. Dr. Montessori suggested that when children are playing,
their activities are not random or unorganized. Instead, they
intend to achieve their primary goal: to become independent
individuals capable of living in a place, time, and culture in
which they are born.
To help achieve their primary intention, a Montessori
classroom needs to provide the children with an adequate
environment, material, furniture, time, and freedom so that
the children can work to achieve their goals.
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Organized Play-Observation No. 5

16. Dr. Montessori designed special materials for the children.
These materials are called Montessori Materials, and she
prepared them keeping the general capability of children to
learn and observe things in mind. When she presented the
children with these materials, she found out that the children
used these materials with extended concentration. According
to Montessori, when a child is given objects that are
according to her mental capabilities, the attention and
concentration span of these children increases greatly.
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Concentration & Normalization-Observation No. 6

17. Another major observation made here was a shift in children’s
behavior. When provided with materials that correspond to their
mental age, the children’s concentration made them more happy,
calm, and confident. With concentration, the children also developed
certain characteristics such as:
- Self-discipline
- Love of their work
- Sociability
- Concentration.
Normalization: According to Dr. Montessori, the children who would
develop the above mentioned abilities would become prone to find
their natural areas of work once they become adults. She named
this Normalization.
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Concentration & Normalization-Observation No.6 (2)

18. According to Dr. Montessori, a child goes through multiple
sensitive periods during his early years. These sensitive
periods help in the development of abilities such as
- Language
- Order and organization
- Motor skills
- Recognition of small objects
- Numbers
- Writing
- Spatial relationships and more
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Identification of Sensory Periods-Observation No. 7

19. Launch