“An Advanced Lifespan Odyssey…” by Erford & Tucker Essay

Overview of the study guide: Counseling psychologists’ mandate is to provide moral and emotional support to their patients. The work of a psychologist can be made easier when they understand the unique challenge each group of people faces. Understanding the stages of growth and development helps psychologist categorize their patients into their respective growth and tailor the solution to the stage of the patients. An Advanced Lifespan Odyssey for Counseling Professionals is an essential resource that explains the stages of development from the prenatal stage through old age.

Important Fundamental Principles in Lifespan Development

Human life follows a distinct trajectory of stages commencing at conception and moving through stages until death. Counselors in the psychological domain need to understand the stages of life to offer patient-centered advice based on the stage of growth. Each stage has distinct cognitive, socioemotional, and physical features. Human life begins at conception, a stage known as prenatal. After birth, a person navigates through different stages in life and experiences the unique characteristics of each growth and development period. The stages are infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescents, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. Each stage is characterized by different challenges, and knowledge of the specific features makes it possible to offer the needed advice. The aging process is a continuous, gradual, and natural change that individual experiences and that begins in early adulthood. The concept of aging can be understood through the three main types: biological, social, and psychological.

Theories

1. Piaget’s theory underscores a significant transformation from one stage to another. For example, Paget’s development theory involves four stages illustrating how a person moves from one phase of life to another.
2. Incremental theories view growth as a continuous path that depends on the previous steps and adds new features to cope with the challenges facing a new age.
3. The multi-dimensional theories incorporate both the stage and incremental theory to explain how a person moves from one stage of development to another.

Important Vocabulary

• Aging-A continuous process moving from one stage to another, beginning from early adulthood.
• Anabolism-A process of aging where the body function attains optimal performance and starts deteriorating.
• Catabolism-Explains the deterioration of body performance as a person ages

Stages of Human Development

The stages of human development are complex, and no single theory can be sued to explain how human beings navigate from prenatal to old age in an individual’s life. The different theories that define a human’s development stages are analyzed, compared, and contracted. The chapter gives a historical perspective on how society has viewed adolescence and children. Children in the 19^th century were viewed as innocent beings that required protection from adults. However, during the industrial revolution in the 20^th century, children were considered a source of labor. The concept of child labor and social protection for children gained popularity.

Theories

1. The psychosocial theory explains human development is premised on a person’s history and environmental exposure. People identify themselves based on their surroundings and the factors that affect their day-to-day decision-making. Psychosocial theories of human development include Freud’s theory, Erickson’s stages of development, Novinger’s theory, and the identity theory coined by Chickering.
2. Sociocultural theory underscores the interaction between people to define their growth and development. Bronfenbrenner’s model, Bowen’s theory, and Vygotsky’s zone theory are analyzed.
3. Theories of human development focus on individuals’ diverse needs and understand people based on how their needs are fulfilled in the discourse. The chapter analyzes the multicultural theories of development.
4. Biological theories focus on how the human body functioning changes in response to the special needs of the individual. Darwin’s evolution, attachment, maturation, and etiological theories explain human development from different perspectives.

Important Vocabulary

• Maturation is the changes in body tissues that lead to different functioning.
• Scaffolding is a process of moving from a state of impossibility to a solution using creative processes.
• A genogram is a symbolic representation of a family genealogy to understand a person’s development based on the historical perspective.

Theories of Human Development

Intellectual and cognitive development change as a person transcends from one stage to another. As a human grows, their exposure to different life factors such as spirituality and womanhood. The chapter investigates the different theories that explain how human cognitive and intellectual growth and their respective measurements. Intelligence cognition is an important factor used to interpret God’s existence and how the concept of a supreme being has changed with time. The chapter underscores moral development based on the human experience.

Theories

1. Cognitive and intellectual development theories explain how children move from the appointment of being clueless to a stage of mental maturity. An example of an approach illustrated in this chapter is Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, where four distinct stages are explained.
2. Cognitive and behavioral change theories explain how a person can be convinced in the community to adjust their behavior to meet a particular behavioral expectation in society. The theory describes how people can take incremental steps toward a new behavior set.
3. Humanistic theories explain the individual potential and how much they can achieve when focused on their abilities and interact positively.

Important Vocabulary

• Adaptation-a process through which individuals collect knowledge to help them overcome challenges in life.
• Assimilation-obtaining new information and incorporating it into a person’s own to be used for other outcomes.
• Accommodation is a process when people incorporate information and use it to solve a problem different from the intended purpose.

Genetics, Heredity, Environment, and Prenatal Development

The chapter underscores the growth stages from the prenatal phase of life through the genetic lens. Human cell, DNA traits, and heredity disorders form the basis of exploiting a person’s genetics and how they affect the development from one stage to another. The chapter is premised on the basis that the health and well-being of an individual are determined by environmental and genetic factors and, therefore, urges people to make better decisions when choosing their life partners to ensure their offspring are not affected. Preparation for parenthood is important, especially when one understands what is at stake during pregnancy. The development of the fetal brain serves an important purpose in an individual’s life.

Theories

The chapter investigates the genetic theories to explain how biology and history affect human beings. The concept of genetics has a relationship with behavior which determines how a person of a given lineage is likely to behave. Most of the cognitive behaviors affecting a person can be presented by analyzing genetics and behaviors. It is prudent to note that genetics plays a significant role in an individual’s mental and cognitive development.

Important vocabulary

• Genotype – a factor of inheritance where both parents are determined.
• Canalization – an individual’s expected growth trajectory
• Contraception – a birth control procedure to give women the ability to control pregnancies
• Fertilized in vitro – an artificial form of fertilization where a doctor collects sperm and an egg separately, fertilizes them, and assigns the zygote to a surrogate mother.

Physical and Cognitive Development in the Infancy and Toddlerhood Years

The period from birth to two years in the life of a human is probably the most sensitive, where the parents are to remain vigilant to ensure the infant grows up in good health and moves effectively from one stage to another. A parent with a child at infant or toddler age must monitor the growth patterns, monitor weight, and ensure that the baby has the correct sleeping patterns for growth and development. In the communication domain, toddlers can restore and reproduce information. Behavioral formation begins at the stage and must be trained to communicate effectively. The cognitive ability of the infant can be easily understood using the observation method, where the perceptual and motor skills are analyzed. Communication at this age is done using signs, and the parent can communicate with the child effectively.

Theories

1. Language and development theory explains how crying is used to communicate between the infant and the parents. Observation must be high at the infancy level to recognize all the development.
2. Piaget’s sensorimotor stage theory explains how a child strives to use the methods at its exposure to communicate with the parents.
3. The information processing model theory explains how toddlers can collect information and retrieve it for communication purposes.

Important Vocabulary

• Phonology -The study of language and sounds
• Comprehension -ability of an infant to understand words in a communication pattern.
• Habituation – Process of showing toddlers a stimulus several times to make the toddler remember and process the information, such as people’s faces.

Emotional and Social Development in the Infancy and Toddlerhood Years

Infants and toddlers experience rapid growth in both the physical, social, and emotional domains. A child’s emotional intelligence is nurtured by the parent, and the toddler’s stage is the earliest stage to lay the foundation for how people view themselves and others. The primary emotions are happiness through a smile, and anger, displeasure through crying. As time moves, the toddler can show interest or displeasure in people and show self-conscious emotions, self-evaluation emotions, and finally, how to interact with one another. The culture where an infant grows up determines how the infant will know how to express itself. In an individualistic culture like the USA, the toddler learns that self-expression is paramount, while a person will not be keen on self-expression in the collectivist culture.

Theories

1. Freud’s theory of emotional development focuses on the psychosexual stages such as the oral, latency, anal, genital, and phallic stages to explain a child’s emotional and social development.
2. Erickson’s theory of emotional development designates the trust and mistrust levels for the toddlers where they can gain trust for people who are close to them and mistrust strangers.

Important Vocabulary

• Extended-self – a type of self-awareness where the toddler can control its emotions and relate with others.
• Temperament – an inherent personality of an individual which grows determined.
• Cortisol – is an important hormone that helps a toddler develop both the body and mind of a toddler.
• Autonomy – a phenomenon in infant development where they demand to make decisions such as self-feeding and cry when forced to be fed.

The Preschool Years: Early Childhood Physical and Cognitive Development

As children grow from toddlers to preschool, numerous changes occur in their bodies and cognitive realm. The chapter focuses on the changes experienced by children as they transcend from the infant and toddler stage to the preschool stage. Brain development has copious plasticity and makes it possible for kids to grasp information and reproduce it. Toddlers must also be exposed to motor activities which will give them holistic growth for both mind and body. There is a relationship between physical and cognitive development. When the child is not allowed to grow physically through the motor activities, their cognitive development is also hindered. The chapter further underscores the importance of vaccinations to enhance safety for children and make them free from minor illnesses.

Theories

1. Jean Piaget’s development theory explains the four stages that preschool children undergo as their mental status. The theory investigates the kind of knowledge a person has and ensures that they analyze the nature of intelligence.
2. Shonkoff model of mental development explains that at the age of three, a child’s brain has grown to 80% of the adult brain growth.

Important vocabulary

• Brain lateralization – The phenomenon that explains how two different parts of the brain house different functionalities.
• Handedness – the tendency or willingness consist of an individual to use either the left hand or the right hand.
• Sleep disorder – a condition that affects preschool children who cannot sleep. Sleep disorders have an overall negative implication.

The Preschool Years: Early Childhood Emotional and Social Development

During the preschool years, physical and physical and cognitive abilities depend on each other. Emotional and social development is further important because it underscores how the child interacts with the environment and other people. A child lives with a family and colleagues at the preschool venue where they interact. The family gives the child roles to play, and they either praise the preschool kid when it does well or condemns it when it does not perform the duties as assigned correctly. The children at this stage understand that interaction with the external environment has a significant impact on their lives and therefore strive to be at peace with people and avoid feelings of guilt.

Theories

1. Erickson’s development theory designates the third emotional and social growth stage to explain mental development. The stage involves initiative versus guilt, where the child feels good when praised and feels guilty whenever they feel to live up to the expectations. In a quest for happiness, preschool children will strive to avoid guilt.
2. Alfred Adler’s individual psychology theory underscores the tendency of the children to focus on behaviors that make them more powerful and revenge actions were done against them. Attention, power, inadequacy, and revenge determine whether people will be happy.
3. Family systems theory explains that a child’s behavior is formed and shaped by the interaction within the family setup.

Important Vocabulary

• Daycare – A designated place where children are attended to as their parents participate in different activities.
• Authoritarian parents – parents who are too demanding and have excessive control of a child’s behavior.
• Socialization – A process through which a child interacts with others to understand each other.

Middle Childhood: Physical and Cognitive Development

As people move from early childhood to middle childhood, they transcend most of the features of their previous characteristics. Though the physical attributes of people in middle childhood may resemble the features of the people in early childhood, they possess special cognitive abilities to think about themselves and others to derive a conclusion. During middle childhood, the children grow steadily. Some of the features of early childhood are shed off as new characteristics re-assimilated to make the children participate in interactive activities, like early childhood, where physical activities play a significant role in cognitive development. There are significant changes such as a change in weight and body shape in preparation for adolescence. The most important feature of middle childhood in the cognitive domain is how people can process information and make decisions on matters affecting them. Efficiency is determined by their ability to gain and use new knowledge.

Theories

1. Erickson’s development theory in middle childhood underscores the inferiority vs. industry where a person works hard to prove to the people around that they are industrious. It is the stage where children can complete complex tasks by incorporating creativity to show their performance ability.
2. Piaget’s theory on childhood development explains middle childhood as a stage where children gain new insights to improve their cognitive and logical skills where they can make complex decisions. Further, short-term and long-term memory is developed during the middle childhood stage.

Important Vocabulary

• Myelination – Development of the brain nerve cell during middle childhood to enhance more complex brain functions.
• Permanent dentition – A set of thirty-two teeth that grows to enhance the normal function of the individual.
• Mindset – The way a child thinks and interprets information.