Human Development

Human Development Paper

Katrice Bottoms

PSY/280

April 9, 2012

Instructor: Leatrice Allen

Human development is a study of science that seeks to understand how people change or remain the same over time. To a astronomic degree, human development is the study of child development, the most important modifications take place from new born through maturity. This helps us understand children for them to develop optimally, as individuals it gives deep insights into who we become as adults.

This paper will expound on three theories related to human growth and development, how heredity and the environment influence human development, identifying aspects of the life span perspective. There are various stages of human development these stages start at newborn and go on to late adulthood.

These stages are marked by milestones in cognitive, physical, and socio/emotional development. The following are three theories related to child development by theorists that explain the developmental phases of children and determine the ages at which these growth milestones occur.

Cognitive development refers to the changes that the brain and thought process go through with aging. Cognitive changes in the lifespan can be broken down into childhood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. The brain develops and grows mostly in childhood, much of the mindset is dedicated to studying cognitive changes in this time period. Psychologist Jean Piaget theory of childhood cognitive development in which he proposed that humans move through stages of growth. His stages begin at birth with the sensorimotor period, are followed by preoperational and concrete operations in middle childhood and end with formal operations in the teenage years.

In a child's life there are four initial periods in childhood development: infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and puberty. These...