To increase content accuracy, authors should consider revisiting their content and current citations to determine if these continue to be the most relevant sources or if revisions are necessary. Finally, readers could benefit from a reference list in this textbook. With multiple in-text citations throughout the book, it is surprising no reference list is provided. The Chapters include relevant information about current topics, resources and pictures representing the diverse backgrounds of children and families that are in our classrooms and communities. Throughout the text an effort is clearly made to limit educational jargon and keep the language accessible to all readers.
Middle Adult Development
The layout of the text and images is simple and repetitive with photographs complementing the text entries. This allows the reader to focus their concentration on comprehension rather than deciphering a more confusing format. An index where readers could go back and search for certain terms within the textbook would be helpful. Additionally, a glossary of key terms would add clarity to this textbook. All of this happens in an historical context referred to as the chronosystem.
Review Questions
The use of narratives in which the researcher tries to find out what is going on by using the subjects’ own words is one approach. Qualitative methods are used in anthropology, education, nursing, and other areas where the researcher wishes to be led by the participants into seeing what they deem as important. Sampling bias is the tendency to get information from people who are accessible or close to us when trying to find out about how the world works. If I ask those who live and work with me about parenting, or health, or love, I’m going to find out about their situations but not about the views of those unlike me who live and work outside my boundaries.
Well organized and jargon appropriate for students in a Developmental Psychology class. While this text provides adequate discussion of gender and cross-cultural influences on development, it is not sufficient. This is not a problem unique to this text, and is indeed a critique I have of all developmental textbooks. In particular, in my view this text does not adequately address the role of race, class or sexual orientation on development. In places where the authors do refer to prior or future chapters (something that I find helps students contextualize their reading), a complete discussion of the topic is included.
Periods of development
- Piaget has been criticized for overemphasizing the role that physical maturation plays in cognitive development and underestimating the role that culture and interaction (or experience) plays in cognitive development.
- Children were often viewed simply as small versions of adults and little attention was paid to the many advances in cognitive abilities, language usage, and physical growth that occur during childhood and adolescence.
- Peers become more important for adolescents, who are exploring new roles and forming their own identities.
- Adolescence is a period of dramatic physical change marked by an overall physical growth spurt and sexual maturation, known as puberty.
- These theories are appealing in a way because they provide the ability to predict what will happen next and they allow us to attribute behavior to a person’s being ‘in a stage’.
In addition, while it does talk about maturation and sexuality, LGBTQ issues could be more prominent. From the table of context students understand how the book is organized. The textbook would be even stronger if there was a more detailed table of context which highlights what topics are covered within each of the chapter.
While it is true that students sometimes feel intimidated by theory; even the phrase, “Now we are going to look at some theories…” is met with blank stares and other indications that the audience is now lost. But theories are valuable tools for understanding human behaviour and development. Indeed, they are proposed explanations for the “how” and “whys” of development.
If the screening tool reveals developmental delay, the child needs referrals to developmental pediatricians. Children up to three years with developmental delay are referred to early intervention programs, and children above three years of age are referred to special education services. Understanding normal growth and development milestones are important for a clinician evaluating pediatric patients.
In sum, postmodernism denies the existence of one objective view of child development but rather encourages multiple perspectives of viewing how children develop and learn. Today many nations are actively addressing the legacies of colonialism that brought with it such things as patriarchy, eurocentrism, and structuralism. These ways of describing the world and human experience tend to align with a Western ideology with embedded hierarchies and colonist world views. Historically, these narratives have served to advantage certain populations while pathologizing and further marginalizing others.
Psychologists such as Erik Erikson were especially interested in looking at how navigating this period leads to identity formation. Kids begin to make their mark on the world as they build their unique sense of self, form friendships, grasp principles of logic, and gain competency through schoolwork and personal interests. Parents may seek the assistance of a developmental psychologist to help kids deal with potential problems that might arise at this age, including academic, social, emotional, and mental health issues. This period of development is marked by both physical maturation and the increased importance of social introduction of growth and development influences as children make their way through elementary school. As you might imagine, developmental psychologists often break down development according to various phases of life.