Child Psychology: The Main Theories Explained in Simple Terms

2006

Constructions The most abstract constructions that English-speaking children use early in development have mostly been studied from an adult perspective—using constructions defined from an adult model. We follow suit here, but the truth is that many of the constructions listed here probably should be differentiated in a more fine-grained way (as families of subconstructions) once the necessary empirical work is done. Identificationals, Attributives, and Possessives Among the earliest utterance-level constructions used by many English-speaking children are those that serve to identify an object or to attribute to it some property, including a possessor or simple location (Lieven, Pine, & Dresner-Barnes, 1992). In adult language, these would almost invariably require some form of the coplua, to be, although children do not always supply it. Quite often, these constructions revolve around one or a few specific words. Most common for the identification function are such things as It’s a...

The study of the development of living organisms generally, and humans, in particular, has itself developed and significantly so, as compared to past editions of this Handbook. For example, across just these early years of the 21st century, scholarship in developmental science has involved several important philosophical, theoretical, and methodological changes and, together, these changes constitute a paradigm shift for the field (Overton & Lerner, 2012). The outcome of this paradigm shift involves the reanalysis and rethinking of a number of issues in the field, followed by the generation of new data, and new powerful methodological tools. This chapter will illustrate several of these

British Journal of Psychotherapy, 1987

No-one committed to the value of a psychodynamic perspective for understanding human behaviour would dispute that one essential tenet of this approach is that a developmental perspective can give valuable insight into the understanding of human behaviour. The child, nay indeed the infant, is the father of the man. It is a perspective which stresses that complex and elaborate forms of human behaviour and motivation can be interpreted as the elaboration of more primitive or infantile drives and conflicts. Our conception of the infant's nature, his drives, his needs, his innate potentialities, and how they will be affected or structured by the environment that may meet or fail to meet his requirements, will affect and colour our later understanding of 'the transference in the analytic situation. We may differ about the drives we attribute to the neonate: for example, in our views about the death instinct or whether envy is a primary or secondary phenomenon. Some, like Balint, Fairbairn, Winnicott or Kohut, may regard these drives as secondary products arising from, and exacerbated by, an environmental situation in which there was a traumatising lack of fit between the child and his significant others. We may differ in the significance we attribute to the role of the relationship with the primary caretaker and how this relationship affects the intrapsychic development of the individual. Some will stress the role of the mother as a transformational object of primitive infantile phantasies inasmuch as she can hold and contain them. But does she also function as a stimulator? Do experiences of actual seductiveness at the hands of the mother affect the intrapsychic development of her child? These differences may affect our views of the nature of the relationship between phantasy and reality. When Freud stressed that the main factors in the aetiology of hysteria arose from unconscious phantasy originating from internal sexual drives rather than actual seduction, did he direct our attention away from external reality? These differences will affect how we account for the fact that some individuals have failed in terms of the sublimation and transformation of their pregenital and aggressive drives. Do we explain this in terms of intra-psychic factors, as essentially an internal failure in the taming of the drives, or do we think that a relevant explanatory variable might be the actual relationship with the parents which perhaps failed to provide theh olding' environment necessary for the transformation of the drives? We may differ in the degree to which we understand psychopathology in terms of fixations due to instinctual conflict, or of developmental arrests due to environmental deficit. If we adopt a position regarding unmet needs, what are the mutative factors of the analytic situation? Is it purely the achievement of insight through interpretation of the transference, or are there elements of a corrective experience provided by the analyst's empathic mirroring which are necessary for the tranformation of some narcissistic configurations as Kohut (1971) argues?

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 1977

Psychological understanding in 150 children, 6, 8, and 12 years old, was studied by the following tasks:

Journal Frontier in Education, 2020

Trajectory of the Recognition of Basic Emotions in the Neurodevelopment of Children and Its Evaluation Through the "Recognition of Basic Emotions in Childhood" Test (REBEC).

Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2001

Developmental Review, 1988

In the present article. a view of children's emotional development is articulated that is consistent with, and which seems necessary to supplement. current neo-Piagetian theories of intellectual development. The basic assumption ia that cognition and emotion are generated by different systems, each of which is necessary to normal functioning. and which together produce the structures that are chnracteristic of normal human development. On the basis of this assumption. it is hypothesired that any change in one system will have a concomitant or subsequent effect on the other. In particular. it is hypothesized that the arrival at a new cognitive-developmental stage will influence (Al) the types of emotions children are likely to experience. (A2) the types of situations in which they are likely to display these emotions, and (A3) the nature of the control structures they can develop for dealing with these situations and/or the emotions they elicit. At the same time. and reciprocally, it is hypothesized that cxposurc to certain specifiable emotional situations will have the potential to influence (Bl) the amount of time children spend in epistemic activity, and hence their rate and terminal level of cognitive development, (B2) the particular directions in which they channel their epi\temic activity. and hence their cognitive-developmental profile or their cognitive style. and (B3) the efficiency of their basic cognitive processes, either general or specific. The paper concludes with three preliminary tests of these hypotheses. The first study tests hypotheses Al and A2 by examining the emotional responses of children at different cognitive stages to a situation where their mother ignores them for another child (either a newborn baby or a peer). The second study tests the same two hypotheses longitudinally, by examining infants' emotional reacttons to a brief separation from their mother as they approach and then pas\ into a new stage of cognitive development. Finally, the third study tests hypotheses 82 and B3. by assessing the cognitive development of children who ale either emotionally disturbed or normal, and who either have or have not experienced the death of a loved one at an early age. 1? 1988 Ac.+dem,c P,r<\. Inc This article was completed while the senior author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. with support provided by the Spencer Foundation. The empirical studies that are reported wcrc supported by the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada, and the Ministry of Education of the Province of Ontario. We are indebted to Otto Weininger for his help in planning and interpreting these studies and io

Linguodidactica, 2012

On different approaches towards understanding the development of children This article aims at presenting various approaches of understanding the complex processes of children's development in the framework of modern developmental psychology. Nowadays, developmental psychology has a huge inventory of methods that are used depending on the needs. An experiment and observation serve as a perfect example of such methods. The authors show that developmental psychology also relies on numerous psychological tests, such as cross-sectional study and longitudinal study. The selection of the study depends on various factors, such as the subject, conditions or results one wants to achieve. Often the data for the research is gathered throughout several years. The above-mentioned studies have their advantages and disadvantages. Nonetheless, they are the best option for researchers studying children's development.

American Psychologist, 1979