Educ 1 Learning Module COMPLETED.pdf

LEARNING MODULE SURIGAO STATE COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY
Educ 1: The Child & Adolescent Learners & the Learning Principles 1
August 2020 Edition
Princes Grace A. Retita, MGC, LPT
LEARNING MODULE
in
Educ 1 -
The Child and Adolescent Learners
and Learning Principles
Prepared by:
PRINCES GRACE A. RETITA
Instructor 1
College of Teacher Education
First Semester, A.Y. 2020 – 2021

August 2020 Edition
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Cover page 1
All about the Course 3
Module #1 - BASIC CONCEPTS AND ISSUES ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Topic 1.1- Learner-Centered Psychological Principles (LCP) 4
Topic 1.2 - Human Development: Meaning, Concepts and Approaches 19
Topic 1.3- The Stages of Development and Development Tasks 31
Topic 1.4- Issues on Human Development 44
Module #2 - DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES ON CHILD AND ADOLESCENT
DEVELOPMENT
Topic 2.1- Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory of Development 54
Topic 2.2- Piaget’s Stages Of Cognitive Development 64
Topic 2.3- Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory 78
Topic 2.4- Erikson’s Psycho-Social Theory of Development 87
Topic 2.5- Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development 96
Topic 2.6- Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory 105
Module #3 - DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEARNERS AT VARIOUS STAGES
Topic 3.1- Prenatal Period 112
Topic 3.2- Infancy and Toddlerhood 119
Topic 3.3- Early Childhood (The Preschooler) 131
Topic 3.4- Middle Childhood (The Primary Schooler) 141
Topic 3.5- Late Childhood (The Intermediate Schooler) 147
Topic 3.6- Adolescence (The High School Learners) 154
Module #4 - LEARNING THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES
Topic 4.1- Nature of Learning 161
Topic 4.2- Thorndike’s Connectionism Theory (Laws of Learning) 169
Topic 4.3- Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning (Pavlovian Conditioning) 178
Topic 4.4- Skinner’s Operant Conditioning (Instrumental Conditioning) 185
Appendix
Certificate of Utilization

August 2020 Edition
Course Code : Educ 1
Course Descriptive Title : THE CHILD AND ADOLESCENT LEARNERS AND
LEARNING PRINCIPLES
Course Credit : 3 units
Course Description:
This course focuses on child and adolescent development with emphasis on
current research and theory on biological, linguistic, cognitive, social and emotional
dimensions of the development. Further, this includes factors that affects the progress
of development of the learners and shall include appropriate pedagogical principles
applicable for each developmental level.
Course Topic Outline:
Module 1- Basic Concepts and Issues on Human Development (4 Topics)
Module 2- Developmental Theories on Child and Adolescent Development
(6 Topics)
Midterm Exam
Module 3- Development of Learners at Various Stages (6 Topics)
Module 4- Learning Theories and Principles (4 topics)
Final Exam
Submission of Outputs for the Learning Module:
NOTE: Outputs maybe written in or sent to the following modes:
Face-to-Face Session Online Mode
1. Spaces provided in the Module.
2. Printed form or handwritten form in
a short-sized bondpaper.
1. pgretita321@gmail.com
2. pretita@ssct.edu.ph (Google Classroom)
3. FB messenger – Pringle Freud (PRinsesa GRacia)

August 2020 Edition
MODULE # 1 : BASIC CONCEPTS AND ISSUES ON HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
TOPIC 1.1 : Learner-Centered Psychological Principles (LCP)
TIME FRAME : 3 hours
INTRODUCTION:
The learner is the center of instruction. The world of instruction revolves around the
learner. This module introduces you to the fourteen (14) learner-centered principles which
shall be used throughout this course as a guide in determining appropriate pedagogy for
learners at different life stages.
Advance Organizer
OBJECTIVES:
In this topic, the students will be able to:
1. Classify the 14-learner centered principles in significance to the teaching-
learning process; and
2. Adhere the 14-learner centered principles as keys to understanding
teaching process.
3. Generate ways on how to apply the 14 principles in instruction as a future
teacher based on the researched studies.

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PRE-TEST:
Do this activity before you read about the Learner- Centered Principles.
1. Examine the title, “Learner-Centered Principles”. Quickly jot down at least 10
words that come to your mind.
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2. Go back to each word and write phrases about why you think the word can be
associated with LCP.
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LEARNING ACTIVITY:
The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles were put together by the
American Psychological Association. The following 14 psychological principles pertain
to the learner and the learning process. They focus on psychological factors that are
primarily internal to and under the control of the learner rather than conditioned habits
or physiological factors. However, the principles also attempt to acknowledge external
environment or contextual factors that interact with these internal factors.
The principles are intended to deal holistically with learners in the context of
real-world learning situations. Thus, they are best understood as an organized set of
principles; no principle should be viewed in isolation. The 14 principles are divided into
those referring to (1) cognitive and metacognitive, (2) motivational and affective,
(3) developmental and social, and (4) individual difference factors influencing
learners and learning. Finally, the principles are intended to apply to all learners -- from

August 2020 Edition
children, to teachers, to administrators, to parents, and to community members
involved in our educational system.
Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors
1. Nature of the learning process.
The learning of complex subject matter is most effective when it is an
intentional process of constructing meaning from information and experience.
There are different types of learning processes, for example, habit formation in
motor learning; and learning that involves the generation of knowledge, or cognitive
skills and learning strategies. Learning in schools emphasizes the use of intentional
processes that students can use to construct meaning from information, experiences,
and their own thoughts and beliefs. Successful learners are active, goal-directed, self-
regulating, and assume personal responsibility for contributing to their own learning.
The principles set forth in this document focus on this type of learning.
2. Goals of the learning process.
The successful learner, over time and with support and instructional
guidance, can create meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge.
The strategic nature of learning requires students to be goal directed. To
construct useful representations of knowledge and to acquire the thinking and learning
strategies necessary for continued learning success across the life span, students
must generate and pursue personally relevant goals. Initially, students' short-term
goals and learning may be sketchy in an area, but over time their understanding can
be refined by filling gaps, resolving inconsistencies, and deepening their
understanding of the subject matter so that they can reach longer-term goals.
Educators can assist learners in creating meaningful learning goals that are consistent
with both personal and educational aspirations and interests.
3. Construction of knowledge.
The successful learner can link new information with existing knowledge
in meaningful ways.
Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to build links between
new information and experiences and their existing knowledge base. The nature of
these links can take a variety of forms, such as adding to, modifying, or reorganizing
existing knowledge or skills. How these links are made or develop may vary in different
subject areas, and among students with varying talents, interests, and abilities.
However, unless new knowledge becomes integrated with the learner's prior
knowledge and understanding, this new knowledge remains isolated, cannot be used
most effectively in new tasks, and does not transfer readily to new situations.

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Educators can assist learners in acquiring and integrating knowledge by a number of
strategies that have been shown to be effective with learners of varying abilities, such
as concept mapping and thematic organization or categorizing.
4. Strategic thinking.
The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of thinking and
reasoning strategies to achieve complex learning goals.
Successful learners use strategic thinking in their approach to learning,
reasoning, problem solving, and concept learning. They understand and can use a
variety of strategies to help them reach learning and performance goals, and to apply
their knowledge in novel situations. They also continue to expand their repertoire of
strategies by reflecting on the methods they use to see which work well for them, by
receiving guided instruction and feedback, and by observing or interacting with
appropriate models. Learning outcomes can be enhanced if educators assist learners
in developing, applying, and assessing their strategic learning skills.
5. Thinking about thinking.
Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring mental operations
facilitate creative and critical thinking.
Successful learners can reflect on how they think and learn, set reasonable
learning or performance goals, select potentially appropriate learning strategies or
methods, and monitor their progress toward these goals. In addition, successful
learners know what to do if a problem occurs or if they are not making sufficient or
timely progress toward a goal. They can generate alternative methods to reach their
goal (or reassess the appropriateness and utility of the goal). Instructional methods
that focus on helping learners develop these higher order (metacognitive) strategies
can enhance student learning and personal responsibility for learning.
6. Context of learning.
Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture,
technology, and instructional practices.
Learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers a major interactive role with
both the learner and the learning environment. Cultural or group influences on
students can impact many educationally relevant variables, such as motivation,
orientation toward learning, and ways of thinking. Technologies and instructional
practices must be appropriate for learners' level of prior knowledge, cognitive abilities,
and their learning and thinking strategies. The classroom environment, particularly the
degree to which it is nurturing or not, can also have significant impacts on student
learning.

August 2020 Edition
Activity 1: How will you do it, Teacher?
Now that you have classified the six (6) Cognitive and Metacognitive factors, if
you are to apply it in a classroom in the future, how are you going to contextualized or
what activities are you going to conduct every principle? Use the spaces provided for
your answer. (Content-5; Organization of Ideas – 3; Grammar – 2 *rating applicable for every item)
1. Nature of the learning process –
2.

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3.
4.
5.

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6.
Motivational and Affective Factors
7. Motivational and emotional influences on learning.
What and how much is learned is influenced by the motivation. Motivation
to learn, in turn, is influenced by the individual's emotional states, beliefs,
interests and goals, and habits of thinking.
The rich internal world of thoughts, beliefs, goals, and expectations for success
or failure can enhance or interfere the learner's quality of thinking and information
processing. Students' beliefs about themselves as learners and the nature of learning
have a marked influence on motivation. Motivational and emotional factors also
influence both the quality of thinking and information processing as well as an
individual's motivation to learn. Positive emotions, such as curiosity, generally
enhance motivation and facilitate learning and performance. Mild anxiety can also
enhance learning and performance by focusing the learner's attention on a particular
task. However, intense negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, panic, rage, insecurity) and
related thoughts (e.g., worrying about competence, ruminating about failure, fearing
punishment, ridicule, or stigmatizing labels) generally detract from motivation, interfere
with learning, and contribute to low performance.
8. Intrinsic motivation to learn.
The learner's creativity, higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all
contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks of
optimal novelty and difficulty, relevant to personal interests, and providing for
personal choice and control.
Curiosity, flexible and insightful thinking, and creativity are major indicators of
the learners' intrinsic motivation to learn, which is in large part a function of meeting
basic needs to be competent and to exercise personal control. Intrinsic motivation is
facilitated on tasks that learners perceive as interesting and personally relevant and
meaningful, appropriate in complexity and difficulty to the learners' abilities, and on
which they believe they can succeed. Intrinsic motivation is also facilitated on tasks

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that are comparable to real-world situations and meet needs for choice and control.
Educators can encourage and support learners' natural curiosity and motivation to
learn by attending to individual differences in learners' perceptions of optimal novelty
and difficulty, relevance, and personal choice and control.
9. Effects of motivation on effort.
Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner
effort and guided practice. Without learners' motivation to learn, the willingness
to exert this effort is unlikely without coercion.
Effort is another major indicator of motivation to learn. The acquisition of
complex knowledge and skills demands the investment of considerable learner energy
and strategic effort, along with persistence over time. Educators need to be concerned
with facilitating motivation by strategies that enhance learner effort and commitment
to learning and to achieving high standards of comprehension and understanding.
Effective strategies include purposeful learning activities, guided by practices that
enhance positive emotions and intrinsic motivation to learn, and methods that increase
learners' perceptions that a task is interesting and personally relevant.
Activity 2: How will you do it, Teacher?
Now that you have classified the three (3) Motivational and Affective factors, if
1. Motivational and emotional influence on learning –

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2.
3.
Developmental and Social Factors
10. Developmental influences on learning.
As individuals develop, there are different opportunities and constraints
for learning. Learning is most effective when differential development within and
across physical, intellectual, emotional, and social domains is taken into
account.
Individuals learn best when material is appropriate to their developmental level
and is presented in an enjoyable and interesting way. Because individual development
varies across intellectual, social, emotional, and physical domains, achievement in
different instructional domains may also vary. Overemphasis on one type of
developmental readiness--such as reading readiness, for example--may preclude
learners from demonstrating that they are more capable in other areas of performance.

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The cognitive, emotional, and social development of individual learners and how they
interpret life experiences are affected by prior schooling, home, culture, and
community factors. Early and continuing parental involvement in schooling, and the
quality of language interactions and two-way communications between adults and
children can influence these developmental areas. Awareness and understanding of
developmental differences among children with and without emotional, physical, or
intellectual disabilities, can facilitate the creation of optimal learning contexts.
11. Social influences on learning.
Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations, and
communication with others.
Learning can be enhanced when the learner has an opportunity to interact and
to collaborate with others on instructional tasks. Learning settings that allow for social
interactions, and that respect diversity, encourage flexible thinking and social
competence. In interactive and collaborative instructional contexts, individuals have
an opportunity for perspective taking and reflective thinking that may lead to higher
levels of cognitive, social, and moral development, as well as self-esteem. Quality
personal relationships that provide stability, trust, and caring can increase learners'
sense of belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a positive climate
for learning. Family influences, positive interpersonal support and instruction in self-
motivation strategies can offset factors that interfere with optimal learning such as
negative beliefs about competence in a particular subject, high levels of test anxiety,
negative sex role expectations, and undue pressure to perform well. Positive learning
climates can also help to establish the context for healthier levels of thinking, feeling,
and behaving. Such contexts help learners feel safe to share ideas, actively participate
in the learning process, and create a learning community.
Activity 3. How will you do it, Teacher?
Now that you have classified the two (2) Developmental and Social factors, if
1. Developmental influence on learning –

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2.
Individual Differences Factors
12. Individual differences in learning.
Learners have different strategies, approaches, and capabilities for
learning that are a function of prior experience and heredity.
Individuals are born with and develop their own capabilities and talents. In
addition, through learning and social acculturation, they have acquired their own
preferences for how they like to learn and the pace at which they learn. However,
these preferences are not always useful in helping learners reach their learning goals.
Educators need to help students examine their learning preferences and expand or
modify them, if necessary. The interaction between learner differences and curricular
and environmental conditions is another key factor affecting learning outcomes.
Educators need to be sensitive to individual differences, in general. They also need to
attend to learner perceptions of the degree to which these differences are accepted
and adapted to by varying instructional methods and materials.

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13. Learning and diversity.
Learning is most effective when differences in learners' linguistic,
cultural, and social backgrounds are taken into account.
The same basic principles of learning, motivation, and effective instruction
apply to all learners. However, language, ethnicity, race, beliefs, and socioeconomic
status all can influence learning. Careful attention to these factors in the instructional
setting enhances the possibilities for designing and implementing appropriate learning
environments. When learners perceive that their individual differences in abilities,
backgrounds, cultures, and experiences are valued, respected, and accommodated in
learning tasks and contexts, levels of motivation and achievement are enhanced.
14. Standards and assessment.
Setting appropriately high and challenging standards and assessing the
learner as well as learning progress -- including diagnostic, process, and
outcome assessment -- are integral parts of the learning process.
Assessment provides important information to both the learner and teacher at
all stages of the learning process. Effective learning takes place when learners feel
challenged to work towards appropriately high goals; therefore, appraisal of the
learner's cognitive strengths and weaknesses, as well as current knowledge and skills,
is important for the selection of instructional materials of an optimal degree of difficulty.
Ongoing assessment of the learner's understanding of the curricular material can
provide valuable feedback to both learners and teachers about progress toward the
learning goals. Standardized assessment of learner progress and outcomes
assessment provides one type of information about achievement levels both within
and across individuals that can inform various types of programmatic decisions.
Performance assessments can provide other sources of information about the
attainment of learning outcomes. Self-assessments of learning progress can also
improve students’ self-appraisal skills and enhance motivation and self-directed
learning.
Application:
The application of the 14 principles will be done as you explore the succeeding
topics. For now, keep the 14 principles in mind s you explore the rest of the module.
Always try to relate these principles to the concepts you will learn. Happy learning!

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Activity 4. How will you do it, Teacher?
Now that you have classified the two (2) Developmental and Social factors, if
1. Individual differences in learning –
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3.

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SELF-EVALUATION:
Rubrics for rating: (Content – 5; Organization of Ideas – 3, Grammar – 2)
State your learning in a paragraph form. From the topic on Learner-Centered
Psychological Principles, I realized that… (Use the space provided below for your answer.)
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REVIEW OF CONCEPTS:
The 14 LCP are intended to deal holistically with learners in context of real –
world learning situations. They are best understood as an organized set of principles;
no principle should be viewed in isolation. The 14 principles are divided into those
referring to cognitive and metacognitive, motivational and affective, developmental
and social, and individual difference factors influencing learners and learning. Finally,
the principles are intended to apply to all learners -- from children, to teachers, to
administrators, to parents, and to community members involved in our educational
system. These principles emphasize the active and reflective nature of learning and
learners.

August 2020 Edition
POST-TEST:
Name: ______________________ C/Yr.: ___________ Date: _________
Identify the following principles corresponding on each statement. Just place the
Principle number and its name. Write your answer in the space provided.
_______________ 1. Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including
culture, technology, and instructional practices.
_______________ 2. Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal
relations, and communication with others.
_______________ 3. The learning of complex subject matter is most effective when it
is an intentional process of constructing meaning from information
and experience.
_______________ 4. Learning is most effective when differences in learners'
linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds are taken into account.
_______________ 5. The learner's creativity, higher order thinking, and natural
curiosity all contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation
is stimulated by tasks of optimal novelty and difficulty, relevant to
personal interests, and providing for personal choice and control.
_______________ 6. The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of
thinking and reasoning strategies to achieve complex learning
goals.
_______________ 7. As individuals develop, there are different opportunities and
constraints for learning. Learning is most effective when differential
development within and across physical, intellectual, emotional, and
social domains is taken into account.
_______________ 8. Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring mental
operations facilitate creative and critical thinking.
_______________ 9. What and how much is learned is influenced by the motivation.
Motivation to learn, in turn, is influenced by the individual's
emotional states, beliefs, interests and goals, and habits of
thinking.
_______________ 10. Learners have different strategies, approaches, and
capabilities for learning that are a function of prior experience and
heredity.
REFERENCES:
 The learner- centered psychological principles. Retrieved at
https://www.apa.org/ed/governance/bea/learner-centered.pdf on June 22,
2020.
 Learner- centered psychological principles: A framework for school reform
and design. Retrieved at
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~kimg/mcephome/educ636/lcp.html on June 22,
2020.
 Corpuz, B. B., et.al. (2018). Child and adolescent learners and learning
principles: Lorimar Publishing, Inc., Quezon City.

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DEVELOPMENT
TOPIC 1.2 : Human Development: Meaning, Concepts and Approaches
INTRODUCTION:
Why are we the way we are? It’s one of the oldest questions in human
existence. After all, human beings are nothing more than 46 chromosomes, their
genetic instructions duplicated across trillions of cells. Despite the fact that 99.9% of
our DNA is identical, all 7.5 billion people on Earth are unique. We have different
personalities, wants, needs, and likes. How is that possible?
A number of researches on human development have been conducted. A lot
of theories on human development have been forwarded. Researches on human
development continue as existing theories get corrected, complemented or replaced.
Up to the present several issues on human development are unresolved and so the
search for explanations continue.
In this lesson, you will be acquainted with human development as a process,
the developmental tasks that come along with each development stage and relevant
issues that are raised about human development.
OBJECTIVES:
In this topic, you should be able to:
1. Derive the meaning of human development in your own words.
2. Relate developmental changes of learners in light to its educational
implications
3. Distinguish between the traditional and life-span approach of development.
“Measuring human growth and development is not like measuring the reproduction of a
single model on an assembly line. It is a complex system of helping to figure out where a
student is, and how to help them get where they are going.”
- Robert John Meehan

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PRE-TEST:
In 20 to 25 words, write your understanding about human development. Write
your answer on the space provided. (Criteria for Rating: Content – 5; Organization of Idea
– 3; Mechanics (20 to 25 words) – 2)
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LEARNING ACTIVITY:
Activity 1: Let’s Develop!
As you read this topic and do the activity, you are undergoing the process
of development. How does this development take place? What do experts say about
development? These are the concerns of this module. For your answers, you may
write it on the space provided every item.
1. Here are the pictures of a seven-year-old Joseph and five-year-old Anna.
Each one is a bundle of possibilities. Describe what they were before
birth (their point of origin) and who they will possibly after birth unto
adulthood. What will they possibly become? Expound your answers.
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2. When you gave your own predictions as to the of child, adolescent and
adult Joseph and Anna may become and hypothesized on who they
once were, you were referring to human development. What then is
development? Translate the meaning of development in your Mother
Tongue.
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3. Will five-year-old Anna be able to do all that seven-year-old Joseph can
do? Why or why not?
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4. Will there be anything common in the pattern of development of Joseph
and Anna? If yes, what?

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5. Will there be difference in their development, e.g. pace or rate of
development? What and why?
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6. Will the process of development take place very fast or gradually?
Elaborate your answer.
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7. Do you believe that Joseph and Anna will continue to develop even in
adulthood? Or will they stop developing in adulthood?
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What is Human Development?
• It is the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the
lifespan.
• This change can be growth or decline/decay.
• GROWTH – refers to positive changes that lead to maturity, that is,
increase in the physical aspects of body’s structures and improvement
of their functions.
• DECLINE/ DECAY – refers to negative changes that lead to deterioration
and degeneration.
• Why there’s a need for development? Because we aim for MATURITY.
• Maturity is characterized by the completion of structural changes and
attainment of the capacity to function physically and mentally in a
manner characteristic to a normal adult.
Two Approaches to Human Development
If you believe that Joseph and Anna will show extensive change from
birth to adolescence, little or no change in adulthood and decline in late old age, your
approach to development is traditional. In contrast, if you believe that even in
adulthood developmental change takes place as it does during childhood, your
approach is termed life-span approach.
What are the characteristics of human development from a life-span
perspective? Paul Baltes (Santrock, 2002), an expert in life-span development, gives
the following characteristics:
1. Development is lifelong.
It does not end in adulthood. Joseph and Anna will continue
developing even in adulthood. It means that development is not completed
in infancy or childhood or at any specific age; it encompasses the entire
lifespan, from conception to death.
2. Development is plastic.
Plasticity refers to the potential for change. Development s possible
throughout the lifespan. No one is too old to learn. There is no such thing as

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“I am too old for that …” Neither Joseph nor Anna will be too old to learn
something.
Plasticity denotes intrapersonal variability and focuses heavily on the
potentials and limits of the nature of human development. The notion of
plasticity emphasizes that there are many possible developmental
outcomes and that the nature of human development is much more open
and pluralistic than originally implied by traditional views; there is no single
pathway that must be taken in an individual’s development across the
lifespan.
3. Development is multidimensional.
Baltes is referring to the fact that a complex interplay of factors
influence development across the lifespan, including biological, cognitive,
and socioemotional changes. Baltes argues that a dynamic interaction of
these factors is what influences an individual’s development. Development
as a process is complex because it is the product of biological,
cognitive and socioemotional processes (Santrock, 2002).
Biological processes involve changes in the individual’s physical
nature. The brains of Joseph and Anna develop. They will gain height and
weight. They will experience hormonal changes when they reach the period
of puberty, and cardiovascular decline as they approach late adulthood. All
these show common biological processes.
a. Development is relatively orderly. Joseph
and Anna will learn to sit, crawl then walk
before they can run. The muscular control of
the trunk and the arms comes earlier as
compared to the hands and fingers. This is the
proximodistal pattern. During infancy the
greatest growth in always occurs at the top –
the head – with physical growth in size, weight
and future differentiation gradually working its
way down from top to bottom (for example,
neck, shoulders, middle trunk and so on). This
is the cephalocaudal pattern. These development patterns are
common to Joseph and Anna.
b. Development takes place gradually. Joseph and Anna won’t
develop into pimply teenagers overnight. It takes years before
they become one. In fact, that’s the way of nature. The bud does
not blossom suddenly. The seed does not germinate overnight.
While some changes occur in a flash of insight, more often it takes
weeks, months or years for a person to undergo changes that
result in the display of developmental characteristics.

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Cognitive processes involve changes in the individual’s thought,
intelligence and language. Joseph and Anna develop from mere sounds to
a word becoming two words, the two words becoming a sentence. They
would move on to memorizing their first prayer, singing Lupang Hinirang in
every flag ceremony to imagining what it would be like to be a teacher or a
pilot, playing chess and solving a complex math problem. All these reflect
the role of cognitive processes in development.
Socioemotional processes include changes in the individual’s
relationships with other people, changes in emotions and changes in
personality. As babies, Joseph and Anna responded a sweet smile when
affectionately touched and frowned when displeased and even showed
temper tantrum when they could not get or do what they wanted. From
aggressive children, they may develop into a fine lady and a gentleman or
otherwise, depending on myriad of factors. They may fall in love and get
inspired for life or may end betrayed, deserted and desperate afterwards.
All these reflect the role of socioemotional processes in development.
These biological, cognitive and socioemotional processes are
inextricably intertwined. While these processes are studied are studied
separately, the effect of one process or factor on a person’s development is
not isolated from the other processes. If Joseph and Anna were
undernourished and troubled by the thought of father and mother about to
separate, they could not concentrate on their studies and consequently
would fil and repeat. As a consequence, they may lose face and drop out of
school, revert to illiteracy, become unskilled, unemployed and son on and
so forth. See how a biological process, affects the cognitive process which
in turn, affects the socioemotional process.
4. Development is contextual.
In Baltes’ theory, the paradigm of contextualism refers to the idea
that three systems of biological and environmental influences work together
to influence development. Development occurs in context and varies from
person to person, depending on factors such as a person’s biology, family,
school, church, profession, nationality, and ethnicity. Baltes identified three
types of influences that operate throughout the life course: normative age-
graded influences, normative history-graded influences, and nonnormative
influences. Baltes wrote that these three influences operate throughout the
life course, their effects accumulate with time, and, as a dynamic package,
they are responsible for how lives develop.
Joseph’s and Anna’s biological make-up, social and cultural
contexts may vary and therefore make them develop differently from each
other.

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5. Development is multidirectional.
Baltes states that the development of a particular domain does not
occur in a strictly linear fashion but that development of certain traits can be
characterized as having the capacity for both an increase and decrease in
efficacy over the course of an individual’s life.
If we use the example of puberty again, we can see that certain
domains may improve or decline in effectiveness during this time. For
example, self-regulation is one domain of puberty which undergoes
profound multidirectional changes during the adolescent period. During
childhood, individuals have difficulty effectively regulating their actions and
impulsive behaviors. Scholars have noted that this lack of effective
regulation often results in children engaging in behaviors without fully
considering the consequences of their actions. Over the course of puberty,
neuronal changes modify this unregulated behavior by increasing the ability
to regulate emotions and impulses. Inversely, the ability for adolescents to
engage in spontaneous activity and creativity, both domains commonly
associated with impulse behavior, decrease over the adolescent period in
response to changes in cognition. Neuronal changes to the limbic system
and prefrontal cortex of the brain, which begin in puberty lead to the
development of self-regulation, and the ability to consider the consequences
of one’s actions (though recent brain research reveals that this connection
will continue to develop into early adulthood).
Multidirectional development is the development happening in the
physical, biological, cognitive, social factors of an individual. In the case of
Joseph and Anna, their puberty, hormonal changes will occur which helps
in the production of gametes responsible for sexual reproduction. Physical,
emotional and mental changes are exhibited from crude to refined state.
When they become as older adults, they have got much experience on
situations, people, society and handle it wisely, however, they could not
have sufficient physical strength to perform the task.
Principles of Child Development And Learning That Inform
Practice
1. All the domains of development and learning are important.
2. Learning and development follow sequences.
3. Development and learning proceed at varying rates.
4. Development and learning result from a interaction of maturation and
experience.
5. Early experiences have profound effects on development and learning.
6. Development proceeds towards greater complexity, self-regulation and
symbolic or representational capacities.

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7. Children develop best when they have secure relationships.
8. Development and learning occur in and are influenced by multiple and cultural
contexts.
9. Children learn in variety ways.
10.Play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation and promoting
language cognition and social competence.
11.Development and learning advance when children are challenged.
12.Children’s experiences shape their motivation and approaches to learning.
Activity 2: Let’s Imply!
State the five characteristics of human development from a life-span perspective and
their implications child care, educational and parenting.
Characteristics of human
development from a life-span
perspective
Educational Implication to Child Care,
Educational and Parenting
1. Development is lifelong.
2.
3.
4.
5.

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SELF-EVALUATION:
Answer the following items. Write it on the space provided.
1. “Growth is an evidence of life” or “development is an evidence of life”. What
does this mean? What does this imply to a person’s development?
2. Define development on your own understanding.
3. If your approach to human development is traditional, are the characteristics
of human development from a life-span perspective acceptable? Explain
your answer.
4. Interpret the following quotations in relation to human development.
a. “Every man is in certain respects like all other men, like some other
men, no other man.” (Murray, H.A. & C. Kluckhohn)

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b. “Man is an unfinished project. He is always in the process of
becoming.”
5. Differences between the traditional and life-span approaches to human
development.
REVIEW OF CONCEPTS:
 There are two approaches of human development namely traditional and life-
span development
 Based on Paul Baltes’ concepts of life-span development, he named five
important characteristics of development. These are: Lifelong, plastic,
multidimensional, contextual and multidirectional.
 Under the characteristic of multidimensional, it talks about the
interconnectedness of biological, cognitive and socioemotional processes.
It also follows a relatively orderly development and it takes place gradually.

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POST-TEST:
Put a ✔ check before a correct and an ✖ before a wrong one. If you put ✖,
explain why.
_____ 1. Development is a pattern of change.
_____ 2. Development is either growth or decline.
_____ 3. From both traditional and lifespan perspectives development is lifelong.
_____ 4. In the development process, there are things that hold true to all people.
_____ 5. Individuals develop uniformly.
_____ 6. Development is predictable because it follows an orderly process.
_____ 7. Development is unidimensional.
_____ 8. Development takes place in a vacuum.
_____ 9. Development is one directional process.
_____ 10. The effect of biological process in development is isolated from the effect
of cognitive and socioemotional processes.
REFERENCES:
 The lifespan perspective. Retrieved from
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-lifespandevelopment/chapter/the-
lifespan-perspective/ on June 24, 2020.

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DEVELOPMENT
TOPIC 1.3 : The Stages of Development and Development Tasks
INTRODUCTION:
Have you ever brought home a new puppy and then watched it grow up?
How did your dog change as it got older? You may have watched your dog grow and
develop from a cute and cuddly puppy, to a bit of a troublemaker, to a confident
companion, and finally to a lazy old dog who sleeps all day. Each of these stages has
different physical and emotional characteristics. Just like dogs, humans go through
different developmental stages in their life, as well.
For every developmental stage, there is an expected developmental task.
What happens when the expected developmental tasks re not achieved at the
corresponding developmental stage? How can you help children achieve these
developmental tasks?
OBJECTIVES:
1. Describe the developmental tasks in each developmental stage.
2. Appreciate stages of life through simple recall of life’s milestones.
3. Compare and contrast Santrock’s and Havinghurst’s concepts in
significance to education.
“There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of
vigorous unfolding.”
- Erik Erikson

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PRE-TEST:
Identify what developmental stage are the following:
_________ 1. A stage that includes the development of embryo and a fetus.
_________ 2. It is considered as the period where rapid growth after birth takes
place.
_________ 3. A stage of life characterized our preschool and middle school years.
_________ 4. It is a period of dramatic physical change marked by an overall
physical growth spurt and sexual maturation.
_________ 5. The late thirties through the mid-sixties of human life.
LEARNING ACTIVITY:
Think about the life span and make a list of what you would consider the
periods of development. How many stages are on your list? Perhaps you have three:
childhood, adulthood, and old age. Or maybe four: infancy, childhood, adolescence,
and adulthood. Developmentalists break the life span into nine stages as follows:
 Prenatal Development
 Infancy and Toddlerhood
 Early Childhood
 Late Childhood
 Adolescence
 Early Adulthood
 Middle Adulthood
 Late Adulthood

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Activity 1: Picture Perfect!
In every stage of life presented above, provide a photo of yours (Personal or
maybe if hard to retrieve, put a searched photo taken from a magazine or online) and
associate ONE WORD that symbolizes that particular stage.
Prenatal stage:
PHOTO
One-word description:
Infancy and Toddlerhood stage:
PHOTO
Early Childhood stage:
PHOTO
Late Childhood stage:
PHOTO
Adolescence stage:
PHOTO
Early Adulthood stage:
PHOTO

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Middle Adulthood stage:
PHOTO
Late Adulthood stage:
PHOTO
This list reflects unique aspects of the various stages of childhood and
adulthood that will be explored in this module. So while both an 8 month old and an 8
year old are considered children, they have very different motor abilities, social
relationships, and cognitive skills. Their nutritional needs are different and their primary
psychological concerns are also distinctive. The same is true of an 18 year old and an
80 year old, both considered adults. We will discover the distinctions between being
28 or 48 as well. But first, here is a brief overview of the stages.
1. Prenatal Period (Conception to birth)
Conception occurs and development
begins. All of the major structures of the body are
forming and the health of the mother is of primary
concern. Understanding nutrition, teratogens (or
environmental factors that can lead to birth
defects), and labor and delivery are primary
concerns.
a) Germinal - fertilization to 2 weeks. The
period of zygote.
b) Embryo - 2 weeks to 2 months. The
period of embryo.
c) Fetal - 2 months to birth. The period of fetus.
Prenatal period involves tremendous growth - from a single cell to an
organism complete with brain and behavioral activities. Referring to prenatal
development, Santrock (2002) asked the following questions succinctly:

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“How from so simple a beginning do endless forms develop and grow and
mature? What was this organism, what is it now, and what will it become? Birth’s fragile
moment arrives, when the newborn is on a threshold between two worlds.”
2. Infancy and Toddlerhood (Birth to 2 years)
The first year and a half to two years of life are ones of dramatic growth and
change. A newborn, with a keen sense of hearing but very poor vision is transformed
into a walking, talking toddler within a relatively short period of time. Caregivers are
also transformed from someone who manages feeding and sleep schedules to a
constantly moving guide and safety inspector for a mobile, energetic child.
This stage is a time of extreme dependence on adults. Many psychological
activities are just beginning – language, symbolic thought, sensorimotor coordination
and social learning.
As newborns, we were not empty-headed organisms.
We cried, kicked, coughed, sucked, saw, heard and tasted.
We slept a lot and occasionally we smiled, although the
meaning of our smiles was not entirely clear. We crawled and
then we walked a journey of a thousand miles beginning with
single step. Sometimes we conformed, sometimes others
conformed to us. Our development was a continuous creation
of complex forms and our helpless kind demanded the
meeting eyes of love. We split the universe into two halves:
“me and not me.” And we juggled the need to curb our own will with becoming what
we could will freely. (Santrock, 2002)
3. Early Childhood (3 to 5 years old)
Early childhood is also referred to as the preschool
years consisting of the years which follow toddlerhood and
precede formal schooling. As a three to five-year-old, the
child is busy learning language, is gaining a sense of self
and greater independence, and is beginning to learn the
workings of the physical world. This knowledge does not
come quickly, however, and preschoolers may have
initially have interesting conceptions of size, time, space
and distance such as fearing that they may go down the
drain if they sit at the front of the bathtub or by
demonstrating how long something will take by holding out
their two index fingers several inches apart. A toddler’s
fierce determination to do something may give way to a four-year-old’s sense of guilt
for doing something that brings the disapproval of others. This is also considered as “
toy stage” , questioning age and teachable age. Young children learn to become more

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self-sufficient and to care for themselves, develop school readiness, skills and spend
many hours in play with peers.
In early childhood our greatest untold poem was being only four years
old. We skipped, played and ran all day long, ever in our lives so busy, busy becoming
something we had not quite grasped yet. Who knew our thoughts, which worked up
into small mythologies all our own? Our thoughts and images and drawings took wings.
The blossoms of our heart, no wind could touch. Our small world widened as we
discovered new refuges and new people. When we said “I” we meant something totally
unique, not to be confused with any other.” (Santrock, 2002)
4. Late Childhood (6 to 12 years old)
The ages of six through twelve comprise
middle childhood and much of what children
experience at this age is connected to their
involvement in the early grades of school. Now
the world becomes one of learning and testing
new academic skills and by assessing one’s
abilities and accomplishments by making
comparisons between self and others. Schools
compare students and make these comparisons
public through team sports, test scores, and other forms of recognition. Growth rates
slow down and children are able to refine their motor skills at this point in life. And
children begin to learn about social relationships beyond the family through interaction
with friends and fellow students. This is also considered as gang stage or troublesome
age. The fundamental skills of reading, writing and arithmetic are mastered. The child
is formally exposed to the larger world and its culture. Achievement becomes a more
central theme of the child’s world and self-control increases.
“In late childhood, we were on a different plane, belonging to a generation and
a feeling properly our own. It is the wisdom of human development that at no other we
are more ready to learn than at the end of early childhood’s period of expansive
imagination. Our thirst was to know and to understand. Our parents continued to cradle
our lives but our growth was also being shaped by successive choirs of friends, we did
not think much about the future or the past, but enjoyed the present.” (Excerpt for a
few words, the paragraph is taken from Santrock, 2002).

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5. Adolescence (13 to 18 years old)
Adolescence is a period of dramatic
physical change marked by an overall physical
growth spurt and sexual maturation, known as
puberty. It is also a time of cognitive change as
the adolescent begins to think of new
possibilities and to consider abstract concepts
such as love, fear, and freedom. Ironically,
adolescents have a sense of invincibility that
puts them at greater risk of dying from
accidents or contracting sexually transmitted
infections that can have lifelong
consequences. This is the transitional stage
from childhood to adulthood. It can be a time of
both disorientation and discovery. Pursuit of independence
and identity are prominent. Thought s more logical,
abstract and idealistic. More time is spent outside of the
family.
“In no order of things was adolescence, the simple time of life for us. We
clothed ourselves with rainbows and went ‘brave as the zodiac’. Flashing from one
end of the world to the other. We tried on one face after another, searching for a face
of our own. We wanted our parents to understand us and hoped they would give up
the privileged of understanding them. We wanted to fly but found that first we had to
learn stand and walk and climb and dance. In our most pimply and awkward moments,
we became acquainted with sex. We played furiously at adult games but were confined
to a society of our own peers. Our generations were the fragile cable by which the best
and the worst of our parents’ generation was transmitted to the present. In the end,
there were two nut lasting bequests our parents could leave us – one being roots, the
other wings. (Santrock, 2002)
6. Early Adulthood (19 to 29 years old)
The twenties and thirties are often thought of as
early adulthood. It is a time when we are at our
physiological peak but are most at risk for involvement
in violent crimes and substance abuse. It is a time of
focusing on the future and putting a lot of energy into
making choices that will help one earn the status of a
full adult in the eyes of others. Love and work are
primary concerns at this stage of life. It is a time of
establishing personal and economic independence,
career development, selecting a mate, learning to live with someone in an intimate
way, starting a family and rearing children.

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Early adulthood is a time for work and a time for love, sometimes leaving
little time for anything else. For some of us, finding our place in adult society and
committing to a more stable life take longer than we imagine. We still ask ourselves
who we are and wonder if it isn’t enough just to be. Ur dreams continue and our
thoughts are bold but at some point we become more pragmatic. Sex and love are
powerful passions in our lives – t times angels of light, at other times of torment. And
we possibly never know the love of our parents until we become parents ourselves.
(Santrock, 2002)
7. Middle Adulthood (30 to 60 years old)
The late thirties through the mid-
sixties is referred to as middle
adulthood. This is a period in which
aging, that began earlier, becomes
more noticeable and a period at which
many people are at their peak of
productivity in love and work. It may be
a period of gaining expertise in certain
fields and being able to understand problems and find solutions with greater efficiency
than before. It can also be a time of becoming more realistic about possibilities in life
previously considered; of recognizing the difference between what is possible and
what is likely. It is a time of expanding personal and social involvement and
responsibility; of assisting the next generation in becoming competent and mature
individuals; and of reaching and maintaining satisfaction in a career.
In middle adulthood what we have been forms what we will be. For some of us,
middle age is such a foggy place, a time when we need to discover what we are
running from and to and why. We compare our life with what we vowed to make it. In
middle age, more time stretches before us and some evaluations have to be made,
however reluctantly. As the young/old polarity greets us with a special force, we need
to join the daring of youth with the discipline of age in a way that does justice to both.
As middle-aged adults we come to sense that the generations of living things pass in
a short while and like runners hand on the torch of life. (Santrock, 2002)
8. Late Adulthood (61 years and above)
This period of the life span has increased in the last 100 years, particularly in
industrialized countries. Late adulthood is sometimes subdivided into two or three
categories such as the “young old” and “old old” or the “young old”, “old old”, and
“oldest old”. We will follow the former categorization and make the distinction between
the “young old” who are people between 65 and 79 and the “old old” or those who are
80 and older. One of the primary differences between these groups is that the young
old are very similar to midlife adults; still working, still relatively healthy, and still
interested in being productive and active. The “old old” remain productive and active

August 2020 Edition
and the majority continues to live independently,
but risks of the diseases of old age such as
arteriosclerosis, cancer, and cerebral vascular
disease increases substantially for this age
group. Issues of housing, healthcare, and
extending active life expectancy are only a few of
the topics of concern for this age group. A better
way to appreciate the diversity of people in late
adulthood is to go beyond chronological age and
examine whether a person is experiencing optimal aging (like the gentleman pictured
above who is in very good health for his age and continues to have an active,
stimulating life), normal aging (in which the changes are similar to most of those of the
same age), or impaired aging (referring to someone who has more physical challenge
and disease than others of the same age).
It is a time for adjustment to decreasing strength and health, life reviews,
retirement and adjustment to new social roles.
“The rhythm and meaning of human development eventually wend their way to
late adulthood when each of us stands alone at the heart of the earth and “suddenly it
is evening”. We shed the leaves of youth and are stripped by the winds of time down
to the truth. We learn that life is lived forward but understood backward. We trace the
connections between the end and the beginning of life and try to figure out what this
whole show is about before it is over. Ultimately we come to know that we are what
survives of us (Santrock, 2002)”
Developmental Tasks
In each stage of development, a certain task or tasks are expected of
every individual. Robert Havinghurst defines developmental task as one that “arises
at a certain period in our life, the successful achievement of which leads to happiness
and success with later tasks while failure leads to unhappiness, social disapproval
and difficulty with later tasks.” (Havinghurst, 1972)
There are eight (8) developmental stages given by Santrock. The eight
(8) developmental stages cited by Santrock are the same with Havinghurst’s six (6)
developmental stages only that Havinghurst did not include prenatal period.
Havinghurst combined infancy and early childhood while Santrock mentioned them as
two (2) separate stages. These developmental stages are described more in detail in
the box below.
Stage Tasks
1. Infancy and Early childhood (0-5
years old)
1. Learning to walk.
2. Learning to take solid foods.
3. Learning to talk.

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4. Learning to control the elimination of
body wastes.
5. Learning sex differences and sex
modesty.
6. Acquiring concepts and language to
describe social and physical reality.
7. Readiness for reading.
8. Learning to distinguish right from
wrong and developing a conscience.
2. Late Childhood (6-12 years old) 1. Learning physical skills necessary for
ordinary games.
2. Building a wholesome attitude toward
oneself.
3. Learning to get along with agemates.
4. Learning an appropriate sex role.
5. Developing fundamental skills in
reading writing and calculating.
6. Developing concepts necessary for
everyday living.
7. Developing conscience, morality and
a scale of values.
8. Developing acceptable attitudes
toward society.
3. Adolescence (13 to 18 years old) 1. Achieving mature relations with both
sexes
2. Achieving a masculine or feminine
social role.
3. Accepting one’s physique.
4. Achieving emotional independence of
adults
5. Preparing for marriage and family life
6. Preparing for an economic career
7. Acquiring values and an ethical
system to guide behavior
8. Desiring and achieving socially
responsible behavior
4. Early Adulthood (19 to 29 years old) 1. Selecting a mate
2. Learning to live with a partner
3. Starting a family
4. Rearing children
5. Managing a home
6. Starting an occupation
7. Assuming civic responsibility
5. Middle Adulthood (30 to 60 years old) 1. Helping teenage children to become
happy and responsible adults

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2. Achieving adult social and civic
responsibility
Satisfactory career achievement
3. Satisfactory career achievement
4. Developing adult leisure time
activities
5. Adjusting to aging parent
6. Later Maturity (61 years and above) 1. Adjusting to decreasing strength and
health
2. Adjusting to retirement and reduces
income
3. Adjusting to death of spouse
4. Establishing of relations with one’s
own age group
5. Meeting social and civic obligations
6. Establishing satisfactory living
quarters
Source: Robert Havinghurst, Developmental Tasks and Education, 3rd
ed. New York: David McKay Co.
Activity 2: Development Matters
Answer the following items. Write your answer on the space provided or you
may use extra sheet for this.
1. What is an outstanding trait or behavior of each stage?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
_________
2. Match the descriptions given by Santrock. Are Havinghurst and Santrock saying
the same things?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
__________________
3. What are the implications of these developmental tasks to your role as a teacher
and or parent? Let’s pay particular attention to each of the developmental

August 2020 Edition
stages – prenatal period, infancy, early childhood, middle and late childhood
and adolescence.
a. Prenatal period – what are pregnant others supposed to do to ensure
the birth of a normal and healthy baby?
__________________________________________________
b. Infancy – what should mothers and baby sitters do and not do to help
infants develop normally and healthily?
____________________________________________________
c. Early Childhood – what are preschool teachers supposed to do with
preschoolers?
________________________________________________________
________________
d. Late childhood – what are elementary school teachers ought to help their
pupils? What are parents ought to help their children?
______________________________________
e. Adolescence – what should high school teachers ought to help their
student? What should parents ought to help their teenage children?
__________________________________
f. Early Adulthood (College) – what should teachers ought to help their
students? What can parents help for their children who are now young
adults? ________________________
g. Middle Adulthood – what should adults do to obtain satisfaction in their
career? What should schools teach for students to be prepared for
middle adulthood?
________________________________________________________
________________
h. Late Adulthood - In their retirement, adults should
______________________________
How should children relate to their parents in their late
adulthood stage? What should teachers teach to students
on how they should treat and relate to parent,
grandparents in their late adulthood? _______________
SELF-EVALUATION:
Discuss the meaning of the quotation by Erik Erikson from the INTRODUCTION of
this lesson.
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
____________

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REVIEW OF CONCEPTS:
 There are 8 human development stages narrowed down by Santrock. These
are prenatal period, infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood, late childhood,
adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood.
 There are only 6 stages given by Havinghurst equipped with corresponding
developmental tasks. There are Infancy and early childhood, late childhood,
adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and later maturity.
POST-TEST
Put a check ✔ beside those statements that are correct and an ✖ beside those
that are wrong. If your answer is an ✖, explain why.
______ 1. Developmental tasks are only for the first 3 stages of human development.
______ 2. Failure of achieving developmental tasks in an earlier stage also means
failure for the learner to master the developmental task in the next stage.
______ 3. Preschool age corresponds to early childhood stage.
______ 4. Adolescence is middle and late childhood stage.
______ 5. Teenage is middle childhood.
______ 6. Mastery of fundamental skills is a major concern during early childhood.
______ 7. Play is a great need of children in middle childhood.
______ 8. Preparing children for school readiness is the major concern of middle
childhood.
______ 9. Infancy is the stage of questioning age.
______ 10. Achievement is the critical task in an adolescent’s life.
REFERENCES:
 Periods of development. Retrieved from
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-
lifespandevelopment2/chapter/periods-of-development/ on June 25, 2020.

August 2020 Edition
DEVELOPMENT
TOPIC 1.4 : Issues on Human Development
INTRODUCTION:
Each of us has his/ her own informal way of looking at our own and other
people’s development. These paradigms of human development while obviously
lacking in scholastic vigor, provide us with a conceptual framework for understanding
ourselves and others. Scholars have come up with their own models of human
development. Back up by solid research, they take stand on issues on human
development.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Explain every issue of development with regards to human development.
2. Justify every issue on development as to how it affects the learner’s behavior.
3. Advocate your stand about human development in light to its processes.
PRE-TEST:
Give your understanding about the following terms:
1. Nature -
2. Nurture -
3. Continuity -
4. Discontinuity -
5. Stability -
6. Change -
“The interaction of heredity and environment is so extensive that
to ask which is more important, nature or nurture, is like asking
which is more important to a rectangle, height or width.”
- William Greenough

August 2020 Edition
LEARNING ACTIVITY
Off to Harvard at age 16, Kaczynski was a loner
during his college years. One of his roommates at Harvard
said that he avoided people by quickly shuffling by them and
slamming the door behind him. After obtaining his Ph.D. in
mathematics at the University of Michigan, Kaczynski
became a professor at the University of California at
Berkeley. His colleagues there remember him as hiding
from social circumstances—no friends, no allies, no
networking. After several years at Berkeley, Kaczynski
resigned and moved to a rural area of Montana, where he
lived as a hermit in a crude shack for 25 years. Town
residents described him as a bearded eccentric. Kaczynski
traced his own difficulties to growing up as a genius in a
kid’s body and sticking out like a sore thumb in his
surroundings as a child. In 1996, he was arrested and
charged as the notorious Unabomber, America’s most wanted killer. Over the course
of 17 years, Kaczynski had sent 16 mail bombs that left 23 people wounded or
maimed, and 3 people dead. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to the offenses and was
sentenced to life in prison.
A decade before Kaczynski mailed his first
bomb, Alice Walker spent her days battling racism in
Mississippi. She had recently won her first writing
fellowship, but rather than use the money to follow
her dream of moving to Senegal, Africa, she put
herself into the heart and heat of the civil rights
movement. Walker had grown up knowing the brutal
effects of poverty and racism. Born in 1944, she was
the eighth child of Georgia sharecroppers who
earned $300 a year. When Walker was 8, her
brother accidentally shot her in the left eye with a BB
gun. Since her parents had no car, it took them a
week to get her to a hospital. By the time she
received medical care, she was blind in that eye, and
it had developed a disfiguring layer of scar tissue.
Despite the counts against her, Walker overcame
pain and anger and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize
for her book The Color Purple. She became not only a novelist but also an essayist, a
poet, a short-story writer, and a social activist.
What leads one individual, so full of promise, to commit brutal acts of
violence and another to turn poverty and trauma into a rich literary harvest? If
you have ever wondered why people turn out the way they do, you have asked
yourself the central question we will explore in this lesson.

August 2020 Edition
Was Ted Kaczynski born a killer, or did his life turn him into one? Kaczynski
himself thought that his childhood was the root of his troubles. He grew up as a genius
in a boy’s body and never fit in with other children. Did his early experiences determine
his later life? Is your own journey through life marked out ahead of time, or can your
experiences change your path? Are experiences that occur early in your journey more
important than later ones? Is your journey like taking an elevator up a skyscraper with
distinct stops along the way, or more like a cruise down a river with smoother ebbs
and flows? These questions point to three issues about the nature of development:
the roles played by nature and nurture, continuity and discontinuity and early and
late experience.
1. Nature and Nurture
The nature-nurture issue involves the debate about whether development is
primarily influenced by nature or by nurture (Goodnow, 2010; Kagan, 2010). Nature
refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental
experiences. Almost no one today argues that development can be explained by
nature alone or by nurture alone. But some (“nature” proponents) claim that the most
important influence on development is biological inheritance, and others (“nurture”
proponents) claim that environmental experiences are the most important influence.
According to the nature proponents, just as a sunflower grows in an orderly way—
unless it is defeated by an unfriendly environment—so does a person. The range of
environments can be vast, but evolutionary and genetic foundations produce
commonalities in growth and development (Cosmides, 2011; Goldsmith, 2011; Mader,
2011). We walk before we talk, speak one word before two words, grow rapidly in
infancy and less so in early childhood, and experience a rush of sexual hormones in
puberty. Extreme environments—those that are psychologically barren or hostile—can
stunt development, but nature proponents emphasize the influence of tendencies that
are genetically wired into humans (Brooker, 2011; Raven, 2011).
By contrast, other psychologists emphasize the importance of nurture, or
environmental experiences, to development (Gauvain & Parke, 2010; Grusec, 2011;
Kopp, 2011). Experiences run the gamut from the individual’s biological environment
(nutrition, medical care, drugs, and physical accidents) to the social environment
(family, peers, schools, community, media, and culture). For example, a child’s diet
can affect how tall the child grows and even how effectively the child can think and
solve problems. Despite their genetic wiring, a child born and raised in a poor village
in Bangladesh and a child in the suburbs of Denver are likely to have different skills,
different ways of thinking about the world, and different ways of relating to people.

August 2020 Edition
2. Continuity and Discontinuity
Think about your own development for a
moment. Did you become the person you are gradually,
like the seedling that slowly, cumulatively grows into a
giant oak? Or did you experience sudden, distinct
changes, like the caterpillar that changes into a
butterfly.
The continuity-discontinuity issue focuses on the
extent to which development involves gradual,
cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages
(discontinuity). For the most part, developmentalists
who emphasize nurture usually describe development
as a gradual, continuous process, like the seedling’s
growth into an oak. Those who emphasize nature often
describe development as a series of distinct stages,
like the change from caterpillar to butterfly.
Consider continuity first. As the oak grows from
seedling to giant oak, it becomes more oak—its
development is continuous. Similarly, a child’s first
word, though seemingly an abrupt, discontinuous
event, is actually the result of weeks and months of
growth and practice. Puberty, another seemingly
abrupt, discontinuous occurrence, is actually a gradual
process occurring over several years.
Viewed in terms of discontinuity, each person is
described as passing through a sequence of stages in
which change is qualitatively rather than quantitatively
different. As the caterpillar changes to a butterfly, it does not become more caterpillar
but a different kind of organism—its development is discontinuous. Similarly, at some
point a child moves from not being able to think abstractly about the world to being
able to do so. This change is a qualitative, discontinuous change in development, not
a quantitative, continuous change.
3. Early and Later Experience
The early-later experience issue focuses on the degree to which early
experiences (especially in infancy) or later experiences are the key determinants of
the child’s development. That is, if infants experience harmful circumstances, can
those experiences be overcome by later, positive ones? Or are the early experiences
so critical—possibly because they are the infant’s first, prototypical experiences—that
they cannot be overridden by a later, better environment? To those who emphasize
early experiences, life is an unbroken trail on which a psychological quality can be
traced back to its origin (Kagan, 1992, 2000). In contrast, to those who emphasize
later experiences, development is like a river, continually ebbing and flowing. The
early-later experience issue has a long history and continues to be hotly debated
among developmentalists (Kagan, 2010; McElwain, 2009). Plato was sure that infants
who were rocked frequently became better athletes. Nineteenthcentury New England
ministers told parents in Sunday afternoon sermons that the way they handled their
infants would determine their children’s later character. Some developmentalists argue

August 2020 Edition
that unless infants and young children experience warm, nurturing care, their
development will never quite be optimal (Finger & others, 2009).
In contrast, later-experience advocates argue that children are malleable
throughout development and that later sensitive caregiving is just as important as
earlier sensitive caregiving. A number of developmentalists stress that too little
attention has been given to later experiences in development (Baltes & Smith, 2008;
Schaie, 2010, 2011; Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010; Staudinger & Gluck, 2011). They
accept that early experiences are important contributors to development, but assert
that they are no more important than later experiences. Jerome Kagan (2000, 2010)
points out that even children who show the qualities of an inhibited temperament,
which is linked to heredity, have the capacity to change their behavior. In his research,
almost one-third of a group of children who had an inhibited temperament at 2 years
of age were not unusually shy or fearful when they were 4 years of age (Kagan &
Snidman, 1991).
People in Western cultures, especially those influenced by Freudian theory,
have tended to support the idea that early experiences are more important than later
experiences (Lamb & Sternberg, 1992). The majority of people in the world do not
share this belief. For example, people in many Asian countries believe that
experiences occurring after about 6 or 7 years of age are more important to
development than are earlier experiences. This stance stems from the long-standing
belief in Eastern cultures that children’s reasoning skills begin to develop in important
ways during middle childhood.
Evaluating the Developmental Issues
Most developmentalists recognize that it is unwise to take an extreme position
on the issues of nature and nurture, continuity and discontinuity, and early and later
experiences. Development is not all nature or all nurture, not all continuity or all
discontinuity, and not all early or later experiences. Nature and nurture, continuity and
discontinuity, and early and later experiences all play a part in development through
the human life span. Along with this consensus, there is still spirited debate about how
strongly development is influenced by each of these factors (Blakemore, Berenbaum,
& Liben, 2009; Kagan, 2010). Are girls less likely to do well in math mostly because of
inherited characteristics or because of society’s expectations and because of how girls
are raised? Can enriched experiences during adolescence remove deficits resulting
from poverty, neglect, and poor schooling during childhood? The answers also have a
bearing on social policy decisions about children and adolescents, and consequently
on each of our lives.

August 2020 Edition
Activity 1: What’s your issue?
Answer the following item. Write it on the space provided.
1. Based on what you read earlier in this chapter, what do you think Ted Kaczynski
would have to say about the early-later experience issue?
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2. Can you identify an early experience that you believe contributed in important
ways to your development?
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3. Can you identify a recent or current (later) experience that you think had (or is
having) a strong influence on your development?
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Activity 2: Decode Me!
Here is an interesting article titled, “How the First Nine months Shape the Rest
of Your Life” from October 4, 2010 Issue of Time Magazine. Read, analyze then
answer the following questions.
How the First Nine months Shape the Rest of Your Life
By: Annie Murphy Paul
https://www.afritradomedic.com/pdf/our_library/Fetal%20Origins_%20How%20the%20First%20Nine%20Mo
nths%20Shape%20Your%20Life%20--%20Printout%20--%20TIME.pdf
What makes us the way we are? Why are some people predisposed to be anxious, overweight or
asthmatic? How is it that some of us are prone to heart attacks, diabetes or high blood pressure?

August 2020 Edition
There's a list of conventional answers to these questions. We are the way we are because it's in our
genes: the DNA we inherited at conception. We turn out the way we do because of our childhood
experiences: how we were treated and what we took in, especially during those crucial first three
years. Or our health and well-being stem from the lifestyle choices we make as adults: what kind of
diet we consume, how much exercise we get
But there's another powerful source of influence you may not have considered: your life as a fetus.
The kind and quantity of nutrition you received in the womb; the pollutants, drugs and infections you
were exposed to during gestation; your mother's health, stress level and state of mind while she was
pregnant with you — all these factors shaped you as a baby and a child and continue to affect you to
this day. This is the provocative contention of a field known as fetal origins, whose pioneers assert
that the nine months of gestation constitute the most consequential period of our lives,
PERMANENTLY influencing the wiring of the brain and the functioning of organs such as the heart,
liver and pancreas. The conditions we encounter in utero, they claim, shape our susceptibility to
disease, our appetite and metabolism, our intelligence and temperament. In the literature on the
subject, which has exploded over the past 10 years, you can find references to the fetal origins of
cancer, cardiovascular disease, allergies, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, mental illness —
even of conditions associated with old age like arthritis, osteoporosis and cognitive decline.
The notion of prenatal influence may conjure up frivolous attempts to enrich the fetus: playing Mozart
to a pregnant belly and the like. In reality, the shaping and molding that goes on in utero is far more
visceral and consequential than that. Much of what a pregnant woman encounters in her daily life —
the air she breathes, the food and drink she consumes, the chemicals she's exposed to, even the
emotions she feels — is shared in some fashion with her fetus. The fetus incorporates these offerings
into its own body, makes them part of its flesh and blood.
Often it does something more: it treats these maternal contributions as information, biological
postcards from the world outside. What a fetus is absorbing in utero is not Mozart's Magic Flute but
the answers to questions much more critical to its survival: Will it be born into a world of abundance
or scarcity? Will it be safe and protected, or will it face constant dangers and threats? Will it live a
long, fruitful life or a short, harried one?
Research on fetal origins — also called the developmental origins of health and disease — is prompting
a revolutionary shift in thinking about where human qualities come from and when they begin to
develop. It's turning pregnancy into a scientific frontier: the National Institutes of Health embarked
last year on a multidecade study that will examine its subjects before they're born. It's also altering
the perspective of thinkers outside of biology. The Nobel Prize — winning economist Amartya Sen, for
example, co-authored a paper about the importance of fetal origins to a population's health and
productivity: poor prenatal experience, he writes, "sows the seeds of ailments that afflict adults." And
it makes the womb a promising target for prevention, raising hopes of conquering public-health
scourges like obesity and heart disease through interventions before birth.
1. Does the article agree that heredity, environment and individual’s choice are
the factors that contribute to what a person may become? Please elaborate.

August 2020 Edition
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2. Read the 4th
paragraph again, focus your attention on the highlighted word,
PERMANENTLY. Relate this to the issue on Early Experience versus Later
Experience. Does the word PERMANENTLY convince you that we are what
our first experiences have made of us? Explain your answer.
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SELF-EVALUATION:
After learning the issues on human development, state in one paragraph your
stand. Is there any changes the way you perceive it or you still have the same
perspective before learning this lesson? (Criteria: Content – 5; Organization of Ideas – 3;
Grammar – 2)

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