1. TYPICAL STAGES OF
EARLY CHILDHOOD
DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 2

2. THE FIELD OF
CHILD
DEVELOPMENT

3. CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Is a field of study dedicated to
understanding all aspects of
human growth and changes
from conception through
adolescence.
•Berk, 1994

4. DEVELOPMENTALISTS
Professionals whose interests focus on
human development.
Tasks include describing, explaining, and
predicting how individuals at different
stages typically think, feel and behave.
Often summarize sequences and rates of
development in charts called
developmental charts or universal norms.

5. NORMATIVE APPROACH
Universal norms provide an estimate for
when a certain level of development will
be reached.
Most children begin sitting, standing,
walking and talking at about the same
time while growing emotionally,
cognitively and socially.
Milestones at an earlier age set the
foundation for more complex skill later in
life.

6. CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
Often do not develop at the rate
indicated by universal norms in one or
more of the major areas of
development.
Concerns about children’s rates of
development occur when skills are
significantly delayed in one or more
areas.

7. DEVELOPMENTAL
THEORIES

8. ORGANISMIC OR
MECHANISTIC

9. ORGANISMIC
There are certain structures within
children that underlie development and
that development is affected by
experiences.
Children are believed to determine
their own learning, but environments
must be designed that support their
development.

10. MECHANISTIC
Children are passive recipients of
environmental experiences.
Suggests that the environment
determines growth and development.

11. CONTINUOUS
OR
DISCONTINUOUS

12. CONTINUOUS
Young children respond to the world in
basically the same was as adults
although generally in a less complex
way.
Over time, children gradually acquire
an increasing amount of information
and number of abilities through
experiences.

13. DISCONTINUOUS
 Development is presented as occurring in
distinctly different stages.
 Suggests that new ways of understanding,
behaving and thinking emerge at different
stages.
 It is necessary to accomplish the milestones
of prior stages before moving on to more
complex stages of development.
 Stages of development are in the same
sequence for all children.