Child Development There Is an Essay

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Another theory, posited by Erik Erikson, also focuses on the psychological elements of development. According to Eriksson, all children go through the same psychological stages, and so development occurs the same everywhere. Vygotsky believed development to occur differently within different cultures, dependent on the characteristics of the individuals' children are cared for. Finally, a third theory of attachment, is actually quite similar in that it depends on healthy social interaction to provide normal developmental processes.

One of the primary features of Vygotsky's social theory of development is his concept of the zone of proximate development, or ZPD. According to Vygotsky, "any pedagogy creates learning processes that lead to development," (Gallagher 1999). Thus, the help that children receive from caregivers helps shapes how they will then approach certain situations in the future.
Research states that "It's the concept that a child accomplishes a task that he/she cannot do alone, with the help from a more skilled person," (Gallagher 1999). This help, then serves as scaffolding, which presents new ways of handling tasks and problems and opening up new ways of understanding of the world. In this, children start with one understanding of how to do something, and then through the guidance of a more experienced person, end up with a completely different one. This then reinforces the concept that social interaction provides scaffolding to guide a culturally dependent path of development.

References

Gallagher, Christina. (1999). Lev Semyonvich Vygotsky.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1929). The problem of the cultural development of the child II.….....

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