LIFESPAN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Lifespan Human Development is an approach of how people change through time that is
from conception to death. To better understand the human development, it is being
categorize into stages with their approximate age range. These stages includes PRENATAL,
INFANCY (birth – 2 years), Early Childhood (3-5 years), Middle and Late Childhood ( 6-12
years), Adolescence ( 13-18 years), Early Adulthood (19-20 years), Middle Adulthood ( 30-
60 years), Late Adulthood ( 61 and above). Each stage has its own description, skills and
tasks that will lead us to the 5 principles of Lifespan Human Developmental Perspective
namely:

1. Development is multidimensional – multidimensional in the sense that changes relates to

multiple dimensions and aspects which are the physical, cognitive and socioemotional.
2. Development is multidirectional – multidirectional in the sense that changes consists
gains and losses, growth and decline throughout the lifespan. (This means that during your
early life, balance between gains and improvement commonly shown and during the late life
particularly the late adulthood, losses and performance declines.)
3. Development is Plastic – Plastic because it consist the malleability or elasticity
characteristic that is, changes is constant and the unique ability of human to adapt to these
changes.
4. Development is influenced by Multiple Contexts – changes occurred are influenced by
multiple factors that may be tangible (physical and social aspect) or intangible (can’t be seen
through the naked eye).

Because of these complexities, developmental Science is multidisciplinary that you need not
to focus on a certain discipline but rather understand how people grow, think, and interact
with other people, with different places and situations during these stages. It may include
how culture influences on development. Your behaviour is a by-product of the customs,
knowledge, attitudes and values shared through interactions with a group.

As an end to my take away on Teacher Shanen Gay Agan’s presentation, Human

Development from prenatal to death played an important role in every individual’s life.
Some maybe observe by us consciously and unconsciously but what matters is how we are
able to cope and handle each development intelligently.