THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
 Developed by Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
 Views human development as driven by a person’s thought processes and explores
how these influence an individual’s understanding and interaction with the world
around them.
 He studied the intellectual development of children.
 According to him that children are not less intelligent than adults; they simply think
differently
 Children are born fundamental and genetically inherited mental structures or
schemas – starting with very basic motor activities such as reflexes, which evolve into
sophisticated mental activities through process of assimilation and accommodation in
interaction with the environment
 Cognitive development is a progressive reorganization of
mental processes resulting from both maturation and
experience
 Developmental delays will necessarily occur when parents or
careres are neglectful or abusive, and children brought up to
experience the world as a fearful rather than a loving place will
see little logic or hope in their existence. Some may withdraw
or display their upset in particularly aggressive ways.
 Social workers, social care workers and foster carers
need to show empathy and insight when assessing and
designing plans of support and intervention.
 Children with learning disabilities will meet some
milestones at different stages and in different ways and
may not achieve others at all.
 Unwig and Hogg (2012) proposed the ‘dry stone wall
model of development’ to demonstrate how children
may not always follow a linear or predictable path of
development but, in general terms, somehow ‘get there’,
just like the random stones of a dry wall stone wall,
made up of irregularly shaped building blocks, hold
together as a whole.
SOCIO-CULTURAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT
 Vygotsky (1978) put forward his idea of a theory focusing on the
connection between individuals and the socio-cultural context in which
they act and share experiences, thus bringing to the fore the importance
of relationships and interactions between children and adults or their
peers.
 Humans use cultural tools, such as language, speech and writing, to
mediate their social environments.
 He saw the child as learning within social interactions that involve
communications.
 Vygotsky’s theory is the zone of proximal development
(ZPD), which is the ‘distance’ )the gap) between an
individual’s ability to perform a task independently and
what they can do with help.
 He argued that if a task is within an child’s zone proximal
development, the appropriate assistance – or scaffolding
– will give them enough of a ‘boost’ to achieve it.
 The socio-cultural theory brings into focus the
active role of parents, teachers and more
experienced peers in a child’s development.
 Reflective point:
Consider the development opportunities for a
young child being brought up primarily by a single
mother prone to bipolar depressive episodes who
often spend her days in bed isolated from the rest of
the world.
 Discussion:
 he likelihood of the mother engaging in close forms of communication
and hence helping scaffold the child’s development is severely
circumscribed. It may be that, if the child’s wider social network – such as
extended family or attendance at school or play groups – is sufficiently
supportive, this might compensate for the shortcomings of the mother,
but there may be cause for concern if such compensatory networks do
not exist.
ATTACHMENT THEORY – JOHN BOWLBY (1907-1990)

 Is about a child forming a secure relationship with one primary

caregiver in order for typical or normal social and emotional
development to occur. Such an attachment that allows the child
to feel secure enough to explore the world.
 He put forward the idea that there is a link between maternal
deprivation (Bowlby, 1951)
 At the center of social work practice is the endeavor to
support children being cared for within their (birth)
families, although many of the children with whom social
workers come into contact may be unable to live with
their birth parents. What they have in common is that
they have had their primary attachment bonds
interrupted in ways that affect their later adjustment.
(Bowlby, 1982)
4 MAIN TYPES OF ATTACHMENT (RESEARCH IN PRACTICE, 2014)

1. Secure attachment – occurs when a child is sensitively nurtured by parents/carers,

leading to that child demonstrating a range of regulated emotions
2. Insecure avoidant attachment – occurs when the child loses off emotions as a result
of feeling unloved due to rejecting or hostile care from parents/carers
3. Insecure ambivalent attachment – may be present when nurturing by parents/carers
is inconsistent, often leading to needy and angry behaviors from children
4. Disorganized attachment – occur in children who are brought up in fear of their
parents/carers, meaning that they are often unable to understand or regulate their
own emotions.