HISTORY OF CHILD AND

ADOLESCENT
PSYCHOLOGY
Miss Maryam Noor
DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY

A subfield of psychology concerned with the

changes in behaviour and abilities that
occur as development proceeds.
Developmental Psychology and
Child Psychology

 Developmental psychologist study

behavioral changes at all phases of the life
cycle. While in Child psychology
psychologists focused on the childhood
period, ending at Adolescence.
 Why study child & adolescent
psychopathology?

 High prevalence of mental health problems among

adolescents and young adults; estimated at 20% by
Surgeon General’s Report of 1999.
 Is this due to better diagnosis, an actual increase in
prevalence, or both?
 Half of all lifetime cases of mental illness are now
recognized to begin by age 14 and three-quarters by
age 24 (Kessler et al, 2005).
Prevalence
 50% of mental health problems are
established by age 14 and 75% by age
24.
 10% of children and young people (aged
5-16 years) have a clinically diagnosable
mental problem, (Green,H., Mcginnity, A.,
Meltzer, Ford, T., Goodman,R. 2005)
prevalence
 yet 70% of children and adolescents who
experience mental health problems have not had
appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.
 This year's Fundamental Facts follows the recent
publication of the 2014 Adult Psychiatric
Morbidity Survey. This highlights that every
week, 1 in 6 adults experiences a common
mental health problem, such as anxiety or
depression and 1 in 5 adults has considered
taking their own life at some point.
Why study child & adolescent
psychopathology?
 The median number of years from the time a
child first experiences psychiatric disturbance
and receives treatment is 9 years (2 years for
psychotic illnesses); Kessler et al, 2005
 Despite effective treatments, however, there
are typically long delays, sometimes decades,
between when individuals first experience
clinically significant symptoms and when they
first seek and receive treatment
Why to study Children and
adolescents?
Childhood is a period of rapid development
 More development takes place in this
period rather any other e.g. physical
growth, social interactions, the acquisition
of langue, memory abilities etc.
 Long term influence.
 Events and experiences of the early years
strongly affect an individual’s later
development.
Why to study Children and
adolescents?
 To get insight into complex adult behavior by
attempting to understand those behavior during
this period when they are not so complex and in
formation stage, like language development
 Knowledge of basic process can help solve
some of the problems of childhood(effects of day
care, classroom teaching methods, parental
discipline technique).
Cont..
 Human child is a fascinating and
wonderful creature.
Appealing to psychologist as to the artist.
Historical views of Childhood
Ancient Greek And Rome
 Greek and Rome Civilization: 600 B.C.-A.D. 400
 Children were exchangeable expendable
properties
 Children were brought up and sold for various
purposes, including domestic work, service in
brothels for the sexual pleasure of adults
 Killing of new born was routine, as a sacrifice to
God
Plato and Aristotle

 stressed the importance of education

 Defended practices of killing of new born,
 In feticide (killing of new born ).
 Naturally inclined towards evil unless
given proper guidance.
 Great capacity for learning.
 Victor: The Wild Boy
of Aveyron
 One of the first documented efforts to work with a
special child was undertaken by Jean-Marc Itard
(1775 – 1838)
 Victor was discovered by hunters in the woods of
France at 11 – 12 years of age, having presumably
lived alone all his life (or at least since age 2-3)
 He was nonverbal, inattentive, and insensitive to
basic sensations (hot & cold)
 Itard believed that environmental stimulation could
“humanize” Victor, but he was never fully socialized
 Philippe Pinel
1745 - 1826

 The father of French psychiatry

 Discarded the long held notion of mental illness being
due to demoniacal possession
 Began to classify his observations of the mentally ill
 Developed “moral treatment” and the first efforts at
psychotherapy
 Physician to Napoleon
 Benjamin Rush
(1746 – 1813)
 Physician, educator, writer, humanitarian
 His practice was aimed at providing care for the poor
 He advocated for the abolition of slavery and signed the
constitution
 His greatest contributions to medical science were the
reforms he instituted in the care of the mentally ill during his
thirty years of service as a senior physician at the
Pennsylvania Hospital; he was more compassionate than
was typical and replaced routine reliance on archaic
procedures with careful clinical observation and study
 The year before he died, he published Medical Inquiries and
Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind, the first
American textbook on psychiatry
 Dorothea Dix
(1802 – 1887)
 A teacher and social reformer for the
treatment of the mentally ill. She established
32 humane mental hospitals for the
treatment of troubled youth previously
relegated to cellars and cages.
 She is somewhat neglected in the history
books because she did not contribute to our
understanding of the nature of mental
disorders
The Medieval and
Renaissance Period
 After the collapse of Roman Empire the Catholic Church
• Stressed the innocence and purity of children
• Defended the killing of infants

 With progress of Medieval Period

• The view of childhood continue to improve
• But abuse and exploitation of children remained common

 The Renaissance Era

• Brought an increase concern for children
• Homes setup to take sick, lost and unwanted children
The Reformation and the Puritans
 The Puritan (John Calvin, 1509-1564)
constructed 1st comprehensive model
of child development, based on the notion
of “Original Sin”.
 Took child rearing very seriously
 Wrote manuals to aids parents in child rearing
 Emphasized on education
Descartes’ Dualistic Model
 French mathematician and philosopher.
 He provided a dualistic system in which the
nonphysical mind governed the mechanical
functioning of the physical body.
 Mind and body are separate
 Mind does not have material form.
 Reason and make decisions and carry out.
 Mind make these drives command the body
EARLY THEORISTS
 Three early scholars
1-John Lock
2-Jeans Jacques Rousseau
3-Charles Darwin
 They have offered theories of human
behaviour that are the direct ancestors of the
three major theoretical traditions found in Child
Psychology
1-John Lock
(1632-1704)

 Not innately good not bad but the product of

environment & upbringing.
 All children are created equal, and the mind of a new
born infant is like a piece of Blank Paper-Tabula Rasa
(“blank slate”)
 A child gets all knowledge through learning and
experience .
 stressed the use of rewards & punishment ( not
material but praise & scolding.
2-Jeans Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778)

 Children are born with knowledge and

ideas, which unfold naturally with age.
 Development follows a predictable series
of stages that are guided by an inborn
timetable.
 not to instruct them but to have them learn
through a process of exploration &
discovery.
 3-Charles Darwin
(1809-1882)
 Biologist
 Theory of Evolution
 Suggests that some human behavior may
have had their origins in the past, when they
were valuable to our ancestor’s survival (so
the appropriate behaviors are transferred to
new generations).
 Species vary in characteristics .
 “ doddy” son > ist developmental study.
Pioneers of Child Psychology
 G. Stanely Hall
 John B. Watson
 Sigmund Freud
 Arnold Gestalt
 Jean Piaget
 Erik Erikson
 Lev. Vygotsky
 Human behavior can be understood
principally in term of experiences &
learning.
 G. Stanely Hall
(1846-1924
 President of American psychological
association.
 Education & child rearing should also
encourage the natural tendency of the child
that reflect the behavior & development
earlier forms of the species.
 Referredto as Father of Child Psychology
 Founded the field of developmental
Psychology
 Proposed a theory of development based on
the principles of Evolutionary Recapitulation,
embryonic development of an individual
organism (its ontogeny) followed the same
path as the evolutionary history of its species.
(Charles Darwin’ theme)
 (Also establishes a new Psychological
Laboratory in America)
 Established several scientific journals for
reporting the finding of child development
research.
John B. Watson
(1876-1958)
 Adopted John Lock’s Belief
 Stressed on objective method of study.
 Proposed Behavior theory of development
 “The condition reflex was the fundamental
unit of development and that early
experiential factors were primarily
responsible for changes in behavior
(learning from conditioning, and
environmental reciprocity).
 Observation
Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939)
 Referred to as Father of Psychology
 Proposed 5-psychosexual stages of
development; Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency
and Genital and stressed the importance of
passing these stages successfully and the
effect of fixation.
 Emphasized the combined importance of
early experiences and inborn process
 Psychoanalytic Theory
 In Freud’s day (the beginning of the 20th century)
child psychiatrists and psychologists had become
pessimistic about their ability to treat children’s
mental disorders in a fashion other than palliative
or custodial
 Although he believed in innate drives and
predisposition (or that the origin of most mental
illness was biological), he also believed in the
importance of experience in the shaping of
psychopathology; he was the first to give meaning
to mental disorders by linking them to childhood
experiences
 For the first time, the course of mental disorders
was not seen as inevitable
 Mahler’s Separation/Individuation

 Mahler’s intent was not to add new theory but to

systematically observe and detail the unfolding of
object relations in children and infants
 Objective Relations is a more “modern”
adaptation of psychoanalytic theory that places
less emphasis on the drives of aggression and
sexuality as motivational forces and more
emphasis on human relationships as the primary
motivational force in life; in other words, we seek
relationships rather than pleasure (as Freud
suggested).
Cont..

 Six stages of development lead to normal object

relations, predicated upon a recognition of
“separateness”:
1. Normal Autism (birth to 2 months)
2. Symbiosis (2 – 5 months)
3. Differentiation (5 – 10 months)
4. Practicing Sub-Phase (10 – 18 months)
5. Rapprochement (18 – 24 months)
6. Object Constancy (2 – 5 years)
Bringing Analytic Theory to Children
 Anna Freud (1895 – 1984) was particularly
important in expanding Freud’s ideas to
children
 Melanie Klein (1882 – 1960) argued that
children’s play could be interpreted in terms
of unconscious fantasy
 Their combined work led to the development
of child psychoanalysis and a recognition of
the importance of nonverbal communication
(e.g,. play, drawings, etc.)
Arnold Gesell
(1880-1961)
Proposed a biological perspective
 Stressed inborn maturational processes
 Produced valuable age related norms of
development
 A time table of age ranges indicating the
normal growth and the developmental
Milestones and when they are achieved.
 Cont..

 Helpful to parents in evaluating

developmental programs.
 Pioneered in the use of film camera to
observe & record.
 Leave children to sleep ,play & explore
according to their own natured schedule.
Key Principles of Gesell's Maturation Theory:

• Children develop through similar and predictable

sequences. However, Gesell noticed that they did
so at their own pace, and suggested this
development starts to occur before the child’s birth.
• The pace that the individual develops through the
sequences is influenced by internal factors, such as
physical and mental development and genetics.
Key Principles of Gesell's Maturation Theory:

• He disagreed with theorists who suggested that development

was solely down to environmental factors.

• If a child experienced delayed development that, according to

Gesell, would be due to heredity.

• A child should only be taught to complete tasks when they are

physically and mentally ready to do so. Teaching a child to do
something that is in advance of their developmental age would
do them more harm
Jean Piaget
(1896-1980)
 He was concerned with understanding the
form of children’s knowledge and the
qualitative changes it undergoes as they
developed.
 He proposed the stages of intellectual
development,
1-Sensorimotor
2-Preoperational
3-Concreteoperational
4-Formaloperational
Erik Erikson
(1902-1994)
 Emphasized psychosocial development
 Proposed 8-stages theory that extended through
adulthood.
1-Trust vs. Mistrust 2-Autonomy vs. Shame
3-Initiative vs.Guilt 4-Industory vs.Inferiority
5-Identity vs. Role confusion
6-Intimacy vs. Isolation
7-Generativity vs. Stagnation
8-Integrity vs. Despair
9-emphasis nature & nurture
Lev. Vygotsky
(1896-1934)
 Proposed Socio-cultural Model of Human
Development.
 He focuses on mental development such as
thought processes, language and reasoning.
 He assumed that these abilities developed
through social interactions with others
(specially parents) and thus represents the
shared knowledge of culture.
Issues in Developmental
Psychology

 Nature vs. Nurture

 Continuity vs. discontinuity

 Normative vs. Idiographic Development

Nature vs. Nurture

 The scientific controversy regarding

whether the primary source of
developmental changes rests in Biological
(Nature) factors or in Environmental
factors (Nurture).
 Watson (nurture)
 Gessel & hall (nature)
Continuity vs. discontinuity

 The scientific controversy regarding

whether development is constant and
connected (continued), or uneven and
discontinued.
Normative vs. Idiographic
Development
 The scientific controversy regarding the
preferences of researcher whether to focus
On the commonalities of the child
development (e.g. which attributes or
characteristics of children develop at
same level)
Or on the factors that produce
individual differences.
Cont..
 Normative behavior or pattern of
development that characterize all
children ,everywhere.

 Idiographic the difference in

development from one child to another.