Child Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Child Psychology - Essay Example There are numerous theories, studies and researches that are focused on the development of children and their psychology. This paper would study the behavior of Amy, a 5 year old girl, and would correlate her behavior to various concepts and theories. The behavior would be linked to the cognitive, language and emotional perspectives of child psychology. Discussion Human development is the science of studying how a human develops physically, psychologically as well as socially with the passage of time. It is a branch of psychology that studies the behavioral changes that come within people as they grow older (Meggitt, 2006). The subject that I observed is my niece, Amy. She is currently five years old and would turning six after one month. Amy is the eldest child and has one younger brother who is three. Both her parents are working; her mother is a lecturer in a college while her father works for a company. Amy lives in a joint family where her paternal grandparents live with them. B eing the eldest child, and being on her on most of the time, Amy is more mature than other children of her age. According to the periods of development, Amy is presently in her early childhood stage, but soon she will enter middle childhood when she turns six years old. Erik Erikson was a development psychologist and psychoanalyst who had worked extensively to develop his theories on social development. The most significant development among the works of Eric Erikson was the innovation to have eight stages of human life span instead of five. Erikson had eight life stage virtues that are helpful in understanding the lifespan model these virtues include hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, caring and wisdom (Berk, 2000). According to the stages of Erickson's development model, Amy would be right in the middle of the play age (3 to 5 years) and School age (6 to 12 years). As she created play situations based on her imagination and is developing a social stage where is she m aking new friends. The bioecological model of development of Bronfenbrenner is focused upon child development with respect to the relationships that form his or her environment. Bronfenbrenner defines layers of environment that influence the development process such as family, school, religion, society and culture. The layers of environment form the Microsystems which are the direct interactions, Mesosystems which are the linkages between Microsystems, Exosystems which encompasses the experiences which are gained and also Macrosystem and Chronosystem (McCormick, 2011). According to the environment, I have come to notice that Amy is very independent, she does not rely on attention and is more focused in what ever she does. This is because of the family environement. As both the parents are working and Amy's mother is also doing her post-graduate degree, Amy has seen a studious environment in her house and this has inculcated in her, an interest in reading books, writing and drawing. Cognitive Development Cognitive development is referred to the development with respect to a childs ability to process information, grasp concepts, develop perceptual skills and other aspects of brain development. Piaget is the most prominent psychologist in the field of cognitive development with principles that stand true through the development phases (Berk, 2008). When interacting with Amy, I observed that she had some ideas related to things as she perceives them. This could relate