Five Theoretical Perspectives on Child Developmental
Child development is a continuous process that involves biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings that begins at birth and continues on until the end of adolescence. Although child development is a continuous process with a predictable sequence, child development takes a unique course for every child (The World Bank (2011) & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development). The research around human development is viewed and developed from the different theoretical perspectives that surround this topic. There are five major theoretical perspectives that are the most influential towards the research surrounding child development: psychoanalytic, learning, cognitive, contextual and evolutionary/ socio-biological. The table below provides more detail around each of these theoretical perspectives (Papalia,2008)