Piaget Stages of Development Essay

Child development undergoes various stages from infancy to adulthood. This process of development is called by various psychologists as â€Å"progression through development† to which, age is often attached on each developmental stage. The first stage is called the infancy stage which is from birth to one year during which the physical and psychological occur most rapidly. In Piaget’s developmental theory, the child’s development during this stage is called â€Å"sensorimotor† because the child’s behavior at this stage is mostly simple motor responses to sensory stimuli† (Kalat 170). The stage of toddlerhood which is from one year to three years old is partly connected with infancy stage because as Olga Drebben asserts, â€Å"in these early childhood stages, the infants and toddler’s growth and development include very multifaceted processes of physical, cognitive, and psychosocial transformations. Drebben affirms that the primary modes of infant and toddler are sonsorimotor. The childhood stage or as Piaget calls it, the â€Å"preoperational stage of development† is the stage in which children are subject to externally imposed rules and adhere unquestioningly to rules and the directives of powerful adults. In this stage, peer relationship is an important factor towards constructing a self separate from others and towards developing the capacity to think in terms of other peoples’ attitude one self. Deutsch, Coleman and Marcus stated, â€Å"Equal peer relationships give children a chance to experience reciprocity which greatly assists them in perspective taking and problem solving† (Deutsch, Coleman, and Marcus 359). Adolescence stage on the one hand, is seen to takes place at the beginning of puberty or from 10 to 12 year for girls and 12 to 14 years for boys and end and at the age of 18 for girls and 21 for boys. While psychologist admits the lack of precision as to age limit, this stage â€Å"assume more responsibility for personal attainment and well being† (Arnett 168). It is also the stage to earn a living and a time when interest in fun increased. The stage of adulthood on the other hand are divided into three; early, middle and senior adults. The early adulthood which starts at age 21 up to 34 years, is concern on being able to engage in intimate relationships and in finding more satisfying work. This stage is also period of focusing on long term goals, nurturing other physically, finding a meaning in life, and developing a tolerance for delayed gratification to meet long-range goals (Corey and Corey 88). The middle adulthood ages 34 to 49 is regarded as the period of reassessment of one’s work satisfactions, of involvement in the community and of accepting choice made in life. According to Gerald and Marianne Corey, this period of life is a time for â€Å"solidifying one’s philosophy of life. The senior adults 50 to 64 are regarded as the beginning of the wisdom years. This period is characterized as the time for serving the community and planning for work transitions and retirement. Finally, the elderly, 65 years onward is the time â€Å"to find new levels of meaning in life and to appreciate what one has accomplished† (Corey and Corey, 89). This stage is a period of physical weakness because it is a time of diminished strength and increased dependence on others. Of all these stages, the development stage that is more susceptible to schizophrenia are the early adulthood ages 21 to 24 for men, while 40 and above for women. This is because the vast majority of the onset of this disease â€Å"falls within the interval of 15-54 years of age (Hirsch and Weinberger, 215). Steven Hirsch and Daniel Roy Weinberger noted that onsets of schizophrenia in men â€Å"peak steeply in the age group 20-24† (215), and it slowed down at lower level thereafter. This onset for men is the reverse for women above forties. The stages that are more prone to Alzheimer are definitely middle adults, senior adults and the elderly because this disease takes place during these stages of life. Question 2. Two of Piaget’s universal developments are the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage. The sensorimotor development stages starts from birth up to the end of the second year. Also called the neonatal stage, it is the period of development when the infant where simply a passive being that acts with out any systematic goal. Sensorimotor stage is the development of the child that includes intelligence based on perceptual experiences such as reflexes from 0-1month, primary circular reactions from 1to 4 months which is a repetition of certain pleasurable behaviors and formation of habits, secondary circular reactions 4 to 8 months, the coordination of secondary schemata and so forth. An example to this is the hand exercises. The child can follow simple instruction to close or open his or her hands as this is pleasurable exercise, during the infancy stage. But when the child is over one year old he can already follow basic instruction with basic understanding. Preoperational stage on the other hand begins at 2 up to 6 years of age. Salkind implies that Piaget’s preoperational stage of universal development is the progression of the infant from a reflexive organism to towards understanding of the symbolic world (248). Michie Swartwood and Kathy Trotter pointed out that in Piaget’s preoperational stage, the key feature of children’s thinking â€Å"is symbolic representation† (69). Swartwood and Trotter cited that during this stage, the child is able to use symbol, an object, or a word to stand for something else (69). Thus, though preoperational stage occurs right after the sensorimotor stage terminates, the child experiences tremendous progress during this stage. An example to this is the ability to follow simple instruction not to touch this or that, or that, on the ground that it will harm him or her, or that it will hurt him. In comparing both stages of development the child acquires certain degree of progression before each stage terminates. Both stages also display some degree of intelligence as the child now learns a lot of things through his or her experiences. But these stages also differ on some grounds. First, children in the sensorimotor stage do not think symbolically, while in preoperational stage they do think symbolically. Second, in the sensorimotor stage, the â€Å"child is limited to direct interaction with the environment, while in the second stage, the children learns to â€Å"manipulate symbols that represent the environment (Salkind, 248). In general however, both these stages show the child’s remarkable and development. Question 3. Some of the major stress that I am dealing with in my everyday life are first and foremost are the pressures from deadlines that must be met. This creates tension in me especially when I am running short of time. Biased treatment and sexism are also a great source of stress because it angers me. I really hate these things and I felt stress every time I encounter it. Some minor stressors however that I encounter everyday are the peer pressures. Peers insistences of something I do not like create pressures on me. Stern and unsmiling faces also s a source of stress especially those I meet daily. Some of the coping skills that I learned over time to keep the minor stressors from becoming major issues are; first, to ease my self of being too competitive. I learned this skill after I realized that I do not actually need to compete with my self. I simply need to make a list of priorities and take things at a time based on the priority list. Second, is to be friendly. I just realized that there is nothing wrong to great people with a smile regardless of how they would respond at me. I realized that by doing this, I could prevent the minor stress from becoming a major stress as I actually overcome it. Question 4. Schizophrenia is a disease. It is a chronic disease and severe mental disorder with a typical onset in adolescence and early adulthood and a lifetime prevalence of 1%. Dwight Evans cited that on average â€Å"male have their illness onset 3 to 4 years earlier than female† (78). Schizophrenia is not a developmental disorder but a chronic mental disease. The four type of schizophrenia are the following, paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, and undifferentiated. The characteristic and symptoms of paranoid are hallucinations and delusions. In the disorganized type, it symptoms and characteristic are reflected by disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, and inappropriate affect. The catatonic type manifest clinical syndrome such as excessive purposeless motor activity, extreme negativism, peculiar voluntary movements and so on. The undifferentiated sub type is diagnosed when the patient â€Å"does not meet criteria for the previous type yet does meet the criteria for schizophrenia† (Maddux & Winstead, 182). It is more likely that schizophrenia has a genetic cause than environmental. It is quite common that when there is schizophrenia in the family, it is passed down to another member. Thus this disease is called â€Å"psychobiological† illness amenable to chemical intervention and modification of the environment. An example to this is when a person is exposed to violence and all other abuses since birth, he has the tendency to have psychological trauma which causes schizophrenia. Question 5. One incident that happened in my lifetime was when I read the story about a plane crash killing all the more than two hundred passengers. After I read the story, I was shocked and I developed psychological fear regarding boarding an aircraft. Psychology fit in this scenario because I knew pretty well that it was simply an accident. In this experience, I developed some fear as it would always come to my mind that this plane might crash too. But as I came to realize, accident happens anywhere to anybody, at any given time and cause. Since I cannot prevent it nor predict it, the best thing to do is to just be very careful and avoid those that I can, but those that I cannot; I just leave my fate in the hands of God. The connection here between psychology and life is that, life is real; we should rather be practical and realistic than be overcome by fear and anxiety about our bad experiences. Question 6. I have incorporated in my work of art elements of psychology through my use of colors and designs. In using bright colors, I usually expressed strong emotion such as anger, or fear, or other emotions. I also incorporated psychology in my designs such as shapes that expresses meanings like lovely ideas or joyful situations. I will incorporate them in the future in the same way I incorporated it the last time with perhaps some improvement or modification. I could connect the process that I go through as an artist with psychology through putting meaning on my experiences in the light of what I have learned about psychology. That is, I must seek the context of what I am trying to portray to which I labor so much. It means that my work of art should be reflective of what life is, of the emotions, such love, fear, and other strong feelings that we often encounter or should I say, that always experience on a daily basis. Finally, one influence that will mesh with my future work of art is those that wear green colors, or things that are green. I am fascinated by this color and this influence in me can help meshed up with my future work of art. Work Cited Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. International Encyclopedia of Adolescence, Volume 1 USA: CRC Press, 2007. Corey, Gerald & Corey Marianne Schneider. I Never Knew I Had a Choice: Explorations in Personal Growth USA: Cengage Learning, 2006 Deutsch, Morton; Coleman, Peter T. ; & Marcus, Eric Colton. The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice USA: John Wiley and Sons, 2006 Drebben, Olga. Patient Education in Rehabilitation USA: Jones and Bartlett, 2010 Evans, Dwight Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders: What We Know and What We don’t Know New York: Oxford University Press Hirsch, Steven & Weinberger Daniel Roy. Schizophrenia Great Britain: Wiley-Blackwell, 1995 Kalat, James W. Introduction to Psychology USA: Cengage Learning, 2008. Maddux, James & Winstead, Barbara. Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding USA: Routledge, 2005. Salkind, Neil J. An Introduction to Theories of Human Development USA: Sage Publications, 2004 Swartwood, Michie & Trotter, Kathy. Observing Children and Adolescents: Student Workbook USA: Cengage Learning, 2004