Late Childhood Development

Chapter 15 was on the gains and losses of late adulthood. In this stage of life, there are a lot more losses than gains. However, older adults tend to learn how to manage these losses and are able to adapt to them successfully. When people start moving towards older adulthood, their friends and family network begins to start getting smaller. During this stage, there are also a lot of declines physically. The immune system and sensory systems start to decline, along with cognitive declines in fluid intelligence. Adults can help prevent some of these declines by staying healthy and advancing their crystallized intelligence (verbal ability and factual knowledge). Elderly people actually remember their more recent experiences better than their …show more content…
These processes include selection, optimization, and compensation. Selection involves selecting activities that are rewarding. Optimization involves finding ways of achieving their goals. Compensation involves finding new means to achieve their ends. The chapter mentions another description of techniques for how to face challenges in older adulthood. There is the primary-control strategy, which attempts to affect the immediate environment and is supposed to help increase feelings of master and self-esteem. Then there is the secondary-control strategy, which attempts to change us. This change could involve something like changing goals. These strategies are supposed to help take control of challenges and lead to feelings of happiness and increase well-being. Emotion regulation seems to improve with aging. Older adults are able to regulate their emotions better and tend to have fewer negative emotions as compared to younger people. The amount of positive emotions stay relatively the same compared to young adults and older adults. This is because older adults pay more attention to their emotions and feelings when they are