Major Theories Influencing Early Childhood Education

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As I reflect back on this course and the many activities we have completed, choosing three objectives was not an easy task. . This course gave us viable information about child development from the videos, the Virtual Child Exercise, and the textbook. With early childhood being my concentration, I found all of the objectives extremely useful and knowledgeable. I tried to choose three topics that I felt would provided the most information and touch the main objectives we learned in this course.

Compare and contrast the major theories influencing early childhood education, and focus on the contributions of each to the current status of the field.

The beginning of the semester, I learned about interesting theories and theorists and their role in child and/or human development. Many theories on child development focused on the needs children require to graduate to the next level for optimal growth. Most theorists believe that the child’s and/or human’s development is a continuous process and one cannot progress until that stage in life and/ or need is met. Our textbook focused on six theories: Maturational Theory, Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Theory, Cognitive-Developmental Theory, Bioecological Theory, Maslow’s Essential Needs Theory and Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory. I will briefly discuss the similarities and differences of each theory. Before I can discuss the similarities and differences of each theory, I must first give a description of each. Maturational Theory was created by theorist Arnold Gesell. He believed that a child’s growth and development are based on the environment and their genetic makeup. Psychoanalytic Theory was developed by Sigmund Freud and he believed that children’s behavior and development is a reflection of their inner thought and sexual desires (Marotz, 2016. p. 4-5). His theory has five stages, oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Freud believed that children must met and satisfy emotional conflict fully before advance to the next stage. The Psychosocial Theory was founded by Erik Erikson and like Freud, he believed that the atmosphere around the child affects social-emotional and personality development. Erikson too has stages of development. Cognitive-Development Theory (Jean Piaget) is the belief that children were born with basic genetic capabilities that allows them to build knowledge and meaning through exploration of their environment. Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory believes that children learn through positive and negative interaction and/or reinforcement from his or her environment. Bioecological Theory believes that a child’s environment plays a significant role in their development. The last theory, Maslow’s Essential Needs Theory examines human development from a motivational aspect. Abraham Maslow believed that one will take action and fulfill their needs by any means necessary. A brief description has been given about each theory; therefore we can compare and contact the theories. The Psychoanalytic and psychosocial Theory, the Cognitive Theory, the Bioecological Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory all believes that human’s develop in stages and
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Growth is the physical change a person experience. The growth process continues throughout a life span (Marotz, 2016, p. 24). Growth is measured by a person’s gain; their height, weight, shoe size, head circumference, body shape and so on. There are many contributing factors that determine a person’s growth pattern, rate of growth and overall wellness. One factor is genetics and another factor is a person’s environment. Genetic growth patterns are determined prior to birth. However, a child’s genetic growth pattern can be affected by their environment. For example, a child exposed to poverty, malnutrition or abuse will experience a slower growth rate than a child that has access to health …show more content…
Sadly, I was only able to choose three objectives that I felt were important to discuss in the course reflection. The theories and theorists provided us with insight on human develop and how our genetics and environmental factors can affect our growth and development. Language, social, cognitive, motor and physical skills shapes a child’s growth and development. The everyday physical factors also affect the child’s development. There are many more physical factors that can affect a child development and in multiple domains. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to go into full detail for these factors and how each domain is affected by the factors. Our textbook as well as the Administration for Children and Families website offers more information on these factors and affected

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