Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present—which seldom happens to us.

PREVIEW QUESTIONS

■         Why is it important to study child development?

■         What are the four major perspectives for looking at development?

■         Who are the most important theorists in the field, and what are the main aspects of their theories?

■         What are the main aspects and stages of children's development, and what are the main influences on it?

■         How do researchers study children, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each method?


At 3 years of age, Vicky pipes up: "I can drive our car!" When Charles nods and says "Yes, when you're older you can drive it," Vicky starts to cry at the idea that he thinks she cannot drive it now. She needs to feel competent—and to show her competence, which she does by acting out her definition of driving: climbing into the driver's seat and twirling the steering wheel (which she calls the "tee-whee").

This scene is more complex than it seems. Underlying what Vicky says and does are such aspects of her development as how she learns what a car is and what physical actions driving involves, how she pronounces words, how she communicates with other people, how she feels about herself, and how she shows her feelings. Let us look at the ways developmentalists identify and study these and other aspects of children's development. A Child's World: Concepts and Issues

WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT, AND WHY SHOULD WE STUDY IT?
The study of child development is the scientific study of the normal quantitative and qualitative ways in which children change over time. Quantitative change involves changes in amount, such as in height, weight, and size of vocabulary. The study of qualitative change is more complex, since it involves changes in kind, such as the changing nature of intelligence. You can compare these two kinds of change in the development of memory. The fact that Vicky at age 7 will remember more out of an array of objects shown to her than she was able to remember at age 3 illustrates quantitative change. The fact that at 7 she is able to use memory strategies (like grouping the objects into categories to help her remember them), a skill she did not have at 3, shows qualitative change.

The field of child development itself developed as a scientific discipline as its goals evolved to include description, explanation, prediction, and modification of

behavior. Its original focus was on describing behavior, to determine age norms for growth and development. Today, developmentalists try to explain why cer­tain behaviors occur. The next step is the prediction of behavior—a challenging and complex task.

What are the practical implications in the study of child development? There are many. By learning about the usual course of development, we can look at the different factors in a child's life and attempt to predict future behavior. If our predictions hint at future problems, we can try to modify development by offer­ing training or treatment. For example, if a girl seems to be developing slowly, a professional may either reassure the child's parents that she is normal, or advise them how to help her overcome her deficiencies.

Students of child development draw on a wide range of disciplines, includ­ing psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, education, and medicine. This book includes findings from research in all these fields.

THE WHOLE CHILD: ASPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT
As we follow changes in Vicky and Jason, we will see that these changes affect every facet of development. To simplify discussion, we talk separately in this book about physical development, intellectual development, and personality-social-emotional development. But we need to remember that these divisions are often arbitrary and rarely neat. They overlap and interact with each other throughout life, since development in one sphere affects development in the others.

Physical Development
Changes in height, weight, sensory capacity, and motor abilities, development of the brain, and health-related issues are all part of physical development and exert a major influence on both personality and intellect. For example, much of the infant Jason's knowledge about the world comes to him from his senses and his motor activity, and physical and mental development in infancy proceed in close harmony. Later, the physical and hormonal changes of puberty will dra­matically affect the developing concept of the self.

Intellectual (Cognitive) Development
As children grow older, more of their abilities can be characterized as intellec­tual development. The wide variety of mental abilities, such as learning, lan­guage, memory, reasoning, and thinking—in sum, our intellectual capabilities— change over time and are closely related to both motor and emotional aspects of being. Vicky's growing memory capacity, for example, underlies the develop­ment of separation anxiety, the fear that Ellen will not return once she has gone away. If Vicky did not have the ability to remember the past and anticipate the future, she could not be anxious about her mother's absence.