Essay About Childrens Development Patterns And Predictable Patterns Of Biological Behavior

Explain the Principle Psychological Perspectives
Biology and genetic inheritances determine predictable patterns of biological behavior that Gesell termed norms. He felt that childrens development patterns opened automatically by biology, as the unfolding of a flower does because it is genetically programmed to do so in the right environment. As the flower requires proper soil and rain, children require a nurturing, stable environment, and little else to mature both biologically and psychologically. Gesell was among the first professionals to compile developmental stage information with which parents could learn to understand their children. Because childhood and adolescent development is the product of millions of years of evolution, he mainly advocated sensitivity and understanding as parental approaches to development. Biology has already given children what they need to understand their own development.Gesell worked in a lab at Yale University, studying children and their developmental stages. He cataloged childrens behavior at various ages and described the norms in their collective development. As such, his theory is often grouped with normative-descriptive approaches, because it uses norms of development to describe the process of maturation.Gesells theory was groundbreaking because it implied that learning, illness, injury and life experiences were secondary, if at all influential, to biology and the evolution of the genetics that program a childs development. Unless the childs environment were so distorted as to be harmful, he felt that children were born with all the information their bodies needed for development and maturation. Genetics determine the developmental process and the timing of maturation, and parents could affect very little of this, except by being sensitive to cues learned from the descriptive norms. Our genes play a big part on our behaviour. There are many disorders that affect our behaviour that are caused by genes such as Huntingtonâs disease which is