It is not related to a specific area of development (for example, psycho-social) or age period (adolescence) rather, it attempts to understand the development of an individual throughout the life within a changing socio-cultural context.

Before entering into the details of life-span perspective, let us reflect on the following questions: 

How does our understanding of the world grow and change throughout our lives? 

How do our personalities and relationships develop through the entire span of life? 

How does achievement motivation of a child vary from childhood through adulthood?

The above highlighted questions emphasize that a life span perspective is essential in order to get responses.

According to the life-span perspective, human development is multiply determined and cannot be understood within the scope of a single framework. It is a field of study that examines patterns of growth, change and stability in behaviour that occur the entire life-span. We all know that no single stage of a person’s life (such as infancy, early childhood, later childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age) can be understood apart from its origins and its consequences.