Principles of Development

Principle of Change

As we know, human beings always think of moving ahead. Similarly, the nature and scope of development involved also changes with time. What a person was at age 5, will not be same at age 20. The person will have changed in many respects such as physical growth, understanding and maturation. The process of development in the person also changes correspondingly.

Principle of Significance of Early Development

  1. A universally accepted idea is that early development is more important and critical than later development. 
  2. Early development involves the experiences a child has during his or her young age. Healthy experiences will lead to healthy development while negative experiences may lead to an unhealthy development. 
  3. Positive experiences can be provided by parents through love and caring. There are some capabilities, which develop best at some specific time of life, such as brain development, language development and so on. 
  4. Parental love and care promote the mental health of a child and the child becomes less prone to behavioural problems at a later age.  

Principle of Predictability 

  1. Development principles are predictable. We can know the particular age at which children will learn to walk, speak and so on. These predations help to decide many things for children. But, it is important to note that this principle does not mean that all children will develop in same way. 
  2. There may be differences in the way each child develops because every child has a unique personality, which is developed on the basis of his or her socio-cultural context. 

Principle of Generality to Specificity

  1. As we have already discussed that the development process follows a sequence. It proceeds from head to foot and from central axis to extremities of the body. 
  2. In the same way, this principle of sequentiality also suggests that the nature of development follows the principle of generality to specificity. 
  3. The development process starts with general responses shown by the child as s/he passes through the later stages s/he starts exhibiting specific behaviours. For example, a child may utter a sound which is common for each and every object and person s/he sees in the environment, like inna, but later on s/he starts pronouncing specific words denoting specific objects or persons, like maa, pa, and so on.

Principle of Sequentiality

  1. Principle of sequentiality states that every individual although exhibit difference in change, they follow the same sequence of change. In prenatal stage of development, a genetic sequence is followed appearing at fixed intervals with specific characteristics. 
  2. Cephalocaudal and proximodistal tendencies are found to be followed in maintaining sequence and direction of development. 
  3. The Cephalocaudal tendency exhibits that the development proceeds in the longitudinal direction i.e. from head to foot. That is the reason why the child first gains control over head before s/he starts walking. 
  4. Proximodistal tendency proceeds from near to the distant and from parts of the body near the center develop first then the extremities. Therefore the child in the earlier stage of development exercises on the fundamental muscles rather than the smaller muscles or fine motor skills. Thus the child follows the sequence in the development process as s/he first draws some haphazard line before writing an alphabet.

Principle of Interaction between Heredity and Environment 

  1. Development of child is a process that cannot be defined wholly based either on heredity or environment. Both have to play an important role in child development. 
  2. There are arguments in favour of both. However, most of the psychologists agree that an interplay of these two factors leads to development. Where heredity decides or set some limits on development (mostly physical), environmental influences complete the developmental process (qualitative). Environmental influences provide space for multi-dimensional development through interaction with family, peer, society and so on. 

Principle of Individual Differences 

  1. One the most important principle of development is that it involves individual differences. There is no fixed rate of development. That all children will learn to walk is universal, but the time at which each child takes his or her first step may vary. This difference may be attributed to heredity and environmental factors. 
  2. It is important to understand Environmental influences provide these differences to provide better opportunities for development. 

Principle of Expectations 

There are some expectations from a child at each stage of development. For example during infancy, children learn to control physical actions; as toddlers, they learn to correlate the different concepts they have learnt; at school, they learn to interact with peer group and increase their social context. Therefore, there are some expectations associated with different stages of development. 

Principle of Association of Maturation and Learning 

  1. Biological growth and development is known as maturation. 
  2. Biological change involves changes in the brain and the nervous system, which provide new abilities to a child. 
  3. Development proceeds from simple to complex. 
  4. In the beginning, a child learns through concrete objects and gradually moves to abstract thinking. This transition happens because of maturation. 

Principle of Continuation 

  1. Development is a continuous process. Children keep adding new skills to their abilities on the basis of their experiences. Almost all children follow a similar pattern in the sequence of acquisition of their skills. This sequence continues to move and add new knowledge and skills and help children to learn from their experiences. There is no time when we do not learn. 
  2. Learning is directly related to development, which in turn, is a process that stops only with the life of a person.  
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