DEVELOPMENT ACROSS

THE LIFESPAN
Concepts of Applying Growth &
Development to Learning & Teaching
 Growth and Development
Growth refers to physical change, increase in
size.
Development refers to increase in complexity of
function.
– Skill progression
– Capacity, skill to adapt to environment
Continuous, orderly, sequential processes
– All humans follow same pattern
– Sequence of each stage predictable
Growth VS Development
Growth and Development
Learning helps or hinders process
Each developmental stage has own
characteristics
Cephalocaudal and proximodistal direction
Development proceeds from simple to
complex
Becomes increasingly differentiated
Certain stages more critical than others
Pace uneven
Factors Influencing Development
Genetics

Prenatal influences

Family and Parenting

Cultural Influences

Nutrition

Environment

Health
 Factors Influencing
Development
GENETICS
• Temperament
• Chromosomes and genes
– Carry messages that encode for
characteristics, diseases
– Sex chromosomes
– Autosomal chromosomes
• Disease can be caused by inherited
gene or by mutation that manifests in
the disease
 Factors Influencing
Development
PRENATAL INFLUENCES
• Mother’s nutrition, general state of
health
• Substance ingestion
• Prescription, non-prescription
medication
• Maternal illnesses
• Chronic maternal distress, depression
• Radiation, chemicals, environmental
hazards
 Factors Influencing
Development
FAMILY & CULTURAL
PARENTING INFLUENCES
• Profile of family • Traditional
characteristics practices
• Families • Genetic variations
influence • Rules regarding
children patterns of social
profoundly interaction
• Genetic traits
 Factors Influencing
Development
NUTRITION ENVIRONMENT
• Essential to • Living conditions
growth and • Socioeconomic status
development • Climate
• Poorly nourished
– More likely to get • Community
infections
– Not attain full HEALTH
height potential • Injury, illness
• Prenatal nutrition • Prolonged, chronic
illness
 CONCEPT OF APPLYING
GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT TO
LEARNING & TEACHING
 PERIOD OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Nursing: A Concept-Based Approach to Learning, Volume One Copyright ©2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.
North Carolina Concept-Based Learning Editorial Board All rights reserved.
 An important thing to remember
about these age ranges is that
individual differences exist!
• People mature at different rates and
reach developmental milestones at
different points
• Environmental factors, including culture,
play a role in determining when events
occur
• Age ranges are only averages, and
some people will be above or below
What is lifespan development?
• The field of study that examines
the patterns of growth, change,
and stability in behavior that
occur throughout the entire
human life span!
Overall, lifespan developmentalists
believe several things…
 STUDY OF LIFESPAN
• That the study of lifespan development
should focus on human development
– Principals that are universal to
development
– Cultural, racial, ethnic differences in
development
– The development of individual traits and
characteristics
• That development is a lifelong, continuing
process
• That development occurs through change
and growth in addition to stability,
consistency, and continuity
 Developmentalists often focus on
different topics…
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
– The body’s physical makeup, including
the brain, nervous system, muscles, and
senses, and the need for food, drink, and
sleep
▪Malnutrition, reaction time
“Does the amount of sleep a college
student gets each night affect stress?”
“How does dealing with a chronic illness
affect a mothers behavior?”
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Figure 7-5 Body proportions at various ages.

 Topical Areas Studied By
Developmentalists…
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• Involves the ways that growth and change in
intellectual capabilities influence a person’s
behavior
– Learning, memory, problem solving skills,
and intelligence across the lifespan
– “Does excessive television viewing effect
intelligence?”
– “Can teenagers remember things that
happened when they were toddlers?”
 Topical Areas Studied By
Developmentalists…
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
• Involves the ways that the enduring
characteristics that differentiate one
person from another change over the life
span
– Interactions with others, social
relationships, individual qualities
– “When does a sense of gender develop
and does it change across the
lifespan?”
 Topical Areas Studied By
Developmentalists…
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
–Involves the way in which an
individual’s interactions and social
relationships grow, change, and
remain stable over the course of
life
–“Do people become more isolated
in late adulthood?”
 The lifespan is usually
divided into broad (albeit
arbitrary) age ranges…
 Growth and Development
Theories
Freud, • Psychosexual development
Sigmund

Erikson, Erik • Psychosocial development

Piaget, Jean • Cognitive development

Kohlberg, • Moral development

Lawrence
• Spiritual development
Other Theorists • Biophysical, Temperament
Freud: Psychosexual Theory
Freud’s Five Stages of
Development
Freud’s Five Stages of
Development
Erikson: Psychosocial Theory
 Havighurst:
Psychosocial Theorist
 Vygotsky:
Psychosocial Theorist
 Peck: Psychosocial Theorist

• With increase in age of adult

– Physical capabilities, functions decrease
– Mental and social capacities increase
• Three developmental tasks in old age
– Ego Differentiation Vs. Work-role
Preoccupation
– Body Transcendence Vs. Body
Preoccupation
– Ego Transcendence Vs. Ego Preoccupation
Gould: Psychosocial Theorist

• Transformation central theme

during adulthood
– Stage 1 🡪 ages 16–18
– Stage 2 🡪 ages 18–22
– Stage 3 🡪 ages 22–28
– Stage 4 🡪 ages 29–34
– Stage 5 🡪 ages 35–43
– Stage 6 🡪 ages 43–50
– Stage 7 🡪 ages 50–60
Piaget: Cognitive Theorist
 Piaget’s Theory:
Cognitive Development
• Each phase has person
using three primary abilities
1. Assimilation
2. Accommodation
3. Adaptation
 Other Psychosocial Theories
• Jung’s Theory of Individualism
– With age, shift from external world toward
inner experience
• Disengagement Theory
– Older person and society at large 🡪 mutual,
reciprocal withdrawal
• Continuity Theory
– Successful aging involves maintaining or
continuing previous values, habits, family ties
 Behaviorist Theory
• Learning takes place when
individual’s reaction is either
positively or negatively reinforced
• B.F. Skinner
– Operant conditioning
– Rewarded or reinforced behavior
will be repeated
 Social Learning Theory
• Albert Bandura
– Children learn attitudes, beliefs,
customs, values through social
contacts with adults, other children
– Imitate or model behavior
– People can choose how they act
– Self-efficacy
▪Expectation that someone can
produce a desired outcome
Temperament Theory:
Chess & Thomas
 Resiliency Theory
• Ability to function with healthy
responses even when
experiencing stress
• Protective factors
• Risk factors
• Confronted with crisis
a. Adjustment phase
b. Adaptation phase
Ecologic Theory:
Bronfenbrenner
 The context of development takes a broad
perspective…
The ecological approach (Bronfenbrenner)
– Suggests that different environmental
levels simultaneously influence
individuals…
Four major levels:
1. Microsystem (everyday immediate
environment)—home,
caregiver/parent, friends, teachers
2. Mesosystem (connects parts of the
microsystem)—parents linked to kids,
students to teachers, friends to
friends, bosses to employees
 Moral Theories
*Moral development involves learning
what one should and should not do
▪ Moral: relating to right and wrong
▪ Morality: requirements needed to live
together in society
▪ Moral behavior: way a person perceives and
responds to those requirements
▪ Moral development: pattern of change in
moral behavior with age
Moral Development:
Kohlberg’s Theory
 Gilligan: Moral Theorist
• Reported women often considered
Kohlberg’s dilemmas irrelevant
• Moral development proceeds through 3
levels:
Stage 1: Caring for oneself
Stage 2: Caring for others
Stage 3: Caring for self and others
• Women often see morality in integrity of
relationships
 Fowler: Spiritual Theorist
• Development of faith as force that
gives meaning to life
– Undifferentiated
– Intuitive-projective
– Mythic-literal
– Synthetic-conventional
– Individuating-reflexive
– Paradozical-consolidative
– Universalizing
Westerhoff: Spiritual Theorist

• Faith as a way of being, behaving that

evolves from an experienced faith to
an owned faith
• Four stages
A. Experienced faith
B. Affiliative faith
C. Searching faith
D. Owned faith
Applying Growth and Development
Concepts to Nursing/ Healthcare
• Using developmental theories
– Guiding assessment
– Tasks of specific age
– Individual variations
– Explaining behavior
• Provides direction for nursing
interventions
• Learning & Teaching for Health
education
 REFERENCES
• Butkus, S.C. (2015). Maternal-neonatal nursing made
incredibly easy! Third edition. Copyright 2015. Wolters Kluwer
Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
• Carley, Jerry (2011). Nursing Growth and Development
Overview. Accessed from:
http://nursing--growth-and-development.pbworks.com/w/page
/10228855/G%20and%20D--General%20Overview
• Kendra, Cherry (2020). Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial
Development. Theories: Psychosocial Psychology. VeryWell
Mind Website.
https://www.verywellmind.com/erik-eriksons-stages-of-psycho
social-development-2795740
• Pillitteri, Adele. (2010). Maternal and child health nursing:
Care of the childbearing and childrearing family; 6th edition.
• Tabangcora, Iris Dawn (2017). Maternal and Child Health
Nursing – Development Milestones: Normal Pediatric
Development Milestones. Last updated on January 19, 2017.
Retrieved from:
https://nurseslabs.com/normal-pediatric-developmental-milest
ones/