Process Lifespan

Throughout someone’s lifespan they go through many changes and develop cognitively, emotionally and physically. The stages people go through are prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle/late childhood, adolescence, early, middle and late adulthood and death. I will explain the ways a child in middle childhood and an adult in early adulthood develop cognitively and physically and then look at the similarities and differences between the ways they go through these processes. I interviewed a 6 year old and 25 year old and discovered their views on life were similar in some ways but the fullness of their thought process and the way they observe and think about these things and understand the world was different depending on their stage of development.

Cognitive development is a process of constant change throughout someone’s life. Located in the Human Development Thru The Lifespan DVD in the section titled Middle Childhood: Cognitive & Language Development, it says that Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development for middle childhood is concrete operations. During this period children think more flexibly and logically than before but they may not be able to explain why they came to their conclusions. The transition of thinking preoperational to operational is established during this time. Preoperational thinking is thinking in a pre-logical way and operational thinking is logical thinking. When a child is fully operational they can explain conclusions and reasons for coming about them. Concrete operation happens because of changes in mental processing develops into more reality based thinking. Children learn that certain properties remain the same even if other properties are altered. If you had two cups with the same amount of water in each and then poured them into different shaped containers a child would be able to recognize that the two containers still have the same amount of water in them. When a child recognizes this it shows that they have mastered conservation. Another part of concrete operations is identity. Identity is the realization that when something such as water has not had any additional water added or taken away it stays the same. Certain operations can reverse or lessen the effects of others, this is called reversibility. When a child has developed through the middle childhood phase they have mastered numbers, substances, length, area, weight and volume. I can relate to this theory through speaking with the 6 year old girl and by having the privilege of watching her grow over the years. I can see her development of cognition in math and reading. When I asked her to tell me what she has done well at in her life, she said “I like math and reading, and my teacher told me I read as good as a third grader.” She has excelled at such a young age because she practices these things all of the time. Her mother and grandfather encourage her learning by buying lots of math workbooks and helping her read books.

Early adulthood signifies a person making life decisions and choices and gaining responsibilities. Some events that shape cognitive growth in adults are parenthood, a job change, a change in a relationship, illness, death, psychotherapy and religion. On the Human Development through

the Lifespan DVD in the section about Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development is says, “Studies show that education strongly correlates with every measure of adult cognition. Education helps students improve how they think.” It improves verbal skills, reasoning skills, flexibility of thought, and reasoning ability. It is true that if someone does not stay mentally active they may lose some cognitive skills, so the saying, “Use it or lose it” is a true saying. In the Early Adulthood: Cognitive Development section on the DVD, K. Warner Shaie says that during adulthood a person goes through