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I believe that my development as a child should be viewed from a global perspective. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory applies to me because dynamic interactions between various social, cultural, and economic backgrounds shaped my development (Kinnucan, 2013). I was influenced culturally by my Indian heritage. I was impacted socially by stuttering and growing up bilingual in Gujarati and English. I was influenced economically by growing up in a middle-class family in a suburban environment. From these various perspectives, I will analyze my developmental from infancy (birth- 1 year), toddlerhood (1-3 years), preschool age (3-6 years), and school age (6-12 years). I interviewed my father in order to gain information about my behavior and development from infancy to school age. On July 14, 1993, a healthy baby boy was delivered by C-section and weighed 8 lb. 6 oz. According to my father, as a newborn I had all the reflex behaviors such as sucking, crying, rooting, and grasping (Kail, 2012, p.97). I contracted hypoglycemia from my mother who had developed diabetes during pregnancy. I was placed in the ICU for two days for treatment (H. Patel, personal communication, November 1, 2013). Afterwards, I could be breastfed, held by my mother, and stay in the same room as my mother. These factors lead to the development of a secure attachment to my mother. In addition, I did not have elaborate bed time rituals because I co-slept with my parents or grandparents as an infant, toddler, and preschooler (H. Patel, personal communication, November 1, 2013, Kail, 2012, p.100). In my childhood, my parents and maternal grandparents cared for me and I interacted extensively with my older sister. Compared to when my sister was an infant, I... ... middle of paper ... ... stuttering affected my English more than my Guajarati. Therefore, the social interactions with my family members remained constant. Fortunately, long-term speech therapy dramatically reduced my stuttering by the time I started high school. When I was school aged I started referring to my “blue blanket” as an object rather than a living object, corresponding to the concrete operational stage of development (Kail, 2012, p.177). My memory strategies developed throughout elementary school. In 1st and 2nd grade, I studied for spelling tests by rehearsal, writing each word 10 times. Later in 4th and 5th grade I started using more elaborate methods, such as mnemonics, in order to learn words (Kail, 2012, p. 211). In 4th grade I began to play the Tabla, Indian drums, which improved my fine motor skills because of the precise hand movements needed to make various sounds.
In the ecological systems theory, Brofenbrenner postulated that in order to completely understand development, the entire ecological system must be taken into account. Each level of the system offers a diverse range of options and sources for growth. The microsystem level - which is what we will be focusing on – contains structures with which the child has direct contact. It embodies the relationships and interactions the child has with their immediate surrounding such as family, school, neighbors, and childcare environments. Relationships that are bi-directional tend to have the strongest influence, meaning the interactions have impact in two directions, both toward the individual and away. The microsystem provides the initial set of interrelations a child has and provides the basis for developing trust with their significant people. For this reason, adopting at the earliest age po...
The attachment style that a child endures with their mother initially begins before the child is even born. In the mother’s womb, the infant becomes aware of their mother and father’s voices, where they begin to develop a bond with them and feel nurtured and comforted by the things they hear their parents sing and speak to them. According to Bowlby, the development of attachment takes place in four different phases and are reinforced as they grow older from the Preattachment (birth to age 6 weeks), attachment-in-the-making (age 6 weeks to 8 months), clear cut attachment (between 8 months to 1 ½ years of age) and the reciprocal relationship (from 1 ½ or 2 and on). As the child grows older, then begin to understand their parent’s feelings and motives and are able to organize their efforts and reciprocate the same i...
Bronfenbrenner’s theory explains five distinct but related environmental settings in a child’s life that could be influential in promoting the best outcomes and he explains how individual and their family systems are influenced in their development, how relationships function, and how interactions take place. Bronfenbrenner’s five systems: ”(Bigner & Gerhardt, 2008).
Can I love? Can I be loved? Am I worthy of love? I am a woman who experienced the anguish of love-loss at a very tender age and these questions capture my prime concern and fear in life. At a young age, I bore the brunt of neglect and abuse from the very caregivers who were supposed to be my protectors. At the age of 16, I was put into foster care. I have experienced tumultuous and dysfunctional intimate relationships in my search for love, connectivity and identity. Now, as a mother, I am learning to give the love I never got.
After birth, babies immediately begin to establish a bond with his or her caregiver (BOOK). There are instances, such as childbirth complications or sickness; where infants are taken away from the mother immediately after birth. In sterile hospital settings, researchers have determined attachment activities, such as singing, “encourages the infant to strive towards maintaining homeostasis and internal equilibrium”. (A). By fostering attachment, the hospital “ultimately contributes to the infant’s psychological and physical development” (A). The child is able to receive warmth and empathy from the mother, ultimately increasing survival and stimulating physical development. (A)
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory will be applied throughout this essay to delve into the reasoning behind particular behavioural issues. According to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, an individual has multiple environments known as their ecological systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Bronfenbrenner (1994) suggests that a developing child is influenced by the relationships surrounding them and the best way to understand a child’s behaviour is to look at the numerous aspects of the child’s environment and how they interact with each other. The relationships and environments that the child interacts with have been separated into layers known as the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and the overarching chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The microsystem is the environment where the child has direct face-to-face relationships such as at home, day care and school (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The relationships formed within the microsystem directly impact the development of a child (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). It is through the processes of repeated interactions with people, objects and symbols that the human develops (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The second layer in the ecological model is the mesosystem, which is the interaction between two of the microsystems such as the relationship between a parent and a teacher (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The exosystem is an external environment, with which the
Through the well-studied idea of maternal-infant attachment there has been important insight into a child’s development. Mary Ainsworth found through her “Strange Situation” experiment that there are three distinct types of attachment that infants form; anxious avoidant, secure, and anxious resistant (O’Gorman, 2013). Later a fourth attachment style known as, disorganized attachment, was identified (CITE). Secure attachment is linked to maternal sensitivity just as insecure attachment is linked to maternal rejection or unpredictable maternal response to an infant’s desires and needs (Kinsvatter, Desmond, Yanikoski, & Stahl, 2013). Infants are “at risk” of developing an insecure attachment to their mother when they are placed in alternative care before nine months of age (Stifter, Coulehan, & Fish, 1993). This is concerning in that we see there are negative effec...
The old African proverb ‘it takes a whole village to raise a child’ (Mohamed, 1996, p. 57) rings significantly through Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner and Evans 2000); a theory which focuses on gaining insight into human development through identifying the circumstances and considering the environmental influences of which a child is raised not just the genetic components.
Human development issues have remained critical in understanding how and why people behave the way they do. Several human development theories exist to explain human development from birth through to death. Some of these have focused on the psychological aspects of human development while others on the cognitive aspect (Piaget, 1971; Lerner, 2001; Swick and Williams, 2006). Other human development theories have also focused on the social and environmental aspects (Bronfenbrenner & Bronfenbrenner, 2009; Swick, 2004). This current essay examines one of the major social theories relating to child development. The theory to be examined is the Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of human development. The essay will further examine the applicability of the Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory to my personal development, growing up as a child between the ages of 4 years and 12 years. In the first instance, the essay will focus on explaining the – Bronfenbrenner’s theory including the four types of systems described by the theory. Subsequently, the essay will examine how these systems apply to my life in relation to the social systems in which I grew in South Sudan in Africa. It will be seen that the Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory
...ic heritability studies revealed that there is a very strong heritability factor as the cause of stuttering. Moreover, current research is trying to find specific genes responsible for stuttering however no clear results could be obtained yet. The studies indicated that the influence of heritability can be up to 85% and led researchers to find out the remaining. Parental factors, unique life-events and learning factors are found to be important especially by developmental stuttering and that they may affect the individuals through their life time. As it can be understood from these studies, it is now generally accepted that fluency is a multidimensional skill reflecting a complex coordination of many extrinsic and intrinsic factors (Karrass et al., 2006). That is why; it also becomes important to focus on many different aspects during the treatment of the stutters.
As we have been learning this semester in class, the experiences and ecological settings in which a child grows up in are important in giving each child their uniqueness. According to Bronfenbrenner, the degree to which individuals realize their potentials and develop their abilities is determined by interactions and experiences (Berns, 2016). It is evident that these interactions and experiences can come from different sources. In order to understand how a child’s development is influenced by their environment, it is important to know how their biological, social, and psychological characteristics are shaped
Bronfenbrenner theorised that there are many different influences that affect a child’s development, forming 5 systems to categorise certain events, or environments into. This theory helps me to understand the theme of Nature Vs Nurture, as it gives some context as to what environments can affect a child's development. From this, we can work out solutions for each child's situation, to ensure that their development is still progressing.
Child growth and development is a process that consists of some building blocks, which are components that combine in an infinite number of ways (Cherry, n.d.). As a result of the variations of building blocks in a child’s development, educators, psychologists, and philosophers have been constantly engaged in the debate of nature versus nurture debate. Many researchers agree that child development is a complex interaction between his/her genetic background (nature) and his/her environment (nurture). In essence, some developmental aspects are strongly affected by biology whereas other aspects are influenced by environmental factors. From the onset of an individu...
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological, system’s theory describes how the child and their immediate surroundings are in an innermost layer surrounded, embedded and influenced by layers from the larger environment all impacting upon the child (Ministry of Education, 1996; Paquette, & Ryan, 2001). Of particular interest are the effects to the child of two way relationships towards and away from the child, as defined by Bronfenbrenner as bi-directional influences, these are particularly influential in the child’s inner layer. For instance: the impact to the child of attentive or non-attentive parents affects how the child reacts to a given situation, which in turn affects how the parent behaves. Notwithstanding, the impact of bi-directional influences on the child’s world continues into the outer layers, as in the example of a parent’s workplace demanding more input into the workplace, which means...
Babyhood is the time from when you are born till you 're 18 months old. Like everybody else, I don 't remember anything at all from this time. Whatever I do know is from my parents, siblings and other family members. My mother told me I wanted to appear into this world earlier than I should have. If not for the medications that let me arrive at the proper time, I may not have been here today writing this very sentence. I was born on 19th December, 1999 in Gujarat, India. My parents tell me I was a very quite baby and never troubled them much at all. I would never start crying in the middle of the night, arousing the entire neighborhood. My older brother would often look at me, and state how huge my eyes looked. As a baby, I was very fair, and often was referred to a white egg. Everyone loved to play and touch my cheeks when I was a baby.