integrative theory

In this essay I am going to summarize Fran Horowitz’ article “Child Development and the PITS.” I will be using the summary to explain Horowitz’ notion of integrative theory. I will also be using the theory to guide how I practice research and how this theory benefits the research that I do.

Horowitz article “Child Development and the PITS: Simple Questions, Complex Answers, and Developmental Theory” speaks about the expressed and unexpressed needs of parents, caregivers, and teachers to come across data and/or answers that demonstrate that there is a single-variable responsibility for developmental outcomes. As a result of such needs, the media overgeneralizes, exaggerates, and popularizes messages and advices. However, messages that encourage single-variable responsibility influence “good enough” advice and “seemingly” scientific rationale for the failure to educate. The message that Horowitz attempts to convey through this article is to counteract the idea of simple questions resulting in simple answers. She states “if we accept as a challenge the need to act with social responsibility then we must make sure that we do not use singe-variable words…as to give the impression that they constitute the simple answers to the simple questions asked by the Person in the Street lest we contribute to belief systems, that will inform social policies that seek to limit experience and opportunity and, ultimately, development” (Horowitz, 2000, p. 8). Horowitz message is that the greater the scientific data the obligation is to then integrate theoretical complexities; “a depiction of the constitutional, social, cultural, and economic sources of influence on development with respect to the nature of experience and in relation to the circumstan...

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...ral genes when collecting DNA samples. We are also collecting MRI results. The hope with this data is to be able to get one step closer to dyslexia, to get closer to precision, and to figure out and understand what influences reading difficulties.

Like Horowitz, I believe we all have a social responsibility to uphold. We should not use this or any data for that matter to try and give a single-variable response to a developmental outcome or outcomes. Instead, what we need to do is integrate factors that influence context, taking into account varying levels of advantage. Answers to child developmental outcomes are complex, continue to expand, and change. Yet, there is still hope that the growing database is allowing us to better understand the organism-environment reciprocity which would then help us improve how we apply this knowledge in any child development field.