A theory is a set of explanations of how children develop and learn (Morrison, 2015)
Why are Theories Important?
They are important because they help us describe, explain and predict children’s behavior (Berk, 2003)
Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in the Austrian town of Freiberg. He was a neurologist, and best known as the founder of psychoanalysis. He earned his doctoral degree in medicine in 1881. In 1902, Freud started working as a professor at Vienna University (Husman, 2002). Freud published many books throughout his life. One of his most important published books was The Ego and the Id. In this book Freud introduced his structural theory and concepts of the id, ego, and superego (Husman, 2002). Sigmund …show more content…
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Several activities a child can not do alone even they are close to have the necessary mental skills; they need guidance from either they teachers or parents to complete the task (Morrison, 2015).
Scaffolding: Assistance provided by teachers and parents to help children complete a task (Morrison, 2015).
Criticisms of Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Development Theory
Vygotsky 's ideas are culturally universal (McLeod, 2014).
Difficult to evaluate due to the time needed to translate from Russian to English.
There are not many hypotheses to test (McLeod, 2014).
Jean Piaget was born on August 9, 1896 in Neuchâtel , Switzerland. He was psychologist and genetic epistemologist, and best known for his cognitive development theory (Smith, 1997).
Piaget started demonstrating his interest in sciences since he was very young. At age 11, he wrote a paper about an albino sparrow, which was considered the start of his famous scientific career (Smith, 1997).
Piaget held several different chair positions during his entire career. He also conducted many research in genetics and …show more content…
In 1933 he immigrated to United States with his wife and started working at the Harvard Medical School. After that, he held many other positions at different institutions and at the Menninger Foundation (Sharkey, 1997). In 1950 Erik Erikson published his first book “Childhood and Society” (Sharkey, 1997).
Erik Erikson created his psychosocial development theory based on the premise that cognitive and social development happen at the same time and cannot be separated. (Morrison, 2015).
As Freud, Erikson believed that children’s personalities develop in a series of stages (Morrison, 2015).
He developed eight psychosocial stages that children experience throughout their life (Morrison, 2015).
Unlike Freud, Erikson’s theory explains the impact of social experiences across the entire lifespan (Morrison, 2015)
Abraham Maslow was born on April 1, 1890 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Jewish and immigrated to the U.S from Russia. Maslow was the younger of seven siblings. He obtained his Psychology BA, MA and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin (Boeree, 2006).
From 1951 to 1969, Abraham Maslow held the chair position of the psychology department at Brandeis. He died from a heart attack on June 8, 1970 (Boeree,