Page 30 - Biblical Counseling II-Textbook

5.3 Development through your lifespan

Developmental Psychology examines how people are continually developing –
physically, cognitively, and socially – from infancy through old age. Much of its
research centers on three major issues:

1. Nature/nurture: How does our nature (genetic) inheritance and our nurture (environment)
influence our development?

2. Continuity/stages: Is development a gradual process or does it proceed through a sequence of
separate stages?

3. Stability/change: Do our early personality traits continue through life or do we become
different people as we age? (Myers, 2012)

The Newborn
“What are some newborn abilities? Newborns come equipped with automatic responses ideally suited
for survival. Can you think of some examples of this? Newborns are born with sensory reflexes (crying,
breathing, sucking) that facilitate their survival and their social interactions with adults. We have a
coordinated sequence of reflexes by which a baby gets food. Babies have a coordinated sequence of
reflexive tonguing, swallowing and breathing to nurse. A hungry baby may learn to cry when hungry.
Newborns turn heads in the direction of human voices. Within days, our brain’s neural networks were
stamped with the smell from our mother’s body” (Myers, p. 67, 2012).

Infancy and Childhood

“During infancy and childhood, how do the brain and motor skills develop?
Cognitive Development refers to all mental activities associated with
thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating. In your mother’s
womb, your developing brain formed nerve cells at the explosive rate of
nearly one-quarter million per minute. The developing brain cortex actually
overproduces neurons, with the number peaking at 28 weeks and then
subsiding to a stable 23 billion or so at birth. On the day you were born, you
had most of the brain cells you would ever have. However, your nervous
system was immature: After birth, the branching neural networks that
eventually enabled you to walk, talk, and remember had a wild growth
spurt. From ages 3 to 6, the most rapid growth was in your frontal lobes,
which enables rational planning. This helps explain why preschoolers display a rapidly developing ability
to control their attention and behavior” (Myers, p. 67, 2012).
(photo: mybrownbaby.blogspot.com)

“As a flower unfolds in accord with its genetic instructions, so do we, in the orderly sequence of
biological growth processes called maturation. Maturation decrees many of our commonalities – from
standing before walking, to using nouns before adjectives. Severe deprivation or abuse can slow down
development, and positive parental experiences of talking and reading will help sculpt neural
connections. Yet the genetic growth tendencies are inborn. Maturation sets the basic course of
development; experience adjusts it. Examples of this from nature would be your height, weight, hair

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