Big Picture essay

Big Picture essay

Big Picture Essay
After reviewing the topics we have covered in class, in preparation for writing this paper, I became increasingly aware of the importance and value of everything I have learned. The overall importance of integrating nature and nurture when looking at different areas of development has been extremely insightful as well as studying Piaget and his theories, learning about vulnerability and resiliency, studying intelligence and IQ scores and reading the APA report on the sexualization of girls.
Realizing that not only heredity plays a role in development, but environment as well, has left me increasingly aware of the importance of providing children with an enriched learning environment. A child’s early life experiences will affect them in numerous aspects of life, from learning their native language and recognizing their mothers faces distinctly from others, to IQ scores.
Much time was spent on Piaget and his ideas involving child development, this in depth look at his theories clarified previous questions I had regarding Piaget. The main ideas of Piaget revolve around the four stages he purposed every child goes through from infancy to adolescence. His first stage is the sensorimotor period which groups infants from birth to 18 months and involve basic schemes and symbolic representations. Following the sensorimotor period is the preoperational period, from two to six years of age which involves such concepts as egocentricsm, and conservation. Concrete operational period was Piagets third stage and involved children ages six to twelve where he believed they could apply such tools as reversibility. Piagets’ fourth stage is called the period of formal operations which encompasses children age twelve and on, in this stage an advanced form of thinking develops, such as the ability to perform hypothetico-deductive logic.
Another area of class I found particularly interesting was studying about vulnerability and resiliency. It is theorized that...