Child and adolescent development Psychology Research Paper (Research Paper Sample)

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INTRODUCTION
There are numerous theories on cognitive development that indicate the event of an individual from infancy to adulthood. Many people imagined babies not being aware of their surroundings until they grasped the ability to communicate verbally, but this is not so as researchers have proven this belief in several studies. We are more prone to continually learn from the genetic and social factors right from birth, through infancy and into adulthood." As children mature into adults, individual hereditary and environment factors play a critical role as children get used to both the conditions that exist internally and externally. (Papalia, Olds, Wendkos, Duskin p12) people learn from both our environment and traits we inherit from our kins.
This paper focuses on examining the postulates of five different perspectives of popular theorists and the relationships between child development and adolescents, the importance of studying child and adolescent development and changes that have occurred in progress over the years.
1 The cognitive perspective
Piaget’s cognitive theory
Jean Piaget, a famous life scientist, formulated a philosophy that pays attention to the fact that children undergo four stages of development from birth until they are 15 years. He conducted this research on his own children and came up with a conclusion of how a child who is still developing perceives their environment. According to (Nation Master Encyclopedia 2fff5), Piaget’s theory is concerned with the growth of intelligence that means the ability to represent the world accurately and do logical operations in the world. (Marwaha, 2017,) “The mean IQ of children who had perceptual and cognitive egocentrism was quite higher than those who lacked them."
Vygotsky's social, cultural theory
Lev Vygotsky is a psychologist that proposed fundamental learning theory which has grown to become quite influential over the years, especially in the education field. Similar to Piaget, Lev argues that children have a higher chance of learning activities through hand-on experience environments (Esteban-Guitart, 2018). He also suggests that caregivers and peers had a responsibility in ensuring that high-order functions are developed. In his view, learning is an inherently social process that occurs through social interactions with others and helps the learner to understand the world better.
The information processing theory
This theory strongly believes that human beings are great processors of symbols. They tend to interpret symbols and know what they mean. The theory is concerned with the way people transfer information in different stages of their lives and solve given problems. Information flows starting from input (stimulus) which results to an output (response).