Many psychologists divided the human life span into eight periods. There are prenatal, infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, late adulthood. In particular, the changes of mind and body grow from infancy to adolescence rapidly. As a result, many psychologists interest in it. So we explain and analyze on the period of adolescence in biological development.
‘Adolescence lasts almost a decade, from about age 12 or 13 until the late teens or early twenties. Neither its beginning nor its end point is clearly marked. Adolescence is generally considered to begin with puberty, the process that leads to sexual maturity, or fertility-the ability to reproduce.4’
The biological changes of puberty, which signal the end of childhood. The starting time of growth of male and female do not same. Male is later than female who is from 11 to 18 years old. However, female is also from 9 to 16 years old to reach the sex maturation. As above circumstances, the early maturation and late maturation are influenced their psychological condition.
In puberty, male will appear facial hair, broad shoulders and deepen in voice by the manufacture of androgens in the testes at the period of adolescence. It will be made something that he may give the role of guard to female.
Female will appear pubic, hair development of breasts and menarche. A girl’s pelvis widens to make childbearing easier, and layers of fat are laid down just under the skin, giving her a more rounded appearance. These circumstances are influenced by female hormone estrogen.
Sex maturation can divide into primary sex characteristics and secondary sex characteristics. There are the organs necessary for reproduction. In the female, the sex organs are the ovaries, uterus, and vagina; in the male, the testes, prostrate gland, penis, and seminal vesicles. During puberty, these organs enlarge and mature. In boys, the first sign of puberty is the growth of the testes and scrotum.
The secondary sex characteristics are physiological signs of sexual maturation that do not directly involve the sex organs. Both are they will grow pubic hair, auxiliary (underarm) hair. And they will change in voice will deepen and the skin becomes coarser and oilier.
In the human development, the genes determine anything in the biological and psychological changes. It can make a good arrangement and order of the growth of people. Thus, the genes are different for anyone, so it will be appeared early or late maturation in the growth of male or female. In response to above circumstances, the youngsters may start to attach importance to their apparent and their role of acting to describe their sex.
Cognitive development
The aspects of cognitive development are changes in mental abilities, such as learning, memory, reasoning, thinking and language. These changes are closely related to both motor and emotional development. We will discuss the role of learning in human development.
The learning is changed to accumulate the experience by the whole life. This experience will be proved to the certain behavior gradually. The baby has learning skill because there is innate, but it replies the experience which accumulate by their trail and error.
In 20th century, the Swiss also appears one psychologist. He is the main role of developmental psychology. His name is Jean Piaget 1896~1981. His theory is mainly descriptive based on observation.
In fact, the above four stages are described to how the children learning. Then the learning can be divided into some parts. There are assimilation, accommodation and adaptation. The assimilation and accommodation are contained of the schema. The schema refers a conclusion of special concept of knowledge. It is an organized pattern of mental functioning.
The assimilation is that the incorporation new object and experiences into a structure or schema in the mind to be used latter in problem-solving situations, e.g. the baby uses the nursing bottle to suck the milk because it uses the knowledge which had been learned before.
The accommodation is the tendency to change one’s schema or operations or to make new once to include new objects or experiences enabling a higher level of thinking, e.g. the mother gives a cup of milk to the baby, but it is no nipple. The baby must need to learn the sucking if it wants to drink the milk. The adaptation is produced by the above condition. It is a key principle in ethological theories referring to the way that behavior changes or develops to meet environmental demands and to ensure survival and reproduction5.
So that, the equilibration will be broken down if the child faces to a new of event and view. Whereas that, the child can develop the cognitive. As a result, the child can know the new things.
Behavioral development
In 19th century, one scientist appears in Russia. He is scholar of behaviorism or traditional learning theory. He believes that people are responders; the environment controls behavior. His name is Ivan Pavlov, 1849~1936. He accords to the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. This theory said that ‘association’ the most important factor for learning and remembering. The principle can be formulated in this way; if two events, A and B, happen at the same time, then later when A happens alone, we think of B. They have been ‘put together’ in our minds, they have become ‘associated’6. So Pavlov translated this philosophical principle into a physiological one.
Pavlov believes that the change of behavior is proved by basic processing as a result of experience. There is classical conditioning. Pavlov devises the one experiment on learning by association. The experiment can be divided into four parts: conditioning, higher order conditioning, extinction and discrimination. The conditioning replies a neutral stimulus becomes a conditional stimulus by virtue of its pairing with an unconditional stimulus7.
Pavlov uses a dog to take his experiment which want to test the reflex of the dog.
Firstly, he puts the dog on typical equipment. Then he gives the food to the dog, it will salivate and chew. At the same time, he rings a bell, or flashed a light on the screen in front of the dog, but it would not salivate. Secondly, he rings the bell again, and then gives the food to the dog immediately. So the dog would not salivate while rings the bell. Thirdly, he takes the above test many times. As a result, the dog will salivate while the bell is ringing. The saliva will be more than before if the test is appeared many times.
In this experiment, it produces some theories that the simplest form of learning was thought to be associative learning. The learning is mainly a matter of trial and error. The human being can learn new things through associations with older reactions. The trail and error are the main points of learning. The human beings must need its to obtain the experience to learn the new things. In addition, he emphasizes the rewards can be important in learning8.
Relationships between maturation and learning
John Milton wrote: ‘Childhood shows the man as morning shows the day9.’ This statement means that children cannot as mature as adult immediately, they must learn from their experience through a period of time.
In order to practice the knowledge after learning, people should first develop certain ability for learning. For example, when a baby learning how to walk, its legs should be grown strong enough to support its weight, then, baby will learn how to walk by trail and error. For male and female, they can practice reproduction or pregnancy after they attained the maturation.
Again, no matter the baby had the talent of poesy, it can speak after its mouth and vocal cords developed enough to form pronunciation, its cerebrum and nerve system must also become mature to remember and give suitable meaning for each sound.
Therefore, before the production of related learning, it should be appeared a certain ability of nerve system, sensory organs and movements10.
According to the sex maturation, our learning attitude will change. The role of male and female are become vivid gradually, and each other has their different roles will impose restriction on their learning area. For instance, man prefers in learning guitar while woman prefers in learning piano. It is because historical factor or traditional factor affects their behavior.
Therefore, maturation is very vital for us. Maturation depends on gene, that means gene is arranged in order according to the increasing age. When children are learning something new, they had some physiological preparation. So, maturation is an essential factor for all different ability of physical and cognitive that can‘t lose, from above all, maturation is a necessary condition in learning.
Conclusion
To sum up, human development is defined in many kinds of aspects. However, I merely define the human development in psychology. So that, I want to know more about the human development if I research other disciplines again, e.g. sociology, anthropology and education. Anyway, the human development can analyze the description of the growth of human beings from any related theories. It should be explained clearly what is human development of my life.
In fact, a gene is very important thing in human development. All of people have different behavior and nature because the gene appears in the cell of their body. And then it can provide a good order of the growth of their body to reach maturation. However, it is impossible that the maturation is only depended on the gene. Therefore, the people need to accumulate the experience of their life. They will know the new things and knowledge from their experience. It can rely the learning as above. In addition, the people need to develop certain ability for learning. Hence, the relationship between learning and maturation are inseparable.
Reference:
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Oats, J. (ED.), The foundations of child development. UK: The Open University, & Black well Publishers Ltd. Chapter 1. p.22
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Papalia, D. E. & Old, S. W. (1992), Human Development, 5th ed.: McGraw-Hill, Inc. p.9
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Cain, W. (1994). Gesell’s principles of development. In J. Oats (ED.), The foundations of child development. UK: The Open University, & Black well Publishers Ltd. p.258
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Papalia, D. E. & Old, S. W. (1992), Human Development, 5th ed.: McGraw-Hill, Inc. p.500
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Kalugar, G. (1986), Human Development: The Span of Life, New York, Macmillan.
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Swales, C. (1998), Social Sciences, A Foundation Course, Psychology 1, Unit 15 and 16: The Open University of Hong Kong, p.20
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Roth, I. (1990). Introduction to Psychology, volume 1: The Open University of Hong Kong, p. 262
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Swales, C. (1998), Social Sciences, A Foundation Course, Psychology 1, Unit 15 and 16: The Open University of Hong Kong, p.31
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Shaffer, D. (1999). Developmental psychology. 5th Edition : Brooks/Cole publishing company. Chapter 1. p. 4
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Papalia, D. E. & Old, S. W. (1992), Human Development, 5th ed.: McGraw-Hill, Inc. p.175
