Suggests some difficulties and challenges in understanding and teaching Piaget's new theory. Outlines some differences between Piaget's new and standard theories, such as the diminished status of the emergent skills that mark the onset of concrete operational thinking and the perception of achievements in concrete operations as empirical…

Family is a major influence on career development. A framework matching developmental stages of children and families is useful in planning and implementing career services for persons with disabilities. (SK)

Notes that the Piagetian perspective admits the existence of interindividual differences but interprets them as noise masking the universal logical succession of structures, whereas the differential perspective views development as consisting of "vicarious processes." Asserts that the main aim of the "procedural studies"…

This "classic" article (1972) in the field of deaf studies includes some interpretive notes for current readers. The article examines the effect of deafness on basic developmental tasks at each of the eight developmental stages of Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development and explains the more successful passage through these…

Discusses the use of a dynamic approach to explain how young children master motor skills and perform an array of cognitive feats including word learning. Introduces a perspective that is a departure from established scientific theories of the mind. Argues that a child's physical, mental, and social lives arise out of a shifting interplay between…

Psychosocial theory, based on the ideas of Erik Erikson and Robert Havighurst, is proposed as a useful framework for conceptualizing the potential for growth within the family. Erikson's (1950) eight stage theory of psychosocial development and Havighurst's (1959) concept of developmental tasks are used to take account of the stages of development…

Argues that Susan Sugarman's article in this issue contains some valid criticism of assumptions in developmental psychology, but that some of her conclusions regarding other assumptions need to be questioned. Suggests that many problems raised by Sugarman would disappear if developmental psychologists concentrated on children's early achievements…

Research results reported in this special issue show that egocentricity and staging, both central ideas in the Piaget-Kohlberg account of human development, are myths. The appearance of egocentricity and staging can be accounted for by a subtle combination of ethnocentricity and the effects of inappropriate methodologies. (RM)

The question of how to integrate developmental (Piagetian) and psychometric conceptions and assessments of intelligence is considered. A solution which incorporates the contributions of each position--intelligence as forms and as traits--is offered. Premises and objectives of each tradition are reviewed and compared. Overlaps make synthesis…

How Piaget's theory of developmental stages affects the musical ability of children at different ages is important for the music educator to understand. The following developmental stages are discussed: sensorimotor period, preoperations period, concrete operations period, formal operations period, and creative stage. (RM)

The paper notes A. Hore and W. Tryon's support of the developmental position that persons with and without mental retardation of similar mental age show similar cognitive patterns, but suggests that mental age is psychometrically invalid and Piagetian tasks are inappropriate to evaluate this position. An information processing approach is…

A life span approach to child development has important implications for early childhood professionals: teachers, teacher educators, or directors of programs. Students-in-training need to learn to structure for themselves a positive developmental context for understanding and programing for the infants and young children they will be teaching.…

Argues that there are significant ways in which neither Piaget nor his successors in developmental psychology have adequately described the child's mind and how it changes. Proposes alternative guidelines for research that aims more directly at identifying essential constituent features of the child's mental reality. (PCB)

Adult development theorists believe that the changes that occur during the adult years are predictable and age linked. Their theories explain how change is resolved by the majority of the adult population. Three persons whose research has been influential in the field of adult development during the 1970s are Erik Erikson, Daniel Levinson, and…

Little attention has been given to how adults develop through their lifetimes and what roles their workplace environments play in that development. Research and theory regarding adult psychosocial development have confirmed the developmental life-cycle phases of adulthood. These are: leaving the family (ages 16-22), getting into the adult world…