Esp Unit 1

READING 1

1. What do you know about lifelong development? List some advantages and disadvantages of lifelong development.

2. Read the article below and say which ideas look absolutely correct and which are doubtful. Why?

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LIFE-SPAN PERSPECTIVE 3232

Lifespan can be defined as the period that extends from conception to death. As a child grows he exhibits transformations that progresses with time. These may include physical growth, cognitive advancement, and psychological advancement that may entail emotional and social development. 

Physical development may directly refer to the increase in body and organ sizes, signs of ageing and motor abilities. Cognitive development is mainly concerned with the manner in which a child thinks or perceives the world. This is brought about by the changes in perception, language knowledge, memory, and problem solving skills. Psychological development entails transformations in personal and interpersonal advancements that are concerned with emotional and social aspects. Emotional development subjects children to certain emotional feelings such as guilt and pride. Social development is mainly concerned with the manner in which children interact, share and relate as friends.

Life-span perspective involves seven basic contentions: development is lifelong, multidimensional, multidirectional, plastic, historically embedded, multidisciplinary, and contextual.

Development is lifelong. No age period dominates development. Development includes both gains and losses, which interact in dynamic ways throughout the life cycle. Development is multidimensional. Development consists of biological, cognitive, and social dimensions. Even within a dimension such as intelligence, there are many components, such as abstract intelligence, nonverbal intelli­gence, social intelligence, and so on. Development is multidirectional. Some dimensions or components of a dimension may increase in growth, while others decrease. For example, older adults may become wiser by being able to call on experience as a guide to intel­lectual decision making, but perform more poorly on tasks that require speed in processing information. Development is plastic. Depending on the individual's life conditions, development may take many paths. For example, researchers have dem­onstrated that reasoning abilities of older adults can be improved through training. Development is embedded in history, being influenced by historical condi­tions. The experiences of 40-year-olds who lived through the Great Depression were very different from the experiences of 40-year-olds who lived in the opti­mistic aftermath of World War II. The career orientation of many 30-year-old females in the 1919 is very different from what the career orientation of most 30-year-old females was in the 1950s. Development is studied by a number of disciplines. Psychologists, sociolo­gists, anthropologists, neuroscientists, and medical researchers all study hu­man development throughout the lifespan. Development is contextual. The in­dividual continually responds to and acts on contexts, which include a person's biological makeup, physical environment, and social, historical, and cultural contexts. Individuals are changing beings in a changing world.

Development of the lifespan is a matter that begun a long time ago but is still an area that enjoys social and scientific research. Children are normally born, and they grow to develop their understanding and perception of their environment. We realize that lifespan is multidimensional, life-long, multidirectional, plastic, historically-embedded, multidisciplinary and contextual. The major human domains are biological, cognitive and psychological. Lifespan development can be divided into eight major periods that range from infancy to late adulthood. With the expansion of the field, controversies surrounding nature versus nurture and continuity versus discontinuity become more complicated.

READING 2