This paper is a discussion of the process and theory of early childhood development and education, using the fifth edition of Helping Young Children Learn by Evelyn G. Pitcher, Sylvia G. Feinburg, and David A. Alexander as the framework for exploration. This volume focuses on developmental issues in the education of very young children, considering the ways in which the physical, biological, and psychological growth process affects the process of learning. Understanding these interrelated stages is essential to effective educational planning for the classroom teacher, the social worker, and the parent. Without acknowledgment of the progress of the whole child, learning is incomplete. This paper looks at the context in which early education takes place and considers some of the primary concerns that must be included in effective early childhood teaching.
Human beings are not born fully formed in any respect. While the concept of childhood as a state separate from adulthood may be a relatively recent sociological idea, the fact remains that babies and young children are not as fully developed in any way as they can become. They go through a series of definable stages on the way to becoming adults. Many early stages provide necessary preparation for later developments, and while the precise progression may be a matter of interpretation and opinion, the fact of developmental stages has achieved nearly universal acceptance.
Erik H. Erikson, expanding on Sigmund Freud's articulation of psychosexual stages of development, codified eight stages of identity development, "a list of ego qualities which emerge from critical periods of development - criteria . . . by which the individual demonstrates that his ego, at a given stage, is strong enough to integrate the timetable of the organism with the structure of social institutions." Erikson's most significant contribution to developmental theory was his concept that individual ...