Theoretical Alignment

As a professional ready to enter the field of child development, it is important that you

know where you stand regarding how children grow, develop, and learn. Child development is

the dynamic process of acquiring increasingly more complex motor, cognition, communication,

social-emotional, and self-help skills from the stage of conception through adolescence (Groark,

McCarthy, & Kirk, 2014, p. 4). I believe knowing about child development and the theories that

come with it, helps me to teach my children and future students better. By knowing the different

domains and milestones a child goes through, I will know when and how to teach a certain

concept. I have not had the opportunity to work with children in a professional setting, however,

I do have five children who did not attend pre-k, I chose to teach them at home. When I enrolled

them for kindergarten they all excelled, and still are. I have worked hard to teach my children the

fundamentals while making sure learning was fun for them and not a job.

The theory/theorist that I feel most closely aligns with my own personal philosophy or

approach to child development is the sociocultural theory of Lev Vygotsky. The problems

encountered in the psychological analysis of teaching cannot be correctly resolved or even

formulated without addressing the relation between learning and development in school-age

children (Vygotsky, 1978, p.16). He focused primarily on the importance of social interactions

through scaffolding, imitation and felt that nurture played a bigger part in a childs overall

development than nature. For example, a child with little vocabulary engaging with a child with

a vast vocabulary will learn from his/her peers and by imitation will build upon their vocabulary.
Lev Vygotsky believed as well as I do that social interaction plays a large part in a childs

language because they model the behaviors and language they see around them. According to,

(Farrar & Montgomery, 2015, sec, 1.1) Cognition refers to mental processes and includes topics

such as problem solving, memory, language, intelligence, and others. Social constructive theory

focuses on the cognitive skills with social interactions through imitation. For example, a child

will learn through play how to cook by watching his or her parents. There are many ways that

motor development can impact cognitive development using Lev Vygotskys social constructive

theory. People do not realize that motor development is in everything you do, such as speech,

and movement of your body. If you do not learn to move your mouth in order to form words it

will affect your cognitive development, now you are unable to voice your needs and wants.

Motor development can affect how a child is able to form certain words, having issues with

his/her tongue can make it hard to form certain words because of the lack of motor development.

Motor functioning, is how our brain works, how we form our lips to communicate properly, how

we use our hands to hold a pencil to write or color, etc.

I also feel that Skinners Behaviorist theory/Operant conditioning theory aligns with my

own beliefs about how children learn, grow, and develop. He believed in a system of

reinforcement, I feel if my child has worked hard and passed his/her test I will be sure to reward

him/ her, if he/she does not study and fails then he/she will then receive negative reinforcement. I

do not reward my children for everything, and they are aware of that, but big things like honor

roll, they know they worked hard and deserve a reward. B.F. Skinner is a behaviorist theorist

who I feel plays a part in most theories. Skinner among others thought that children learned

through imitation. They listen to the speech around them, imitate what they hear, and then

through a system of reinforcement (i.e., being praised or rewarded for correct utterances and
having errors ignored or corrected), they learn to discard their imperfect imitation (Piper, T.,

2012). Even though Skinner is so different than Vygotsky, I feel they both are good theories to

implement at home and school. I agree that children use the speech they hear around them

mainly through what they learn from their older siblings and or adults around them. I feel that

children imitate those around them, hence the reason to watch the language you use around

young children. There were problems applying this theory to children learning language such as

children uttering words or sounds that they never heard before, which most of the time the

parents of these children do not respond to those forms of utterance. Like myself Skinner feels

children learn through imitation as well as through a system of reinforcement.

References
Farrar, M. J. & Montgomery, D. (2015). Cognitive development of children: Research and

application.

Goark, C., McCarthy, S. & Kirk, A. (2014). Early child development: From theory to practice.

Bridgepoint: San Diego, CA.

Piper, T. (2012). Making meaning, making sense: Childrens early language learning. San

Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. Readings on the

development of children, 34-41. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?

q+vygotsky=and=child=developmental=theory&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33