3 EXPLAIN HOW THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT AND FRAMEWORKS TO SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT INFLUENCE CURRENT PRACTICE.

Theories of development offer insights into the forces guiding childhood growth and what can affect them.
Each offers insight but each has limitations, which is why developmental scientists use more than one theory to guide their thinking about the growth of children.
Current practice is based on many years of knowledge and experience. This helps us to understand children learning, development and behavior.
Research is ongoing and new information becomes available all the time. This means it is important that we keep our knowledge up to date and use new ideas in practice.
Research into child development is an ongoing process.
Chris Athey (1924 – 2011)
Athey moved Piagets’ work on as she believed that Schema dominated children’s play and the way they learn. She showed how children’s forms of thought develop through experiences and develop a framework for teaching which extends scheme through the curriculum experience.
Athey suggests that in Piaget's early work, he used schema to mean the general cognitive structures that are developing in children under the age of five. She sees schemas as a means to arrive at categories and classifications. For example, a baby will try out a wide range of schema on one object for example, sucking, shaking and throwing. This demonstrates the need and importance of a wide and varied range of experiences. Schemas are happening in practice all of the time.

Arnold Gesell (1880 – 1961)
Main theory – development is genetically determined by universal maturation patterns which occur in a predictable sequence.
Gesell was an American psychologist and pediatrician who helped develop the field of child development.
His classic study involved twin girls, both given motor skills but one give training for longer than the other. He discovered that there was no measurable difference in the age at which either girl acquired the skills. This suggesting that development had happened in a genetically programmed way, irrespective of training given.
A child learns whether