Stages of Development

and
Developmental Tasks
The Child and Adolescent
Learners and Learning Principals

MODULE 2
Learning Outcomes

At the end of this Module, you

should be able to:

Define developmental tasks Describe the developmental

in you own words. tasks in each developmental
stage.

Come up with research

abstracts / summaries of
researches on developmental
tasks
Introduction

For every developmental stage,

there is an expected developmental
task. What happens when the
expected developmental tasks are
not achieved at the corresponding
developmental stage? How can you
help children achieve this
developmental tasks?
PART ONE

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 Pre-natal period
Referring to pre-natal development,
Santrock (2002) asked the following
questions succinctly:
“How from so simple a beginning do
endless forms develop and grow
and mature? What was the
organism, what is it now, and what
will it become? Birth’s fragile
moment arrives, when the newborn
is on a threshold between two
worlds.”
 Infancy (from birth to 2 years

As newborns, we were not empty-headed

organisms. We cried, kicked, coughed,
sucked, saw, heard and tasted. We slept a
lot and occasionally we smiled, although
the meaning of our smiles was not entirely
clear. We crawled and then we walked, a
journey of a thousand miles beginning with
a single step. …Sometimes we conformed,
sometimes others conformed to us. Our
development was a continuous creation of
complex forms, and our helpless kind
demanded the meeting eyes of love. We
split the universe into two halves: “me and
not me.” And we juggled the need to curb
our own will with becoming what we could
will freely. (Santrock, 2002)
 Early Childhood (3 to 5 years)
In early childhood, our greatest
untold poem was being only being
four years old. We skipped, played,
and ran all day long, never in our lives
so busy, busy something that we had
not quite grasped yet. Who knew our
thoughts, which worked up into small
mythologies all our own. Our thoughts
and images and drawings took wings.
The blossoms of our heart, no wind
could touch. Our small world widened
as we discovered new refuges and
new people. When we said “I” we meant
something totally unique, not to be
confused with any other.” (Santrock,
2002)
 Middle and Late Childhood (6-12 years)

“In middle and late childhood, we were on

a different plane, belonging to a
generation and a feeling properly our
own. It is the wisdom of human
development that at no other time we
are more ready to learn than at the end
of early childhood’s period of expansive
imagination. Our thirst was to know and
to understand. Our parents continued
to cradle our lives but our growth was
also being shaped by successive choirs
of friends. We did not think much about
the future or the past, but enjoyed the
present.” (Except for a few words, the
paragraph is taken from Santrock, 2002)
 Adolescence (13-18 years)
“In no order of things was adolescence, the
simple time of life for us. We clothed ourselves
with rainbows and went ‘brave as the zodiac’,
flashing from one end of the world to the other.
We tried on one face after another, searching
for a face of our own. We wanted our parents to
understand us and hoped they would give up
the privilege of understanding them. We wanted
to fly but found that first we had to learn to
stand and walk and climb and dance. In our most
pimply and awkward moments we became
acquainted with sex. We played furiously at
adult games but were confined to a society of
our own peers. Our generation was the fragile
cable by which the best and the worst of our
parents’ generation was transmitted to the
present. In the end, there were two but lasting
bequests our parents could leave us – one being
roots, the other wings. (Santrock, 2002)
 Early adulthood (19-29 years)
Early adulthood is a time for work and a
time for love, sometimes leaving little
time for anything else. For some of us,
finding our place in adult society and
committing to a more stable life take
longer than we imagi n e . We st i l l ask
ourselves who we are and wonder if it
isn’t enough just to be. Our dreams
continue and our thoughts are bold but
at some point we become more
pragmatic. Sex and love are powerful
passions in our lives – at times angels of
light, at other times of torment. And we
possibly will never know the love of our
parents until we become parents
ourselves. (Santrock, 2002)
 Middle adulthood (30-60 years)
In middle adulthood what we have been
forms that we will be. For some of us,
middle age is such a foggy place, a time
when we need to discover what we are
running from and to and why. We compare
our life with what we vowed to make it. In
middle age, more time stretches before
us and some evaluations have to be mad,
however reluctantly. As the young/old
polarity greets us with a special force, we
need to join the daring youth with the
discipline of age in a way that does justice
to both. As middle-aged adults we come
to sense that the generations of living
things pass in a short while and like
runners hand on the torch of life.
(Santrock, 200
 Late adulthood (61 years and above)

“The rhythm and meaning of human

development eventually wend their way
to l a t e a d u l t h o o d , w h e n e a c h o f u s
stands alone at the heart of the earth
and “suddenly it is evening.” We shed the
leaves of the youth and are stripped by
the winds of time down to the truth. We
learn that life is lived forward but
understood backward. We trace the
connection between the end and the
beginning of life and try to figure out
what this whole show is about before it
is over. Ultimately we come to know that
we are what survives of us. (Santrock,
2002)
ABSTRACTION

Concept of developmental tasks

In each stage of development, a certain task
or tasks are expected of every individual.
Robert Havighurst defines development task
as one that “arises at a certain period in our
life, the successful achievement of which leads
to happiness and success with later tasks while
failure leads to unhappiness, social disapproval,
and difficulty with later tasks.” (Havighurst,
1972)
ABSTRACTION

Developmental stages
There are eight (8) developmental stages given by
Santrock. The eight (8) developmental stages cited
by Santrock are the same with Havighurst’s six (6)
developmental stages only that Havighurst did not
i n c l u de pre n atal pe ri o d . H a v i g h u r s t c o m b i n e d
infancy and early childhood while Santrock
mentioned them as two (2) separate stages. These
developmental stages are described more in detail in
the next paragraphs.
 The developmental tasks (Santrock, 2002)

5. Adolescence – (10-12 years of age ending up to 18-22 years

1. Prenatal period (from conception to birth) – It involves of age) Begins with rapid physical changes – dramatic gains in
tremendous growth- from a single cell to an organism height and weight, changes in body contour, and the
complete with brain and behavioral capabilities. development of sexual characteristics such as enlargement
of the breasts, development of pubic and facial hair, and
2. Infancy (from birth to 18-24 months) – A time of extreme deepening of the voice. Pursuit of independence and identity
dependence on adults. Many psychological activities are just are prominent. Thought is more logical, abstract and
beginning – language, symbolic thought, sensorimotor idealistic. More time is spent outside of the family.
coordination and social
learning. 6. Early adulthood (from late teens or early 20s lasting
through the 30s) – It is a time of establishing personal and
3. Early childhood (end of infancy to 5-6 years old (Grade 1) – economic independence, career development, selecting a
These are the preschool years. Young children learn to mate, learning to live with someone in an intimate way,
become more self-sufficient and to care for themselves, starting a family and rearing children.
develop school readiness skills and spend many hours in play
with peers. 7. Middle adulthood (40 to 60 years of age) – It is a time of
expanding personal and social involvement and responsibility;
4. Middle and late childhood (6-11 years of age, the of assisting the next generation in becoming competent and
elementary school years) – The fundamental skills of reading, mature individuals; and of reaching and maintaining
writing and arithmetic are mastered. The child is formally satisfaction in a career.
exposed to the larger world and its culture. Achievement
becomes a more central theme of the child’s world and self- 8. Late adulthood (60s and above) – It is a time for
control increases. adjustment to decreasing strength and health, life review,
retirement, and adjustment to new social roles.
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