Jessica Simpson

Professor Ellsworth

FHS 2600

3/28/18

Theory Comparison

In early childhood education, there are developmental theories that are influential to the ways

in which we have come to understand and work with children. There are multiple theories due to

the expansive dimensions of development and the many ways that this works with children and

their education. While not all individuals agree with all of the theories, it is important that

educators understand these theories and the influence that they have on not only there teaching

but as well as the influence they have on helping individuals better understand children.

These theories come from a variety of individuals throughout history and while they are all

different theories there are also similarities to be found within them. One of the first theorists is

Erik Erickson, with his theory on human development. Erikson believes that our development is

shaped by cultural and social experiences and that there are eight stages to our development. This

knowledge has an impact on the social-emotional climates of early childhood programs, teaching

that children must negotiate crisis’s and come to a resolution and achieve a balance between two

poles. Our next theorist is Abraham Maslow with the self-actualization theory. His theory was

that each individual has a hierarchy of needs and these needs are directly linked to goals. The

hierarchy of needs is a pyramid with five layers. The bottom two layers are the basic human

needs, the physical needs and the psychological needs or safety and security. This is useful to

understand the motivation of individuals as the text states, “If children are hungry, it follows that
they cannot focus their attention on anything else. Similarly, if children are frightened of

emotionally insecure, they cannot learn effectively.” (Bredekamp 111). This allows teachers to

prepare and be aware of these circumstances and help meet the children’s needs. Like Erikson,

Maslow’s theory is also applied to social development. Then we have Piaget who is another

influential theorist, though his theory focuses on Cognitive development. The main aspect of

Piaget’s theory is that children construct their own knowledge from their experiences. His

constructivist learning theory emphasizes that children think differently than adults and that we

need to be aware of that as educators. Like Erikson, Piaget had stages for the development that

children go through, though he only had four stages to Erikson’s eight. His stages were linked to

the ideas that biology and growth directly affects cognitive development, which has greatly

helped teachers to better teach children and have them be engaged in there learning. Another

theorist Lev Vygotsky is known for providing the greatest amount of guidance for educators, he

felt that development was a continual process with different learning tasks. Like Piaget, his focus

was on cognitive development with children and he felt that there were concepts that it involved,

also like Piaget he believed that children construct their own knowledge from experiences,

though Vygotsky felt that this was done with teacher support. Vygotsky's theory is very

applicable to curriculums challenging students within their own capabilities, and teaching adults

that they play a major role in children's development. Continuing with more theorists B. F.

Skinner was a learning theorist whose theory was behaviorism. "According to this theory,

learning is reflected in changes in behavior that are controlled by the consequences, either

positive or negative, that follow the behavior.” (Bredekamp 124). His theory was that there

were ways, with operant conditioning, to control behavior with negative or positive

consequences. These are methods such as positive or negative reinforcements or punishment.

This is very beneficial for students particularly those that may have special needs. It is not a

theory about development such as the theories before, therefore it can be learned at any time,

meaning it is very applicable to all classrooms. The final theorist is Loris Malaguzzi, his theory

is the Reggio Emilia approach, this theory that is children form their own personality through

their years of development, and that they each have a hundred languages in which to express

themselves. The Reggio Emilia approach in a curriculum is allowing children to explore different

symbolic languages, sculpting, painting, to continue to express themselves. All of these theorists’

works have been used today to help establish curriculums and methods of working with children,

and while not all of these theories are the same there is useful information in all of them that

teachers can use to better support and understand their children.

While reading about these theorists and their ideas on children I found that some of them

helped me better than others to understand children and their growth and development. One of

the theories that I feel helped me the best to understand is Piaget. I felt that his understanding

that children think differently and that there are stages of cognitive grown and understanding

truly helps me when I am working with children and planning lessons. It is also the one that is

the easiest for me to see in children. How they are thinking things through at these different

stages can easily be seen when watching and observing them in action. I also like Maslow’s

theory of needs, it is very true that if those first needs are not met then these other needs will not

be reached. I think that he is also accurate in says that not everyone reaches the top. There are

also theorists that I struggle with, one of these is Erikson, while I understand his idea of finding

the resolution and balance to a crisis, I do not understand where his eight stages come in as a

representation of a crisis. I feel like the eight stages he has are sometimes difficult to grasp and I

do not feel that they help me better understand and help children. This being said I feel that all
the theorists have ideas that can be applied to helping me better understand children, I just find

that some I agree with the whole of the theory and others I only understand a portion. Though I

do feel that knowing about all of these theories will help me in my future career.

There are many different theories out there and many different ideas when it comes to

childcare. These theories have similarities and differences, though you will find most often that

they are to better our understanding of children's learning and their development. There will

always be theories that one agrees with and those that are harder for you to grasp, but

understanding and knowing the ideas of these theories can be useful in your later understanding

of your children.
Work Cited:

Bredekamp, Sue. Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education. Pearson, 2017.