Having an understanding of child development is essential for practitioners, as it allows us to have an appreciation for the cognitive, biological, psychological, emotional, physical, social and educational growth that children progress through from birth into early adulthood. We must remember that every child will progress at a different rate, but should be hitting certain milestones within a timeframe, for example, a child may take their first steps from the age of nine months but this can range up to the age of eighteen months (NHS, 2011).
Over the years there have been many studies to establish different psychological and theoretical approaches towards child development. The theories have all been extensively researched and can be categorised as cognitive, humanist, psychodynamic, and behavioural. There are also the sociological perspectives; interactional and functional (Pound, 2009).
This essay will be looking at the behavioural approach from its foundations and early experiments, to how child development is influenced by behaviourist theories in our practice today.
The behaviourist approach was a significant and arguably dominant approach in psychology for the initial part of the twentieth century (Dewey, 2007), Behaviourist research had integral implications for the fundamental questions in regard to the nature versus nurture debate and the existence of free will. In terms of the nature and nurture debate, the behaviourists were inclined to agree with the nurture approach. They believed that humans are shaped fundamentally by our environments. Skinner believed that he could shape a child into being anything, regardless of anything other than environmental factors.
Behaviourism began with Ivan Pavlov in Russia when he was conducting an experiment with dogs for research on digestion. His findings on the dogs salivating led him to change the direction of his experiment (Clark, 2004) and become one of the founders of Classical Conditioning.
This led to John B Watson being the first person to address the concept of behaviourism in humans, and is largely credited for being the person to coin the phrase “Behaviourism’ with his 1913 article “Psychology as the Behaviourist Views It\” (Watson, 1913). Watson conducted the now renowned Little Albert experiment (Beck, Levinson, and Irons, 2009). In 1930, Watson so was confident in the success of behaviourism that he, much like Skinner, suggested that any behaviour could be learned. Watson also implied (Watson,1913) that if he was to be given a selection of healthy infants and his own specified world in order to raise them, he could guarantee that if any one of them was to be taken at random he could train them to become a specialist in any field. He believed that he could do this regardless of the child’s talents, habits, ability, vocations, or race.
Two of the most significant learning theories, in regards to child development, to stem from behaviourist perspectives were classical conditioning (Watson) and operant conditioning (Skinner). Classical conditioning justifies how behaviours are learned through association, while Operant conditioning clarifies how it is the consequences of our behaviour and actions that underpins behaviour. All though Skinner was very much influenced by the likes of Watson (Gray and MacBlain, 2015), he disagreed with the premise of classical conditioning. Skinner believed that individuals are active learners and that behaviours are manipulated and maintained by consequences. This has influenced childcare settings as it is common practise to have some sort of reward system (Rogers, 2013), such as a star chart, or behaviour incentives. Operant conditioning is more unpredictable, but less rigid than classical conditioning. Skinner believed that rewards were more efficient at reinforcing good (Warneken and Tomasello, 2008), but punishments, or consequences, could discourage certain behaviours. Skinner also acknowledged that too much praise can cause more harm than good. If a child receives praise, or a reward, after every time they have exhibited the desired behaviour, the praise will lose value and they will expect it every time. Skinner believed that intermittent praise would be more efficient for long term goals (Bayat, 2010).
Behaviourist principles are often applied when working with children with special educational needs. Behaviour analysis, which dates back to Skinner, has helped to develop a method in order to help teach children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD); Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) (Fennell and Dillenburger, 2016). ABA is a form of operant conditioning which uses a series of rewards (reinforcements) in order to change a person’s behaviour and teach them new skills. It is regarded as controversial – psychologist Ole Ivar Lovaas, who developed the practise of using ABA on children with autism (Smith and Eikeseth, 2011), used negative reinforcements (Parker, 2015), which is considered unethical.
The use of ABA his risen to such popularity that there are now schools, both private and state, that are dedicated to using ABA programmes with children who have ASD (Griffith, Fletcher, and Hastings, 2012).
There is now a curriculum based around ABA which is an intensive programme that is individual to each student and continuously monitored, to ensure that each child r grows to reach their full potential (Parker, 2015), or eventually lead into or include National Curriculum targets where applicable (Springhallow school, Ealing, 2016).
Experiments have taken place (Baltruschat, et al., 2011) that show positive reinforcement has had significant improvements on working memory in children with autism.
Albert Bandura created the Social Learning theory (Bandura 1977), which explained that both operant and classical conditioning were relevant, but he also went on to add two further ideas. He suggested that learning is a cognitive process that occurs in a social context. It can appear prominent exclusively through observation or instruction, even in the none existence of motor reproduction or specific reinforcement.
In the 1960s Albert Bandura conducted a now well renowned experiment with a Bobo doll (Graham and Arshad-Ayaz, 2016). Bandura observed and studied children’s behaviour towards the Bobo doll after watching adult’s behaviour with the doll. There are multiple variations of this experiment, but the most prominent being where the children were exposed to violence towards the doll. The results of the Bobo doll experiment confirmed Bandura’s initial predictions, that children who were exposed to violence and aggression were more likely to exhibit that behaviour themselves.
Bandura has influenced practise within childcare settings as his theory states that children learn through observing how prominent people in their life behave, and in turn imitate them. This includes caregivers outside of their immediate family, such as teachers or practitioners, as well as other children around them (Over, Carpenter, 2012). Within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) links have been created for children that promote modelling of peers and adults (Department for Education, 2014), as a result modelling behaviour can often be incorporated into daily life and planning within the setting, as a way to encourage behaviour or participation from the children. Modelling may be a practitioner showing a child how to do something, and the child copies, but this may not utilize the vast potential of modelling (Cortvriend, 2008). Leading by example in regards to setting rules and promoting desired behaviour within the setting, can help to support the development of positive behaviour and respect (Roffey, 2010).
Arguably Bandura’s research has come into play while looking at other theoretical approaches from other schools of psychology. It can also be said that Bandura’s social learning theory compliments Lev Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory (Culatta, 2015), producing a link between behaviourist theories and cognitive psychology.
While Bandura was still actively researching how children learn through observation, he noted that children can also learn behaviours from the medium of television. As time has gone on that has developed from just television, to video games and other means of media. This has been extensively researched, and become known as the Hypodermic Syringe Model, or Magic Bullet (Allen and Mendick, 2016)
According to research (Anderson et al., 2010), there is strong evidence to support theories that exposure to violent video games and media is, in fact, a risk factor for increasing levels of aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognition, and for decreased social behaviours and empathy. Children playing violent video games, and watching movies under their age rating have been linked to high profile crimes, such as the Columbine shootings (Hong et al., 2011), therefor if parents are permissive and are not setting appropriate boundaries with media and their children, it could lead to problematic behaviours within educational settings.
Diana Baumrind studied how children and parents relate in the home, and gave names to three of the major parenting styles (Wentzel and Russell, 2009); Authoritative, Authoritarian and Permissive. These styles of parenting can also be applied to teaching styles (Campbell, 2016). Permissive and authoritarian teaching have been associated with a range of problematic personal, social and emotional characteristics that can be evident in educational settings. It can manifest in signs of anxiety and low achievement, but also in undesirable behaviour within the setting (Walker, 2008). Authoritative teaching has often been associated with the most social, adaptive and resilient children, who have the best opportunities to achieve their full potential (Bernstein, 2013). Discipline strategies can have a significant impact on the form of relationship that can be had with children. How discipline is approached with children can even have a major influence on a child’s mood and temperament, and can give mixed messages, for instance, acting with aggression can model aggressive behaviour. This can teach children that sometimes, aggressive behaviour is acceptable (Klein, 2008).
Each teaching style uses a different approach to discipline. Parents and practitioners often use behavioural approaches to support positive and desired behaviour while discouraging negative undesirable behaviour. The behaviourist learning theory relies heavily on praise, rewards and positive reinforcement (Lindon, 2016) to ensure and encourage the behaviour or learned efficiently and effectively. Practitioners who support the behaviourist point of view use hints or cues to point children in the direction of desired behaviour. Consequences, such as time out, are then used to discourage the undesired behaviour. When a child is given a sticker for doing something good we are rewarding them. If a child has been rewarded for doing something, or having good behaviour, the chances of them repeating those behaviours are increased (Ingleby, 2012). If a child is placed on time out, we are removing them from an activity they were enjoying to discourage their undesired behaviour. If children choose to behave in order to avoid a form of negative reinforcement, they may behave appropriately, but this may cause them to feel that their free will is being pushed aside.
The Behaviourist theory has experienced many critics since its origins. This could be, in part, due to its age and the influence it has had in psychology. Some say it is too simple to explain the workings and mechanics of behaviour in such complex creatures like humans, as it does not take the mental aspect of humans into consideration (Pritchard, 2014). There is too much variety to be found in humans to account for all behaviours. In behaviourist theories such as Skinners, people can only learn because of their own experiences, and it does not take genetics into account. We use behaviourist tactics to train wild animals in captivity, to give desired behaviours and responses. This can be seen during animal shows, such as at Sea World. The whales and are not waving because they want to, they are merely exhibiting trained behaviours. There has been no recorded attack on a human from a whale in the wild, but there has been in captivity. These fatalities could be a reaction to the Radical Behaviourist (Baron-Cohen, 2014) training given to the whale in order to teach new and unnatural behaviours, completely ignoring the nature of the animal. There is also evidence to show that enforcing the whales to perform and live in unnatural surroundings causes excessive stress (Marino and Frohoff, 2011). By conditioning children we are designing children and their behaviours to fit how it is believed they should fit, altering their personalities and behaviours (Stein et al., 2011) by use of positive and negative reinforcement, which is the same tactics used to train dogs (Howard and DiGennaro Reed, 2014).
If we are using the same tactics we use to train animals to essentially train people, without taking into account genetics and nature, there may be undesired consequences to these actions. Nevertheless, behaviourism has provided practical solutions to many human problems.
It can be viewed that Behaviourism allows few opportunities for self-exploration and discovery through discussion or experimentation in a learning environment. To behaviourists free will is just a novel idea, but not something that exists.
All children are unique and therefor what works for one may not work for the others. In order for a practitioner to be effective, and help each child reach their full
potential, they must be able to assess what each child needs, such as their learning style, and respond appropriately towards them.
Behaviourism leaves little room for faith or religion. A Christian believes that everything that happens is part of God’s plan. God created the universe and everything that exists within. When God created the universe, or life, it knew what it was doing. Every event that happens in a Christian person’s life has already been mapped out and planned by their God (Crabtree, 2015). Similar to behaviourists, religion holds consequences which can result in either Heaven or Hell. It is still free will which determines the choices that are made throughout life, whether they will go to Heaven or Hell. It is the choices made in life that affect a person’s character and therefore what choice they will make. There are many reputable sources that believe free will is just an illusion (Flatt, 2013), believe that the vast majority of all human behaviour should be viewed as an automatic response to environmental prompts.
Authoritarian theories, such as behaviourism, are formed on zero tolerance principles. By law, all state schools must provide a behaviour policy (Bullying at school, 2016), which often contains a zero-tolerance point of view against bullying. There is argument to say that every school should have this (Greener, 2016), but there has also been some dispute to say that they are no longer beneficial as they harm relationships and prevent learning (Parliament, 2010). Research has shown that despite being in place for multiple decades, there is very little evidence to support zero tolerance policies (Teske, 2011), and that it does not take into account how child development and adolescence effects the brain.
It is evident that some of psychology’s most renowned thinkers have developed theories that attempt to help and explore as well as explain the many different aspects of child development. While behaviourist theories are not fully accepted today, they definitively had an important impact on the understanding of child development. Today practitioners often draw on a variety of theories and perspectives to understand how children grow, behave, and think and the behavioural approach undoubtedly plays a part in that. It is well known that not all children are the same, so evidently they will all learn and develop differently. Development is not a one size fits all situation. What works well for one child may not work well for others. In order for early years practitioners and educators to be effective, they should be able to work reflectively and know the children within their care well enough to know what works for them. This will allow practise to continuously evolve, and be heuristic and holistic.
There is evidence to say that the behaviourist approach to child development is outdated, and many criticize it, but it is still used in today’s practise. There is still prominent research happening. John Bargh has written books and many research papers, exploring, what he believes to be, the illusion of free will. He has also written books and found links between perception and behaviour, which he calls the Chameleon effect (Chartrand and Bargh, 1999). Bargh has also written books about behaviourism and how it links in modern day with cognitive science (Bargh and Ferguson, 2000). Behaviourist theories have evolved over time and branched off into different areas, such as ABA and Precision Teaching (Moran, 2008). There is no denying that Behaviourism has made its mark in both education, and child development.
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