Cognitive and developmental changes from age fifty through end of life

¶ … Cognitive Changes

Developmental cognitive occur starting age 50 moving end life.

Developmental and cognitive changes

The essay aims at exploring the developmental and cognitive changes that occur starting at the age of fifty years moving through end of life. The developmental changes are easily noticeable or observable, hence not much of literature or scholarly articles have been written about it. On the other hand a lot of materials, studies and researches have been conducted on cognitive changes because cognition is a key requirement needed in both the young and old to meet the job demands, challenges of education and day-to-day life of an individual (MacDonald, Hultsch, & Dixon, 2003, p 32-52).

Before the essays embark on the changes that occur at the age of fifty and beyond its important to consider the early changes right from when a baby is born up to middle life for us to understand the topic better.

Developmental and cognitive changes at the age of 50 years and beyond

Finkel, et al. (2003, p 39) in their book 'Developmental Psychology'; have used the term 'half a century old' to describe to fifty years old persons and such persons they continue to say, have had five whole decades of exposure which has taken toll of their body resulting to wrinkles developing, some organs in their body no longer functioning as they did before, an example being the functioning capabilities of their heart and lung which reduces, the level of physical strength also declines, co-ordination, reaction time, movement skills and sensation also decline.

Hofer, Berg & Era (2003, p 285-385) studies on developmental changes at the age of fifty years old and beyond, categorized this changes into two conditions namely presbycusis and presbyopias. The presbycusis refers to difficulty experienced on hearing of high-pitched sounds due to aging while presbyopias refer to difficulty experienced in reading.

Perhaps for a more comprehensive look at the developmental changes at the age of fifty years old and beyond this essay will refers to studies conducted by Park, et al. (2002, p 299-320) among other authors in the references that indicate that there are more impairments with the nervous system once someone reaches the age of fifty that are attributed to loss of larger ventricles and neurons within the brain. The sensory system become less efficient at fifty as vision becomes impaired due to the cornea being more translucent thus blurring images or the eyes lenses turns yellow leading to color blindness. Hearing abilities are also affected by the reduction of blood supply and failure of sense organs in the cilia, ear and the auditory complex of the brain. The loss of touch receptors mostly occur among individuals who are seventy years older due to slow circulation of blood in the extremities.

The immune system declines thus the reason why most people who are fifty years old and above frequently fall ill. Physical appearance and mobility are the quick pointers of a person's age and it's easy to single someone who is more than fifty years old by referring to facial structures, skin, hair which loses its natural pigment and body built as height declines. The respiratory and cardiovascular systems are also affected as the aging heart cells enlarge increasing thickness of the left ventricle and it also becomes more rigid leading to slow blood flow.

Keith McGrew a renowned psychology laments that 'as we age so does our cognitive'; the same view is share by various authors among them Zelinsky & Lewis (2003, p 727-743) who in their studies indicated that there is memory loss among persons who are aged fifty and above as their uptake of information gets slower. Language in general is also affected among aging individuals as they experience difficulty in finding the right words to use and even how to pronounce them becomes difficult. The sharp skills that one possess in solving problem while still a youth starts to diminishes when one approaches fifty years of age hence the reason why marriage counselors advice older couples to cooperate when there is a problem to solve because at this point two is better than one. Of a particular importance and still the reason why aging is not bad after all is the positive fact that as one gets old so does his wisdom which increases with time. As someone gets older it also means that he or she has encountered certain difficulties in life of which he or she adapted to or resolved, consequently such experience will make an older person more likely to apply creativity and emotional maturity in helping other who haven't reached that stage of experience (Lamar, Resnick, & Zonderman, 2003, p 82-86).

Theories on developmental and cognitive changes

Erik Erikson (1902-1990)

Erik Erikson a well renowned psychoanalyst who is remembered for developing the eight theoretical stages of development in human life starting from birth till death or up to the point where he reaches his or her full development. Each of these involves a crisis and its' prescribed resolution of which its' necessary to resolve the crisis before one moves to the next stage of development.

Erik Erikson eight stages of development include; trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. doubt, initiative vs. doubt, industry vs. guilt, competence vs. inferiority, identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and lastly ego-integrity despair.

Roger Gould (1975-1978)

Gould is a psychologist who also contributed to the study of developmental and cognitive changes in human beings by publishing eight stage theories on adult personality. His theory mainly focused on the time factor and how individuals view the time factor at different stages of their life.

The eight stages of this theory comprises of;

16-22 years old-leaving with parents; their perception at this time is that they will always stay with their parent.

22-28 years old-that is an adult now; at this age group they under the false assumption that doing things they way one's parents want them to be done will definitely bring success.

28-34 years old-opening up to what's inside; this age group is under the false assumption that life is simple and controllable.

34-45 years old-Midlife decade; this age group is under the false assumption that there is no evil or death.

45 years older and above-Beyond mid life; this age group is not living under any false assumption, they appreciate what one has and focus on what one has established or achieved.

Warner Schaie

Schaie's theory focused on five stages of cognitive development; which he divided into;

The first stage is acquisitive that takes place between child hood and adolescents where one's task is to acquire information.

The second stage is the achieving stage where one's task during early adulthood is to apply his or her intelligence so as to attain career and family goals.

The third stage is the responsible stage that's between early adulthood and middle adulthood where one's task is safeguarding family and career.

The fourth stage is the executive stage where one's task is to shift focus to the community level, this occurs later in the middle adulthood but it's said to be a common trait in all adults.

The fifth stage is the reiterative stage one's task at this stage will be applying intelligence to issues of great personal concern during late adulthood (Schaie, 2000, p 257- 266).

Conclusion

The human life and body goes through various changes as one's gets older be it the physical changes or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through experience or thoughts which all happen at certain specific times in our life after which another phase of change takes place, and indeed referring to studies done by Finkel et al. (2003, p 29), the developmental and cognitive changes in human beings can well be explained by a graph that sharply rise then at a certain phase or age a sharp decline begins which marks the beginning of old age.

This essay has explored different changes that occur to human beings when they continue to grow and the conclusion of the findings are that from the age of infancy to adulthood an individual experience changes that Ghisletta & Lindenberge, (2003, p 713) terms as heading towards making a person more efficient, stronger with higher capabilities. But these level of growth starts to decline when one reaches at certain age mostly fifty when he or she starts experiencing reduced strength, efficiency and capabilities.

In the current world these developmental and cognitive changes do not occur as scheduled by various theories like the ones put across for this study and essay. Science has played a big role in controlling these changes and nowadays someone can manage to look ten years younger in terms of physical experience, which has been made possible due to healthier diets, medicine and physical training that are able to delay the aging process. However as the essay concludes it's important to point out that getting older doesn't come with all the disadvantages mentioned but one also gets wiser as days go by.