Developmental Theorists Provide Similar Theories

¶ … developmental theorists provide similar theories concerning a person's development during the first two decades of his or her life. Piaget focused on explaining that children experience a graduate self-discovery process during their early years. From his perspective, the time period lasting from eleven and until sixteen is essential in people's lives because it is then when individuals realize that they have the power to devise solutions to their problems and put them into use. These people feel empowered by their self-awareness and are inclined to search for little to no assistance from their parents.

Erik Erikson partially agreed to Piaget's theories by emphasizing that teenagers are dedicated to finding their personal identities. Adolescents are apparently intrigued by the fact that life is becoming more complex at this point and they come to do everything in their power in order to create an identity that they can actually relate to. Many individuals are probable to lose understanding of the concept of responsibility at this point as they detach themselves from the world that they became accustomed to until that time.

B.F. Skinner focused on providing people with the reality that individuals act on account of stimuli and that operant conditioning plays an essential role in a person's development. A person is likely to continue to perform a particular activity if he or she observes that it is somehow rewarding. While the other theorists are primarily concerned about the developmental period, Skinner wants people to look at matters from a more general point-of-view and to understand that there is an explanation for any learned behavior, regardless of its character (Charlesworth 12).

Lev Vygostsky devised the zone of proximal development theory and explained that a lower limit of ZPD represents the level of experience that a child accumulates as a result of working independently. A higher limit of ZPD apparently refers to the level of experience that a child accumulates as a result of being in the presence of a professor that is capable to put across educational information. Similar to Piaget, Vygotsky highlighted that there is a very strong connection between an individual's mind and the environment that the respective person is present in throughout his or her life.

If Keith were to consider Piaget or Vygotsky's theories he would have focused on having Jasmine's parents accept her in their home and continue to treat her. Also, this kind of approach could have influenced Keith to advise the girl's parents to put her in a rehabilitation institute where she would be provided with the care necessary for her to recover.