Life Span Perspective Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Life Span Perspective Paper - Essay Example In a life-span perspective, ageing implies changes, which for its part, take many forms. For instance, we have the purely biological changes such as weakening of the muscle strength, shortness of breath, graying of the hair, wrinkling of the skin and so on. There is the incidence of human disease, particularly those of the elderly who at certain point may be diagnosed with more than one illness. Next we have the cognitive decline such as the benign forgetfulness or the onset of dementia. This also includes the changes in the social environment and thus the experiences arising from it. Bere Miesen and Gemma Jones (1997) write that a model of a life-span perspective may be characterized by type of change, individual characteristics, coping behavior, adjustment in adaptation and the experience of quality of life. (p. 32) Finally, the Darwinian concept is very important in this perspective. It banks on the idea that humans share important characteristics through heredity and this in turn becomes a variable in the whole life-span development process. For example, virtually all of us develop in similar ways at similar ages such as walking and talking at age 1. And so, the study of development from a life-span perspective is multidisciplinary involving both biological and social sciences. Human development falls into three broad domains, namely: physical development, cognitive development and psychological development. (Sugarman 2001, p. 14) There are some who include personal and social developments but the previous three roughly cover everything. Human development meanwhile is divided into 8 periods: infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, late childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. (Sugarman, p. 56-60) Contemporary concerns regarding life-span development include the questions on the eight periods in