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Introduction
This module discusses the stages of development that an individual
has to undergo. There are ten stages presented in this module along with
their characteristics. Also, the developmental tasks for each stage are
enumerated in this module so that you can better understand each
person’s development. There are activities provided for you in order to
deepen and strengthen your knowledge about the topic. You need to
answer them with sincerity and great focus so that you will be equipped
with things that relate to the development of the child and adolescent
learners.
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As you journey on this lesson, you are expected to:

Increase self-awareness to one’s

developmental stages by creating an e-
picture book of the different changes
happened in every stage of development

1. Define the different stages of human development

2. Enumerate and explain the characteristics of each stage of
development
3. Enumerate the developmental tasks of every stage
4. Explain the developmental tasks for each stage of
development

Are you ready for today’s lesson? This time, you are
tasked to read the texts below and be able to comprehend it
well.
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STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

1. Pre-natal Period
This period begins at
conception and ends at birth. It is
approximately 270 to 280 days in
length or nine calendar days. It
also involves tremendous growth –
from single cell to an organism
complete with brain and
behavioral capacities.

Characteristics:
a. The heredity endowment, which serves as the foundation for
later development, is fixed, once and for all, at this time.
b. Favorable conditions in the mother’s body can foster the
development of hereditary potentials while unfavorable conditions
can stunt their development, even to the point of distorting the pattern
of future development.
c. The sex of the newly created individual is fixed at the time of
conception and conditions within the mother’s body will not affect it;
as is true of the hereditary endowment.
d. Proportionally greater growth and development take place
during the pre-natal period than at any other time throughout the
individual’s entire life.
e. The pre-natal period is a time of many hazards, both physical
and psychological.
f. The pre-natal period is the time when significant people form
attitudes toward newly created individuals.

2. Infancy (first two week-period)

This is the period of the newborn. It is the beginning or the early
period of existence as an individual rather than as a parasite in the
mother’s body. It is likewise considered as a child in the first period of
life. In this stage, a child has extreme dependence on adults. Many
psychological activities are just beginning – language, symbolic
thought, sensorimotor coordination and social learning.
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Characteristics:
a. Infancy is the shortest of all developmental periods.
b. Infancy is a time of radical adjustments.
c. Infancy is a plateau in development.
d. Infancy is a preview of later development.
e. Infancy is a hazardous period.

Remember:
• Newborns are not empty-headed organisms.
• They cry, kick, cough, such, see, hear and taste.
• They sleep a lot.
• They occasionally smile though the meanings are not entirely
clear.
• They craw and then walk.
• Sometimes they conform but sometimes others conform to
them.
• Their helpless kind demand the meeting eyes of love.
• They split the universe into halves: “me and not me”.

3. Babyhood (first two years of life)

This occupies the first two years of life following the brief two-
week-period of infancy. While babyhood is often referred to as
infancy, the label babyhood will be used to distinguish it from the
helplessness characteristics of the immediate postnatal period.
Characteristics:
a. Babyhood is the true foundation age.
b. Babyhood is an age of rapid growth and change.
c. Babyhood is an age of decreasing dependency.
d. Babyhood is the age of increased individuality.
e. Babyhood is the beginning of socialization.
f. Babyhood is the beginning of sex-role typing.
g. Babyhood is an appealing age.
h. Babyhood is the beginning of creativity.
i. Babyhood is a hazardous age.

4. Early Childhood (2 to 5 years)

Early childhood extends from two to five years. It begins at the
conclusion of babyhood and ends at about the time the child
enters first grade in school. These are the preschool years. Young
children learn to become more self-sufficient and to care for
themselves, develop school readiness skills and spend many hours
in play with peers.
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Characteristics:
For parents:
a. Early childhood is a problem age or troublesome age.
b. Early Childhood is a toy age.
For Educators:
a. Early childhood years as the preschool age.
For Psychologists:
a. Early childhood is the pre-gang age.
b. Early childhood is the exploratory age.
c. Early childhood is the questioning age.
d. Early childhood is the imitative age.
e. Early childhood is the creative age.
Remember:
• They skip, play and run all day.
• They never become busy of becoming something they
had not quite grasped yet.
• They have expansive imaginations.

5. Middle and Late Childhood (6 to 12 years)

This period extends from the age of six years to the time
individual becomes sexually mature. This is marked by the child’s
entrance into first grade. The fundamentals skills of reading, writing
and arithmetic are mastered. The child is formally exposed to the
larger world and its culture. Achievement becomes a more central
theme of the child’s world and self-control increases.
Characteristics:
For parents:
a. It is a troublesome age – the time when children are no longer
willing to do what they are told to do and when they are more
influenced by their peers than by their parents and other family
members.
b. It is a sloppy age – the time when children tend to be careless
and slovenly about their appearance.
c. It is a quarrelsome age – the time when family fights are
common and when the emotional climate of the home is far from
pleasant of all family members.
For educators:
a. Elementary school age – the time when the child is expected
to acquire the rudiments of knowledge that are essential for successful
adjustment to adult life.
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b. Critical period in the achievement drive – a time when

children form the habit of being achievers, underachievers or
overachievers.
For Psychologists:
a. Gang age – the time when children’s major concern is
acceptance by their age-mates and membership in a gang,
especially a gang with prestige in the eyes of their age-mates.
b. Age of conformity – children are willing to conform to group-
approved standards in terms of appearance, speech and behavior.
c. Creative age – the time in the life-span when it will be
determined whether children will become conformists or producers of
new and original work.
d. Play age – the emphasis is on the breadth of play interests and
activities and not on the time spent for play.
Remember:
• They belong to a generation and a feeling properly their
own.
• They are more ready to learn.
• They thirst to know and to understand.
• Though parents continue to cradle their lives but their
growth was also being shaped by successive choirs of
friends.
• They don’t think much of the future or the past by enjoy
the present.

6. Adolescence (13 to 18)

The term adolescence comes from Latin word adolescere,
meaning “to grow” or “to grow to maturity”. This begins with rapid
physical changes –dramatic gains in height and weight, changes
in body contour, and the development of sexual characteristics
such as enlargement of the breasts, development of pubic and
facial hairs and deepening of voice. Pursuit of independence and
identity are prominent. Thought it is more logical, abstract and
idealistic. More time is spent outside the family.
As it is used today, adolescence has broader in meaning. It
includes mental, emotional and social maturity as well as physical
maturity.
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Characteristics:
a. An important period – when both the immediate effects and
long-term effects are important to both physical and psychological.
b. A transitional period – what has happened before will leave
its mark on what happens now and in the future.
c. A period of change – the rate of change in attitudes and
behavior during adolescence parallels the rate of physical change.
When physical changes are rapid, changes in attitudes and behavior
are also rapid during early adolescence. If physical changes slow
down, so do with attitudinal and behavioral changes.
d. A problem age – often especially difficult for boys and girls to
cope with it.
e. A time of search for identity – they begin to crave identity and
are no longer satisfied to be like their peers in every respect, as they
were earlier.
f. A dreaded age – acceptance of cultural stereotype of
teenagers as sloppy, unreliable individuals who are inclined toward
destructiveness and anti-social behavior has led many adults who must
guide and supervise of young adolescents to dread this responsibility
and to unsympathetic in their attitudes toward, and treatment of,
normal adolescent behavior.
g. A time of unrealism – adolescents have tendency to look at
life through rose-tinted glasses. They see themselves and others as they
would like them to be rather than as they are.
h. The threshold of adult – they are anxious to shed the
stereotype of teenagers and to create the impression that they are
near-adults. They begin to concentrate on behavior that is associated
with the adult status – smoking, drinking, using drugs, and engaging in
sex.
Remember:
• They clothed themselves with rainbows.
• They try one face after another to search for a face of
their own.
• They want parents to understand them.
• They found first to learn to stand and walk and climb and
dance.
• They become acquainted with sex.
• They played furiously at adult games.
• Their generation was fragile cable by which the best and
the worst of their parent’s generation was transmitted to
the present.
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8. Early Adulthood (19 to 29)

The word adult is derived from the past participle of the verb
– adultus – which means “grown to full size and strength” or
“matured”. Adults are individuals who have completed their growth
and are ready to assume their status in society along with other
adults. It is a time of establishing personal and economic
independence, career development, selecting a mate, learning to
live with someone in an intimate way, starting a family and rearing
children.

Characteristics:
a. Settling-down age
b. Reproductive age
c. Problem age
d. A period of emotional tension
e. A period of social isolation
f. A time of commitments
g. I often a period of dependency
h. A time of value change
i. The time of adjustment to new lifestyles
j. A creative age

Remember:
• It is a time for work and a time for love.
• They find a place in adult society
• They commit to a more stable life.
• Their dreams continue and thoughts are bold but
sometimes become more pragmatic.
• Sex and love are powerful passions in their lives.
• They never know the love of their parents until they
become parents themselves.
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9. Middle Adulthood (30 to 60)

It is a time of expanding personal and social involvement and
responsibility; of assisting the next generation in becoming
competent and mature individuals; and of reaching and
maintaining satisfaction in a career.
Characteristics:
a. A dreaded period
b. A time of transition
c. A time of stress
d. A dangerous age
e. An awkward age
f. A time of achievement
g. A time of evaluation
h. Is evaluated by a double standard
i. The time of the empty nest
j. A time of boredom
Remember:
• They are being formed to be what they will be.
• They need to discover what they are running from and to
and why.
• They compare their life with what they vowed to make it.
• They have more time stretched before them and some
evaluations have to be made hover reluctantly.
• They sense that generations of living things pass a short
while and hands on the torch of life.

10. Late Adulthood/Old Age (61 years and above)

Late adulthood – senescene, or old age – begins at 61 and
extends to death. While physical and psychological decline speed
up at this time, modern medical techniques, as well as careful
attention to clothing and grooming, enable many men and women
to look, act and feel much as they did when they were younger. This
is the time for adjustment to decreasing strength and health, life
review, retirement and adjustment to social roles.
Characteristics:
a. A period of decline
b. Individual differences in the effects of aging
c. Old age is judged by different criteria
d. Many stereotypes of old age people
e. Social attitudes toward old age
f. Elderly have minority-group status
g. Aging requires role changes
h. poor adjustment of old age
i. Desire for rejuvenation
Remember:
• They shed the leaves of youth.
• They learn that life is lived forward but understood
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HAVIGHURT’S DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS

Infancy to Early Childhood:
1. Learning to walk
2. Learning to take solid foods
3. Learning to talk
4. Learning to control the elimination of body wastes
5. Learning sex differences and sexual modesty
6. Acquiring concepts and language to describe social and
physical reality
7. Readiness for reading
8. Learning to distinguish right from wrong and developing a
conscience
Middle to Late Childhood:
1. Learning physical skills necessary for ordinary games.
2. Building a wholesome attitude toward oneself.
3. Learning to get along with age-mates.
4. Learning an appropriate sex role.
5. Developing fundamental skills in reading, writing and calculating.
6. Developing concepts necessary for everyday living.
7. Developing conscience, morality, and scale of values.
8. Achieving personal independence.
9. Developing acceptable attitudes toward society.
Adolescence:
1. Achieving mature relations with both sexes.
2. Achieving a masculine or feminine social role.
3. Accepting one’s physique.
4. Achieving emotional independence of adults.
5. Preparing for marriage and family life.
6. Preparing for economic career.
7. Acquiring values and ethical system to guide behavior.
8. Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior.
Early Adulthood:
1. Getting started in an occupation
2. Selecting a mate.
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3. Learning to live with a partner

4. Starting a family
5. Rearing children
6. Managing a home
7. Taking on civic responsibility
8. Finding a congenial social group
Middle Age:
1. Achieving adult civic and social responsibility
2. Assisting teenage children to become responsible and happy
adults
3. Developing adult leisure-time activities
4. Relating oneself to one’s spouse as a person
5. Accepting and adjusting to the physiological changes of middle
age
6. Reaching and maintaining satisfactory performance in one’s
occupational career
7. Adjusting to aging parents

Late Adulthood/Old Age:

1. Adjusting to decreasing physical strength and health.
2. Adjusting to retirement and reduced income
3. Adjusting to death of spouse
4. Establishing an explicit affiliation with members of one’s age
group
5. Establishing satisfactory physical living arrangements/quarters
6. Meeting social and civic obligations

Now that you have read the text above, it is expected that you are
ready to answer the following exercises. Please answer them with
sincerity.

Direction: Do the task below and write your answers briefly and
concisely.
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1. Define the different stages of development in your own words.

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2. Give at least three (3) characteristics of each developmental

stage and explain briefly.
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3. Cite at least four developmental tasks for each stage and explain
briefly.
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Directions: Create an e-picture book of the changes that you have

undergone since birth. You can use pictures or drawing to
illustrate the particular stage of development. Tell something
what changes occur by putting the events happened
below the picture in each page.

Since you are done with all the activities above, it’s time for you to
reflect about the topic. Are you ready?

Direction: Write your reflection about the topic in 150 words.

From the topic about the stages of development and developmental

tasks, I realized that…
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1. Corpuz, B.B., Lucas, MR. D., Borabo, HD. L. & Lucido, P. I. (2018). The
Child and Adolescent Learners and Learning Principles, Lorimar
Publishing Inc., Quezon City, Philippines.
2. Corpuz, B.B., Lucas, MR. D., Borabo, HD. L. & Lucido, P. I. (2010). The
Child and Adolescent Development: Looking at Learners at
Different Life Stages, Lorimar Publishing Inc., Quezon City,
Philippines.
3. Hurlock, E. B. (1982). Developmental Psychology: A Life-span
Approach, 5th ed., McGraw-Hill, Inc., Philippine Copyright by
National Book Store, Manila, Philippines.

Compiled by:

Jun P. Dalisay, LPT, RGC, Ph.D.-Psy

Ma. Charmaine R. Gaa, LPT, MA-SPED
Jacquelyn Rose A. Fajilagutan, LPT, MAEd-GC
Charry F. Mayuga, LPT, MA-Psy
Professors/Instructors