The Stages of Child Development

The study of child development is one of the largest and most popular sub-fields within psychology. There are many different ways to think about the development of children, and numerous theories have emerged to explain different aspects of how personality, language, social behavior, and cognitive skills emerge and change throughout a child's early years.

These changes are often broken down into a series of developmental stages, such as Piaget's cognitive stages and Erikson's psychosocial stages. This handy summary chart of the developmental stages offers a quick overview of some of the best-known stages approaches to development.

You might also enjoy reading:

• An Overview of Early Childhood Development
• Genes and Development
• Experience and Development

_{Image by Jeremy Doorten}