From Wikipedia

The Secret Life Of The Brain

Child's Brain

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of the life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire life span. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills and other psycho-physiological processes; cognitive development involving areas such as problem solving, moral understanding, and conceptual understanding; language acquisition; social, personality, and emotional development; and self-concept and identity formation.

Developmental psychology includes issues such as the extent to which development occurs through the gradual accumulation of knowledge versus stage-like development, or the extent to which children are born with innate mental structures versus learning through experience. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior, and environmental factors including social context, and their impact on development; others take a more narrowly focused approach.

According to Siegel-"Developmental Psychology was pre-occupied with ages and stages. Investigators sought to learn the typical age a which various stages of development that occurred".

According to La bouvie-"Developmental Psychology is not only description but also explication of age related to changes in behaviour in terms of antecedental relationship."

Developmental Psychology is that branch of psychology that studies intra-individual changes and inter-individual changes within the intra-individual changes."

Developmental psychology informs several applied fields, including: educational psychology, child psychopathology, and forensic developmental psychology. Developmental psychology complements several other basic research fields in psychology including social psychology, cognitive psychology, ecological psychology, and comparative psychology.

Objectives of Developmental Psychology

1. To find out common characteristics of age.

2. When these changes occurs?

3. What causes them?

4. How they influence behaviour?

5. Whether they can be predicted?

6. Whether they are individual or universal?