E3. Explain two theoretical perspectives relevant to the chose areas of development.
There is a debate between theorists about the way children learn languages when they are younger, the debate is known as the ‘nature versus nurture debate’. B.F. Skinner has a theory that the language baby’s spoke was down to the nurture after doing experiments on rats, this was called ‘operant conditioning’. Skinner believed that “adults teach children to talk through imitation”. (Beaver.M et al, 2008 page 56 +57). He gave the rats food as a reward when they did what they wanted him to do; he called it ‘positive reinforcement’. This is linked to when babies are spoken back to when babbling, it pushes them to speak more and then they care will give them attention and a rewarding response.
Theorists believe that behaviour is affected by the way the child is brought up and treated when growing. Positive and negative reinforcement is a child behaving in a particular way. If it’s in a positive way they will be rewarded and they will often repeat it to receive attention and rewards, whereas if a child does something negative then the child will be punished and avoid doing it again as shown in skinners theory with the reaction of the rats and the lever experiment.
Ivan Pavlov was a physiologist that experimented with types of conditioning and dogs, he found ways of stimulating the dog’s saliva in their mouths by using the sound of a church bell whilst serving the food so when the dogs heard this sound they knew that food was going to be served and mouths started to produce saliva. Pavlov’s theory has had an impact on the way children are shown how to behave and how they develop for example if a staff member puts a song on that is called the ‘tidy up song’ then the children will remember that when it is put on that they need to tidy up the setting before the song is finished. Having rewards for good behaviour will encourage the behaviour to continue as they remember the