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Child Development (25) When teaching children it is important to know how they think or in other words how they develop. There have been many different studies on how children develop but it was formerly introduced during the nineteenth century. These studies while at one time may have only covered the basics of child development have since then spread to cover all areas including, physical, cognitive, and social development, and how the childs' development is influenced by outside and inside influences. During the years of studying childhood development there have been many theories from psychologists ranging from Piaget to Freud. Of course each psychologist had their own theory; Piaget's theory was known as Cognitive Development, Kohlberg's as Moral Development, Freud's as Psychosexual Development, and Erikson's as Psychosocial Development. Overall, one thing that the theories hold in common is stages; each psychologist believed that children learn in stages, such as in Piaget's first stage, the stage of sensorimotor. In a nutshell, this breaks down reflexes to the first sign of thoughts in children. It is in the next stage however, that Piaget believes the language development is brought forth; this stage is known as the Preoperational Stage and ranges from the age of 2 – 7 in children. Most psychologists, no matter what their stage may be called or what order it's in, hold this belief that the most crucial part of language development is before the age of seven. children start to recognize basic words at 12 months and can understand a limited amount of words. As the child grows older so does the amount of words they can recognize and understand. After which they start to speak the words they can recognize such as “mommy” “daddy” “ball” or “dog.” When children are about two years old they can form basic sentences like, ““Daddy go” for “Daddy is going bye-bye.”” However, just because this is a crucial stage doesn't mean that the child will actually remember it. It has been proven that in most people they don't remember anything from before the age of seven. That is because what we learned during those years is put onto a ‘back burner' for lack of a better word. When we see pictures or read something or have someone ‘jog our memory' that's the same way it works. children are constantly being taught grammar skills, reading skills, new words, etc…to help keep their memory fresh. It's the same thing when learning a foreign language, the best time to learn is before the age of seven and the next best time to learn is before the age of 23. This is because our brains are still developing and retain information better at these ages. A way to help children retain information is through songs and games, like when I was going to school and learning the alphabet the teachers taught us through a song. It works when teaching english to foreign students as well. They get to hear a catchy tune, pronounce the words, and even get to use them in a basic sentence to hear the difference; for example, “A is for apple.” Overall, child development is something that seems to always be changing; new things are learned, new and better ways to help children retain information. New and better ways to help children learn a foreign language; there are programs constantly being made to help child development in every way. Work Cited Kendra Cherry. “Theories of Child Development” 12 December 2007. Web. http://psychology.about.com/b/2007/12/12/theories-of-child-development.htm PBS. Child Development Tracker, 2003 – 2013. Web. http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/one/language.html Anastasi, Jeffrey, et al. Cognitive Psychology. san diego: Cognella, 2011.