There are a variety of reasons people study children's development. For teachers the "...knowledge of children and their development is important for improving the lives of the youngest members of our society....At its most basic, development refers to change over time....Individual differences exist among children at any age, and these differences will affect how infants, children, and adolescents make sense of their environments and how others perceive and respond to them, making the outcome of development a function of many interacting factors." (Bjorklund & Blasi, 2011, p.7). 

This course will focus on children's development from early childhood through late adolescence, concentrating on the following areas of development: physical, social-emotional, cognitive, and language.