Maturation and learning are not separate and distinct causes of development. Rather they are closely inter-related, the one aiding or retarding the other. Maturation, which depends upon hereditary endowment, provides the raw material for learning and determines the more general patterns and sequences of individual’s behaviour.
But without practice, development would not take place through maturation alone. It is wrong to presume that maturation is limited to the pre-natal and learning to the postnatal periods of individual’s life.
There are certain phylogenetic functions which are common to the race, e.g., crawling, creeping, sitting, walking etc. They are mostly due to maturation and less due to learning. There are other ontogenetic functions which are due to the individual only e.g., swimming, cycling etc. They are mostly due to learning and less due to maturation.
The following facts emerge from our present knowledge of the interrelationship of maturation and learning:
1. Individual differences in attitudes, interest, ambitions and personality patterns are not due to maturation alone but due to maturation and learning. If development is the result of maturation alone, there would not have been individual personalities.
2. Maturation sets limits beyond which developments cannot progress even with the most favourable learning methods and the strongest motivation on the part of the learner [Gessell] The point has been stressed by Cattell and others when they said, “All learning and adjustment is limited by inherent properties of the organism.”
3. Inter-relationship between maturation and learning establishes a “timetable” for learning. The individual cannot learn until he is ready Development readiness provides the “teachable moment” when the task should be learned.
As Scott has pointed out, “Any attempt to teach a child or animal at too early a period of development may result in his learning bad habits or simply in his learning “not to learn” either of which results may greatly handicap him in later life.”
Trying to teach a child to read, for example, before his spontaneous vocalisations have developed will often dampen his interest in reading. Similarly forced toilet training often results in enuresis. Many under achievers in schools and colleges are the products of forced learning on the part of every zealous parents.
Development and learning are considered as formally, historically, and conceptually different terms which, however, have a lot in common with regard to their psychological content. Development describes the growth of humans and other animals throughout the lifespan. This includes all aspects of human growth, including physical, emotional, intellectual, social, perceptual, and personality development. The scientific study of human development seeks to understand and explain how and why people change throughout life. In contrast, learning is NOT the result of biological maturation and growth or of temporary effects of internal and external factors. Often development and learning are used to mutually exclude the each other.
Theoretical Background
One of the interesting tendencies in contemporary psychology at the end of the twentieth century was a reconsideration of the nature of interaction between learning and...
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Department of Developmental Psychology, Moscow State University, Profsoyuznaya 111-1-323, 117647, Moscow, Russia
Andrey I. Podolskiy
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Correspondence to Andrey I. Podolskiy .
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Faculty of Economics and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Education, University of Freiburg, 79085, Freiburg, Germany
Prof. Dr. Norbert M. Seel
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Podolskiy, A.I. [2012]. Development and Learning [Overview Article]. In: Seel, N.M. [eds] Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. //doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_312