Imagine a child of one and half years of age playing with his toys, this child would not interact with other children except may be scream if one of the child takes his toy. At this age the child does not have the capacity to take into consideration others point of view, but as he grows up to be six or seven, he will engage in group play and understand different people’s perspective and progressively as he enters into his teens he would feel the need to develop positive human relation-ships (Hetherington et al, 2006). The intriguing question is what accounts for this progressive and steady evolution of the child’s ability to perceive and describe complex relationships and learn new things efficiently? The quest for its answer and research into the area has lead to the inception of the field of developmental psychology (Papers4you.com, 2006).

Developmental psychology is the scientific study of progressive psychological changes that transpire in human beings as they age (Margaret & Butterworth, 2002). Child development is its rapidly emerging sub-field of study, which seeks to account for the gradual evolution of the Childs’s cognitive, social and other capacities, first by describing changes in the child’s observed behaviours and then by uncovering the process and strategies that underlie these changes (Hetherington et al, 2006, p4). Although field has seen rapid developments recently, it’s relatively young with the first theories coming up just a century ago.

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