Developmental Theories In Social Work

Developmental theories are important to the field of social work in many ways. Without each developmental theory, essentially there would be no framework for child development. All the theories of development aim to predict and explain the behavior of children. In observing children in their everyday behavior, we use developmental theories to help us give meaning to the things that we see. Within the field of social work, we use numerous frames of developments including the theories of Skinner, Watson, Bandura, Pavlov, Piaget, and Beck. Social workers use the different theories for assessing the cognitive functioning of different individuals and to assess group and family interactions. Through these developmental theories, social workers

Behaviorist believes that everyone is born with a blank slate in which, impressions are then made upon through positive and negative reinforcement; and positive and negative punishment. Positive and negative reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior will persist. Whereas, both positive and negative punishment will decrease the likelihood of a behavior to happen again. In the instance of Steffano it appears that the way that he reacted to Georgia could have been a behavior that he used to do. It could have been that Steffano would touch his mother's belongings and Steffano's mother would then would tell him “No! That is Mom’s!”, and proceed to hit him on the wrist. So, when Georgia touched the paper which was not hers even though Steffano had discarded it already, he then negatively punished Georgia for exhibiting that behavior. To resolve this situation, there would have to be a conversation with both Steffano and his mother to figure out if this had happened before around the house. If so, it would have to be a behavior that would then have to be relearned with a different form of

We learn through the social learning theory that human is a culmination of behavioral, environmental and cognitive influences and the way that they interact with each other. When looking at Steffano and his behavior there may be a way to explain it through the lens of a social learning theorist perspective. Steffano could be modeling the behaviors that he sees other children exhibiting, this could be depending on Steffano’s environment. Steffano can be influenced by any number of things, whether it be his parents, siblings or anyone that he interacts with on a regular basis, like classmates. Addressing this issue, the teacher would have to model non-aggressive problem-solving skills. This could also be something that the teacher brings up to the parents so that they could also practice modeling non-aggressive problem-solving skills. Showing Steffano that there are other ways to handle problems he’s having in a less aggressive